The Riddle Twins

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/29286399.

Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage, Rape/Non-Con

Category:

F/M

Fandom:

Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling

Relationship:

Tom Riddle/His Sister, Gellert Grindelwald/his war

Character:

Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Tom Riddle, Tom Riddle's sister, Alphard Black, Abraxas Malfoy, Horace Slughorn, Albus Dumbledore, Gellert Grindelwald, Slytherin Students, Walburga Black, Hector Fawley, Torquil Travers, Original Lestrange Characters (Harry Potter), Rosier Family (Harry Potter), Malfoy Family (Harry Potter), Black Family (Harry Potter), Mulciber Sr. (Harry Potter), Tom Riddle Sr., Morfin Gaunt, Original Male Character(s), Original Female Character(s)

Additional Tags:

Slytherin Students - Freeform, Twins, Evil Twins, Possessive Tom Riddle, Mild Incestuous Themes, Young Tom Riddle, Psychological Drama, Tom Riddle Has a Sibling, Hurt/Comfort, World War II, Family Issues, Dark Magic, Transfiguration (Harry Potter), Herbology (Harry Potter), Slytherins Being Slytherins, Separation Anxiety, Dubious Morality, Heir of Slytherin, Unhealthy Relationships

Stats:

Published: 2021-02-08 Updated: 2021-12-13 Chapters: 15/? Words: 78663

The Riddle Twins

by Cordoue

Summary

Tom Riddle knows love very well. How could he not? He was never alone at the orphanage, for she was always by his side, every day and every night. She was even there at the very beginning—indeed, they were created in the same womb. For his twin sister Mary, Tom will stop at nothing to gain the world.

Genesis

Many would have said that the nursery of Wool's orphanage was its worst room. Twenty-four wooden cots, each of the same modest make as the next, were regimented in four even rows. The nurses, though outnumbered by their charges, were of longsuffering tempers particular to middle-class girls who grew up during the Great Slump, holding religiously to the principle that no single infant should be prioritised over another. In turn, the infants knew that screeching was an effective means to gain the attention and affection of the nurses, even if they had to squall for hours. Thus, as though from a hellhouse, screams resonated through Wool's Orphanage every hour of every day. All its residents—the orphans and their attendants alike—had long learned to live with this diabolical cacophony.

At night, when the lights were off and the curtains were drawn, the only source of light for the wrathful infants was the dim handheld lamp of whichever nurse was chosen to guide them through to the morning. One night, a new young nurse, an energetic, pink-cheeked country-girl who fervently wished to do some good for the nation's most deprived, was given this responsibility. Where most nurses made the rounds with their lamp once every hour, this lively new stewardess went every fifteen minutes.

Whenever she made her rounds, she paused before one particular cot—the one of the gypsy twins. They were called Tom Marvolo and Mary Metis, and their family name was 'Riddle'. The young nurse found them as strange, if not as oddly sinister, as their names. They were the only infants who shared a cot, and conspicuously the only ones who rarely if ever cried. These two facts, albeit each innocent in themselves, were regarded together as a particularly ill omen by many of the nurses, and the young nurse was among their number. Thus, perhaps motivated by curiosity, though equally likely by resentment, she took little Tom out of his cot, separating him from his sister.

Little Mary started a terrible wail. The nurse went to place Tom, who had also broken into wailing, in a vacant cot in a corner of the room. Telling herself that she had done him some good, she left the room.

However, not long after she left, the nurse felt a sense of disquiet in her stomach. Something was amiss. Terribly amiss. It had become quiet. The nursery was never this quiet—it was never quiet at all. Slowly, as though she were being stalked by some predator sensitive to motion, the nurse put down her canteen of hot water, and quietly rose to return to the nursery, hearing nothing but the increasingly loud throbbing of her heart.

With a quivering hand she opened the door, wincing as the creaking hinges groaned with an accusatory creakiness. Armed with nothing more than her lamp, the nurse went in.

In his new cot, the infant Tom stood upright and completely still, holding the rails, his head turned precisely to face the door where the young nurse stood, his unmoving silhouette cast like an effigy one might find in the cellar of an abandoned cathedral. The young nurse gasped, but no noise came from her mouth. Her head began to ache. Her vision went blurry. She stumbled and quickly grabbed the railing of a nearby cot, waking a baby to cry. Then, she clutched her head, for the ache therein had intensified monstrously—as though hot needle were slowly making its way from her forehead to her nape. She screamed but—again—no noise came from her mouth. She started panting—it was becoming hard to breathe—she'd never had a headache so awful—so hot and heavy as though someone was pressing her forehead against a kettle—against a furnace—against the sun itself—

She ran, all the while madly pounding her temples in an unavailing effort to dispel her headache, to little Tom's cot, and picked him up to and return him to his sister, who upon being reunited with her counterpart, jerked her jittery baby arms to hug him with unconditional possessiveness. Were it not for the time and place and the souls involved, this reconciliation would have perhaps been endearing. But at any rate, the nurse did not see it; her headache had suddenly cleared and, taking advantage of this little mercy, she fled the orphanage in the dead of the night and never returned.

The orphans were at a tame country beach. Most of them were excited, if not outright frantic, for they had never seen the sea before. Though the day was cloudy, there was no rain, and as it was long from both summer and Christmas, there were few other people with whom they had to share the scene apart from the meek, meagre local populace.

Mary and Tom were now six. They each had healthy heads of unruly black hair, and good-looking faces with sly but guarded expressions. They were permitted to do whatever they pleased without hindrance, for all the other orphans made way for them like warblers made way for crows.

As though for a picnic, Tom brought a straw basket to the beach, though within it was neither food nor drink, but a curious assortment of inedible things. Unnaturally round stones, a dozen leaves from different trees, dried flowers of various colours and odours, and the shards of a smashed beer bottle they found on the pavement were therein arranged like paints on a palette. To the uninitiated, this motley collection was but a pile of kerbside waste, but to the twins they were the totems of a great mythos—that whatever belonged to one, belonged to both.

They sat on the lawn which overlooked the beach, an old sandstone promenade, and the blackness of the endless sea.

"It goes on forever," observed Mary. "Do you think there's monsters in it?"

"Yes, oh yes," Tom said wisely. "Though there's monsters everywhere. We just don't see them 'cause they hide from us."

"We should find them and give them a nice scare."

"We can't go into the ocean," Tom pointed out. "Besides, this is just the North Sea. It's nothing. The monsters in the Atlantic Ocean are bigger, more scary. They eat whole ships. Whole fleets."

"Where's that ocean? The Atlantic one?"

"On the other side of the country. We'll go there someday. Father will take us there. Father'll take us to see everything, everywhere."

"But what if the Atlantic monsters eat our father?" Mary asked gravely.

"They won't," Tom assured, "because I won't let them."

Mary slung an arm around her brother's shoulder and pulled him tightly into her. She knew he was right. She never had trouble with the other orphans nor with bedtime monsters, because Tom would not let anything harm her.

"Let's go," said Tom.

Hand in hand, they continued their scavenging. Down at the beach, they procured seashells to hold to their ears and listened to the unconscious murmurs of the sleeping Earth; any that were particularly resonant were deposited into the basket. At the western end of the shore a few mossy rocks jutted from the sea, each ample enough to serve as a stepping-stone for the little feet of the twins, who indeed skipped towards them with the very intent of hopscotching over them. When they got to the farthermost rocks, they squatted down to examine the crevice between the most seaward rock and its penultimate counterpart; they gleaned little foamy pools in which tiny white fish swam to and fro. Mary dipped her finger in the water to see if they would bite. Instead, they fled.

"Giantsss," hissed a strange, sibilant voice.

Just like the fish jolting away from Mary's curious finger, so did the twins jolt volte-face to confront their interloper.

"A snake!"

Behind them was a snake indeed, its elongated body swaying left and right like the stem of an overgrown flower in a field of wild grass. No longer than an adult's forearm and no wider than Tom's thumb, its skin was a light brown shade that verged on red, reminiscent of oxidised copper. Its body had irregular black stripes and, altogether, it was decisively unthreatening.

"Giantssss," it repeated, erecting its body.

"Giants?" Mary repeated. "D'you hear that, Tom? We're only six!"

"Ssmall giantsss … by the rocksss."

"We're big for it," said Tom. "Can you understand us, snake?"

"Yesss, giant, your tongue movesss well."

"Are you The Devil?" Mary asked curiously.

"Devilll?" it hissed in a tone resembling confusion. "I'm sssmall snake … you're sssmall giantss … the big onesss … they're gone."

"A snake told Eve to eat the forbidden fruit," Mary said instructively. "But you're not him. You're just a child."

"Sssmall, yess."

"Where are your parents?" Tom asked.

"The wingsss took them."

"The wings?" Mary asked. "Oh! You mean the eagles? Yes, they told us there might be some here, but we haven't seen any."

"The eagles ate its parents," theorised Tom.

Mary took another look at the snake, and then at Tom, as though to compare the two. Then, she rendered her judgment.

"Don't worry, we'll take care of you."

Although Tom did not particularly want to have a pet, snake or not, he always assented to his sister's wishes, and thus carefully placed the creature in their basket, sandwiching it cozily between a mass of round stones and a small heap of dried flowers. Indeed, it went with the twins back to London, and both of them were unabashed before the other orphans with it. A girl-snake, she was given the name Metis, Mary's enigmatic middle name. Mary liked to have Metis coil around her arms and legs; Tom, around his neck.

Metis thrived in London. Where in the country she was condemned to compete with greater reptiles for the same prey, all the while slithering in everlasting fear of overhead raptors, in the East End of London there were no other snakes, and the largest bird that could be seen was the pigeon, which was hardly a bird of prey.

It rained plentifully the coming autumn, and after these showers, rainbows would appear in the sky and slugs would abound on the wet pathway of the orphanage's street. Slugs were a delicacy to Metis; the twins found an amusement in capturing as many of these slimy creatures as they could for her.

However, their joy with their serpentine friend was short-lived. One winter day, hardly three weeks before the twins' birthday, everything came to an end.

It began before lunch. The twins, with Metis draped across Tom's shoulders, arrived at the table. They sought their customary leftmost seats from where the rest of the children kept their respectful distance.

That day, however, their territory was occupied. A new orphan by the name of Isaac Booth, a burly teenage boy of fifteen with a heavy, compressed head and an asymmetrical smile, had dared to usurp their silent throne. Surrounding him was a troop of shorter boys, all of whose expressions combined excitement with fear. It was a mutiny.

"Why here they are!" Booth called out boldly, confident in his deep, pseudo grown-up voice. "The Riddles. I've heard stories 'bout you. I believe 'em, but only to an extent. Sit down will you? Make yourselves comfortable."

Tom stepped in front of his sister, and declared his intentions unequivocally. "Leave our seats."

"Your seats," Booth scoffed. "Pray tell then, who gave you the right to them? Miss. Cole? King George? The prime minister, perhaps?"

"What a nuisance," Tom hissed at Metis. "I will have to hurt him."

Mary, anticipating an escalation of enmity between the boys, took Metis off Tom's shoulders.

"Let him be. Ssit elssewhere," warned Metis.

The boys surrounding Booth, not understanding snake-speech, gasped and murmured and pointed, clearly interpreting Metis' caution to Tom as a threat to them. Booth himself, however, sat unfazed.

"So it's true," he said in a tone of amazement. "You can talk to snakes. You know that brings bad luck, right?"

"Bad luck for you," said Tom.

"But I s'pose you don't care—they say you've got the devil's blood in you."

"We do indeed. So leave our seats."

For a moment, silence reigned as Tom and Booth stared menacingly at each other. Then, to the surprise of everyone, Booth conceded his confrontational gaze, smiled, and spoke gently. "Alright then Riddle, have it your way."

Booth stood up, slowly turned to leave, and in fact took a step in the direction of the stairs as though to retreat from the dining hall entirely—before suddenly turning back and punching Tom in the face.

Chaos ensued. Metis, like a sentient whip, leapt from Mary's arms to strike the older boy's face—striking true—only for the older boy to throw it to the ground and stomp on it. For a moment, the snake laid dormant like a cut yarn of rope on the ground, and Mary, thinking it was dead, screamed—then Booth stomped on it again—which miraculously spurred life back into it—only for it to slide and spring out the room like a flying fish.

"METIS!" Mary shouted, before running after her pet in pursuit.

Tom tried to chase his sister and their snake, but Booth shoved him back to the ground, his head knocking hard on the floorboards, the bitter taste of blood rising in his mouth. I'll kill you! Tom thought as heat and rage rose to his head. I'll kill you! He sprang up and, with all the strength he could muster in body and soul, seized Booth's arm to bite it with the hatred of a starved feral dog.

Although Booth screamed with all the force of his lungs, his counterattack was quick—he sent a second, much more focused punch squarely into Tom's face. The latter, immediately before falling unconscious, had the impression that he had been struck by a huge metal saucepan.

The next few days passed in a blur.

As it was winter, ice was thankfully easy to attain, and ice Tom had to regularly apply to his bruises to prevent swelling. He was told that he had left a terrific bite mark on Booth's arm, and that some of the orphans upon beholding it deduced that he must have been a vampire. But Tom was unable to behold his work, for his victim thoroughly bandaged his shame with a grey cloth. Tom did not mind his wounds, which were little compared to the loss of his snake, which was in turn very little compared to the grief of his sister. Mary had not cried since she was a toddler.

"Metis will come back," Tom said to her as he held her soft, sad little face. "We gave her food. We gave her a place to stay. We gave her love."

"She's dead. Dead!" Mary insisted between cries. "In a gutter somewhere, or on the road, squashed flat by a car!"

Tom held her tightly in his arms. He had feared that she would be angry at him, that she would hold him responsible for their snake's flight, but there was not a single fibre of her soul or a single muscle in her body that was embittered against him. For how could she be embittered against him? She was an angel; a weeping little angel. It was then that Tom decided he would never lie to her.

"I don't know where Metis is," he confessed, "but I know we will make Booth hurt for what he did."

Isaac Booth would not have suspected the twins of any malicious designs against him, as for the following days and then weeks, they steered clear out of his way. He and his friends freely occupied the dining room's leftmost seats, and some of the more daring among them wanted him to provoke the Riddles even further. He dryly told them that he had no desire to get bitten again, although the truth was that he had become intensely afraid of Tom Riddle. The scar on his arm, although largely faded, was permanent. Riddle's teeth penetrated so far into his skin that it was disfigured forever. Moreover, often he had terrible, vivid nightmares from which he awoke covered in sweat, to discover his scar in searing pain, as though it was still freshly bitten.

And indeed, the activity of the Riddle twins was subtle enough that it went unnoticed not just by Booth, but by all the orphans. In their room, in the lowest drawer of their cabinet, a doll was being assembled. Chicken bones, chewed to the bone, made its skeleton; Metis' skin made its skin (the snake had shed her skin five times since coming to London; the twins kept each of her wilted exoskeletons in a jar) and, most importantly, Isaac Booth's hair decorated its head. This they were able to retrieve after the older boy took his weekly shower on Wednesdays.

The Lamb, as the twins had taken to calling the doll, was completed in a little over a month. Glue, rubber bands, and wet newspaper enfleshed it to the full. Arranged on the floor before the twins' little shared bed, it was the size of a large baby with an exceptionally small head, but with exceptionally many hairs in many exceptionally strange places.

It would be a day of ceremony. On the windowsill, beneath the clear blue sky, was a small mound of breadcrumbs, like a tiny anthill. It was the first point in a trail of crumbs that went deep into the Riddles' bedroom. The same unassuming pigeon which dined there every morning had no cause to suspect that its hosts would show anything less to it than their usual hospitality, and indeed for the past two weeks, it had come to familiarise itself with the touch of their human hands—they had stroked and even held it.

Like two sides of an ancient, broken marble archway, the twins towered over the pigeon from either side and watched it approach The Lamb.

Tom's wide curious eyes followed the form of his sister, who stalked her prey slowly and patiently, moving with such quietness and gentleness that it seemed time itself had slowed down. In her hand was a screwdriver that had been sharpened against the whetstone in the kitchen.

Then, she struck. With unhesitating force Mary impaled the pigeon's neck from nape through throat. She carved a great bloody aperture through its back in one motion for good measure. Then, she dipped her fingers into the corpse to engulf them with blood, and painted a red circle around The Lamb.

The twins stood up in synchrony to behold their work. Mary gestured her bloody hand at Tom to complete the last step of their ceremony.

"You'll do it," Tom told his sister. "Metis was closer to you."

Mary gave a single nod. She stepped forward, raised her right foot and, with all the rage and energy she could muster, stomped down at The Lamb to flatten it to the ground.

At once a piercing shriek resounded through the orphanage, one that in fact resounded to every Londoner that lived on the street of the orphanage—but it stopped as soon as it came. Then came the clamour of rushed footsteps and murmurs; something had happened, everyone wanted to see. All the upstairs orphans came downstairs, and all the outside ones came inside. Tom and Mary followed the throng.

There, on the leftmost end of the table, was a horrific sight that would scar many of its beholders for life. Like a puppet violently thrown against asphalt, Isaac Booth lay disfigured on the floor, covered in blood and splinters from the chair upon which he was previously seated and which appeared smashed into hundreds of pieces. Blood covered his face and blood flowed from the inexplicable ruptures in his clothes; but all of this was nothing compared with the lower half of his body. His legs, from thighs downward, were squashed, like half-mashed pumpkin in a mortar for a pie, sprinkled with bloodied red-brown debris like clove and cinnamon.

Even the senior nurses, who had in their long vocations beheld scenes of human suffering so terrible that they would have kept adult men up at night, could not restrain their screams upon beholding the paranormal gore before them. And who could blame them? No one had ever seen anything like this. No one had thought it possible.

In the back of the crowd stood the Riddle twins, whose notoriety would rise to new dark heights in the weeks to come. There, behind the shocked, numb faces of a dozen terrified orphans, a little smile curled on Mary's face, and her dark, delicate eyes glimmered with a joy that would have, in any other place and time, appeared innocent and deeply endearing. This look would become, for the rest of Tom's life, one of his most cherished memories.

FIRST YEAR: The Whimsicalities of Peacetime

Isaac Booth lost his mind with his legs. After months in hospital, he briefly returned to Wool's Orphanage with wooden stumps in place of knees, and two unwieldy crutches always under his arms. But he could not stay. The younger boys who once worshipped him now avoided him like he was a leper, as though being in proximity to him would ensure that they would suffer his fate. Perhaps they were right. Yet, the loneliness was nothing, nothing, compared to the pain, which never went away. Not when they were still there.

Whenever either brother or sister of the Riddle twins came close to Isaac, his legs, or what remained of them, would be engulfed in hurt. It's what we call a phantom limb, the doctor told him, a trick of the mind that will fade with time. Yet for weeks Isaac would, whenever he caught even a glimpse of the awful gypsy twins, scream in pain with all the might of his tortured lungs, reliving all the agony of that satanic afternoon months ago. Often he screamed at night, and though some of these screams were from nightmares, many of them were not. Sometimes, he felt a dark, unaccountable presence outside his door, and cold fear would overcome and immobilise him in silent, wary wakefulness for hours.

It was not only Isaac who was sick of himself. Whenever he screamed at night, many babies of the nursery would wake and wail, and in turn his suffering contagiously became that of the nurses, who grew visibly more weary and irritated by the day. Most of the other orphans, who initially pitied him, came to despise him for ruining their sleep. No one wanted him to stay at the orphanage—least of all himself. Thus one day, he had a very serious conversation with Mrs. Cole, who granted him a great mercy—for the rest of his life he would be committed to an asylum, where no one would have the wits to feel sorry for him, and no infernal black-haired children peeping through keyholes would provoke him into fits of pain.

In its entirety, the tale of Isaac Booth elevated the reputation of the Riddle twins from mystery to living terror. They were once strange, quiet gypsies who had a language of their own; now, they were demons in plain sight that no amount of prayer could exorcise. However, although the twins welcomed their new infamy, it was not particularly important for them—before Booth attacked them, they had lived in a world of their own imagination, in which the other orphans didn't dare impinge—they had simply returned to this world. What was important, was that they were now keenly aware of their own power. And in the years to come, their power only grew and grew.

By the age of nine, they could unlock any door simply by twirling their fingers twice anticlockwise before the knob. They became thieves, first of toy stores, confectioners, and the butcher's shop (they adored smoked sausages), and then burglars of houses for their furniture and books, with which they furnished their own bedroom. Mrs. Cole asked no questions; it was better that they slated their thirst for theft outside the orphanage rather than in it.

By the age of ten, they were able to control small animals by looking at their eyes. For sport, they deployed spiders, rats and all sorts of pests against other children, for the smallest slights, such as being 'looked at wrong'. However, this enterprise was soon given up because they had no wish to provoke the increasingly concerned Mrs. Cole to truly drastic action. They feared the asylum to which Isaac Booth had been consigned.

By the time they turned eleven, the magical developments they had made in the year previous were too numerous to enlist. Perhaps, the most noteworthy development was that of their sensibilities—they had become, in a way, refined. Theft had, as an activity for its own sake, become dull for them, though they still stole whatever they needed. Indeed, the twins, now tall, long-legged, and beautiful in the colourful, overlarge clothes they had taken from the houses of the rich, often dwelled in the many parks of their city, where they picked flowers and made them fly with petals for wings; where they guided paper boats over artificial lakes; and where they made small bonfires at night with nothing but sticks, discarded newsprint, and snaps of their fingers.

Indeed, when it was temperate enough, they stayed entire nights in parks and cemeteries, with nothing but blankets and each other for company. As for cemeteries, they had developed a taste for morbidity, when the possibility occurred to them that their father might have, like their mother, already died. And they knew Tom Riddle was his name.

It was in the Abney Park cemetery that they first comprehensively searched for him. Abney Park was a grand place; it was also what was called an arboretum, or a place where many trees of varying sizes and places of origin were arranged to create a sense of nature. The twins liked to call it a 'rainforest', albeit London was much too cold to be tropical. Nonetheless, it was in this cemetery that the twins often discussed their father.

"I like to think he died long ago," said Mary, who sat irreverently on a rich man's gravestone, her long legs sprawled over his plaque. "Because if he's still alive, he's got no excuse leaving us here."

"Maybe he doesn't know we're here," reasoned Tom, who lay on another grave, watching the overhead leaves dancing from the wind under the grey sky.

"But he surely knows we're somewhere at all," Mary maintained, as she twirled her finger to spin a stick midair, "and if that's how it is, he should've found us already, were he alive—he's had eleven years."

"He knows we're somewhere at all," said Tom, "but he doesn't want to see us. He didn't like mother—he's no reason to like us."

"Mother died 'cause she didn't have our power," Mary recalled automatically, drawing from the shared mythology they had created over the years. "Perhaps, if he's alive, father thinks we've not got our power either."

"Then if he's alive, we'll have to prove him wrong."

For it was this power in question that enabled them to spend most of their time outside the orphanage. Though their bedroom had grown homely over the years, with nicked furniture whatnot, it became suffocating as they increasingly felt themselves too large for it—the whole world ought to be their canvas. Yet they still prized it, this inadequate canvas for their power, not so much as a home, but rather a vault of souvenirs for everything they had done together over the years. It was the heart of their past.

Thus, when they returned to their bedroom one late night on a particularly cool summer day and found waiting for them a tall, auburn-haired, auburn-bearded man sitting on the only chair that they owned, they immediately thought of this man as nothing more than an intruder. More than that, this man, whoever he was, saw everything. The twins had, among innumerable other belongings, a shelf with stolen jars of chocolates and candy; a bookshelf with books stolen only from houses (not libraries, whose books were battered and old); and a table with three ceramic vases they took from a museum, in which an improvised bouquet of flowers they picked from an unwitting rich woman's garden rested. There was a reason why even prospective parents weren't allowed in their room.

But what really inflamed their unease was that the man had seen their bed. It was a single bed, but upon it were two pillows intimately crammed together—a representation of they who slept on them every night. They knew they were the only orphans who shared a bed—a custom they had for long as they could remember—and that man, whoever he was, was not supposed to be privy to this fact.

The very first thing Tom said to this man was, "we do not want to be adopted."

"I am not here to adopt you," said the man, smiling. "My name is Albus Dumbledore, and I am a Professor of a school—a very special school, as you shall shortly learn—"

Mary, stepping in front of her brother, interrupted the 'Professor'. "We do not want to go to school."

"No, perhaps not," the Professor accepted. "But I've reason to believe you shall be quite glad to come to—"

"A special school," Tom said mockingly. "Do you consider us fools? You're from the hospital, aren't you?"

"He is! That's why he's all formal-like!" Mary exclaimed, clasping her brother's hand. Then her tone suddenly softened, "with all respect, sir, you shan't take us. We'll run and disappear, and they'll accuse you of having made us run!"

"No, no," Professor Dumbledore said patiently. "You will be at liberty to do as you please. I shall not force you to do anything nor go anywhere. Only tell me this—have the two of you not done things, extraordinary things, that your peers have found strange, frightening, or otherwise beyond understanding?"

It was not the first time such a question was posed to the twins, but it was the first time that it was asked with… curiosity, rather than superstitious contempt. Thus, Tom and Mary exchanged looks, and agreed that there was something in this man they had to unravel—they would entertain his question.

"Perhaps so," Tom said tentatively. "But what's it to you? Why should we tell you?"

"Because," Professor Dumbledore said slowly, turning his gaze from twin to twin, "what you have been doing and will continue to do is nothing less than magic. Perhaps you believe that something is wrong with you, but this would be quite far from the truth. You see, magic is a gift that very few people in the world have. Those of us who have it are considered strange by the rest."

"Magic?" Mary asked with a murmur. "An appropriate word for it, is it not, Tom?"

Tom, in his turn, was looking intently at the palms of his hand. With the same intent look, he turned to look at his sister. "Yes, I suppose it is."

"And what is 'it'?" asked Professor Dumbledore. "What can you do?"

Tom and Mary, both of whose dark eyes now gleamed like large black opals, glanced at each other and knew at once that they had arrived at the same understanding. Their power was not an aberration in an inferior world, but rather the sign of a superior one; a superior world to which Professor Dumbledore was the key. But at the same time they were suspicious—for if this were the case, why had they been left in the inferior world for so long?

"All sorts of things," Mary nonetheless responded. "We use and practice our powers together."

"We can make paper airplanes fly without falling—"

"—and paper boats sail in any direction that we like."

"We can light matches with our fingers—"

"—and snuff candles just by looking at them."

"We can make dead flowers bloom—"

"—and make animals play dead without training them."

"We can unlock any door without a key," said Tom, gesturing vaguely at all the stolen furniture in their room, "but we've never hurt anyone."

With this, the twins fell silent and awaited the response of Professor Dumbledore who, uncharacteristically, had also gone quiet. This silence prolonged a little while, a few seconds perhaps, as Professor Dumbledore's eyes grew misty and absent, as though his pupils had retreated into his mind to unravel an imaginary ball of yarn, before they suddenly returned to illuminate his intelligent gaze once again, only for a most disappointing question to escape his mouth.

"Are you sure that you've never hurt anyone?"

"Only ever to protect ourselves!" Mary declared.

"But what of everything that you have stolen?" Professor Dumbledore asked. "To steal is to hurt. Taking someone's possessions against their wishes wounds them, as I'm sure both of you understand."

Tom furrowed his brow. "Who are you to call us thieves? Do you even have magic yourself?"

"I am a wizard, Tom," Professor Dumbledore explained. "Just as much as you are."

"Prove it."

Professor Dumbledore's gaze fell on Tom with an active impassivity as though to ask, are you sure you want to challenge me? Then, he turned away, and for a moment Tom victoriously believed that the professor was about to confess that he was not really a Professor of the wizarding school, but merely a worldly representative of it, here to escort Mary and himself to await instruction by someone proper—like their father—but he had thought wrong, terribly terribly wrong.

As though to lift a heavy invisible rope, Professor Dumbledore hoisted his arms up, erecting out of thin air a brilliant red ring of fire exactly upon the very circle that Mary drew with pigeon blood five years ago to sacrifice The Lamb.

Both the twins shrieked and recoiled, instinctively hugging each other for protection. Professor Dumbledore's authority, in the span of a few seconds, established itself like the sun of the Summer solstice rising against the black of night—he achieved, at once and quite inexplicably, that which neither Mrs. Cole nor any of her lackeys had ever managed to do—he struck fear into the hearts of the twins.

"At Hogwarts, you shall learn not only how to do magic, but also how to control it. Our Ministry—yes, we have a Ministry—has rules concerning how magic may and may not be used. To use magic with ill intent is forbidden, not just for the sake of others, but also for the sake of oneself."

Skilfully moving his fingers as though playing an invisible piano or puppeteering an invisible puppet, Professor Dumbledore made the coal-black smoke that billowed from the ring coalesce into four equidistant clouds, each shaped with terrifyingly distinct roundness, like distended eggs. They then refined, thankfully, into distinctly human shapes; the eggs became three men, and one woman, all of whom wore strange, long dresses.

"Yes, my dear twins," Professor Dumbledore said in a low voice. "I know what you did, but I shall pardon you this once, on the condition that you keep to heart what I will tell you. No sort of the magic you did against poor Isaac Booth will be permitted at Hogwarts. Students have been expelled for much smaller infractions."

The figures of smoke, as though they had all just woken from interminable slumbers, curiously regarded their own arms as though pleasantly surprised that they still possessed basic physical agency. Then the twins saw that it was not their arms that the figures of smoke regarded, but rather the long, thin sticks that they held in their hands—which they wielded not tentatively, but rather with a terrible seriousness, as though they were pistols.

"You see, magic is a living thing. Just as the two of you shape and are shaped by each other, so does every mage shape and get shaped by their own magic. When you cast a spell, elements of your soul, which in common vernacular we can best describe as love and hate, peace and anger, desire and renunciation, fuse and breathe new life back into you."

Professor Dumbledore shook his hand as though to ceremonially jiggle sand from his palm. Though there was no noise but the crackling of the fire beneath them, the figures of smoke appeared to argue—and the subject of the argument must have been of great consequence, for they all gesticulated wildly—before they at once broke into fight with their small sticks which, more impressive than pistols, discharged great clouds of purposive smoke that flew towards the other figures of smoke with the rapidity and ferociousness of lightning bolts. Two of the figures, both men, appeared far, far more adept and powerful than their counterparts.

"Come closer," Professor Dumbledore said softly. "Behold two wizards of immense power, but of even greater folly—see how the fight is really only between them, and not the other two? What if I told you that the other two were none other than the brother and sister of that first great, foolish wizard? The sister was talented, but she was sick. She could not control her magic; it had become for her dangerous and uncontrollable—a burden, rather than a gift. Her older brother, the middle one, though he was the most ordinary sibling of the three, succeeded where the oldest failed—in truly loving his family."

"As you can see, the middle brother has neither an ample stock of spells nor any great reserve of natural power. Yet his magic is easily the most disciplined of the four. He does everything with clarity. He seeks only to protect his more vulnerable sister … his dear sister who, despite her prodigious power, cannot protect herself. In this respect, he is far nobler than his elder brother."

"For years, the two great wizards were the best of friends, and together, they fancied themselves Gods sent to Earth to make Earth more divine. Together, they set rivers on fire. They solved puzzles of magic that had perplexed our world for centuries. They spawned new forms of life from their wands as though they were tossing breadcrumbs to pigeons, and they tamed thunderstorms just so they could lie together atop peaceful clouds to gaze at stars."

"But this was not enough for them. They had already pushed the boundaries of known magic to its limits; now they wanted to plumb the unknown. To 'storm Eden', as the second great wizard liked to say. Thus they told themselves there was no such difference between dark and light, between good and evil. To them, there was now only knowledge and ignorance. Yes, they grew so proud, that they thought they could force the sun to illuminate the night, and the moon to decorate the day. All natural human humility and, dare I say it, sense, had fled them; they despised even the stars for shining more brightly than themselves. And so they drew on the blind, dark underbelly of their souls to bring nightmares to life, which they called The Greater Good."

"In the end, it was a simple matter of family that split them apart. The second wizard, unlike his counterpart, was a single child. He detested that his soulmate still possessed affection for his unexceptional brother and his demented sister; he thought that nothing ought to keep the first wizard 'bound to the Earth', as he often put it—not even his own flesh and blood—and so ensued all this."

That the two wizards harnessed great power over great nebulous forms several times their size—here something like fire, there something like water, but all in representative smoke—told the twins beyond a doubt that they ought to go to this 'Hogwarts' of the Professor. Both Tom and Mary's eyes gleamed with mania; they now knew, beyond a doubt, that the world was more large and profound than they could ever have conceived.

Suddenly, in the midst of the grand choreography of smoke, red fluid emerged to aimlessly float in the air like water in oil, before spurting forth in a violent spurt to splatter the faces of both the twins, who gasped in horror and frantically wiped their faces, only to find that the liquid had already somehow vaporised. Returning their trembling gazes to the battle of smoke, the twins found that one of the combatants had completely disappeared—the wizard without the siblings—while the first wizard hunched over something red and bloody, trembling in desperate rage, more like a feral animal hunching over its maimed prey than a human lamenting the death of someone beloved to them.

It was his sister, and there was no mistaking that she was dead, even as a simulacra of smoke. The great wizard's brother waved furiously at him, at once accusing and imploring, but the great wizard paid no heed to him—in that moment, the entire universe was the lifeless form of his sister.

"Now you see," concluded Professor Dumbledore, whose voice had gone quiet and clinical. As though to dismiss a fly, he waved his hand, and the entire theatre of smoke along with its underlying fire disappeared. "Come closer, my dear twins. Stand here."

The twins, both numb with shock, obeyed the Professor. They stood facing each other, so close that their noses almost touched, so close that each entirely comprised the field of vision of the other.

"You love each other very much," said the Professor. "In the absence of parents, you have come to love each other not just as brother and sister, but also, dare I say it, as father and mother—few in the world, even the magical world, understand the love that you have."

"You act and exist in unison, in harmony. The bond you have is the sapling of an ancient tree, fresh and beautiful and with the potential to become a mighty force for good—but it is still very young, and very fragile—it must not only be protected, but also nurtured. In magic, what you do is what happens to you, as you should now know beyond a doubt. So I must tell you this, for your sakes as much as mine—refrain from the path that this pair of prideful wizards took. Refrain, dear Tom and Mary, from the darkness—if not for yourself, then for each other."

New Friends

The twins had rejected Professor Dumbledore's offer to chaperone their shopping trip; their debut into the magical world was moment to be shared by the pair of them, and only them. Indeed, they had, hand in hand, revelled in the waking dreamscape known as Diagon Alley in solitary duality. Yet it was towards Professor Dumbledore that the twins' thoughts turned, as they waited for the Hogwarts Express, whose furious steam engines were already huffing and puffing, to disembark.

"It's already eleven," Tom read from his pocket-watch. "The train should be moving."

"You can't expect everyone to be timely," said Mary, her face pressed against the compartment window. "The other students must have great fun during the summer. The fun one could have with magic … little wonder why they're late."

"Yet we're not permitted to do magic outside Hogwarts until we're sixteen."

"Only when among muggles, it seems," Mary said thoughtfully. "The kids on Diagon Alley set every last fallen leaf and twig dancing."

"Rules for when we're among muggles," Tom said coldly. "They've many of the sort."

For a moment, Mary said nothing. She thought to encourage her brother by reminding him that from now on, they only had to stay in muggle London for summers, and that they would surely find somewhere to live in Diagon Alley upon their graduation. But before she could say any of this, Tom pressed on with his train of thought.

"Professor Dumbledore's smoke-wizards wanted to get rid of it all. The Statute of Secrecy, and everything that followed from it. I'm sure they weren't the only ones of such an opinion."

The train began to move. The twins listened silently to their many peers crying goodbyes to their parents.

Mary shut the door with a swish of her wand. "It's all very strange, don't you think? Professor Dumbledore spoke of those smoke-wizards as if they were … old friends. But how can that be? He's only a professor."

"The magical world holds professors in higher regard than the muggle world does," Tom conjectured with an approving tone.

"But the smoke-wizards sounded really important—a lot more important than professors anyhow."

"Dumbledore knew more than he let on. He's more than a mere professor, I'm sure of it."

"Then he should be found out!" Mary exclaimed. "He found us out, he's not got the right to hide himself!"

"One day he shall be, Mary, one day he shall be," Tom said gently, placating his sister by stroking her shoulders, "but for now we bide our time. We can't have any other professors find us out."

"I know Dumbledore said he won't tell them, but perhaps they'll find us out themselves …"

"Dumbledore found us out 'cause The Lamb left a smear on the floorboards. The others won't find us out, not if we're lovely and polite to them."

"Then we shall do just that."

The journey to Hogwarts was beautiful. It was the first time the twins left their native England, and already Scotland fulfilled for them a part of Professor Dumbledore's promise of power. For lunch they bought chocolate frogs and cauldron cakes from the stout, jovial woman who managed 'the trolley'. The frogs, leaping about everywhere, made a great mess in the compartment. The twins refused to tolerate this insolence, so they cut them into little pieces with their wands. In the afternoon, it began to rain as they traversed a sea of grassy hills, and their compartment took on homely airs.

As they continued northward the soft round hills became hard and jagged—they became mountains—and these mountains overlooked passed many great lakes so large that they could have sunken soccer stadiums whole. Night fell, and an official voice resounded through the train advising everyone to change into their robes, as arrival to Hogwarts was at hand. Tom and Mary helped each other dress.

Not long afterwards, the train stopped, and the official voice announced that first-years should disembark. Upon bracing the icy Scottish wind—they had no idea that air could be so cold—Tom and Mary wrapped around each other's shoulders. The barebones train station where they found themselves was part of a town, which, suggested by a corroded iron plaque, was called Hogsmeade. Every house in Hogsmeade looked medieval, yet well-kept and comfortable.

"First years!" came a voice from above. "Aye, I'm a-flyin! Name's Ogg. Keeper of Keys an' Grounds at Hogwarts."

Ogg was a tall man on a short broomstick, and although his clothes were no different to those of a hardy muggle farmer, there were just enough strange little ornaments decorating him—not in the least the broomstick upon which he flew—that proved him a wizard.

"Now follow 'long and make sure none o' youse lose their way!"

They were to sail across an ample lake on boats with oars that rowed themselves. The twins shared a boat with a small, dark-haired, exceedingly round-faced girl who introduced herself as Florence Travers, the daughter of Torquil Travers, apparently an important wizard.

"I'm Mary Riddle," said Mary, "and this is my brother Tom."

"You're very beautiful," said Florence, smiling an unabashed, toothy smile. "Are all muggle girls so beautiful?"

"Who said we're muggles?" Tom asked coldly.

"Well, I've never heard of any Riddles."

"You have now. My sister's the most beautiful girl in the world."

Florence's expression was but an outline in the dark, but Tom discerned the bemusement in it all the same. As they sailed on, the surrounding nature came to life; they, in turn, grew quiet to contemplate it.

On either side of the lake were tall hillsides covered in ancient, gnarled trees, and the overhead sky was ample not only with innumerable stars, but also the stupendous galactic silk-clouds of blue and purple in which these convened.

Turning a long bend along a hill, they beheld Hogwarts castle for the first time. The twins would never forget the moment—Hogwarts was by far the greatest structure of human engineering they had ever seen. It possessed the same grand, silent dignity as the snow-capped, cloud-penetrating Scottish mountains that surrounded it. Each of its innumerable windows that shone yellow appeared like glow worms reposing on the side of a huge rock at night.

Eventually, the twins disembarked to follow Ogg into the grand lobby of the castle, whose ceiling was as high and distant as the sky itself. Even the faintest whisper was reverberated from the castle's tall walls for all to hear. They were left unattended to await someone or something. After a few minutes of nervous, excited whispering, the first years were met with an old but fierce-looking witch in purple robes, who explained to them the Sorting Ceremony to which they were soon to be subjected. "Your house will be like your family," she explained.

Groaning and grinding, the huge iron-framed doors of the Great Hall opened. The collective weight of the stares of the older students fell on the new-first years, who meekly stared ahead at an old hat sitting limply on a stool. Then, the hat came to life, bursting forth in speech.

"Solace shall you here at Hogwarts find,

Where knowledge grows with the sands of time.

Yet let not ease and care soften your mind,

For there'll come a time when time's clock will chime … "

So did the song go on for four like stanzas, cryptic and verbose perhaps as per the glimpses of the tumult of the world that the twins caught in Diagon Alley. Muggle armies were mobilising around the world, the war in the Far East grew more terrible by the day, and a wizard named Grindelwald threatened to unravel the order of Magical Europe—yet all this felt so distant and trivial—when one was surrounded by the eternal, torchlit walls of Hogwarts.

The whole hall burst into applause as the hat finished its song. It bowed to each of the four tables and then became quite still again. The same fierce old witch now stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment.

"When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," she said. "Abbott, Mirabel!"

A plump blonde girl skipped to the stool, plopped the hat on her head, and sat down.

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

The table on the right cheered and clapped as Mirabel went towards it.

"Avery, Banius!"

A stout boy with plump cheeks and cropped dark hair went forward.

"SLYTHERIN!"

The table on the left gave a much more modest and reserved applause.

"Black, Alphard!"

A pretty boy with even prettier hair, parted from the middle and neatly combed to his shoulders, went to the hat. His sorting took much longer than both Abbot's and Avery's combined.

"SLYTHERIN!"

He was received much more enthusiastically than Avery, though neither Tom nor Mary understood why. Two more Blacks followed—Lucretia and Walburga—both of who were sorted into Slytherin and greeted with the same applause given to Alphard.

A slew of other students followed before the next Slytherin was inaugurated in the form of Oscar Montgomery. A pale, harassed-looking girl named Prudence Pettigrew followed him before the twins were at last called to trial:

"Riddle, Mary!"

Tom let go of his sister's hand and proudly watched her go to the hat. Where many of the other students were shy if not plainly frightened, Mary skipped forth with a spring in her step. She sat on the stool and, with her large, round eyes like those of a hungry kitten stalking its prey, examined the four tables, before the hat fell and concealed her head entirely.

"My, my—what have we here!"

You're in my head!

"Why of course I am, 'Mary Riddle'! How else would I sort you?"

The way the Hat intoned Mary Riddle sent shivers down Mary's spine. It was ironic and mocking, as though it knew something about her that she did not know herself.

But you can see my thoughts … my memories … everything!

"Yes, yes I can … and what a spectacular mind you have! At last, you are here … returned … awakened."

How do you mean returned? I've never been here before … do you mean to say mum and dad were here?

"It is not my place to answer such questions, girl … all shall be disclosed in due time."

If I'll know it all anyway, why not tell me now?

"My place is to see and sort … not to make destiny, nor unravel the future."

But what you do, Hat—sort—makes destiny!

"It is to render that which is due to you, by virtue of you … you act and think … I place you according to these acts and thoughts."

Then you'll know that Tom and I act and think the same. Surely you'll put us together?

"Oh worry not, girl. I know already that the two of you shall be together … and it is … extraordinary … extraordinary, yes, that I can see so much of him, through you … his power, his desire, his love … for you … in you."

Yes, Hat. We will always be together.

"Oh, but Mary Riddle … I am not so sure of that."

What? What d'you mean?

"Until now, the two of you have lived alone in your own little world. Your magic kept you … separate … from the muggle world … all you have known is Tom … and all he has known is you … but now you are part of our world, where there are others … you will become smaller, the distance between you shall grow—"

No! You don't know that. You can't! You said it wasn't your place to reveal the future!

"—but you shall become powerful again! Only with distance can magic flourish … a tree cannot grow without space, it must breathe … and Hogwarts will give you space … plenty of it … oh yes, Mary Riddle, you shall grow distant from your brother … but you shall harmonise again, harmonise and split, ebb and flow, like the waves in the sea and the scores of autumn leaves in the air … but worry not … for this is the cost of power … this is destiny."

But Hat—that's impossible! We've always been together, it's—it's the only way we can grow!

"You don't know of what you think, girl! Foolish girl! Impudent girl! You shall both grow powerful, beyond your wildest imagination, but separately so. A tree can only have one trunk, a human, only one heart … you must separate and become reborn, you must leave your womb! History wills it! Yet worry not, Mary Riddle … you'll always be there for each other … your blood demands it, your soul yearns for it … perhaps even from afar … but the universe is vast. You will need space to blossom."

All the space in the world is nothing without Tom! He's my brother!

"Words whose implications you will one day come to understand. But for now—"

I already understand!

"—SLYTHERIN!"

For a moment, pure silence reigned in the hall. Mary's sorting had gone for far longer than any of her predecessors, and the spectators of the four tables had gone dumb and dull from waiting. But as she parsed this thought, the Slytherin table burst into applause. Numb from the Hat's cryptic words, she automatically went to the table of her new house.

"Riddle, Thomas!"

Tom snapped out of his revelry and strode to the stool. He located Mary on the Slytherin table, and his heart skipped a beat as he saw consternation and sadness etched on her face. She had walked so confidently to her Sorting, what could possibly have changed her so quickly?

The Hat dropped on his head, and he saw black.

"Ha! The seed is strong indeed!"

Seed? What seed?

"SLYTHERIN!"

Tom's vision was restored with the removal of the Hat from his head, and applause serenaded him as he went to sit by Mary, whose face was still suspended in inexplicable unease. It was a small reprieve that Florence Travers immediately followed them into Slytherin. For the rest of the ceremony, the twins, though their hands covertly joined under the table, sat together in tense, impatient silence for the first time in their lives.

At the completion of the Sorting, the Headmaster, a three-hundred-year-old man whose longevity did not become him, tapped his glass to call the Hall's attention. A series of customary announcements were made, before something quite extraordinary happened—

"Let the feast begin!"

This declaration was surely a magical incantation, for on the four tables there appeared out of thin air golden platters of every kind of food, savoury and sweet, hot and cold, simple and sophisticated, that anyone, let alone a pair of London orphans, could have possibly desired.

The restraint that most of the students exercised before the feast was, to Mary and Tom who were accustomed to the desperate gluttony of famished orphans, incredible. They ate slowly and held their heads high; they used cutlery, rather than their hands, to grab this or that. Yet, already among the other first-year Slytherins, the manners were multifarious. For instance, Oscar Montgomery, the pan-faced mischievous-eyed boy who sat across Tom, delighted in eating and talking at once, as though the two were best done in tandem.

"The Hat told me I'm nothing like my brother," Oscar boasted between mouthfuls of cheesecake and stewed chicken.

"That's because you're nothing at all," came Walburga Black, whose proper voice conformed to the proper manner in which she handled her cutlery.

"So what?" Oscar snapped. "Neither was George when he was in first year."

"Then you're just as he was in first year."

"He was a Gryffindor," Oscar asserted, as though this was meaningful.

"You should be proud of your family," Walburga chided. "The Hat told me I'm like grandmother Violetta—she was Head Girl in 1873."

"The Hat says a good load of tosh," chimed Florence, smiling all her little teeth. "You shouldn't let it get in your head."

But for the rest of dinner and the evening that followed, the odious Hat was very much in Mary's head. The distance between you shall grow, it had said, and already this seemed prophetic. Why had it spent several minutes taunting her with its prophecies, only to remain on Tom's head for no more than a few seconds? Had it deliberately struck a wedge between them?

Nonetheless Tom knew her face and its array of expressions; he did not forget throughout the night that something was wrong. Which was why, after a dinner that was paradoxically at once deliciously fulfilling yet gratingly tense, and a court introduction by the pair of fifth-year Prefects to the cold, dark but splendid cellar—the Slytherin dungeons—that was their new home, the twins remained in the common room after the other first-years excitedly went off to their dormitories.

"Mary." Tom met his sister's eyes. "Why are you upset?"

"I'm afraid," Mary said at once. "The Hat told me that we'll grow apart."

"And how the devil could it know that?"

"It's magic."

"So are our peers," said Tom. "Many of whom are unimpressive."

"But it's right!" Mary insisted. "You're with the boys and I'm with the girls! We won't be in the same room, let alone on the same bed! We'll be alone at night … all night! All alone!"

"It's only sleep," said Tom, though his voice had gone quiet. "What else did the Hat tell you?"

"That I—that we—that we've returned," Mary blurted. "But how can that be? We've quite clearly never been here before."

"The return of blood," Tom murmured reverently. "It told me 'the seed is strong'—you see? Just as Christ was the seed of Abraham, so are we the seed of someone great, someone who was here before."

"But it can't have been our parents," Mary reasoned. "None of the others knew any Riddles."

"No, it can't have been," agreed Tom. "But it means we belong here as much as anyone else."

They heard footsteps and chatter; the older students were returning from dinner.

"We ought to rest," Tom resumed. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yes—but wait! Tom, we won't truly grow apart, will we?"

For a short, ominous moment, Tom was silent, and Mary felt her heart sink, for everything at once became possible—but then he gave a small laugh, as though the idea that anything might separate them was not only unlikely, but ridiculous.

He leaned in to plant a long, comforting kiss on her cheek. "No, we'll always be together. Good night."

After truly leaving the side of Tom for the first time in her life, Mary felt an odd, unexpected sense of peace wash over her. She knew that the worst was true. The Hat's law was absolute—all night, every night, she would be separate from Tom. It was, in a way, comforting; there was nothing she could do.

Her dormitory was lovely—dark, spacious, and indulgently furnished—like the rooms of the old houses Tom and her broke into in Westminster.

"Ah, Mary! What took you so long? I insist you have this bed, next to mine," called Florence Travers.

"I was talking to Tom." Mary intoned her brother's name reverently. She examined her new bedroom; though it was large and lavishly appointed, she suddenly felt attacked by sickness—she had never tidied her room, changed her clothes, nor arranged her things without the help of Tom. "This'll be my place, then?"

"Yes, you'll have that," pointed out the stout Walburga Black. "This end of the room is mine and Lucy's. Pettigrew will have the middle, leaving you two by the door."

"Suits me," shrugged Florence, who then haphazardly emptied her suitcase of clothes into her wardrobe. "Say, Mary, you don't look so well. D'you miss your orphanage?"

"Not a bit," said Mary. "I'm a little queasy, I'm not used to having so much for dinner."

"Hm. Sure." Florence saw right through her. "I don't miss home at all—mum died when I was little, and I rarely see dad, anyway."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Don't be. I've been looking forward to this."

It quickly became clear that of the girls, Florence was indeed by far the most content with her lot. And Mary, though she considered her own circumstances as among the most unique and most tragic at Hogwarts, realised that she was not even the saddest girl in the room; as she squatted by her cupboard, secretly lining out Metis' old skins into the lowest drawer of her new cupboard, Lucretia Black began to cry.

"What's the matter now, Lucy?" Walburga asked her blonde cousin with a sigh.

"I miss daddy," Lucretia sobbed, "and mommy, and Cippey, I want them to wish me good night! I want to wish them good night!"

"They are wishing you good night, in their hearts," Walburga answered coolly. "Tomorrow, we'll write to them. Your father answers letters very quickly. My mother said so."

"Daddy has twenty owls—Twizzles, Schrizzles, Dionysius, Bacchus, Elagabalus—"

"And you'll see all of them come Christmas," Walburga assured.

The fifth girl of the dormitory, a tiny little lifeform with wispy light brown hair and a harassed, bloodless face, was Prudence Pettigrew. She cleared her throat to whisper, "it's still long 'till Christmas."

"But it's not long at all," chimed Florence, smirking. "It'll come in no time, but it'll end just as quickly, and then you've got months till summer to go home again! Months! Better clutch your brooms more tightly, girls!"

Walburga, with her arms around Lucretia and her Mrs. Cole-esque face glaring at Florence, spoke against the latter. "It's normal to be out of sorts on your first night here. We all miss home. Perhaps if your father was at home more often, you'd miss him as we miss ours."

"My father's not at home more often because he's actually got things to do," retorted Florence. "What does your daddy Pollux even do? Kiss the Minister's arse, that's what!"

"Yet," said Walburga, maintaining her poise, "everyone holds my father in higher regard than Torquil Travers."

"Re–gard," Florence mocked. "Did your fancy daddy teach you that, too?"

Lucretia, the weepy pretty little blonde girl, dared to intervene between this pair of formidable brunettes. "Will the two of you stop it? We're to live together for years! We need to be pleasant with each other!"

"I can be pleasant with anyone," Florence proudly declared. "I'm sure your cousin Walburga's well-bred enough to do the same."

Although this proclamation was incredible, Florence was certainly pleasant enough with Mary; they spent the rest of the night bonding. Florence had a large picture book, entitled One-Hundred and Eleven Scenes of Nature, which, extraordinarily, contained exactly that: one hundred and eleven 'scenes' of nature, complete with motion, sound, scent, and touch.

Thus lying prone together on Mary's bed they went to the Sahara Desert; they dipped their hands into the page to feel its smooth, watery sand, and when they bowed their heads close to the book, they heard the ominous whispers of the desert's hot, dry wind. They shivered before the glacial white tundras of Siberia; beheld a lush sunrise over Hawaii; heard the clamouring of bells in a Chinese temple; and savoured the aroma of a bustling bazaar in Casablanca.

"The Arch-Enchanter of Venice gave dad this book to give to me," Florence boasted. "There's no more than fifty copies of it in the world, and most of them are in Italian. You see Mary, the Italians are better at charms than us—but we've got better potions, and everyone needs potions."

It was late. The grandfather clock by the dormitory door struck ten. The Black cousins were already fast asleep, the curtains of their bed drawn and their candle-lamps extinguished. Florence, upon remarking that Mary's muggle pyjamas (an exquisite robe-and-rope, stolen from a store in Knightsbridge) were too large for her, supplied her with a set of her own enchanted pyjamas, which were crafted to always maintain the right body temperature of its wearer.

However, the enchanted pyjamas were not enough to put Mary to sleep. Tom was not beside her.

She tossed and turned, and tried to distract herself with thoughts of all that she saw and learned in the past day. She pulled her pillow from beneath her head and hugged it, pretending its softness was Tom's softness. But it didn't work. She tossed and turned, tossed and turned.

The grandfather clock struck eleven. Mary was more restless than she was an hour ago. Surely, Tom felt the same as her—surely he needed her, as she needed him, as a parched throat needed water. Surely, surely, if she went to the common room, he would be there, awaiting her…

She got up and, not even bothering to change out of Florence's purple pyjamas, put on her robe, and left the dormitory.

It was dark and quiet in the common room. All the gas-lamps were out; there remained only a few small splotches of light that radiated from no more than a dozen candles and dim fireplaces. A small handful of older students convened around these sources of light; some of them late-night studiers, others lovers tranquillised in mutual embrace, but none of them Tom. Perhaps he will come soon. Surely.

As she awaited him, she wandered around the room, going from one older student to the next not to talk to them, but to feel the passive emanation of their magic. At least here she did not feel so alone; at least here she could occupy her mind by registering all the objects in the room as she walked. Perhaps she would stay until the morning, if Tom never came.

"Mary Riddle." Someone clicked their fingers. "What keeps you up at this hour?"

She turned around and found the clicker of fingers. He was a tall, lean boy with meticulously styled hair, sitting in an armchair, his other features vaguely handsome but obscure in the dark. Across him was a shorter but still quite tall boy, whose hair was much longer but just as sophisticated as his friend's. Between them a chessboard floated in the air, atop which the pieces suggested a game well in progress, though Mary did not know how to play, and thus knew not who was winning. A small fireplace etched in the wall was their only source of illumination.

"How do you know my name?"

"You caught my attention during the Sorting Ceremony," the silhouette said easily. "Come, sit with us. Wingardium leviosa."

With a simple gesture of his wand, a nearby chair levitated over and fell intimately between the mysterious boy and his friend. Mary, however, did not sit down.

"And who are you?"

"If you knew who you were talking to, girl," came the colder voice of the shorter boy, "you would not dare ask that question."

"No, no," the apparently important boy said. "It's quite alright, Osborne. One could hardly expect her to know who I am. Allow me to introduce myself, Mary. My name is Arcanius Fawley. My friend here is Osborne Urquart, and we are fourth-years at your service."

"That means nothing to her," scoffed Urquart. "Muggleborns never have the due respect for anything."

"She's just a small, sleepless girl," Arcanius Fawley said quietly.. "Do tell us, Mary, why can't you sleep? Do you miss home? Your family?"

Though the 'importance' of this Arcanius Fawley was still unclear to her, the manner in which he carried himself, and the manner in which his friend revered him, suggested to Mary that he must indeed be someone important. She sat down in her chair and gave both boys a look.

"I've no family to miss," she said in a small voice. "I'm an orphan."

"Oh, you poor thing! I cannot imagine being without mine," Arcanius murmured.

When she and Tom stole from stores or warehouses in London, they sometimes deployed a particular method. Mary would, pretending to be sad and shy, talk to the clerk or the owner, and stir them to pity, recounting her existence as an orphan. She knew she was very pretty; she knew too that she was very thin. Adults wanted to prove their goodness; they would give her some food or a halfpenny piece, and often even tell her to return if she ever wanted more of their scraps. Some more unsavoury men wanted something more from her; something she could not discern, something which they wanted so intensely that she knew she ought not give it to them. Yet she captivated all of them, through her dramatisation of her piteous life—and while they were enthralled by her—Tom robbed them.

It was thus that she spoke to Arcanius.

All the while they talked, the two older boys played chess. Arcanius explained the abilities of each individual piece, and the rare occasions in which they deviated from or supplemented their muggle analogues. "I want to become a Queen," Mary had declared, upon learning that even in chess the Queen reigned supreme.

Over time, she even grew on Urquart. "If you don't know who your parents truly are, you mightn't be a mudblood after all."

"You'll excuse Osborne's vulgarity," came Arcanius's unerringly polite voice. "He has rather strong views on certain … issues. At any rate, Mary dear, you ought to go to bed. It won't do to go to your first day of classes all drowsy, brilliant though you are."

"But you've not told me a thing about yourself!" Mary protested.

"Perhaps, Riddle," came Urquart's voice, "you've heard of the Minister for Magic? "

Mary's eyes widened. "Yes, of course—Arcanius knows him?"

"I do," Arcanius smiled gracefully. "He's my father."

Breakfast at Hogwarts was a sumptuous affair. Arrayed on the four long tables were golden platters of toast, tall pots of porridge and oatmeal, trays of bacon, platters of all sorts of sausages, plates of scrambled, boiled, and fried eggs, jugs of every conceivable fruit juice, and pancakes, muffins, and fruit pies for dessert. Yet, Tom's plate was empty, and his cutlery, untouched.

"Eat up Riddle, you'll need your strength today," came the vaguely kind, vaguely mocking voice of William Wilkes.

But Tom's eyes remained fixed at the open gates of the great hall. He had not been without Mary for so long ever in his life; he needed to see her come in.

Three minutes later, she came. She was beautiful, though she looked rather sleepy. Clearly, she had a late night just as he did. But she was beautiful. Tom knew the fact of her beauty often eluded him because she was always in his company, with no one else; but now she came with the rest of the first-year girls—and they, around her, were pigeons around a swan.

She was his. She sat by his side.

"Tom! Good morning!"

"Mary," said Tom, clasping her hand under the table. "You're tired."

"I only slept for perhaps five, six hours? I went to the common room last night. I thought you'd be there."

"Why would I have been there?"

"You aren't able to sleep, without me," she said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Don't talk about this here," said Tom, looking around.

He watched Mary take a slice of toast and slather it liberally with butter. She hummed in contentment as she ate, and a dark intensity came upon Tom's heart. His sister would eat well here—Tom imagined her humming in contentment every morning—but this marked his failure as a brother. He had never been able to provide for her in the way that Hogwarts did. One day, he would do better. Much better.

They were a small group of five, at the table: two girls and three boys. Mary was joined by the mischievous Florence Travers, and Tom, by William Wilkes and Banius Avery; two rather simpleminded fellows, Tom gained their respect the previous night when the former challenged and lost to him in a duel.

Indeed, William Wilkes, a hunchbacked boy with stringy blonde hair, a freckly lizard-like face, and small, judgmental blue eyes that only ever dilated in tandem with abrasive smirks, was as short-tempered as he was aggressive and sarcastic. He was, in his own words, 'a pureblood root and stem', though he appeared interested in magic only when it enabled him to hurt others.

Banius Avery, though larger, stronger, and in possession of a much deeper voice than Wilkes, was much more inhibited and contemplative, like a great herbivorous gorilla. And indeed, Wilkes treated Avery (though the two were apparently friends) not much better than one would treat a big, harmless animal:

"Bany Ayevee!" he shouted, imitating the voice of an idiot. "Ayevee here for bak-fast! Ayevee hongree!"

"Shut up, Bill." Avery would reply in the same undisturbed monotone to whatever his smaller friend said.

In their first transfiguration lesson with Professor Dumbledore, they were to transfigure matchsticks to needles. Tom and Mary looked at each other bemusedly; they had done much more difficult transfigurations without their wands, before they were even aware of the wand's existence. Not everyone, however, had their success.

"Avery," Tom tapped his dormmate's shoulder. "Imagine a needle. A needle's made of steel, yes? Steel's smooth—imagine its smoothness. Now, imagine how it gets shiny if cast under the sun or a light. Imagine the sharpness of its tip—so sharp that you've got to be careful handling it, 'else you'd poke yourself and bleed—now imagine these together."

Surely enough, it only took Avery three more attempts to succeed.

In potions, Professor Slughorn commanded the students to make pairs. One of the Gryffindor boys, a tall, proper looking boy, came to the twins.

"Hello Mary." He winked at her. "My name's Tiberius McLaggen—perhaps you'd like to be my partner? I've played with potion sets since I was little."

Florence, knowing that Mary wanted to partner with Tom, stepped between her and the intrusive boy. "Sod off you ugly hippogriff!"

"Take that back," McLaggen said threateningly.

"You'll excuse Florence, Tiberius," Mary said very sweetly. "She's like this to everyone. But you'll excuse me too, for I'm partnering with Tom—we do everything together."

Potions proved to be more difficult than all the classes they had hitherto, for while they possessed a great deal of informal experience with charms and transfiguration, potions was, in every sense of the expression, unfamiliar terrain. Yet their mutual awareness of their ignorance of potions made them all the more attentive and careful—which in turn guaranteed that they would produce at least something acceptable.

"Why were you so nice to McLaggen?" Tom asked as he opened a jar containing live slugs.

"You said we ought to please the professors," Mary replied. "I think we ought to please the students, too."

"I don't see why students matter," Tom said coldly. "Most of them can hardly be said to know magic—they're pathetic and disappointing."

"Last night, I met the son of the Minister for Magic," she returned idly, as she ground snake fangs in a mortar. "He's a fourth year in our house by the name of Arcanius Fawley."

Tom nearly squished the horned slugs in his hands into muck. "The son of the Minister for Magic?"

"Yes, indeed him."

"The Minister for Magic is their Chamberlain," Tom pointed out.

"And his son rather likes me, I'd say," Mary said with a little smirk. "If you'd like to know him, I can introduce you tonight."

Tom needed only to pause for a moment before the best course of action occurred to him. "No. He prefers seeing you alone. But don't let him have his way with you."

The class ended with Professor Slughorn giving each of the twins thirty points for what he called 'a medical-grade cure for boils! And procured by a pair of first years in their first class nevertheless!'

Indeed, very soon and quite easily, the twins made a name for themselves. Every Professor grew in awe of them, if not by the end of their first lesson, then by the end of the first week. It was, according to them, 'astounding', that 'muggleborn orphans' were capable of magic otherwise 'troubling even for OWL students'. Some, upon beholding the twins' magical intuition, developed the firm conviction that they were the incarnation of twentieth-century magical genius; yet it seemed that the twentieth century was a time particularly ripe with magical genii—they were sowing chaos all across the world.

Christmas at Hogwarts

The weeks of the semester passed quickly. Winter's first snow came in October, and before anyone knew it, Hogwarts and its environs were entombed in austere, abundant whiteness. Tom had never seen anything like it; snow in London went as quickly as it came. The courtyards, gardens, and wide lawns on the outskirts of the castle stopped being places of leisure; the Great Hall and the library in turn grew much more crowded. Occasionally, when he idly gazed out the windows during boring classes such as History of Magic, Tom would, with his wand under his desk, push huge piles of snow off the rim of the castle's many towers. At night, students began to sport heavy scarves around their necks and fur caps that covered their ears. Increasing varieties of pies and increasingly large pots of stew were available at mealtimes. Hot chocolate was served and consumed in abundance on Fridays and Sundays.

Most of the older students were no longer invasively curious of the twins, as they had been during the earlier weeks of semester. They resigned to a distant but still intrigued respectfulness. Some few among them, however, either by jealousy, fear, or some uncouth mixture of the two, decided to align themselves against the twins, though Tom in particular—it went unsaid that it would be unbecoming, for pureblood boys to pick on a girl, though there were no stipulations on picking on her brother. Indeed, though most had accepted that Tom's unclear parentage gladly allowed for the possibility of his being at least a half-blood, there were some who insisted he was a muggleborn. A mudblood.

But though Tom had enemies, they did not bother him beyond the occasional insult muttered in the common room or shoulder bumped in the castle's corridors. This was in part owed to Mary, who had gained the affection of so many important older students that none dared to truly hurt her brother. Indeed, where Tom's charms lay in impressing his professors and instilling fear and inspiration in his peers (all of whom were only first or second year Slytherin boys), Mary had a throng of admiring older students, whose self-images as noble pureblood scions she indulged with ease.

Finally, the Christmas break came. The twins had longed for it.

"Will we sleep in your dorm or mine?" was the first thing Tom asked his sister during the breakfast of their last day of semester. Most of the students were to leave for London by the Hogwarts Express after lunch.

For a moment Mary did not answer. Then, her dark eyes expanded in that wild manner which Tom adored—they protruded as much as they could from their sockets, like those of a cat's looking upon an unaware garden bird, contemplating what could be done with it. She looked beautiful in her mania, though if this expression were on the face of someone not as pretty, it would have been merely deranged.

"You can choose, Tom." Her face settled into a wide smile. "We can swap between them."

"Yours," Tom decided. "Since the boys would only be too happy to know that you spent Christmas in their dorm."

"So would the case be with my girls. At least with Florence and Lucy." said Mary, as she spread jam on a slice of toast and placed it on Tom's plate, "but I won't tell."

"Lucretia Black fancies me?"

"You're not the only boy she fancies, but certainly the one she fancies the most."

Thus, after an idle half-day of classes, an exchange of goodbyes with his housemates, and a dinner involving no more than twenty students (most of whom were muggleborns; there was but another Slytherin apart from the twins), Tom got to see the first-year Slytherin girls' dormitory for the first time.

It was, despite having the same dimensions and the same basic sets of furniture as the boys' dormitory, surprisingly different from the boys' dormitory. All of the study desks were also dressing-tables. Though all the girls except Mary were gone, the air was heavy with the scent of their perfumes. Some of the bedsheets were patterned with flowers enchanted to move, blown by a light, invisible wind. On one of these floral beds there were nearly a dozen pillows.

"That's Lucy's bed," Mary pointed out.

"Fit for a well-groomed kitten," said Tom, recalling the soft-spoken girl.

Mary laughed. "She'd be devastated to hear you say that."

On the wall facing the closest bed to the door was a huge, ominous poster with glowing, thick black letters that spelled Les Détraqueurs Délicats. These letters hovered over a woman in a tattered black uniform that was at once terrifying, beautiful, and ridiculous—but most of all terrifying.

Mary introduced the absurdly frightening poster. "The Delicate Dementors. Florence's favourite Quidditch team. Most of their members are from the Belgian national team, who got together after winning the 1931 world cup. They've only got two tournaments this year—usually they've a lot more, but Grindelwald's antics have made scaredy-cats of the sponsors."

"I hate Dementors." Tom glared at the woman on the poster. "They can't be killed—there's only been more and more of them since the beginning of time, did you know?"

"It seems that you and Florence don't have the same favourite animal," said Mary, laughing softly, "but it's a well-made poster. Everything Florence owns is well-made."

"I refuse to sleep with it facing me," said Tom, drawing his wand. "Celare!"

Like mist congealing on a window, splotches of black liquid manifested on the poster, which then, like oil spreading on a surface, permeated to completely cover it.

"I hope you know the countercurse to that."

In like manner to the obscuring charm unfurling its veil, so did the impact of a small blue gemstone into the bathtub that contained the huddling twins later that evening generate a thick, beachy gauze of foam. As Tom listened to his sister recount her roommates' showering habits, he ran his steady hands down her legs, feeling how she had grown since she came to Hogwarts, how her flesh had become softer, fuller.

At night when they slept (on Lucretia's bed, pillows shrouding them), Tom held his sister tightly. Three months of being unable to truly hold her had raised in him an enormous appetite to possess her. Indeed, like two passengers on a small ship being tossed about in an ocean at storm might hold each other, so did the twins interlock legs and arms beneath Lucretia's scented, enchanted quilt, to soak up all that they had missed of the other since they left Wool's Orphanage.

"I haven't slept this well since leaving London," Tom observed the following morning.

Mary answered him with a kiss on the cheek and a giggle.

Breakfast was a surreal affair; the Great Hall which the twins had only seen lined with the four long house tables, always overlooked by the tall staff table, was now only one small table. The sole remaining Professors—Beery and Merrythought—sat mingled with the dozen Christmas-stayers, most of whom were yet to change out of their pyjamas. While the semester breakfasts, lunches, and dinners contained separate dishes, and were regimented even by days of the week, here the elves prepared a melange of everything—there were no rules.

They spent the rest of their morning at the library. Here Tom sought to read some of the harder books—the ones which didn't deal with anything immediately 'practical', but instead with magic 'theoretically'. Professor Slughorn had told him that in the years to come, he could expect, like all intelligent wizards, two or three of these theoretical books to truly change the way he thought about Magic and life itself, and thereby spur him to new heights—but Tom did not want to wait for 'the years to come'. Age was an arbitrary barrier to power.

Yet while they sat in the northwestern corner of the library—a very cozy place, with armchairs, desks, a burning fireplace, and a window that afforded them a scene of the castle and the faraway mountains—Tom's hands ball into frustrated fists as he read Magicoimmunology: On The Mocifucian Nature of Ritual. Sometimes, he would immediately apprehend the mysteries concealed in the cryptic writing of the book—and in these moments of revelation he felt like God, for each new discovery was a permanent augmentation of his power—power over not just the millions of useless, miserable muggles on the Earth—but also over his inferior magical peers. But most sentences within it were incomprehensible—at least before he started apprehending them in tandem with the muggle Oxford English Dictionary, volumes I through IX.

As Tom dipped his fingers into the ocean that was magical theory, his sister sat by his side. She, however, wrote more than she read. But Mary neither read nor wrote anything theoretical. Her work was in a domain entirely of her own making—dozens of letter-correspondences, most of which were with older students, most of whom were boys, most of whom the sons of important ministerial wizards. It seemed that she wrote at least ten letters a day, none of them lacking in length nor quality. She drafted all her letters several times, burning much more parchment than she needed to use, in a process that was already needlessly gruelling and fundamentally useless.

"It's good to have a few important friends," Tom told her, "but unnecessary, if not foolish, to try and please everyone."

"I like writing to the whole world," Mary said defiantly. "We've postmen, priests, businessmen and prime ministers in the muggle world—I'm finding out who the same are in the magical world."

"You'll learn more from this." Tom shoved Magicoimmunology before her.

She picked up the large tome, twice taller and considerably wider than her shapely little head, and began to read. Tom in turn picked a folded sheet of parchment from the table, one of the many letters she had already read and likely already composed a response to.

The handwriting of this letter was so elegant that Tom reasoned it must have been written by a self-correcting quill, but the font was too cursive, too stylish, and too dripping with arrogance to have come from anything apart from an undiluted peacock's feather. Whoever its author, they were eloquent—though not nearly as eloquent nor ingenious as the wizard of Magicoimmunology. His sentences were long and full of unnecessary description, though Tom perversely liked seeing his sister's name everywhere within it—Mary, Mary, Mary—the writer clearly liked summoning Mary to his mind by means of calligraphic repetition.

Unsurprisingly, the letter was written by none other than Arcanius Fawley.

"This is too difficult." Mary's complaint brought Tom out of his thoughts. "I'm better off reading my letters."

"You're better off burning your letters."

"Don't be so glum. I learn all sorts of things from my letters."

"Even Fawley's letters?"

"He's my favourite!" Mary proclaimed. "An apothecary-grade pureblood boy."

"What?"

"Remember those apothecary-grade potions Professor Slughorn showed us? They've got perfect colours, and if you shake them in their bottles they move so softly … they're not too thick nor too thin—perfect, quite perfect indeed—Caney's just that."

"Yet those potions are neither powerful nor complex," Tom returned. "Only well-made."

"You could say that." Mary giggled. "But it's him, and other apothecary-grade purebloods, who hold Wizarding Britain together."

Yet, Tom felt that it was the apothecary grade purebloods who were responsible for letting Wizarding Britain become the timid little crevice that it was, within her great muggle Empire. It was their idleness, their comfort, and their fear of true power that left him and Mary stranded, for the first eleven years of their childhood, among swine.

"He has no love for magic," Tom said at last.

Tom, who fancied himself a worthy lover of magic, returned to his book and re-embarked on what felt like constructing an intricate, detailed model of a palace in a cave completely deprived of light from above or below, with nothing but his memory and intelligence guiding his careful hands. He understood that magic was to feeling what steam was to water; that magic therefore conformed more to the laws of emotion than to those of physics; yet they still conformed, quite consequentially, to physics. How could that be? Tom furrowed his brow. Perhaps he needed an alternate definition of magic; one in relation to something other than matter. Time, perhaps? Magic was the imposing of the present on the future; the transcendence of time through impossibility—yes—and it was thus that ritual, which was the magic of transcendence rather than causality—was the purest form of magic. Almost every ritual involved fire or burning, why? Fire is what forges and sets limits. Fire is what shapes metal, and turns water into vapour. Fire…

An idea struck Tom. He snatched his sister's wrist and stood up.

"Hey! Bloody hell!" she protested, as he made her drag her quill across a letter and spoil it terribly. "What's it?!"

"I want to never hurt you, Mary. Let me ensure that I won't be able to."

"What?" she asked quizzically, though she had assented to his pull. "How?"

"With fire."

"With fire?!"

"You'll see."

Tom walked quickly. He thought perhaps he could do his experiment in the common room, but he did not wish to be seen. Nor did he want to burn anything valuable and irreplaceable. There were some old classrooms on the seventh floor, surely no one used them…

He found and entered such a classroom. It was full of old dusty furniture, most of which was covered in even dustier, yellow-gray protective blankets.

"What a cheery place," Mary remarked.

"Cast a small incendio," said Tom. "Burn my arm."

"What?! What do you hope to—"

"You'll heal me afterwards, and thereby dispose your magic against hurting me."

"What if I burn your arm off?"

"Incendio can't do that," said Tom. "Now go."

"Are you sure?" she asked incredulously. "Tom …"

"Do it," Tom commanded.

She drew her wand and tentatively pressed it against his forearm, before giving him a pleading look. He gave her a court nod.

"Incendio," she whispered.

Her wand failed to produce anything.

"Incendio," she repeated a little more loudly.

A faint flame, like that produced by a matchstick, spat forth from her wand—Tom felt but a vague brush of painless heat tickle his wrist. He had seen his sister create great clouds of fire before; he knew she was capable of it. He hated her inhibition, even if it was owed to an unwillingness to hurt him.

He slapped her in the face.

"OWW! INCENDIO!"

Now it was Tom's turn to shriek. His sister's charm seared his arm with the sharpness of a thousand puncturing needles. Seeing the pain she inflicted, Mary's magic took no more than a second to abate; the great flames disappeared as soon as they came. There was on his forearm a great blistering patch of black-purple. In his heart, however, pride blossomed for his sister—if pushed to it, her Magic would never fail to deliver.

"Tom! I didn't mean to—"

"You did well. Fervera sanentur," Tom recalled the countercurse to his sister, while he clutched his arm and gritted his teeth. "Fervera sanentur."

Mary drew her wand and, with a penitent expression that seemed to aid the efficaciousness of her magic, sang to Tom's burn to mend it. Her other small, smooth hand rested under his arm, holding it to keep it upright. It took a little over ten minutes for his skin to completely heal.

"Now, Mary, burn me again."

"Are you serious?"

"Would you rather I burn you?"

Much to his surprise, her voice did not falter when as she said, "yes."

"Have it your way then. Incendio!"

Though his flame was clearly smaller than the one he had elicited from her with a slap to the face, it at once produced results. She screamed horribly and frantically clutched her arm. Tom dispelled his spell at once to put his arms around her to soothe her.

"It hurts, Tom! It hurts-hurts-hurts-hurts-hurts! Stop! Make it stop!"

There on her thin porcelain arm was a gray-red rash that reminded Tom of the deformed face of a tramp with consumption. She swallowed a whimper, and a tear streamed down her cheek like sap down the trunk of a young poplar tree. Tom wiped it off, and felt his own heart soften and moisten with its sap, as he looked at his sister's misty eyes—they were sublime—so sublime that he couldn't bear looking at them.

"We'll stop," Tom murmured. "Fervera sanentur."

Patching Mary's wounds, he contemplated other means by which their magic could be made as kindred and inseparable as their persons were (albeit true inseparability was, supposedly, magicoimmunologically impossible).

"We'll blend our fires together," Tom said. "Let's set that chair on fire."

"Are you sure?" Mary asked warily. "Everything else in this room looks combustible, too—"

"Including us, it seems," Tom drawled. "So we'll just have to be careful—three—"

"Tom—"

"—two, one—"

"INCENDIO!" they shouted in synchrony.

And surely this time, the jets of flame that shot from both their wands were hot and smouldering. They indeed converged into one great flame upon the chair which promptly combusted, but before Tom could say anything further, an unfamiliar voice interrupted them.

"LITTLE IMPS!" shouted something behind a tall wardrobe. "YOU DARE ALIGHT MY CABINETRY WITH CHILD-MAGIC? FOR DECADES WAS I MASTER OF THIS CHAMBER, AND NEVER HAS—"

It was a painting, and Tom at once smashed a chair into it. Conceivably a professor from four centuries ago, it was now much more fascinating than that; a broken canvas, the colours on it disintegrated rapidly, like different oils in a pond. It made a strange sound, like that of water going down a drain. The twins watched this scene with interest. Soon enough the man that was once there was no longer discernible at all; the old parchment looked like nothing more than a painter's messy palette.

"Incendio!" Tom set it on fire.

Destroying the painting kindled something in the twins. One often beheld in the corridors of Hogwarts students shooting curses and jinxes at each other, but no one, to Tom's awareness, had ever attacked paintings. It was forbidden to destroy the remnants of old, once-great wizards. But he and Mary had destroyed one, out of nothing but whimsical irritation—and neither Ms. Cole nor Dumbledore were there to chastise them.

"Incendio! Incendio! Incendio!"

The great wave of fire that they summoned rampaged, with a serpent-like sentience or so Tom wanted to believe, in circles around the room. The twins took turns controlling it, and while the transitions between their control were at first dangerously unsteady, they quickly became as seamless as the passing back and forth of a cup of tea.

The rest of the Christmas break passed in like manner. Between breakfast and lunch they stayed in the library, where Tom studied and Mary corresponded; after lunch they sought out old rooms with isolated paintings to torment and burn, and at night they sat on the staircase to the entrance of the Great Hall, where the air smelled like frost and smoke, and where every whisper they exchanged rebounded infinitely off the Entrance Hall's tall, ancient walls.

On Christmas day, both of them received more presents than they expected. Mary got a beautiful little trifle from Arcanius Fawley—a golden necklace in the shape of a heart, encrusted with many little gleaming little rubies. Much to Tom's annoyance, she at once delighted in it and put it around her neck. But he did not dwell on Fawley; he opened his own presents, the first of which was a book of curses—his first book of curses—from William Wilkes.

"Truth be told, Tom, I don't know what to make of most of the spells in here. Not yet, at least; I think I'll be clever enough come the end of next year—you keep a hold of it until then," Tom read from Wilkes' Christmas card. "William has decided to loan me a book for Christmas."

"The Wilkes haven't got much money," said Mary, as she snapped a fidgeting chocolate frog in half and gave the larger piece to Tom. "Arcanius said they've always rather kept to themselves."

"It appears they like to keep their spellbooks to themselves, too."

Conditional as it was, Tom was nonetheless grateful for Wilkes' generosity.

Chatter was more excited than usual at dinner, although this was not due to the occasion of Christmas (and although Christmas was indeed an occasion in the magical world that interchangeably possessed the appellation of 'yule', it was not as festive an occasion as it was in the muggle world)—but rather because of the news that Salazar Velasco, a legendary Spanish Auror, had declared that he would fight for the nationalists of his country's muggle war. No one on the table knew what this truly entailed, but Professor Merrythought, the eminent authority of the table by virtue of her being one of the two adults on the table (the other being Professor Beery, the stuttering herbology professor), declared that "Velasco is neither for nor against Grindelwald—what remains to be seen is whether he is for or against The Statute."

A week later came New Year's Eve, the twins' twelfth birthday. At the top of the astronomy tower they sat on Professor Astrophel's loveseat, from where they beheld hundreds of miles of Scotland's natural landscape, illuminated by a clear sky of a thousand stars. There they sat with a large wooden tray on their legs, upon which was a great variety of confectionery, most of which was given to Mary by various boys as Christmas and birthday gifts, as well as some pastries, sausages, and plates of colourful pudding that they took from dinner. Finally and most importantly, they had two small vials, each containing a liquid as richly purple as wine, as viscous as yoghurt, and with the charming incandescence of the embers of a nocturnal fireplace.

It was Tom's rendition of the Cat's-Eye potion, a disgusting little drink that they habitually ingested to sharpen their sight for astronomy. He had, using many ingredients stolen from the greenhouses and Professor Slughorn's stores alike, greatly amplified its ordinary potency. He was unsure of exactly what it would do, but having read copiously on potionlore (a terribly boring subject) in the past few days, he was certain that it was at least safe to ingest.

"Our first birthday outside of London," Mary remarked, sighing nostalgically. "We should make a toast—to Hogwarts, Tom."

"To Hogwarts, Mary."

The Sapphire Necklace

Ilaria Greengrass was an impressive but deeply irritating figure. The fifth-year Slytherin girls' Prefect, she was also, as a witch, capable of 'spells beyond her years', and as a young woman, strikingly beautiful. Her face was small and foxlike; her eyes, an immaculate gray at once constantly alert yet always proud; and her long, honey-brown hair smooth and waving, like sheets of enchanted silk in the wind. Her only competitor in Slytherin was the seventh-year girl's Prefect, Seleste Syrril; both had their throngs of admiring but jealous peers, and both possessed an eminent boyfriend; Syrril had Jean-Mérode Bremer, the star chaser of The Delicate Dementors, while Ilaria had none other than Arcanius Fawley.

Mary enjoyed the favour of this accomplished older girl, but she detested sharing Arcanius' affection with any other girl—especially his girlfriend. She admired how Ilaria commanded the respect of older boys and girls alike, but loathed that she was the one who possessed Arcanius' affection in the greatest measure, how she got all the hugs and the kisses. But Mary knew to hide her envy.

On the Saturday morning before their first Quidditch game of the season, the Slytherin Common Room was busier and considerably more colourful than Mary had ever seen it. Everywhere students enchanted and transfigured for each other costumes, props, and all sorts of trinkets to sport in the stadium later in the day. Mary herself sat before a mirror, where Ilaria stood behind her with wand and comb, braiding her hair, and transfiguring her braids into snakes, for she was to look like Medusa, a celebrated ancient Greek transfiguress.

In the mirror, Mary's eyes were captivated by the gem, bright and blue like the sky, that rested on the collarbone of the older girl. It was, without a doubt, the product of very sophisticated charmwork. Even in the Slytherin Dungeons where darkness reigned around the clock, it looked like a huge raindrop that absorbed all of the midday sun. It made Mary conscious of her own necklace, the ruby-encrusted gold heart, which felt very much like a toy for a little girl when compared as such.

"I adore your necklace," purred Mary, smiling. "How did you come to possess it?"

"It was a gift," the older girl intoned reverently, as though she got so many gifts that they were beyond counting, yet still knew the exact value of every last one of them. "From my grandmother. It's been passed from grandmother to granddaughter for generations, ever since the great Cartismandua Sturgeon, the first of its wearers, was granted it by a goblin warlord in the fourteenth century."

For just as Ilaria herself was a living monument to the glory of history and heritage, so was the jewel around her neck proud and timeless. Neither Mary nor her small ruby necklace had any apparent background. Yet Mary knew she was more powerful than Ilaria, not absolutely so, no, not yet—but she knew that there were few first-years who had ever been as powerful as Tom and herself, and that Ilaria was, by her own admission, not among them. She would outdo the older girl, someday. She would have a better necklace, and she would make sure that everyone sees it.

"My fierce little siren!" Arcanius came to pat Mary's head.

"Hello, Caney!" Mary gave the handsome older boy a wide smile.

Mary felt her snake-braids instinctively strike and bite at Arcanius. Thankfully, this elicited only a sensible chuckle from him.

"Gorgeous charmwork, Aria. You've made the sweet little thing look terribly frightening."

"Well, she does have a great duty to fulfil today." Ilaria stroked Mary's hair.

"You've not told her, then ..."

"Told me what?" asked Mary, turning her head from girl to boy. "What great duty to fulfil?" She imagined that perhaps this was what it was like to have parents.

"I had a little talk with Bassenthwaite," came Arcanius' contemplative voice. "We agreed that Slytherin should have a new flag-bearer and, well, who better than you, Mary?"

"Truly?" Mary clutched the older boy's arm. "I would be honoured!"

Thus, at the first Quidditch game she ever watched, Mary stood in the front row of the Slytherin stand, and, occasionally plopped atop the shoulders of one burly older boy or another, waved their house banner. Wider than Mary was tall, the banner sported a giant scaly silver snake that hissed threateningly whenever the Ravenclaw players came near the Slytherin hoop, and proudly, whenever the Slytherin players threatened the Ravenclaw one.

"LIKE FATHER LIKE SON," yelled Augustus Sallow, their seventh-year prefect whose face was all veins, "WE WON'T BE OUTDONE!"

"LIKE FATHER LIKE SON, WE WON'T BE OUTDONE!"

"THROW YOUR SHOTS, WE'LL ALWAYS OWN GRINGOTTS!"

"WE'LL ALWAYS OWN GRINGOTTS!"

"WE'LL GRAB THE SNITCH, AND THEN WE'LL GRAB YOUR WITCH!"

"THEN WE'LL GRAB YOUR WITCH!"

Such was the nature of the Slytherin 'war-cries', as Mary learned they were called: allusions to the social eminence of Slytherin families; reminders that even if the game was lost, Slytherin would still lose nothing, for they were forever and always winners beyond the pitch; and the eternal vulgarity of teenage boys.

Mary, though she cheered and waved her house's giant flag whenever they scored a goal, not only failed to understand the fervour of her housemates, but felt unnerved by it. A screeching throng of adolescents, most of whom were boys, unanimous in purpose and intention—it reminded her rather of Wool's. Nor did she understand the pride for Slytherin; she was proud of being a witch, yes, of being clever and beautiful, and of being a flower in a bouquet of two, with Tom—but she had no affinity for her house.

Yet it was all the same delightful to watch the game. Her heart belonged not to either team but rather the great choreography of it all; she saw two troops of birds, one green and the other blue, engage in a ritual that was a combat between dancers, a ballet of war. It was especially beautiful when any pair of chasers flew together through the pitch, like unravelling silk ribbons, seamlessly sending the quaffle back and forth, back and forth, like a pendulum that undulated faster than a shooting star crossed the sky.

At last Dorea Back, the Slytherin seeker, caught the golden snitch—the game was won.

Since their first flying lesson, during which most of the first-years, including Tom and Mary herself, flew about like monkeys trying to ride invisible bicycles, Mary had a rather unjust impression of the broomstick and what it could achieve. But now she understood the spirit of flying; it was not only to be free from the constraints of the wingless body, but also a means by which one could be intimate—whether in harmony or enmity—with one's fellow mage.

Thus as they walked back to the castle, Mary implored Florence to help her realise her dream. "Flo! You've got a broomstick, haven't you? You must teach me how to fly! Tom, too—you must teach both of us how to fly!"

Like a rose suddenly unfurling its petals, so did Florence's face flush in excitement at the prospect of Tom. "Why of course! Why don't we start tonight, after dinner? It'll be lovely to fly about the castle at night."

For the rest of the day Mary was restless; her mind could focus on but one thought; that of being up in the sky, soaring as freely and carelessly like an eagle. She spent the remaining hours of the afternoon with Tom who, unsurprisingly, was utterly immersed in a book in the library. Mary herself could not concentrate on anything at all, and thus took to irritating her brother.

"Tom, Tom … Thomas!" She poked his unmoving nose with a quill. "Look at me!"

He raised a single indifferent finger to touch the quill. Without a word, it caught fire and, within no more than five seconds, was nothing more than a small pile of ash on the table.

"Tom! That belonged to Lucy!"

"So?"

"You've burnt it to nothing!"

"What's she going to do? Cry about it?"

"She's going to do exactly that," said Mary with a sigh, as she vanished the ashes from the table with a snap of her fingers. "Now Walburga will make sure she never lends anything to me again!"

"Just steal from her," said Tom, as though his solution were so obvious that it was hardly worthy of mention.

"Why don't you steal from her for me?"

"I don't think I will."

"You're becoming such a bore." She snatched his book from his hands. "We beat Ravenclaw today, though that's no surprise, since they just sit around and read all day."

Tom lifted an eyebrow. His unimpressed gaze turned from Mary, to the snatched book in her arms, then back to her. "The difference between a Ravenclaw and I, is that I put to use what I learn."

He told the truth. Mary knew that Tom did nothing in idleness; as though life were one great potions lesson, he instinctively and necessarily calculated the intervals for everything he did to serve some greater purpose—and everything had to be done to perfection, lest one fault ruin it all. She did not know whether she was the same, but it was only at Hogwarts that she realised he was truly, truly so very different from the rest of the squabbling crowd.

"Dorea Black caught the snitch," Mary recalled. "She's not supposed to be very good, not any better than the Gryffindor seeker at least—so it was a nice surprise."

"Now that you've seen one," said Tom, as indifferently as possible, "you needn't waste your time watching any more Quidditch games."

"It was … beautiful … to watch." Mary recalled how they soared like eagles and harmonised like songbirds. "You've never seen anything like it, Tom. We'll go to the next Slytherin game together."

"There's use in flying on a broom," Tom conceded, "but our housemates become dumb and muggle-like when they make they talk about the sport on which it's played."

"Use indeed!" Mary cried out, shoving the book back before Tom. "Very well then—tonight we're going flying with Florence. She's got a broom and she's got the skills to teach us."

After dinner, where the mood on the Slytherin table was particularly heated—a man named Leonard Spencer-Moon had nominated himself for Minister for Magic, and was gaining support from every sector of Wizarding Britain's social strata, even from those families of the highest crust who traditionally only supported men like Hector Fawley—Mary and Tom retired to their respective dorms. Only late into the night, when the corridors of the castles quietened and where their peers were already in bed, did they and Florence tiptoe to rendezvous in the common room.

"Oh hello, Tom," said Florence. Her voice always became high and demure around him. "Let's go get my broom."

They had rarely walked the corridors of the castle so late at night; sometimes, Mary accompanied Arcanius on his little supper voyages to the kitchens, but never had she gone exclusively with other first-years. Florence had fixed her Cleansweep Two, a long, pleasingly smooth black pole which gleamed under the moonlight, under an ancient stone bench in one of the courtyards by the Entrance Hall. From there on, they tiptoed out the castle, narrowly avoiding a pair of patrolling prefects.

"You'll need to get a sense of how a broom can move," Florence told them. "The best way to achieve that is by riding passenger first—I'll fly you!"

Mary knew Florence wanted Tom to sit behind her, which was why she rushed to the broom first, before Tom came on to hold her. Then, Florence soared into the air, only to suddenly dive down, before accelerating at a permanent curve to fly in quick, small circles. Mary cheered in exhilaration; the furious coldness of the wind sent all the sleepiness that enveloped her back to her dormitory, and her spine tingled as Tom pressed into her. Then, she looked down, and realised that they had hardly even left the ground, and that Florence must have been going very, very slowly.

"You can have a go now. Don't fly too far so I can tell you if you're doing anything wrong."

Only a few yards from the castle walls, the twins and Florence at first only whispered to each other, fearing that any noise made at all might draw the attention of some lurking professor or prefect. As they realised that they were truly alone, they rapidly forewent all inhibition.

"You've got to arch your arms!" Florence shouted at Mary from the ground. "Like a butterfly's wings, see! Only that way can you steer with your body!"

It was thus that they practiced for some time; either Tom or Mary, or both of them, would ride the broom and hover slowly in circles a few feet into the air, while Florence shouted instructions from below.

By the time they returned to their dormitories, it was three o'clock. Besides the snoring of portraits, the castle was engulfed in quietness. Mary and Florence restrained their giggles as they strained to get into bed without waking the others. Drowsy, heavy-headed, and aching all over the next morning, the twins ate twice their usual share of breakfast.

"Perhaps we'll do this once a week," said Mary, stifling a yawn. "I've never felt so sore."

"It'll take a while for our bodies to heal," agreed Florence, who slumped over the table with her head on her plate. "I don't want to go to class today."

Yet in the afternoon, after History of Magic during which they napped to Professor Binns' monotonous drone, the girls recuperated their energy, and decided they would sneak out at night again. Upon another enchanted night of flying in the twilight, the twins and Florence established an ad hoc routine around these forbidden expeditions; they would feast copiously every morning, nap every afternoon, and drink pepper-up every evening, all to ensure that they could fly as best as they can under the moon at its zenith.

Though they improved steadily, going a little higher and flying a little faster every time they practiced, Mary still felt uncomfortable on the broom. Unlike Florence, she could not steer naturally. Unlike Florence, she did not feel like the broom was an extension of herself. Always, Mary feared falling off if she flew too high or too fast, though she knew well that Tom would yell Arresto Momentum if that were to ever happen.

Their excursions went undetected for three weeks—the patrolling prefects never went near the exit of the western Entrance Hall courtyard, the path to which was fortunately short if one started from the Slytherin common room—until one day there were a pair of them, a boy and a girl, perhaps lovers, who went out of bounds of their patrol parameters.

"Prefects!" Florence shouted frantically, pointing a finger at the pair of silhouettes a hundred feet away, which were rapidly closing in on them. "RUN!"

Mary, whose long legs and graceful physique enabled her to run faster than Florence, got to the broom first. There was no protest from the latter at Mary being the flier, perhaps because she finally got to get hugged by Tom from behind. With everyone atop the Cleansweep, Mary took off.

"Stop!" yelled the boy prefect. He was much closer than Mary expected.

"Faster!" Tom commanded. "Even if he can't catch us he'll see us—faster!"

But it was hard to go faster. She was used to flying alone or with either Tom or Florence at her back; he had never flown with both of them. The difficulty was twofold. As the weight she had to support was twice of that to which she was habituated, it was not only heavier, but also difficult to steer by virtue of being unfamiliar, just as it would have been difficult to smoothly cast spells if her wand suddenly doubled in weight.

"Get back here! The farther you run, the more points we'll deduct!"

"SSSERPENSORTIA FLAGRANTĒ!"

"PROTEGO!"

Heat and light pierced the cold midnight air. Shocked, Mary looked back and—both to her relief and awe—beheld a huge snake made of fire erupting from Tom's wand to strike the Prefects. The boy prefect managed to conjure a shield, and maintained it against the raging, pounding snake, which only delayed rather than prevented their pursuit.

Her brother would burn someone, blister their skin and melt their flesh, just so that she would not be seen. Mary was motivated to return the favour: rather than continue to fly forward, she flew up. She went higher and higher, higher and faster she ever had flown before, with more blood and excitement pumping through her veins than she thought possible—she became an angel, who knew the will and reality of God as easily as a human knew the sun in the sky—and flew over the castle, cheering in ecstasy.

She could finally fly.

However, over the next few days, she did not dare go out, in fear that the same Prefects would take greater measures to catch her. But without a broom between her legs, the days became increasingly stale and depressing—Mary needed to be in the air again.

After two weeks of cautious sterility, the twins and Florence made their next excursion. However as they tiptoed their way to their usual courtyard exit, they were suddenly immobilised, for a pair of invisible walls fell to sandwich them in suspension.

Around the corner came a pair of silhouetted prefects, the girl with her wand pointed at the twins. As she came closer so did the shiny silver-blue thing on her chest grow clearer and clearer; it was Ilaria's sapphire necklace! At night, it was even more beautiful; it refused to let the darkness subdue it, while also not permitting itself to be too bright, too glaring, so that it concurred with everything—its luminescence was perfectly harmonious, like the reflection of the moon in a still lake.

"Aria!" Mary exclaimed. "Good evening."

Ilaria Greengrass lowered her wand, causing the invisible walls to crumble and the first-years to regain their freedom. "Good evening girls, good evening Tom," she toned ironically, spying Florence's Cleansweep. "Going for a little midnight jaunt, are we?"

"The Riddles!" exclaimed her suddenly energised Ravenclaw partner. "They must be the ones who attacked Macmillan with the fire-snake—"

"Without a doubt, Franklin," Ilaria affirmed, "but you shall tell this to no one."

"What!" cried the indignant boy named Franklin. "They deserve to lose two hundred points for—"

"No!" Ilaria snapped. "They need to know how much danger they've put themselves in—a pair of first-year girls with no one but a first-year boy to protect them, wandering the castle alone at night … have you any idea what could happen to you?"

"Tom's no ordinary first-year boy!" Florence blurted. "You know that."

"Don't be silly, Travers," Ilaria intoned. "If some of the very older boys in the castle knew the pair of you were here, they'd have a mind to find you, and do some unmentionable things to you."

Mary however took no heed to Ilaria's words; her gaze was glued to the sapphire, whose subtle lunar glow was utterly tantalising—the light on it ebbed like water, as though it were somehow liquid. Nonetheless, Mary said what she had to say. "I'm sorry, Aria ... we thought it would be a very lovely thing, to fly with no one around. We didn't think of how dangerous it would be."

"Very well then. Do not act so thoughtlessly again. You are a Slytherin. Sense, rather than thoughtless bravado, is your virtue. However, I'll allow you to continue to fly after midnight—when I am on patrol. I will lend you my broom as well, one broom seems hardly enough to share between three."

"You're too good to us!" Mary burst forth to hug the older girl. "Thank you Aria!"

"I hate Ilaria," Mary whispered to Tom over a cauldron during potions the next day. "She's always in the way. First she gets Caney all to herself, and now she won't let us fly unless under her supervision."

Privately, Tom appreciated Ilaria's injunction. Though he already missed wrapping himself around his sister's warm, soft body as they flew together every night to brave the nocturnal wind, he was once again able to sleep properly—and when he slept properly, he thought clearly, which enabled him to not only think clearly, but also spell-cast clearly. Finally, he appreciated Ilaria as a girl; it was good that she was Arcanius' girlfriend, if only to preclude the horrendous possibility of Mary taking up such a station.

"Why does it matter that she gets Arcanius all to herself, Mary?" asked Tom, grinding a bezoar to dust in his mortar.

"Caney should be mine." Mary aggressively stirred her potion. "I want him."

"You fancy him."

"He's the Minister's son," Mary said, as though that justified it, "and he's clever and gentle. He's mine!"

"Let go of your fancy," Tom commanded. "He's already fond of you, you don't need his love."

But Mary persisted in her violent stirring, her long hair wobbling back and forth as her whole body shook from the impassioned motions of her arm.

Tom prodded further. "Ilaria's stronger than you."

"I can still hurt her."

However, for the days and weeks that followed, it was unclear to Tom how Mary would hurt the older girl. Whenever they went out at night to fly under Ilaria's supervision, Mary was nothing but utterly friendly, even grovelingly so, to her. Whenever Tom asked, Mary claimed she was biding her time—but for what, she would not tell. Indeed, Mary was withholding secrets from him, and he understood why.

He did not blame her, for there were also things he did which she disapproved of. Amongst these was his command of a group of boys, counting William Wilkes, Banius Avery, and a pair of second-years, who brutalised weak, solitary members of other houses with spells that he taught them. Mary had no sympathy for the victims; rather, she detested the way Wilkes and the second-years looked at her with eyes full of naked lust. She detested that Tom not only tolerated their obscene stares, but even spent much time with them that he could have otherwise spent with her.

At any rate, the object of Mary's plans were revealed to Tom one certain night, when they went out of the castle to fly. She, with a motion so graceful that Tom thought she was handling a baby bird, took something out of her pocket.

Ilaria's necklace.

Like a murderer washing the blood of her hands, Mary ceremonially set it around Florence's neck. It looked like a shrunken little moon; where at day it was a deep, pensive shade of blue, at night it became so silvery, so seductive, that it became half-lifelike, like the white eye of a ghost.

Mary's own glinting eyes turned to Tom. He remembered that she had, for the past few weeks, rather obsessively practiced the switching spell. Altogether, this was only somewhat surprising—Tom would have expected Mary to steal the necklace for herself; he did not expect that she would steal it for Florence.

The next day at breakfast, Tom leaned over his plate to peer down the table where all the eminent older students sat. To an inattentive observer, Ilaria Greengrass was composed, proud, and judgmental—but Tom saw that her thin lips were more drawn than usual, as though she were clenching her teeth, and that the corners of her eye were creased, as though she wanted to glare, but consciously refrained from doing so. Moreover, there was nothing but a solitary slice of toast on her plate, which she had violently torn in half and left untouched since.

Throughout the day, news of Ilaria's misfortune spread; by the afternoon even the first-years were talking about it. Tom was decidedly annoyed. Muggle girls and women fretted over jewellery because there was little else for them in life. That magical girls, and even boys, made a great fuss out of a missing necklace, seemed a mortal sin to Tom. Why did it matter? It was so little compared to Magic. But they cared little for Magic after all—otherwise Tom wouldn't have been superior to them; they who grew up under magical roofs, with magical parents, and magical toys.

As the days passed, Florence grew emboldened by the stolen necklace; at night when they flew, she was much more prone to chit-chat with Tom than before, as though she now had license to do so. She did not. How could she not see that Tom cared neither for her nor her necklace? That Tom tolerated her only because she was Mary's friend? How could she not see that she was in every way—in power, intelligence, charm, and beauty—inferior to Mary? After all, it was Mary who stole the necklace for her and transformed her into the irritating bint that she had become.

Indeed, Tom thought, Mary stole the necklace for her.

Tom understood that the curriculum was designed so that most students could keep up with it. This is why he flouted it and studied whatever he liked. Yet he was not absolutely above the fray: in some classes, he was truly ignorant, and deliberately so. Herbology was one such class; he saw no use in glorified gardening. He preferred (and was far more adept at) hurting plants than nurturing them. Mary was of the same mind as him, and in fact, her distaste for the subject was more pronounced than his—she skipped Herbology lessons entirely.

"You should at least come," Tom had told her. "The Professors adore us. We're brilliant and, moreover, always well-behaved. Wagging classes undermines this."

"Professor Beery doesn't care," Mary said easily. "I doubt he even knows who's in his classes."

"All the Professors notice us. They like us because of the consensus they make from relating anecdotes."

"Well, I haven't gone to Herbology since January—all the other Professors like me still."

"Then come at least sometimes," Tom said decisively. "You mustn't fall too behind, we can't drop Herbology until fifth year."

Thus, Mary reluctantly went to Herbology every second week. Tom would not have minded this were it not for the fact that, during her off-weeks, she spent her time with either Arcanius Fawley or other profligate older boys. He would have approved of her skipping every Herbology class, had she gone to the library to read and broaden her magical spirit—but what reading was to him, commanding the affection of boys was to her.

As he walked back alone from Herbology one day, on the path along the Black Lake, he conjured a rock and skidded it across the still water. Like a potion-addled grasshopper, it skidded across the surface of the lake in rapid bounces, each impact on the water generating a large ripple, many of these ripples colliding with each other to foment even more little waves.

Ahead of him skipped Walburga and Lucretia Black.

"Trust is dying," Walburga said bitterly, her tone drawing from the bottomless well of indignation that always seemed to overflow from her intestines and strain her thin neck.

"Our culture is built on trust—take your father, Lucy—he hosts parties because he trusts his guests to not steal his paintings, abuse his elf, or come on to his wife—he can't make sure of these personally, but they have his trust. It's a fine thing, trust between wizards."

Paintings, elves, and wives, Tom thought, trifles, trifles, trifles!

"Whoever stole Ilaria Greengrass's necklace," Walburga continued icily, stroking her long, excessively smooth brown hair, "has still not returned it. Such selfishness! They don't know it, but it's not just Greengrass that they deprived—it's all of Slytherin!"

Now, Tom was struck by an idea. He caught up with Walburga and tapped her stiff shoulder. She spun around, and was met by his genial smile.

"Come to think of it," he said slowly, to ensure that she would comprehend all that he said, "I saw Florence Travers sporting a necklace the other day. It looked much too large and grand on her."

"Travers!" Walburga spat. "You have to tell me, Tom, how did it look?"

"The lace was silver, but the pendant itself was an enchanted sapphire," Tom recalled calmly. "I thought it must've been a birthday gift from her father."

"Torquil Travers has neither the wealth nor the taste for that!" Walburga snapped. "What you saw, Tom, was Greengrass' stolen heirloom!"

"That may be so," Tom said with mock thoughtfulness, "but I'm afraid I have to go—Professor Slughorn awaits me for a private appointment."

Tom sped up to the castle. He did not have an appointment with Slughorn; he was going to the library.

What will happen now, I wonder? Trifles, trifles, trifles. Walburga, Tom thought, hated Florence. The two embodied different worlds. Walburga sought to maintain 'properness' everywhere; Florence believed that the fulfilment of her own desires was the only proper thing in the world. Walburga would, self-righteously, reveal to Ilaria that Florence stole her necklace. She would not mention Tom, whose raw observation she would render into verdict—she wanted only to implicate Florence, but moreover she wanted Ilaria's undiluted favour.

Where Walburga and Florence were heroines respectively of manners and desire, Ilaria Greengrass was a goddess of wrath. Indeed, there was always something volatile and repressed in the older girl, even before the theft of her necklace. She liked being in control, but she rarely had control. Arcanius Fawley, disregarding the fact that he was a year younger than his formidable girlfriend, was very much her opposite—he was always acquiescent and tempered—a necessary complement to her, the garden to her fortress. More than a fortress, Ilaria Greengrass was a hot kettle; one could use her to pour tea, but if one touched her, their hand would burn. Thus she would wage nothing short of war against Florence; she would banish her from the interlocking circles of gossiping, calculating Slytherin girls.

Mary, too, would become a victim of Ilaria. Tom accepted this. Walburga had no way of inferring the means of her theft, but Ilaria would; Ilaria would know that the greater girl was complicit in the great crime of the lesser girl, and would glimpse at once, a fraction of the terrifying, terrific reality that Isaac Booth had witnessed in full glory years ago—that Mary Riddle was as indifferent to suffering as she was powerful.

That Ilaria was both wand and wizard of her relationship (Arcanius was the fancy robes and hat) meant that she would, if not turn her boyfriend's heart from Mary, at least turn off his support for her, just as she could swiftly turn off a water-tap that had been erroneously left on for weeks. There were already those in their house resentful, envious, and perversely desirous of the twins—it would be a boon to them for Ilaria to cast Mary out of the spheres of social protection.

Then Mary would have to return to Tom. She would quickly infer that it was he who tattled on her, but she would not grudge him for it—there would be no point in it. She would chide him privately, but publicly they would necessarily be together. It would be like Wool's again. The two of them against the world. They would have limited aid from the few who knew that Tom's hitherto limited Magic would soon eclipse that of both Greengrass and Fawley (and in fact everyone knew, but few had the patience for it—neither wizards nor muggles were capable of thinking far ahead—most men in the world were cattle), and that one day he would be the one banishing unwanted weaklings and subverters from his domain.

Mary would have to set aside her trinkets and prized older boys (whose inertia and weakness was indefensible—Tom no longer saw any use in them) for true Magic—they would need Magic and each other to defend themselves. And just as cauldrons required fire to make dirt and herbs into the glowing, potent substance known as potion, so would the twins amplify in power under heat.

And as the weeks and months came and passed, all that Tom speculated came to pass.

SECOND YEAR: The Birth of Love and War

London was a potions' classroom in the shape of a city. When it was not cold, dark, and damp, it was certain to be hot and suffocatingly humid. In turn when it was hot and humid, so did fog and smog shroud everything and everyone. One always felt dirty at potions. The cauldron vapours were disgusting and malevolent—they made your face dirty and your hair mangled. Moreover, the stuffiness of the room always made you sweat like a pig inside your robes. Were it not for the availability of showering immediately afterwards, Tom would not have tolerated potions. But as he and Mary were accustomed to the luxurious magical bathtubs of the Slytherin dormitories, the prospect of those decrepit, colourless little cubicles they called 'showers' at Wool's Orphanage was not an inviting one.

Yet, Tom found that neither he nor Mary could tolerate going without showering for more than a week. It was thus that they returned to Abney Park cemetery, one of the city's oldest graveyards and a veritable forest, which they considered more of a home than the orphanage itself. There, Mary sat on a flat gravestone, her long legs sprawled over the fading plague, her feet dangling off it. Tom recalled that she sat in this exact position a year ago; she was, back then, much shorter, much more childlike, and dare he say it, much kinder to him.

But that summer, she was even taller than him. That summer, she got very cross with him sometimes. Girls reached adolescence before boys, after all.

"Caney wasn't yours to take, Tom," she would murmur to him, often out of nowhere, fraught with restrained anger. "Caney wasn't yours to take."

"I saved you from wasting time with him," Tom would always say. She never understood him.

With buckets of conjured water and soap, they washed each other amidst the graves.

"You're growing up," Tom said in hushed tones, tracing a finger along her exquisite waist.

"Well noticed." She grasped his wrist to stop him. "Wash my hair—that green vial's Florence's oil—rub it in. Gently now, Tom!"

Before Hogwarts, she never had any stipulations on how her hair ought to be washed. Tom used to douse it in fruit juice and decorate it with flowers. Now, having lived among other girls, she knew how to beautify herself properly—and Tom conceded that this was a boon—though she had always been vain.

But he, too, was vain. What the muggle priest called vanity, was in fact dignity—and it was nothing more than a case of sour grapes that the miserable magicless race scorned that which they could not attain. As Tom tousled his vain sister's hair with his vain hands, his vigilant eyes scrambled all over his field of vision. Perhaps there was a muggle watching them, ogling Mary's tender, budding physique—come out, Tom thought, see what she will do to you.

No perverted muggle ever came. The twins were left undisturbed. In fact, they were left undisturbed for the rest of their summer. The other orphans left them alone out of fear, and they left the orphans alone out of disgust. In fact, they did very little, for they were not permitted to do magic outside of Hogwarts—for the first time of their lives, they spent a week, then a month, then the entirety of summer in London without committing a single crime.

Once the cool night breeze became the cozy, dry warmth of Hogwarts' torchlit interior, Tom found himself back in the broad familiarity of the Great Hall. However, though there were still thousands of candles floating over four long tables, and though these tables were still laid with glittering golden plates and goblets, something was different—there was, by the side of every goblet on each table, a rolled-up newspaper.

The sight was terribly bizarre. All of the older students who had arrived and seated themselves before Tom were reading the paper. He had never seen so many people reading newsprints at the same time since he and Mary went for a jaunt in the Tube. But the eerie, sombre manner in which they read—some were utterly quiet, while others furiously whispered—suggested that something quite severe had transpired.

As Tom seated himself at the Slytherin table, he took the copy by his goblet, and unrolled it—

BRITAIN AND FRANCE DECLARE WAR ON GERMANY

Headquarters of the Danzig High Mages' Council overrun—Duke Wodnik forced to surrender personally by Grindelwald

Tom blinked. Should he have felt fear? Sickness perhaps, or even excitement? It seemed as though that which was inevitable and implicit had finally become real, so he felt nothing for the moment.

Beneath the Daily Prophet Headline was a moving black-and-white photo of Grindelwald himself, doing precisely what the subheading described.

The photo, like a very short film, began with a close-up shot of a stone wall. Like a small sheet of plaster getting smashed by a large hammer, the wall exploded, revealing a man with a raised wand, whose face was contorted with such fervor that he seemed possessed by a joyous demon—Gellert Grindelwald.

Lucifer, the ruler of the fallen angels, the greatest renegade among renegades, was the most beautiful being of God's Creation—Grindelwald's wild, curling coils of blonde hair blew from his handsome head like rolling foam from a furious storm-wave, and in his determined yet unhinged eyes was a glint of boyish glee, of childish haughtiness—he was a child donned in the robes of death, a mystical Napoleon who still remembered the hazy Mediterranean afternoons of Corsica. Though his coat was rather nondescript, something between a blazer and a robe, it billowed against him as though he was standing from a precipitous cliff, bracing the irate wind of the Baltic Sea. He haughtily walked towards the Duke—an elderly but upright looking man who, in any other setting, would have looked handsome and imperious in his tailored robe with his long, dark hair—but who in the face of Grindelwald, was clearly every bit the weaker wizard and man.

As Tom raised his head to examine Mary's response to the news, the huge front doors of the hall opened, and the loud creaking and whining of its heavy hinges resounded through, before a much quieter sound became audible—the pit-a-pat of a dozen quiet footsteps. The new first years. They stopped, and the Sorting Hat broke out in song.

"It was nearly a thousand years ago,

When masons and wizards, from to and fro

Fashioned a castle midst barren snow,

Hogwarts was her name, protection was her aim …"

Tom supposed Sorting Hat was trying to assuage everyone, particularly the new students, in face of the grim news. He didn't need any assurance himself. The Great Hall burst into applause.

"When your name is called, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," Professor Merrythought exclaimed, "Alderton, Mortimer!"

A rather tall boy, an early bloomer, with dishevelled dark hair and thick-rimmed eyeglasses, walked towards the stool and sat down, placing the hat on his head. A shallow thought occurred to Tom; his eyeglasses suggested that he would become a Ravenclaw—before the Hat's shout vindicated him.

"RAVENCLAW!"

Sorting continued. Antonia Cole was sorted into Gryffindor, Lydia Cotterill into Slytherin, John Dawlish into Gryffindor, Cornelius Fudge into Slytherin, Arthur Hill into Gryffindor. None of them particularly caught Tom's attention.

Then, Professor Merrythought called, "Malfoy, Abraxas!"

A thin blonde boy slowly walked towards the stool. His hair was pulled back over his head and held at his shoulders—a hairstyle that, for a boy, immediately suggested purebloodedness. His face, which was as white as a marble grave, would've been handsome were it not for this precise whiteness—he looked dehydrated and underfed, and his conspicuous grey eyes looked absently ahead, in a way that uncomfortably reminded Tom of the vacant, unmoving eyes of stone statues in central London.

Even the hat must've thought something was wrong with him—a minute passed, and then two, while the hall remained in utter silence. Abraxas Malfoy's small weight seemed to sag on the chair; with the hat covering his eyes, Tom had the suspicion that he had fainted. Eventually, however, the hat delivered—

"SLYTHERIN!"

As though they were told they won the house cup, the Slytherin table burst into cheers. Malfoy, however, was hardly encouraged by his ovation—he walked slowly towards his new house's table with the same glum expression he had worn during his sorting.

Malfoy's sorting proved to be the longest of his lot. Septimus Weasley was the last to be sorted, and he was placed into Gryffindor.

The Headmaster looked a lot older and haggard than Tom remembered, though he supposed that he was 302 years old—it was only natural that he looked permanently on the verge of death. His skin, creased like a scrunched up tissue, coupled with his frail stature and loose-fitting purple robe that looked like an Egyptian ruler's funerary gown, gave Tom the impression that he was beholding an animated corpse, a well-groomed Inferius with a sense of fashion.

"Welcome, everyone—first years and new Prefects, Professors and Aurors, to a new year at Hogwarts," he began in a raspy though clear voice. "You will have noticed that copies of The Daily Prophet have been placed by your goblets. They were printed three hours ago, and—indeed—before the Wizengamot, Minister Fawley has declared war on Grindelwald's coalition."

Whispers broke loose in the hall. It was quite clear that coalition was an euphemism—Tom supposed it was more comforting to hear than the combined forces of wizarding Germany, Austria, and Czecho-Slovakia.

"But I assure you—" The Headmaster suddenly thundered in continuation "—that Hogwarts is safer than it has ever been, and that Britain herself, in both her Magical and Muggle domains, will mobilise and mount a spectacular defense should evil dare beset her. With this established, you shall continue to receive editions of The Daily Prophet every Sunday, for it is integral to your education that you become enlightened in current affairs, however morbid they may be."

Expectedly, murmurs of agreement broke out at the Headmaster's proclamation.

"Now that our affairs are in order, let the feast begin!"

And the feast began.

The Start and End-of-Term feasts were the most indulgent of the Hogwarts banquets; appetisers, main courses and desserts were served simultaneously, and everything looked as though it came from either a fancy restaurant or a picnic set for the Royal Family. There were multisyllabic French dishes—Bouillabaisse and Cassoulet—set alongside the homely pastries and gravy-laden staples of England.

Tom had suspected that the Headmaster's newspapers would have extinguished his peers' appetites, but he was wrong. The banquet was as festive as a banquet could be; chatter and excited gossip burgeoned hotly among the student body, while the platters and bowls of food depleted at a quick pace.

"We've all been dupes, that's for sure," declared Antoine Rosier, a rather bold first-year with curly, brown hair and an olive face that, for whatever reason, rather annoyed Tom. "Grindelwald's a mudblood lover. He's done nothing against the Muggles, and what—fifty, sixty wizards died in Danzig? On both sides?"

"Thing is, he'd need to deal with the plethora of blood traitors before he deals with the Muggle problem," Alexius Lestrange patiently told the first-year. "Y'have to cure your own dragon pox before you can heal others of theirs."

"Plethora," Amos Nott chimed in thoughtfully. "Fancy diction, Lestrange."

"Wodnik ran Danzig the right way, too," continued Rosier. "No mudbloods in any of the important positions. And Grindelwald? He's the saviour of bloodthirsty mudbloods, centaur despots and what-have-you!"

Tom stabbed his steak in irritation. His house table's debate on Grindelwald was utterly idiotic—first-years and forth-years flinging moral screeds at one another, like mandrakes throwing soil into each other's pots. To Tom, the contention could be reduced to two considerations: firstly, that if magical organisations exclusively comprised of legacy purebloods were truly superior to other organisations, they would be able to defend themselves against the latter by means of their wands, without the need to resort to debate—and secondly, if wizard-kind was to unite against the Muggle world for a war of conquest, wizards would necessarily fight other wizards, for not everyone could be persuaded.

"I bet he'll cast aside the mudbloods and centaurs once he's done with 'em," Bill Wilkes noted wryly. "He's using 'em—he doesn't really care for what they want."

"Purebloods have died because of him, and we're no closer to ending the Statute of Secrecy!" Rosier whined.

"We need the Statute," declared Oscar Montgomery. "Grindelwald's just like the mudbloods who fight for their muggle countries. He does what he wants, and all of us are worse for it."

More fundamentally, the moving photo in The Daily Prophet showed a truly powerful wizard dominating a pathetically ordinary one. The way Gellert Grindelwald moved radiated power, decisiveness. Tom was jealous, but he knew that one day, he would become just like Grindelwald—the best sort of wizard there was. The fact that Tom's peers saw Duke Wodnik as a sympathetic victim rather than old firewood that needed to be burned reflected something profoundly unhealthy in their spirits. Wodnik was the sickly and wilting fruit of an old tree; Grindelwald was a forest fire that promised power—how could anyone in their youth support the former? It was enraging. Tom's peers didn't understand magic—how could one declare a gentle summer shower more enlivening and promising than a storm capable of overturning cargo ships, of devastating cities?

With a decisive swish of his wand, Tom partitioned an apple pie into eight equal slices, and levitated four of them onto Mary's plate.

"Have we any actual reason for making war with Grindelwald?" asked Thane Mulciber. "He's done nothing to threaten British interests. So what if he's cast European purebloods from their seats of their power? May the best wizard win, I say!"

Mulciber was a fifth-year boy; tall and thin, he had a feminine mane of straight blonde hair on an otherwise startlingly skeletal but nonetheless masculine face. There was something about his energetic, circular green eyes that gave the impression that he was always enjoying himself, as if there was always some secret about his surroundings that he alone recognised and found amusing.

"Suppose Grindelwald conquers Europe," came the contemplative voice of Arcanius Fawley, who was now fifth-year Prefect. "What reason, then, will he have not to invade Britain? Clearly, we ought to attack Grindelwald before his lackeys apparate into British territory."

Cheers broke out around Fawley, as though his words were anything more than a reflexive justification of his father's decisions. But everyone knew, too, that Hector Fawley had only declared war because he had no choice—it was Leonard Spencer-Moon who said war was inevitable, Leonard Spencer-Moon who said they ought to declare it sooner, rather than later.

Tom finished dinner quickly. He thought to ask Mary, who sat opposite him, if she wanted to retire with him early to the common room, or perhaps the library. But as he looked up, he saw that there was still plenty of food on her plate—and that she was apparently deeply engaged in conversation with Lydia Cotterill, one of the new first-year girls. He thought not to disturb her; rather, he watched her, intently so.

There were physiological trends for each of the four houses; how could there not be, when Sorting segregated by personality, and when personality dictated behaviour? Not to mention, of course, the differing environments of the dormitories.

Slytherins were often more pale than others; they had the best hair; the most guarded expressions; and the cleanest robes. Gryffindors were a mixed bunch, but they often dared to challenge convention by stylising themselves in bizarre ways, sporting rather ugly hairstyles and wearing flashy outfits on the weekends—and perhaps Tom was imagining it, but their mouths were bigger, too—they talked the loudest of the four houses. Ravenclaws never came in groups larger than three, and were the quietest and most observant among their peers. Hufflepuffs, conversely, tended to swoop in large groups—usually entire cohorts by year, and they were often plumper and smiled more than their peers from the other houses.

"Tom? You alright there?" Banius Avery tentatively asked.

"I'm fine, Avery. I'm meditating."

"Ah. Meditating …"

Mary, however, wasn't overtly and exclusively Slytherin, in the way that Florence Travers and Walburga Black, opposites though they were, were. She had the elegance of a well-established Slytherin girl without her frigid haughtiness, the conspicuous presence of a powerful Gryffindor girl, perhaps a Quidditch star, without her useless garrulousness (though she was, at times, excessively talkative), and the tenderness of a Hufflepuff—somehow—without their obscene weakness, their implicit idea that strength was to be found in the warmth of a herd.

Tom greatly appreciated the likeness that she bore to him; they both had thick eyebrows, mildly aquiline noses, thin, long lips and dimpled cheekbones. They both had perfectly symmetrical faces, though that was less of an affirmative feature than an indictment of how the majority of humans, even magical ones, were deformed. They both had long necks, too, but Mary's was much thinner than Tom's—her incipient swan's neck made her look delicate, made Tom want to protect her.

The most prominent difference, aside from that which is owed to sex, (their hair and their physiques) was their eyes. Tom had slightly sunken, upturned eyes, which various Slytherin girls had on different occasions described as sharp, if not cold. Mary's were prominent and soft, shaped like large almonds, and they seemed to express sympathy if not love at whoever she gazed at, when she wished to gain the affection of the subject in question. Her dark pupils radiated warmth, warmth Tom knew that many boys wanted to consume.

She bit into a blood-crimson apple. Her bite was small, and she took her time to chew—Tom imagined how it would feel to touch her moving cheeks, impelled by her teeth grinding the syrupy flesh of the apple into smaller and smaller bits.

The first-year girl she next to was Lydia Cotterill, who looked so comparatively immature and underdeveloped that Tom was sure any onlooker would've thought Mary at least three years older than her. Tom watched his sister talk to Cotterill, her face unfalteringly gentle and smiling in a motherly way, as she introduced the younger girl to Hogwarts. But in spite of Mary's ostensible kindness and gentleness, there was something intense and withdrawn in her eyes—something subtle that few people aside from Tom would notice.

"First years, follow me!" Beatrice Sommerfield called, bringing Tom out of his revelry.

An idea quickly came to him.

Wiping his hand on his handkerchief, Tom stood up and followed the new first-years and their new fifth-year girls' Prefect.

"Tom, correct me if I'm mistaken," came Beatrice' sharp, shrill voice, "but did I not ask for the first years to follow me?"

Antoine Rosier sniggered. Tom was unphased; though the older girl was churlish, he knew that that was just a matter of her character. In fact Beatrice Sommerfield was greatly fond of him and Mary; she, for whatever reason, disliked Ilaria Greengrass, and was thus deeply appreciative of Mary who the whole of Slytherin now knew as the thief of Greengrass' necklace.

"What do you think of the war, Beatrice?"

"Must I have an opinion?" she snapped. "Merlin, am I tired of Slytherin boys. The Ministry, American Aurors, Grindelwald, Poland—one ought to refrain from gossiping about it all until one can brew a potion—any potion—by heart."

"It would surprise me, if either Fawley or Mulciber didn't know how to brew at least one potion by heart," drawled Tom. "So, with which of the two do you agree more?"

"On the war? Hold on, this way." Beatrice gestured for the first-years and Tom to go down a staircase. "Arcanius and Thane? They're both stupid."

"Stupid how?"

"Arcanius likes to pretend he thinks for himself, but it so happens that his opinion always coincides with those of his daddy," scoffed Beatrice. "While Thane, though you could hardly have expected him to have admitted it at dinner, supports Gellert Grindelwald."

"Supports Grindelwald," Tom repeated.

It was a pity that the correct opinion, the only correct opinion, was regarded as foolish.

Before they reached the staircase that went down to the Slytherin Dungeon in the Entrance Hall, they passed the portrait of Sir Hervouet, a knight concealed from head to toe in battle-chipped plate armour. His portrait was a rather queer one, as Tom was to explain.

"Behold here Sir Hervouet, who we call The Oblivious Knight," said Tom, gesturing.

"Thy effronterie!" The painting shouted furiously and raised his greatsword. "I woldest thine head mounted on a speare, imp, hadst I a forme corporelle!"

"Oblivious?" inquired Lydia Cotterill. "That means forgetful, doesn't it?"

"Indeed," Tom answered, smiling. "You see, Herouvet's original portrait was destroyed, some five centuries ago—a Slytherin student called Hugelin Ives cursed it. Ives' family had a blood feud with Hervouet's family, or something of the kind—and so, they had to remake it. Thus this is a painting of a painting … a memory of a memory."

"Yes, yes, Tom likes to wax poetic," Beatrice rudely interrupted. "The imbecile of a Knight loses his memory every few hours, and for some reason, those among Tom's age find this greatly amusing."

"It is greatly amusing," Tom maintained. "He's stuck in perpetual old age. You may ask him about his life in the morning, and surprise him by the same facts in the afternoon."

"Implings mocking the defective nature of my mind!" cried the painting, raising his sword to the sky to beseech God. "Ô howe the mighty falleth!"

The first years, though they must, in Tom's judgment, have been purebloods on account of their names—Abraxas, Hortense, Cornelius—were enthralled by Tom's recount of magical portraiture, though they themselves were surely already acquainted with the portraits in their homes. Lydia Cotterill in particular was utterly enamoured with Tom already; she could not stop blushing and grinning at him.

Antoine Rosier, however, shared no such reverence.

"You know a lot about paintings, Riddle," Rosier smiled snidely. "Trying to prove something?"

"And what might I be trying to prove?"

"You're a muggleborn in Slytherin," Rosier said with unexpected bluntness. "You're trying to get on our good sides—us, the younger lot—'cause your peers hate you."

Now, all the first years had their eyes on Tom—Lydia's blue ones, small and hopeful, yet detached and assessing; Hortense Rowle's beady dark ones, gilded by eyeliner like Mary's, though not nearly as pretty; and Abraxas Malfoy's vacant grey ones—all of these were fixed on him. Even Beatrice Sommerfield looked at him and said nothing. They were waiting for him to pass judgment.

Tom, whose expression remained utterly calm and neutral, turned to face Rosier. Much to his pleasure, the smaller boy's smirk faltered.

A strange sort of anger seeped into him. Usually, anger came to Tom in sudden bursts, like flashes of lightning—they went as quickly as they came. But this time, it slowly came into him, as though he was outside in the bowels of winter, letting the frost slowly puncture through his skin and his flesh, all the way to the marrow of his bones.

It wasn't that Rosier's insult had any gravity, for it was utterly wrong on all counts—Tom was certain he was of nobler blood (for he was powerful, and had to thus be of great extraction) than whoever the Rosiers were; and while he indeed courted the new first-years, he did not do so from a lack of friends, but from a desire to make an ally of all in his house—and finally, none of his peers despised him, at least not for his blood—the few who hated him above all feared him.

Before the younger boy could react to the patent anger on his face, Tom drew his wand.

Wingardium Leviosa. Estouffaire.

As though heaved up by an invisible giant, Antoine Rosier was lifted five yards into the air, suspended just above Sir Hervouet, who now cheered and jeered, as though before a jousting competition. The collar of Rosier's robe fastened against his neck as if tightened by a thick, invisible rope, and he helplessly tugged at it while he choked and sputtered. First saliva spewed from his mouth, then blood. His face quickly became red, before going even purple-like.

"Do you think a mudblood could do this, Antoine?"

Seeing the boy struggle wasn't terribly fun—Tom lowered his wand, and Rosier unceremoniously dropped to the floor with a thump. Tom wasn't allowed kill Rosier; he was only able to make him helplessly suffer, which was rather vulgar to behold—suffering was the commonality between magicals and filthy, ordinary humans; seeing a magical being suffer was undignified.

"Know that I welcome my friendship to all Slytherins," Tom extended a hand to the fallen boy. "I don't hate you, Antoine. There is no reason for me to hate you."

Rosier took Tom's hand, and Tom easily pulled him up. Tom patted his shoulder, and gently straightened his tousled robe.

"Y-y-you have to show me how to do that," the new first-year said in an excited tone, blushing almost as Cotterill had.

"Well, it's easy," Tom smiled. "The hovering charm, in tandem with lasso jinx."

"Yes yes," blurted Beatrice, who frowned an old woman's frown. "This is all very dramatic and touching, but we have to get a move on, the feast will be ending soon—everyone will return."

As they continued on, Tom closely examined the faces of the new first-years; admiration tinged with fear, or perhaps fear tinged with admiration, was painted on all of them.

Even Abraxas Malfoy, who had distinguished himself from the others by his sheer impassivity, was in awe—his grey eyes expanded as though in terror—he was terrified rather than impressed, too terrified, something was amiss, Tom realised—but his realisation was too late.

Malfoy's grey pupils disappeared into the white of his eyes. Then, he fell to the floor with an ungracious thump.

Beatrice raised a hand to halt the first-years, before spinning around with a fearful expression on her face—Tom supposed she wasn't thrilled that her first task as a Prefect had gone so awry at so many turns—for she yelled shrilly, "Tom! What've you done now?!"

A small throng of the first-years gathered around Malfoy's fallen, unconscious form, and surprisingly, it was Antoine Rosier who squatted by his side and placed a hand on his neck.

"Nothing," Tom said impassively, holding the older girl's gaze.

"Out of my way," Beatrice pushed two girls aside to kneel by Malfoy. "Tom—"

"Rennervate," Tom shot his spell square at Malfoy's chest.

At once, Malfoy jolted into consciousness, breaking into convulsions as he gasped for breath. Rosier, Beatrice, and Tom helped him back onto his feet.

"How do you know that spell?" Beatrice asked with equal praise and suspicion.

"A book," Tom answered tersely; he had learned it while scrying for useful information in an American Auror's now publicised 1912 report concerning the raid and destruction of an Inferius ritual-chamber.

"Abraxas, it's me," Rosier murmured quietly. "You collapsed a few seconds ago. Riddle brought you back."

Malfoy, who appeared entirely undisturbed by his situation, looked around, his tired grey eyes flicking between Tom, Rosier, and Beatrice.

Beatrice and Tom exchanged glances; they, as a Prefect and a second-year, were the only ones who knew their way around Hogwarts in this throng of a dozen, and they understood at once what had to be done. The first years had to get to the Slytherin Dungeon, but Malfoy was due for another destination. Tom took the initiative—

"I'll take Malfoy to the Hospital Wing."

Then, for as far as Tom knew, Abraxas Malfoy spoke for the first time since setting foot on Hogwarts—

"I'm fine."

His voice, though high and boyish, rendered itself only in the flat, disinterested tone of a jaded old man.

"You're not!" Beatrice decisively insisted.

Tom's eyes flicked between the Prefect and the first-year. It was clear that the former wanted to designate the responsibility of the latter to another authority, and that the latter wanted to avoid the shame of being seen going to the Hospital Wing on his first day of Hogwarts.

Tom dipped his head to whisper into Malfoy's ear. "I know a long way to the hospital wing, no one will see us—how about that?"

His assurance gained an acquiescent nod from Malfoy. With a final nod to the new fifth-year Prefect, Tom and the sickly first-year boy embarked on their detour.

Unsurprisingly, Malfoy said nothing as they crossed the dark corridors. Several inferences were made; Malfoy and Rosier, despite being as opposed as water and fire in their temperaments, were well-acquainted from before Hogwarts; Malfoy's faints were regular in some capacity; and whatever his affliction was, it had been with him long enough to contort his eleven or twelve year old self into an extremely shy, withdrawn creature—it was clearly untreatable.

"Abraxas," said Tom, opening a large door with his wand. "We're here."

For such a large chamber, the Hospital Wing was eerily quiet. Nonetheless, Madam Milosz, a robust middle-aged woman whose stern face vaguely reminded Tom of Mrs. Cole, came to receive them.

"Ah, you must be Mister Malfoy." Her voice, though stern and of a highly punctuated foreign accent, was gentle. "Come with me. Everything will be okay."

"Mister Riddle," Milosz inclined her head at Tom. They were somewhat acquainted; Tom had once asked her questions regarding the relation between anatomy and sacrifice in ritualistic healing. "Be good and give me the story of what happened."

But surprisingly, before Tom could say anything, let alone conceive of a lie that didn't involve him choking Antoine Rosier in the air, Malfoy himself interceded—

"It was a standard episode, ma'am," he said amiably. "The Sorting, the news of the war—it was all a little too much for me."

Malfoy gave Tom a knowing look—both of them knew that he just egregiously lied. Even if the things Malfoy enlisted played some role in inciting his 'episode', it was, obviously, ultimately his observance of Tom's magic that provoked him to faint. Tom dipped his head and rewarded the younger boy an appreciative smirk.

"Gunhilda's Grimoire!" Milosz exclaimed venomously. "I warned Headmaster Dippet not to be so quick with news of the war! The burden shouldn't be put on the students so soon—not at the start of term! Well, now there is no sense in that."

The healer's strange intonation of 'now there is no sense in that', told Tom it was an idiom from another language, parsed directly and crudely into English.

As Milosz helped Malfoy onto a bed, she gestured with a hand to tell Tom that he was no longer needed.

"You'll be all well and good, Abraxas." Tom dipped his head at the healer, then gave Malfoy a reassuring smile. "I trust I'll see you later in the common room."

"Yes, you will," Malfoy said listlessly. "Bye, Tom."

Tom left the hospital wing, wondering what Mary would think of his attack on Rosier—surely one of the girls, perhaps Cotterill, would tell her.

His stomach twisted uncomfortably. There was something primally disgusting in the fact that even purebloods could be permanently incapacitated by sickness. Yet, in spite of his weakness, Malfoy wasn't despised—no, when he was sorted, the Slytherin table cheered as though the Headmaster had announced that they won the house cup—a feeble, weak boy, a sapling forever green and rubbery, was the object of unconditional esteem.

There was, of course, only one explanation—that he came from an eminently important family. Perhaps, Tom thought, Abraxas Malfoy would become a most useful ally.

A Tender Christmas

The first quakes of war were loud and resounding, like claps of portentous thunder. A British passenger ship was sunk by a German submarine, with a thousand passengers dead. In turn Great Britain and all her sisters in the commonwealth declared war at once against their aggressor. For a few days, the tall corridors of Hogwarts were contaminated by such fervor that it was as though the German submarine had demolished the Quidditch pitch during the house cup finals, and thereby killed half of Hogwarts' entire population; everyone felt that platoons of Grindelwald's Freimagier might apparate into the Astronomy Tower or the Great Hall at any moment, and everyone really believed that they, with their schoolyard jinxes and corridor curses, had a not only the obligation, but even a chance, of fighting back. There was even the bizarre fear that the German muggle Nazis would fly their bombers, supposedly enchanted by Grindelwald himself against magical repulsion, over Scotland to drop the same metallic death that had vanquished thousands of Polish muggles in the span of a few days.

Warsaw, a city of over a million people, fell before the end of the September. It seemed that both Grindelwald and Hitler (it was unclear whether the two were of one party, or only incidentally in collaboration) were unstoppable. Where would they go next?

They stopped.

Poland was taken with a rapidity the likes of which had never been seen before, according to both muggle and magical commentators. But as though they themselves were recuperating from the unprecedented dynamism of their success, the Germans stopped. Then, it became clear that an imminent attack on Hogwarts was more a fantasy fuelled by gossip than a credible threat to lose sleep over. What began as a series of menacing thunderclaps thus faded into a gentle, distant shower, albeit one still girded by ugly grey clouds. Indeed, while the Freimagier disposed of all magical authorities in Poland, and the German muggle army rounded up masses of 'insurrectionists' to execute wholesale, they were still far from Britain. A fishing trawler was captured and sunk by another German submarine, which was then apprehended and sunk by three destroyers of the Royal Navy.

It rather reminded Mary of a game that was played at Wool's, one which even she and Tom had at times indulged in—battleships. Though the world had slowed down, every moment was fraught with tension. Anything could happen, at any moment. The sense of possibility was, of course, an essentially fearful one. What will happen to us? It was exemplified best by the unusual excitement the students showed for the newspapers. Indeed, every breakfast, lunch, and dinner, everyone flocked to their tables, just to read the latest installations of The Daily Prophet waiting by their goblets.

Two weeks before the Christmas break, Professor Dumbledore disappeared. Though they wouldn't admit it, Mary knew that neither the Headmaster nor the other Professors had been forewarned of this. A handful of seventh-year students took his place in teaching the first through fourth years, where the other professors cooperatively sought to fill his shoes for the fifth through seventh years; none of them said a word on who was to truly succeed him.

When the term ended, Mary went with the other girls down to Hogsmeade station, to bid them goodbye. Returning to the castle, she found it utterly silent, eerily so. Last Christmas, twenty or so other students chose to stay—this year that number had diminished by threefold. The families of the muggleborns wanted their children to come home to them, so that they might be together during the war. As Mary walked through the quiet corridors of the castle, without any destination in mind, a sense of piercing loneliness overcame her. She recalled that while Florence and the Black cousins talked of their distant but indulgent fathers, their myriad cousins of myriad personalities, and of the feasts and balls and ceremonial rituals that were to be had over the winter break—all she had was a single twin brother, one who had betrayed her and was not sorry for it.

Indeed, Tom was not apologetic whatsoever for turning Ilaria against her. Mary told him that it wasn't only Ilaria who he roused against her, but the dozen or so Slytherin girls who were servilely partial to her. "I know," was all he said.

Yet, Mary knew to be reasonable. She did not wish to become the kind of girl whose distress overwhelms her capacity to think clearly. Tom betrayed her, yes, but his intentions were good. He had only betrayed her once. He would never truly hurt her, not unless it was for her good. In fact, she knew with certainty that he would never betray her again, if she remained as faithful to him as he was to her. After all, where she pined after Arcanius Fawley and savoured the affection of many other boys, he was nothing but courteously indifferent to all their housemates of her sex.

Tom only means well for me, he can only mean well for me. Mary sat on the cold floor, curling her legs so that she could rest her chin on her knees. A ghost, as quiet and slow-moving as the midday wind, floated over her. So why does it hurt so much? She thought she might cry—perhaps the ghost would console her.

"Mary …"

Mary was rudely roused from her sad stupor. Something had hissed her name, very quietly—it was not the ghost—and she could not tell from where. She jumped and drew her wand.

"Mary …"

She spun on her heel. Facing her was a snake, of a vividly unnatural shade of green (it was dark, yet bright and soft, like wet paint), with a silver underbelly that glowed metallically. It was the snake of the Slytherin crest, conceivably conjured by a powerful serpensortia.

"Are you … Mary?"

Mary lowered her wand, sighing in relief. "I am. My brother sent you?"

"Yess," it hissed. "Brother isss worried. Return to brother …"

"Mary …"

There came another hiss. Then another, and another, and another, until there were so many synchronous hisses that her name was recited in chorus.

"Mary … Mary … Mary, Mary, Mary, Mary …"

Mary found herself surrounded by these colourfully conjured beings; they had been sent to find her and, like ants, the one that found her invisibly signalled to the others to follow suit. It was all Tom's design.

She suddenly felt ashamed.

She had loitered about the castle perhaps for an hour, brooding against him. Of course he was worried that she'd not yet returned. How could she brood over her lack of a family, when her brother—the most powerful and most protecting boy in the world—was thinking of her welfare? The sense of cold loneliness that had possessed her now thoroughly thawed into steaming guilt.

With a swish of her wand, she dismissed Tom's snakes, and burst into a sprint to the Slytherin common room, where she would show Tom that she had not forgotten him. When she found him, she tackled him into a tight, tight hug, burying her face in his chest.

"Mary! What happened? What's the matter?"

He misunderstood. He thought her sudden show of affection signified that she had just suffered some great abuse. Indeed she had, although this was only half the truth; she endured only the burden of her own guilt.

Tom rather forcefully sat her down on a sofa. "Mary, you must tell me—"

"Nothing!" cried Mary, as she sunk into the padding of the sofa. "Nothing at all."

"Nothing? What do you mean, nothing?"

"I lost track of time. I was wandering the castle."

"Did someone hurt you?"

"Say something, please—you've got to tell me what happened!"

She remained silent.

"Mary!"

"Nothing," she repeated in a steady voice. "I wandered about the castle. It's so quiet, you know? Even the muggleborns have gone home."

"You're not speaking sense."

"Sometimes, Tom …" she sputtered and stopped. "Sometimes, I feel so far from you."

"What do you mean?" he asked firmly.

"You hurt me," said Mary, bringing her legs onto the sofa to rest her chin on her knees, "and you don't feel the least bit bad about it."

"You're talking about Fawley again," Tom observed with a frown.

"Caney, yes."

"I see. Do you want me to apologise?"

"I do—though not when you ask me like that. Don't you see? You hurt me and call it necessary, and then you don't feel the least bit bad about it."

"It was necessary."

"Perhaps it was, but that which is necessary can hurt, no?"

"Consider it an act of love," said Tom, whose voice by now had regained its usual register. "I discipline you because you don't discipline yourself. If you weren't my sister, I'd let you fail."

For a moment Mary said nothing, and sat quite still, her unfocused gaze resting on the serpentine mantelpiece of a dormant fireplace.

"You're right," she murmured.

"I always am."

With that, Tom extended a hand to pull her up. It was their first day of the Christmas break; they ought not waste their time brooding over such dismal things.

Later in the afternoon, Tom said something most pleasantly surprising. "Want to go flying?"

Mary knew well that, between the two of them, only she enjoyed flying whatsoever. Tom meant to console her somehow, without explicitly saying 'sorry'. She cupped her heart in gratitude and smiled unabashedly. But even with this sudden rush of tenderness, Mary remained rationally aware of a complication in her brother's position. "But on whose broom will we fly?"

"On Florence Travers'."

"Florence?" Mary looked at her brother quizzically. "She left with her broom, no?"

"I convinced her to leave it with me," Tom said soothingly. "We intended to give you a surprise."

Mary said nothing. She did not know what to think; while there was no malice against her in this particular withheld truth, it altered her understanding of Florence's infatuation for Tom—it was a passion that preceded her fidelity to Mary as a friend. Realising this, however, she found no fault in Florence, but rather only in herself, for failing to realise that which should have been obvious. If the price to gain Arcanius' complete devotion is to snub Florence, thought Mary, would I not happily pay it?

"Let's go," said Tom.

Mary thought they were due to fly in the same manner that they did last year; outside of the castle, with the West Wing courtyard as their takeoff point. However, as soon as they left the Slytherin common room, Tom strapped himself on the broom and gestured for Mary to saddle behind him. She did so eagerly. Then, as though it were nothing, he soared up the very stairs that they had climbed every morning and descended every night of the school term.

Rather than fly out the castle, Tom flew about it. It was at once exciting and nerve-wracking; though there was no explicit injunction against in-castle flying, Mary felt as thought they were breaking some serious rule, perhaps owing to the scandalised yells they received from the many paintings Tom nearly swerved into—for he flew with bold, unrepentant quickness, as though they were in a Quidditch pitch.

Mary screamed, as much in pleasure as in fear, when they rapidly flew up the dark, spiracular stairwell to the Astronomy Tower. There, they were greeted by the austere grandeur of the sunset over December's Scotland, where the setting sun appeared a haughty young princess overseeing the grand procession of her immortal imperial guard—the neverending range of cloud-puncturing, snow-punctured mountains.

Their descent off the ledge of the tower was exhilarating. If her skin had been a little more tender, Mary was sure that the sharp, icy wind would have cut a scar slantwise down her cheek. But where this coldness was unforgiving, it was also intoxicating—it made her feel awake—and it rendered palpable the heat of Tom's body, which she quite literally held on for her life.

Evening came with a quickness that would have been impossible in London. It seemed that it took no more than a sly interval of ten minutes, for the bright mellow, sunny orange sky to become a black one thrung with stars. The twins switched places; Mary steered the broom, and Tom hugged her from behind.

To evade the winds which had so invigorated her earlier in the day, she flew in laps around the rim of the Black Lake, occasionally swooping sideways to skim her hand against its glacial surface.

"We're family, Tom."

"Indeed?" came his perplexed tone. His breath tickled her neck.

"I was terribly jealous, earlier today," she confessed all at once. "Everyone—my dorm-mates, yours, and all our housemates from the years above—had somewhere to call home, and people to call family, so I felt that … I felt that all I had was you … and you weren't enough. I felt you weren't enough because—because you dobbed on me to a prissy older girl just for stealing her precious little necklace, which she doesn't even deserve!"

"She doesn't deserve it," her brother agreed, "but that's not why I enabled her to recover it."

Mary continued, ignoring him. "Then came the hundred snakes you sent to find me, which was really silly Tom … but it made me realise that that was how it had to be, that that was the best a girl could have. Before, I thought it'd be nice to have ten cousins and twenty aunts and thirty great-uncles who call in favours from each other at the Wizengamot, like Alphard and Walburga do—they'd all care for you, and you'd care for them—but now that seems awfully annoying."

"Are you even listening, Tom?"

"Of course, go on."

Mary held her broom with one hand; with the other she slowly waved her wand at the lake, raising birds of water to fly along her, their blue wings spraying sprinkles of what felt like light summer rain against her as they flew.

"Alphard and Walburga don't know what it's like to be us. We've nothing, Tom. We've no parents, no money, no heritage—we've nothing that can't be put in a shoebox. Yet we've everything. Isn't it beautiful? Isn't it beautiful? We have nothing to our name, yet we move so lightly. D'you think Alphard and Walburga can fly as lightly as us? We understand the wind because we grew up with it. This very wind—it caresses your face and mine in this moment."

She had by now raised a small flock of water-birds; they chanted to agree with her words.

"Does my soppiness annoy you, Tom?"

"Not at all," he said quietly, "but while the freedom of nothing may be pleasant, I promise you, Mary, that one day we shall have very much."

By the time they flew back to the castle, it was very late into the night. Dinner was over, so Professor Slughorn had the twins return to their common room, where he would have the elves prepare a suitable supper for them. They were bought apple pies with fresh cream. As flying all day long left their bodies terribly cold and sore, they chose to sup while they bathed together.

As Mary sank into the foamy bath of Tom's dormitory, it was as though her entire body was enfolded in a warm blanket conjured lovingly by the mother she never knew. The hotness of the water at once dispelled the stabbing coldness of her skin, and all her aching muscles loosened to soak in the wet beneficence all around. There was not a single trace of tension in her body; it was as though she returned to her mother's womb—apt, she thought, as her legs interlocked with her brother's. "This feels so good," was all she could muster between sighs of pleasure.

Two of Tom's legs squeezed one of her own, tightly. He placed his hands on her knees, and softly ran them down to his waist. "You feel so good."

She said nothing. Her brother's eager hands remained on her skin, but they lifted, once he saw that she frowned pleadingly at him. The bath felt very nice, indeed, and Tom's closeness made her heart warm, but his urge to press his skin upon hers, to press his hands upon her flesh, was somehow humiliating. As though it meant her body belonged not to her, but to him, and that he belonged not to himself, but to some infernal subconscious force whose nature neither of them knew. Yet Mary recalled the gut-piercing loneliness she felt earlier in the day; she could not stand to be herself, all alone. Tom was a part of her, and her, of Tom—any other arrangement was misery. Plus, his touch made her skin tingle.

Her frown transformed into a small, sad smile.

So returned his squeezing legs and inquisitive hand. She belonged to him. The tension came back to her body in full force; she felt all her muscles contract as though she were encased in and being lifted up by a very large fishing net. But it was a delightful tension, a tingling one, which would dissipate itself; it made her feel as though she might dissipate into a puddle of sparkling blue water at any moment. She hummed in pleasure.

When they slept on the same bed that night, they refused to separate for some time—the bathtub was a womb; the bed was a womb. Her brother squeezed her so tightly that she had to tell him to slacken so that she could sleep at all. When they woke up, she found that he had turned to the other side; she supposed it would have been difficult, too, for him to sleep, with all her hair in his face.

The following days passed in similar fashion. The twins would spend entire days either on the broom, or in the library; typically these alternated, the latter serving as both a rest from and preparation for the former. Professor Slughorn gave them early Christmas gifts—a pair of books: Handbook for the Nomad-Astrologer Potioneer, by a confederacy of authors who grandly designated themselves, 'The Travelling Potions Masters'; and The Principles of Change, by an ancient Chinese wizard named Mòzǐ, who was latinised alternately as 'Mocius,' alternately as 'Magicius'—so that they might have time to read them before everyone returned to Hogwarts. These they read in the library between intervals of letter-writing.

Mary noted that Tom's letters were always the same; he never used more than a single seven-inch sheet of parchment for any single envelope, but he always filled them to the brim of their margins. Moreover his subject matter was always direct and inquisitive: what can Minister Spencer-Moon do that Minister Fawley can't? Why is it that certain jinxes cannot be cast twice in succession? Does metamorphagi blood truly have medical properties?

One day, as she sat in Tom's lap on an armchair in the library while they read together, a revelation came upon her. "You're completely obsessed, Tom!"

"Excuse me?" he asked in bemusement.

She, unsure of what she was doing herself, leapt out of his lap and jumped at a nearby bookshelf to pretend-skim through an anthology of Herbology reviews.

"You're obsessed with … oh, I don't know, everything! Your obsession—it shows in everything. In how you write your letters, how you perfectly pomade your hair, how you refuse to turn the page until I've understood everything—you feel obliged to tell me everything you know—it's all rather tiring!"

"Mary, you learn as quickly as I do," Tom said simply. "It follows that there's no reason you shouldn't learn as much as I do."

"You see! Whenever you don't like something I say, you start condescending to me in that—that unbearable voice! You don't talk like that to anyone else. You forget that I'm your sister, Tom. Tom!" Mary threw the book on the ground and spun on her heel. Then, her voice suddenly went quiet. "The bitterness keeps coming back to me. The secrets you kept from me, Tom, were calculated … hurtful … you say that I keep secrets from you, that you don't know what's in my letters—but it's all just rambling! Rambling rambling rambling! My secrets are in plain sight because they're nothing! Yours … yours—"

Tom's expression and voice remained infuriatingly calm. "Am I not affectionate enough for my sister?"

"What do you mean by that?" Mary whispered menacingly.

"What we do every night, I would never do for another girl—"

"Spare me your tosh! You enjoy it as much as I do—and that there is the problem."

"I only mean to say that I'm more tender to you than to everyone else."

Mary wordlessly summoned another nearby armchair to seat herself on, before pressing her wand to her face to cool herself down. She felt the little bit of ice at the tip of her wand melt against her skin, which then trailed down her cheek like a teardrop.

"The tenderness is the problem," Mary said softly. "Before Hogwarts, we were above this—everyone saw us as one. The two of us were one. Frightfully singular, as though we secretly shared a mind, a soul. That's how we thought of ourselves, too. We never mimicked anyone in London, we just did what we pleased—but here and now, you exchange jinxes with your boys, and I flitter about with my girls—or my girl, rather—Florence is my sole friend, thanks to you! At Wool's we were comfortable and innocent together. We fed each other, dressed each other, and never argued. Now, we're separate—separate in our friends, our desires, our everything! We're never comfortable with each other anymore, not really."

"You mistake the wand for the spell, Mary." Tom stood up and went to her, to caress her face. "We can be comfortable together and still have our tenderness. It's you who takes this all too seriously. You care about Florence more than I do any boy. But do not think for a moment that I care for you less than you care for me."

"Don't you see the problem?" asked Mary, aggressively seizing his invasive hand. "The answer to these questions are no longer clear in themselves. We never even thought of them, let alone asked them, when we were at Wool's. There's no way to tell who cares more for who anymore—our tenderness is disgusting."

"Perhaps so. But there's no need to worry about all this at all," Tom reassured.

"And why not?" Mary asked incredulously.

"Because we'll have neither the space nor time to indulge our tenderness once everyone comes back." Tom's intense eyes rested unblinkingly on her.

"What does that solve, Tom?"

The conversation went nowhere, and by the time they bathed together that evening, all was forgotten.

Wounds & Butterflies

Tom had received numerous gifts for the combined occasion of the Christmas of '39 and his thirteenth birthday. His favourite among these came in the form of a black parcel the size of a bible, with neither ribbons nor any other adornments otherwise proper to gifts. Tom intuitively tapped it with his wand, and the apparent wrapping—an eerily smooth, silk-like sheet—evaporated like trapped mist escaping from a boiling cauldron whose lid had just been removed, into thick strands of viscous ink-like fog, disclosing a black book whose title was imprinted in an elegant silver font to spell,

IN VIRTUTE TENEBRAE

"Riddle. I know we see the world in the same way. Merry Christmas—Thane Mulciber."

Two months later, this previously obscure fifth-year boy became one of Tom's closest 'friends'. Thin, long-limbed and hunchbacked, Tom privately likened Mulciber to one of those gnarled leafless trees in the Forbidden Forest that grew several yards tall despite their utter lack of exposure to the sun. His skeletally thin face, which contained a pair of large, eternally amused green eyes, was crested with a mushroom cap-like tuft of blonde hair that extended to his cheeks. Indeed; Mulciber, in all his deformity, was to Tom a memorable and oddly agreeable figure. Mary, of course, disagreed.

"Everyone sees Mulciber as a freak," she once whispered to him, as they sat together on a couch in the common room late one night, before the heat and smoke of a dim fireplace. "He hangs about you and your mates more than he does with his fellow fifth-years …"

"You'll remember, dear sister, that there was a time when everyone saw us as freaks too," said Tom, tracing a finger down her soft cheek. "Popularity is good to possess, but the want of it means nothing."

She swatted his hand off her face. "If you want to make friends in the upper years, dear brother, you've already squandered a chance with Caney."

"What does Caney have over Mulciber?" Tom asked. "His father's no longer minister. All Arcanius Fawley is now, is a fifth-year Prefect. He's nothing."

"He's handsome," Mary murmured with irritating sweetness, "and well-connected. Neither of which can be said of Mulciber."

Tom failed to understand how his sister could sometimes be so infuriating—was it not abundantly clear that sheer Magical Power came before 'well-connectedness'? The point in all its self-evidence was hardly worth proving. Instead he took another avenue of attack, invoking a particular discipline which had taken his interest of late.

"Have you ever looked in the section of the library dedicated to genealogy?" Tom asked. "It's very curious. Wizarding Britain's so small that the histories of the ancestors of all our peers can be freely found in what is in essence a school library."

"Then you'll have looked for our father?" Mary asked at once.

"There was nothing on the Riddles."

The two of them paused for a moment; both awaited something from the other. Tom broke the silence.

"The Fawleys are a flock of peacocks," he said, curling his lips. "Diplomats, bankers, socialites, and inventors of fancy but ultimately useless spells or potions—they are, in a word, those who Grindelwald calls 'the living undeserving of life.' Then you've the Mulcibers. The Fawleys are public and respectable—few, if any, of the Mulcibers are."

"Undeserving of life," Mary repeated in a mocking tone. "Yet they're respectable—you know that it's the respectable who decide who deserves what."

Tom ignored her. "The earliest known Mulciber, Thyrsus Mulcaebyrre, was perhaps the man who killed William the Conqueror. He was originally a court-mage to Anchetil de Greye, one of William's underling lords. But Mulcaebyrre, a wizard, decided he was more fit to rule than his muggle 'lord'. So he killed de Greye and took his fief for himself; but very quickly William sent an army to put him down. He escaped to Europe, and later fought in the Battle of Mantes in 1087, where William was thrown from his horse, which caused his death just a few weeks later. They call him the first English Dark Lord, though he hardly ruled for more than a few weeks, I imagine."

"Dark Lords. They've no longer any of those," Mary mused, raising her legs onto the sofa to curl into a ball. "The last English one was Hereward the Horrid, who died in the seventeenth century."

"It makes one wonder," came Tom, as his hand slowly found his sister's thighs, though through the heavy fabric of her robe, "why haven't they given this honorific to Grindelwald?"

She sighed in sleepy pleasure. "Because he dresses too well. But go on, Tom—the Mulcibers."

"After the 'Dark Lord' there were many, albeit mental, very worthy wizards. A dragon hunter who ate the hearts of his quarry, believing it would make him immune to fire; a mad duellist who, in a tournament frenzy, killed his opponent and then many members of the audience with a single wayward curse; and a merchant-mage addicted to invigoration draught, who dealt in muggle goods from slaves to opium, only to squander all his fortune in one night of hapless gambling."

Mary made a petulant look. "What a miserable bunch!"

"They met tragic ends, yes," Tom granted. "But don't you see? They did what they wanted. Took what was theirs."

"That they did, but so did the Fawleys," said Mary. "The Fawleys even managed it without becoming criminals."

Tom, irritated, squeezed his sister's thigh with all the force he could muster. She yelped.

"You don't understand," he simply explained.

She gently laughed. "Well, you're not explaining it terribly well."

"The events speak for themselves," said Tom in an ardent tone. "Don't you see?"

"I don't see."

"Then you're a fool."

He at once regretted the insult; his sister was mislead, not stupid—he ought not abuse her. But she took no offense.

"A fool who's going to sleep." She yawned. "Have you any more flattering words for your dear Mulciber and his family?"

"I don't. The events—"

"—speak for themselves. Goodnight, Tom."

But she sat still; she waited, her sleepy eyes blinking sweetly and expectantly, for him to reciprocate the farewell. Tom turned his head, quickly darting his eyes about the dimly lit common room, to see if any of the few remaining older students watched them. Of course they didn't, why would they? He returned to his sister, and swooped to fiercely kiss her three times on the neck.

His voice was hoarse. "Goodnight, Mary."

She returned his affection with an uncertain kiss to his cheek. Her eyes, unphased but otherwise mysterious, gazed at him up and down. Then, she rubbed her neck where he kissed, as though to rub it clean, before suddenly getting up and scuttling away to her dormitory.

Tom watched her disappear into the stairwell. As he turned back to face the fireplace, he discovered he was not sleepy whatsoever. He drew his wand and wordlessly rekindled its flames. Why does she not understand? He mulled the question. Pigeons beget pigeons; seagulls beget seagulls. There was no denying that Arcanius Fawley was handsome, charming, and impeccably well-mannered, but the mad glimmer that shone in Thane Mulciber's green eyes, whenever Tom saw him win some hallway duel, was a testament to power. Power that Fawley could never attain, no matter what. Tom found it congenial, even—Mary's dark eyes dilated in the same way, as though they were ready to escape their sockets, whenever she performed some great work of Magic.

From where, then, did he and Mary inherit their twitching eye? From where did they inherit their prodigious magical power? Tom was unsure, but whatever the source, it exceeded both that of Fawley and Mulciber. But still he respected the latter boy, who in fact he fruitfully conversed with the following day, while the whole gang of them—him, Tom, Tom's dorm-mates Wilkes and Avery, and the fourth years Lestrange and Nott—strolled by the border of the Forbidden Forest.

"Are you still working on inventing … what did you call it? Ah, yes, your serpenform range of spells?" Mulciber asked, thoughtfully stroking his chin.

"I've already developed some," Tom said, "but they're useless as of yet. Serpens capulusia!"

Like a frog's tongue shooting out of its mouth, a long, black snake shot out of Tom's wand, to grab a small fallen branch from the soil, and retract it so that it was within grabbing distance of Tom's hands.

"But that's brilliant, Riddle!" came Bill Wilkes. "D'you reckon you could use it to choke someone?"

"The snake's too weak," Tom pointed out as a matter of fact. "I've yet to figure out how to make it stronger, without ejecting it entirely from my wand. At present, it's nothing more than a theatrical accio."

"You're quite the prodigy, Riddle," came the brusque, curly-haired Alexius Lestrange. "But they say you shouldn't invent spells till you know thousands of spells yourself. You don't. Why not wait?"

It had taken Tom some time to gain the respect of Lestrange; but this older boy, whose very essence was haughty irreverence, reflexively challenged everyone at every turn—even Professors and seventh-years, even Tom.

"He's no need to do that." Thane came to Tom's defense. "That's what the Department of Magical Education would have you do. Can't have the students doing real magic. You ought always do the opposite of what the Department says."

"Let's ignore the Department," Lestrange snapped. "Practically every spell in every magic language—"

"Every physikalische," Amos Nott corrected tonelessly.

"Thank you for illuminating us, Nott," Lestrange jeered. "Every spell in every physic-owl-shit was invented by an adult. That's what's important. Most were made by a small bunch of the very enlightened, whose names we now find on chocolate frogs. Perhaps Tom will be on a chocolate frog someday, but for now he's only a kid. You can't brew a potion if you've not got the ingredients."

"Spellcrafting is different," said Tom, who barely suppressed the anger that threatened to seep into his tone. "Here we discover new ingredients in the act of brewing. On that, I ask all of you to leave—Mulciber and I will talk in private."

Though this was not the first time that Tom had abruptly commanded his gang to do something, they did not obey straight away. They all looked at Lestrange; would the strongest among them submit? Slytherin House had never been equal; but there had always been the unspoken rule that they were peers inasmuch as they were equally the scions of renowned families, and equally students. Tom flouted both these criteria; he was not the scion of a renowned family, and he, as a second-year, undeniably exceeded most fourth-years both academically and magically. Yet he was indeed in a way 'yet still a kid'—they only respected him out of the power they estimated he would have in a few years; not out of his current capabilities. So it was a thin tightrope to straddle, and not one on which he walked without support.

Mulciber stood behind him. Lestrange looked at Tom, then Mulciber, then back at Tom, and then, having assessed the situation, spun on his heel and left. The other three boys naturally followed him.

"They listen to you, Tom," murmured Mulciber, whose frenetic green eyes shone hungrily. "You command their respect—what'll you do with it?"

"It's you who they respect," corrected Tom. He thought of a concept he read in Tenebrae. "You know that. You're the locus of our pack. I draw my power from you."

"That's what you think." The older boy's voice was twisting and ironic. "Perhaps what they think, too. But I don't want to lead. Never have. May the best wizard win—that's my code."

The two of them, instead of persisting at the periphery of the forest, walked into it. The overhead canopy's sudden darkness oddly reminded Tom of his house's common room.

"Don't flatter yourself, Mulciber. Everyone wants to lead. Recall Tenebrae—even earthworms are motivated by will-to-power. Though perhaps, you don't want to lead us, us being such a piteous lot."

"Thane. Call me Thane," the older boy intoned his name like 'king'. "A piteous lot? How so?"

"We're outcasts," said Tom. "Yes, even me, after my sister stole Ilaria Greengrass' necklace. Consider Bill Wilkes and Avery—their names aren't worth a damn, compared to Black and Montgomery."

"Your other dorm-mates?"

"Yes. Lumos," Tom drew his wand. Though he could still discern the sun in the forest, it had become perilous to walk without a more proximate light. "But it's Bill and Avery, rather than Black and Montgomery, who're with us. Bill wants nothing more from Magic than to hurt animals and force girls to 'snog' him, though frankly, he's not good for much else."

Thane snorted. "Those are desires I have as well."

"But you desire more than that, I presume," Tom resumed. "Avery's as mute as a rock. I suppose he's smarter than a rock, but not by much. And the fourth years? Nott's a swot. He's more Ravenclaw than Slytherin, more tree than human. I'd like to shove him into the common room's big fireplace one day. Then at last we've Alexius Lestrange. The most illustrious of us outcasts. Were it not for his temper and his undeserved arrogance, he would have better friends than us in this house."

"You're too critical, Tom," teased the smiling Thane, whose wand tip now also shone with Lumos. "You easily see people's weaknesses. I suppose you learned to do so growing up in that dreadful muggle weaning pen."

"It's called an orphanage," said Tom.

"But consider—to advantageously use your friends, would you not need to know and, dare I say it, appreciate their strengths?"

"But what strengths have they got?"

"Take William Wilkes, for instance. He's thirteen. You shouldn't expect him to care about much more than 'hurting animals' and 'snogging girls'. Not everyone can be precocious like you. Yet Wilkes' already got a sharp mind for hexes, one that's rare in thirteen-year-old wizards—he's uninhibited."

"Uninhibited," Tom repeated. It sounded like an another way of saying undisciplined. "I don't understand."

"There's much that you don't understand, Tom," Thane said half sadly, half mockingly. "You, too, are uninhibited—and you take it for granted that everyone else is as well. You don't care about rules, but neither does William Wilkes. It's a rare strength."

"But I do mind the rules. I've never gotten detention."

"You don't flout the rules, no." Thane laughed. "But I don't mean that kind of rule. I mean one's interior rules. Conscience, morality, the inner voice—whatever you call it—you and Wilkes have seen through it. It's all tosh. Not everyone has; most don't see through it all their lives."

"Bill's strength … is being unconcerned with the good?"

"In a sense, yes." Thane made a crooked smile. "But let's stop talking about this—I'm sure you didn't want to talk just to gossip over your dormmates."

"Indeed I did not," said Tom. "I wanted to talk to you about something in Tenebrae. The wound of apotheosis."

Thane stopped in his tracks. His head turned to Tom to present him a grotesquely avid smile.

"You've already read up to apotheosis?"

"I've finished the book."

"It's not a book one 'finishes'—"

"I know that," Tom dismissed. "What I meant to say was, I've already read it cover-to-cover. Of course I'll continue to consult it."

"Good," said Thane, oddly relieved. "Then you'll know that apotheosis is about difference, contrast."

"Pain and pleasure, affirmation and guilt," said Tom. "Extremity condenses time. I wonder if you've made a wound of apotheosis?"

"Only last year, in fact. I did it for Accio. I would demonstrate that I can do but I fear hurting you. But what would you like to know?"

"The ritual is simple enough," said Tom. "What's unclear is what form of pleasure would be most apt for the ascension. The book gives no suggestions."

Most unexpectedly, Thane broke into hysterical laughter. "Carnal pleasure. Without a doubt, the fulfilment of lust. You would've known that if you were a little older. But I'm sure you know of what I speak."

"I do," said Tom, perhaps all too quickly. "I do. Who did you make love with?"

"Beatrice." Thane intoned her name with a strange sort of reverence. "You could borrow her, if you'd like. You're still a virgin, she knows how to—"

"No!" Tom yelled, startling himself with the force of his voice.

"Then who do you have in mind? There are no other means of ascension, not that I know of."

Mary, he thought immediately. The ascension had to be as smooth as silk and as sweet as honey; he could think of no other girl who he would enjoy touching nearly as much as his sister. But it would hardly be appropriate to tell this to Thane.

"I've yet to even decide which spell to bind," said Tom. His mind flickered through a variety of options; each seemed as useful as the next. "May I see your wound?"

"Of course," Thane obliged him.

Thane took off his robe and unbuttoned his shirt. There, running down the right side of his pale breast, was a great purple gash that, albeit more faded and mild than Tom had expected—it must have healed over time—was so inordinately long, that it appeared a natural feature of his body, like a calm, ancient river through some countryside scenery. It was a smile; it protruded to the very side of his waist, just like his smiles cut a line through his cheeks.

For the weeks to come, Tom internally debated night and day on which spell to bind for apotheosis. It was futile and tiring; every spell was promising, and the possibilities were infinite—but nothing was certain. One never knew how apotheosis would affect their spell; just that it would make it more powerful. For instance if he chose Aguamenti, an idea that originally struck him as ridiculous but grew tempting over time, it was equally possible that he would henceforth be able to produce obscene amounts of water (bathtubs full, with a snap of his finger) as to improvise curses of scorching vapour and freezing ribbons of ice.

As the weeks went by and no answer to the question came, Tom mentally relegated it to make way for more practical concerns. For one, there was much he had to learn about the human body. Where could he carve his wound for it to hurt, without impairing his vital functions? Thane's wound was on his chest—Tom's had to be somewhere else, for he refused to imitate the older boy. Moreover, how did one make love? His understanding of 'sex' was a haphazard set of intuitions and premonitions. It was one of the most pleasurable things in the world. It was why Molls, or muggle women who flagrantly adorned themselves to entice men, went out at night to make money 'selling' it in London. It was the promise that motivated a great many men to various feats small and great, even if they would not admit it. It was something one could achieve by force.

He borrowed and rigorously devoured books on anatomy and physiology from the library. One Saturday, as he sat in the library in the afternoon perusing such a book, across Mary who intently worked on something with her wand, he realised something which he should have realised long ago, something obvious—so obvious that it was not stated even in Tenebrae:

"You can make more than one!"

"What?" Mary's attention was caught at once. "One what, Tom?"

"More than one wound …" repeated Tom in quiet reverence. "The body can sustain several, and with time, the same wound could serve for multiple apotheoses!"

His sister remained quiet; she returned to carefully decorating a huge, unmoving butterfly with her wand. It was transfigured out of firewood.

"Mary." He demanded her attention. "Stop ignoring me when I speak of apotheosis. Does the idea of pain really frighten you so much?"

"So what if it does?" she asked, half pleadingly, half defiantly—a mode of her voice increasingly familiar to him.

"You don't have to make your own wound," Tom assured. "Although, after you see the power mine will give me, you'll want one for yourself—we'll make more together."

"No!" she yelled, causing a nearby book to eject itself from its shelf. "It's utterly unnatural! You've got to stab yourself, then play with my nude body as you bleed—"

"Quiet," he hissed.

"—and in the end," she continued in a waspish whisper, "you don't even know what'll happen!"

She took a deep breath, stroked her hair, and went to return the fallen book to its shelf.

"There is one certainty—my power will increase," Tom affirmed. "Will you help me or not?"

As she sat back down, she evaded his gaze and straightened her robe. For a moment fury flared in Tom—he thought she was pretending to not hear him again—but then she spoke:

"Perhaps, let me think about it."

Her tone was uninspiring. Tom furrowed his brow. He thought back to the cryptic complaints she made during Christmas. At the time, he knew that she told the truth—that a rift was sown between them on their very first night at the castle, and that this rift had since then, barring intermittent moments of affection and raillery, only grown and grown like a cobweb in a rusting cauldron at the bottom of a creaky old cupboard, to encroach more and more of the time they had together which had once been a seamless, infinite thread of togetherness. Then he had refused her Arcanius Fawley, and now she refused him the best prospective vessel of apotheosis—herself.

But just as Tom began to brood on this, Mary raised the big beautiful butterfly in her hand, with such steadiness in her arm and focus in her dark eyes that it was as though she was trying to lift a spiderweb without breaking it. She blew on it and it came alive! It woke so gracefully that it was as though it had been sleeping, rather than inanimate all along. It flew towards Tom, who reflexively extended his hands to allow it to land.

Its being an object of transfiguration rather than a real organism was evident from its impossible size and impossible beauty. It was completely translucent, though it had no organs, and it contained every colour in the rainbow—it looked like it was made out of coloured glass, like the window of a cathedral, but alive. On its wings streaked two long beams of ruby-red, reminiscent of the scar on Thane's chest.

"It's yours," she said, smiling with a most unexpected tranquility. "The biggest one I've made yet."

When winter melted into spring, the air of the Slytherin common room changed; during the cold season several fireplaces had burned around the clock every day. When the flowers came back to bloom and the trees saw nascent leaves revive on their defrosting branches, most fireplaces in the common room fell into disuse; even the big one was only used at night. The result was that there was, in the extended wardrobe by the big fireplace, a great surplus of firewood.

It was the boys who first made use of this store of wood. A group of third and fourth years, among whom Amos Nott was a chief architect, made a crossbow the size of a table that they called a 'ballista', something both dragon hunters of yore and muggle soldiers defending or besieging a city would use. They successfully lodged several projectiles through trees along the border of the Forbidden Forest. Arcanius Fawley, extraordinarily, collaborated with his fifth-year Prefect peer in Gryffindor, Gustavus Goodwin, to entertain the younger boys of both houses—they built and equipped small wooden boats with their respective house colours painted in their sails, before enchanting them and letting them disembark into the Black Lake as the 'Slytherin' and 'Gryffindor' fleets to fight naval battles—three such battles occurred, and Slytherin ultimately won 2-1.

Mary was the first and only girl to take interest in the wood. Given that their transfiguration classes were still taught by a rotation of half-hearted seventh-years, she entertained herself during them by transfiguring wood into animals. She found that she had a talent for making particularly beautiful butterflies; word spread, and first- and second-year girls of all houses came to her asking if she could make them pet butterflies. She obliged these girls, and more than transfigure, she also enchanted them with decorative charms, so that they looked like they were made of coloured glass.

"Thank you, Mary," he told her. "What should I do with it? Have you made one for yourself?"

"Do whatever you want," she shrugged. "They'll live so long as I live. I've made a dozen for myself—I keep them around my bed."

"And you'll live very long," said Tom. He imagined her death; it was so terrible a thought that he could not dwell on it for more than five seconds.

He caressed the butterfly's wings; they were pleasantly warm, like the surface of a temperate cup of hot chocolate. Then, he noticed that it smelled sweet—a sweetness distinct from Mary's perfume—a little bit like soap.

"An aroma charm," Tom observed. "Very elaborate."

Yet despite her scrupulousness and magical acumen, there was no denying that Mary was frivolous. Yet Tom could not condemn this frivolity. The butterfly that rested in his hands, which was so complex and beautiful, was useless. Rather than read Tenebrae or practice curses or even practical spells, Mary spent her time enchanting her uniform so that the edge of her robe and skirt would ripple ever so slightly when she walked. Boys and girls alike took notice of this little flourish; there were seventh-year girls who could cast much more complex cosmetic charms, but few who could execute a simple one so perfectly, so gracefully. Tom could not do that. It was for naught, it was useless; but it proved her power. Flowers had short lifespans; but to Tom it seemed that their animating principle was to be beautiful. He could not condemn his sister's frivolity.

He was brought out of his revelry by an older girl's grating voice.

"Tom, Mary—Professor Slughorn wants to see you tonight, after dinner."

Out of nowhere, the dour fifth-year brunette prefectess that was Beatrice Sommerfield appeared before them.

"For what?" he asked. He exchanged a look with Mary; her eyes told him that she did not know what was going on either.

"I don't know," Beatrice said with unwarranted impatience. "But you're not in trouble, I could tell by the sound of his voice. He sounded like he wanted to show you off to someone."

A Dinner Party

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

That evening, Professor Slughorn was absent from the staff table at dinner. This was not an extraordinary event by any means; Slughorn was known for being the only professor who frequently invited private guests to dine and entertain in his office. Often, these guests were simply cliques of accomplished older students, the majority of whom were Slytherins. Other times, they were his fellow Professors. Occasionally, they were distinguished figures of society who had nothing to do with Hogwarts.

"You're sure you're not in trouble, then?" asked Florence, as she unceremoniously gobbled down a slice of cheesecake.

"Certain as can be, Flo," said Mary. "He's going to introduce us to guests."

"But who? Udham Singh?"

Mary laughed. "I assume not. I don't know."

It was only two weeks ago that Singh shot Sir Michael O'Dwyer, the British colonial officer who was responsible for slaughtering hundreds of his compatriots in Punjab. The event's resonance was so great that for a few days, it superseded even Grindelwald's war as the superlative topic of gossip within the walls of Hogwarts. It appeared that many of the purebloods knew little of the muggle British Empire; their reactions ranged from vicarious pride to outraged disgust. Muggleborns of both extreme proclivities, both self-fashioned tories and revolutionaries, were the chief disseminators of both views. The Gryffindors took it particularly to heart; for an entire week, their table in the Great Hall was split into two—one side was lined with Union Jacks, and the other, with the enigmatic Swaraj Flag of the Indians. Mary found both alien.

Florence's voice, which suddenly spoke in the unnaturally sweet register that could have only been provoked by the presence of one particular boy, brought Mary out of her thoughts. "Oh, hello, Tom!"

"Evening, Travers," Tom said with a sly smile, before tapping Mary's shoulder. "It's time to go, Mary."

"Good evening to you too, Tom," Mary said ironically. "I was wondering where you were."

"Business with Mulciber and Lestrange," he said tersely, pulling her robe at the shoulder. "Let's go."

"But it's still quite early. Slughorn won't be expecting us for some time—"

"It'll take time to get all the way up to his office," he said simply.

"I've barely eaten!"

Florence, whose allegiances shifted with capricious fluidity between the twins, dared give her own opinion. "You should go, Mary—"

"Shush!" Mary sullenly stabbed a baked potato and gave it a large bite, scowling at both friend and brother before her.

"Slughorn will provide food," said Tom, as if he knew it for a fact. "It'll take time to get up there."

"Whatever," she conceded and rose. Tom took her by the waist.

Her brother proved to be right. None of their classrooms, nor most of the active classrooms in the castle, were situated above the third floor. Consequently, the stairs of the fourth and fifth floors were rarely trampled on by the feet of hurrying students. So when Tom and Mary roused these stairs from their slumber, they became impatient and capricious—they moved with a ferocity that forced the twins to clutch the handrails for their lives. After three minutes of being flung about directionlessly in the space between the fifth and sixth floors, Mary saw that her brother's patience had ran dry. "Enough," he said coldly, before standing up, drawing his wand, and pointing it menacingly towards the platform on which they were supposed to disembark.

Mary's dark eyes gleamed in awe and admiration as the stairs succumbed to Tom's will, and began to slowly move in the right direction in disgruntled defeat.

"I'll lead the way. I've been to his office before," Tom said, as they disembarked on the sixth floor.

Walking behind her brother, Mary felt, as she often did now, a perverse mix of haughtiness and self-consciousness. She had become so much taller than Tom. She easily saw above his head. It seemed that, where she had grown leaps and bounds in the past year, he had hardly grown at all. Though she understood that it was expected for girls to become women before boys became men, she could not help but sometimes consider Tom a little boy. Indeed, there were no signs of adult masculinity on her twin brother; his skin was smooth and untarnished by facial hair; his cheeks, though handsomely carved, still round and often lightly tinged with pink; and his physiognomy altogether, equivocally that of a child's. It was a funny, shameful feeling, to observe Tom's childlikeness—a feeling impossible to have felt before Hogwarts, for back then, he had always been taller than her.

She patted his head.

"Stop that," he said, smacking her hand.

Yet his appearance was utterly at odds with every other aspect of his being. His prodigious magic; his severe manner of speech; the trembling and terrible yearning of his hands when he touched her skin—none of these were childlike. But neither were they adult. Tom was restless and obsessive; he had a mortal fear of wasting time. Neither adults nor children appeared so desperate before the fact of mortality as he did. It was something unique to him, in the way that some spells required wand movements that were not analogously found in any other spell.

Was she like that as well? Perhaps. Mary thought that she possessed many of the characteristics that one would impute to 'girls', and she enjoyed these qualities. At any rate, she wondered how her brother would look, once he grew into a form more fitting his essence, and surpassed her again in height—he would be terribly handsome. She smiled stupidly at the thought.

"We're here."

Tom gently knocked on the door. It opened at once.

"Ah, my dear twins!" greeted an evidently drunk Professor Slughorn, whose corpulent form buoyed about in a loose ocean-blue silk robe. In his hand was a glowing purple cocktail, from which two glistening white flowers sprouted. "Why, come on in! I'll have the elves fix you something—fruit juice? No, I imagine you'd want something savoury. Roast quail? Fried potatoes with bacon? No? Then coffee cheesecake, perhaps?"

"Why, good evening to you as well, sir!" Tom made a jubilant smile to mirror the drunken joy of his Head of House. "Fruit juice will suffice for now, sir."

The rumours were true; Professor Slughorn's office was utterly luxurious. It was as large as a classroom, but otherwise entirely unlike a classroom. The floorboards were dark and polished, though covered largely by many overlapping dark red carpets. All the furniture in the room was ancient and ornate. Even the quill-holder on his antique desk was encrusted with little diamonds. What made the room perfect, however, was its great open marble balcony-veranda, a fixture that conceivably could have originally belonged to an ancient greek palace—and a table whose attendants looked out at it, to the distant everwhite mountains and millions of overhead stars.

A pair of house elves in matching costumes—tiny little blue suits with white bowties, an outfit much more dignified than what Mary habitually saw the laundry elves wear—suddenly appeared in front of the twins, bowing before them with trays that supported tall glasses of what appeared to be guava juice, a specialty that irregularly appeared for dinner on the Slytherin table.

But of everything in the office, it was the two men who sat at the table that drew Mary's attention the most. The younger one, were it not for the extraordinarily ornate cravat around his neck, would have looked like a well-to-do muggle businessman. His suit was plain, black, and in a way thoroughly boring. His hair was neatly cropped and slick with pomade, and the thick cigar between his fingers billowed only a dull gray smoke. Yet, Mary realised with a gasp, he was none other than—

"Minister Spencer-Moon!" she called, failing to restrain her surprise. "Pardon me, sir—I've never had the pleasure of meeting a Minister before."

Tom squeezed her hand in warning.

"Ha, indeed! Leonard!" called Professor Slughorn. "Let me introduce you to two of your probable successors—Tom and Mary Riddle."

"Twins, are you?" The Minister for Magic rose to greet them. "I'd always wanted a twin myself, being the oldest of four children."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, sir," returned Tom in a voice that was almost comically obsequious, before bowing so deeply that his head looked like it was going to touch the floor.

Mary quickly gave a bow as well, before realising that she should have made a curtsy. But Minister Spencer-Moon, an economical man, did not notice her lapse of ceremony.

The older man sitting across from the Minister had, though not as salient a bearing as the Minister, on account of the latter occupying the highest office of Britain's magical government, a much more visually striking presence. In many ways they were opposites. Where the Minister had short dark hair and a clean shaven face, the older man's head sported long, meticulously symmetrical white-blonde curls that fell to his shoulders. Where the Minister dressed like a muggle businessman, the older man wore a splendid green-black robe, with accoutrements that ranged from his five necklaces to his three bracelets on each sleeve, reminding Mary of a painting of a dapper sixteenth century warlock who often recited Italian poetry by the entrance of the central tower. Finally, where the Minister was stockily built and somewhat tall, the older man, as he rose, distended like a ghost in his slender, stupendous height.

"Now," came Slughorn's drunken voice, "behold Longinus Malfoy! The seventh-year Prefect, if you will, of the Slytherin section of the Wizengamot."

Abraxas' dad! Mary covered her mouth; he was one of the chief objects of Slytherin girl gossip, and for good reason. They said he divorced his first wife, after their first son Cassius died. They said it was he who brought Minister Fawley to power, and he who then forced Fawley to resign. They said he was the richest wizard in all of Europe.

The Minister heartily laughed at Slughorn's jest, and to Mary's surprise, the senior Malfoy permitted himself a small chuckle as well.

"And finally, here," said Slughorn, petting the head of a tiny yellow bird perched on the armrest of the furthermost chair, "allow me to introduce your new transfiguration professor—Miss Dalia Lovegood!"

Mary could not believe what she then beheld; the bird transformed into a woman. An attractive but otherworldly young blonde who looked scarcely older than the seventh-year girls of Mary's house, Lovegood wore a loose-fitting light blue robe, which was so bright that it was almost white, and so clear that Mary could make out her soft, unblemished skin behind it.

"Tom and Mary—what lovely names!" Lovegood said with warm sincerity. "Professor Slughorn speaks highly of you. I can't wait to meet you in the classroom."

"Thank you, Professor," came Tom's equanimous voice. "I look forward to your tutelage."

"No, this can't wait!" shouted Slughorn, whose voice almost sounded angry. "Dalia—you must see what they can do. What they can transfigure. It'll amaze you. Why Tom, cast a spell, will you? Turn something into something else."

"I must defer your request to Mary, sir," returned Tom. "She's superior in transfiguration."

"Ah yes, yes, of course."

"Me? I suppose I am," Mary sipped her guava juice and wiped her mouth. "Sure—but please allow me a moment."

She drew her wand and scanned the room. Slughorn had a large bookshelf; the covers of many of his books were worn and loose. Thus she swished her wand several times, and the books, in droves, flew out of their shelves as pigeons. Very quickly there was a great band of them, cooing in a great dissonant symphony—Mary, now giggling hysterically, directed them out the balcony to fly in circles. She thought about perhaps trying to choreograph them into flying in even more complex patterns, like squares or zigzags, but decided against it—if even one pigeon fell, her Head of House would lose one of his books.

At any rate, everyone was deeply impressed—the Minister even applauded—and Slughorn in particular sighed in astonished relief when Mary returned each bird-book to its proper place. Professor Lovegood softly touched her shoulders, squatted down, and told her solemnly, "one day you'll become more powerful than everyone in this room."

Though Mary blushed at the compliment, she cocked her head as though to ask, even my brother? Shockingly, Lovegood picked up on this, for she nodded as though to say, yes, even him.

Longinus Malfoy spoke for the first time. His voice was slow, sonorous, and full of certainty. "What about you, Tom? In which discipline are you superior?"

Tom did not falter at the question. He at once answered, "Defense Against the Dark Arts."

"I see," said the senior Malfoy, in a tone that Mary construed as vaguely approving.

The twins took their seats. Mary sat between Professor Lovegood and Tom, while the three distinguished men sat on the other side. Conversation passed fluidly, though only the men partook in it. Slughorn and the Minister, with their respective pipe and cigar, quickly and verbosely coursed through the topics of the War, of old friends, of the British magical economy, of the British muggle economy, of new potions invented in South America, of endangered magical species in Australia, and even of the state of magical education in Grindelwald's European domain—of, in a word, what seemed to Mary everything in the world. Longinus Malfoy, though not a man of many words, occasionally interjected with keen insights or sharp judgments—everything he said was calculated and sober.

Neither the Minister nor Slughorn were sober. But where Slughorn prattled on with his head in the clouds of intoxication, there remained in the Minister always an inextricable solemnity, that seemed to be part of him on an organic level. This solemnity engendered a clearheadedness, a clearheadedness which compelled him to include Tom in the conversation, by routinely asking, "now tell me, Tom, what do the boys at Hogwarts think of this matter?"

He never asked Mary about the girls.

But Mary was content with merely observing the conversation of the men, for it was quite a spectacle, and an illuminating one at that. She enjoyed, as one of the two members of the audience of the parlay (the other being Professor Lovegood), the luxury of having house elves personally serve her—she got them to fetch her a pitcher of guava juice, and a plate of pan-fried potato slices doused in Mediterranean spices. She ambiently conversed with Professor Lovegood about a most riveting notion—animagi magic.

Mary had the elves get Tom his own plate. She piled it with pan-fried potatoes. "They're really good," she told him. But he had none of it, his attention was fully immersed in the conversation of the men.

"Forgive me, Minister," said Tom, gently smiling, "but I must ask—my curiosity permits me no other recourse—what do you think of former Minister Fawley?"

"Fawley? I don't know him well enough to say," came the Minister's gruff voice. "The Wizengamot was unhappy with him."

As though invoked by The Wizengamot, Longinus Malfoy spoke. "Ah, Hector … my old friend. We were yearmates in Hogwarts. Dormmates, in fact. He's a worthy Minister for peace, but not for war."

Minister Spencer-Moon scoffed. "A Minister who can't lead in war isn't a Minister worth a damn."

"Now now, Leonard …" Slughorn halfheartedly chided. "Hector did keep the country in good shape during peace."

Tom asked another question, his voice perfectly level. "In your estimation, Minister, is Chamberlain doing a good job on the muggle front?"

"Certainly not," the Minister responded at once. "Even the muggle press call the affair 'the phoney war'—"

"But you must remember, Leonard," interrupted the senior Malfoy, who sounded like a gently reproving professor, "that the Germans have hardly given him a chance to act. You cannot expect Chamberlain to mount an offensive. Recall the 'Great War' his kind fought twenty years ago."

"The man lacks gall," the Minister retorted, as though this sufficiently negated all of Malfoy's argument. "At any rate, the muggle liaison office estimates that he'll be replaced soon—he's not popular among his own."

"Muggle politics," Slughorn muttered, shaking his head. "With who shall they replace him?"

"I'm afraid we don't know," said the senior Malfoy. "Nor are we allowed to decide."

As he intoned allowed, Malfoy looked towards the Minister, as though to allege that it was he who disallowed the most convenient and obvious course of action.

Of everyone at the table, it was Tom who offered the hitherto most daring piece of speculation, in a tone of perfect certainty. "They'll replace him with Churchill, the first admiral of the navy."

"Churchill? Winston Churchill? The muggle liaison office never made any special mention of him," came the Minister. "Explain, lad."

Tom, clearly enjoying the sudden prestige conferred on him, gave the Minister a respectful smile. "Before the war it was Churchill who, for years, babbled on about the 'dangers of Nazism.' All the papers and parliamentarians thought he was a fool, especially when they signed the Munich Agreement—but then the Germans invaded Poland. Now consider also, Minister, that the only front of the 'phoney war' which is not 'phoney', is the naval one. And guess who is the first admiral of His Majesty's Navy? None other than Churchill. He's done a swell job at fending off the Kriegsmarine. In a word, Minister, in less than a year, Winston Churchill has evolved from a stooge to the most popular boy in the courtyard."

For a moment, all the men in the room were silent; Mary knew that they were all at once in awe, at the truth that poured so eloquently from her brother, a mere second-year boy, while also rapidly planning what they each ought to do, to accommodate with and make the best of the now inevitable ascension of Winston Churchill.

"Very well." The Minister broke the silence. "And how do you feel, Tom, about Churchill?"

"I welcome him," smiled Tom. "He reminds me of you, Minister. You'll both get things done, unlike your predecessors."

Mary stifled laughter; she marvelled that anyone could believe in Tom's flattery, even though everyone did.

"Now now, let's be reasonable, everyone," interjected Slughorn, who sunk into his armchair like a bag of beans. "I'm mighty fond of the Fawleys … Ilus, Hector, Arcanius … they're a charming sort. They might not be fit for the task of war, but society will always have a use for them."

Mary knew as fact that her brother hated the Fawleys. He revealed none of this hatred when he gave his Head of House a thoughtful nod of the head.

"Minister," called Mary, not wanting to go the entire evening without in some way imprinting her presence among the men. "Your cravat's very lovely."

"Oh? Yes, I suppose so," the Minister awkwardly fumbled with it. "It was a gift from Longinus."

Mary smirked. Just as I thought, she wanted to say. But she held her tongue; it was good enough to have proven herself right, to herself. "Mr. Malfoy, sir, you have exquisite taste."

The older man, as though he intuited that Mary knew all along that the cravat was his gift, smirked back at her and dipped his head.

Conversation then sailed back to the placid waters of lighter topics. It seemed that Slughorn's drunkenness had reached a height where he became unreachable to both the sober and those still in the lower heavens of intoxication. Perhaps this, or perhaps tiredness, compelled him to withdraw into himself. Minister Spencer-Moon, to whom Slughorn acted as a conversational springboard, also went quiet—Longinus Malfoy, despite being one of the Minister's most eminent allies, neither possessed natural fraternal affection for him, nor the slightest morsel of the gregariousness of Slughorn.

"I want date pudding," Mary commanded one of the elves. "Serve it with thick cream—cold thick cream—and butterscotch sauce."

"Yes, Mistress," the creature said compliantly.

But before it could apparate away, Professor Lovegood raised a halting hand.

"You ought to be kinder to him, Mary," she whispered. "Look at him, at his eyes—don't you see how tired he is?"

Mary looked at the creature's great silver eyes; they indeed looked weary. But then she whispered to Lovegood, "he? Professor Slughorn and the Minister call him it."

"If someone referred to you by 'it', does that cease to make you a girl?"

Mary said nothing for a moment. She found that she enjoyed having the affection of Lovegood, whose ethereal tone and eccentric view of the world charmed her.

"No, I guess not," Mary murmured. "I'm sorry."

She reached out to gently stroke the elf's bony head. "That'll be all for tonight—thank you."

Mary received her date pudding. She wanted to feed Tom, but she knew that if she dared so much as to raise her spoon to his mouth, he would curse her afterwards for embarrassing him before the ministerial men. Slughorn, too, requested something from the elves—a tiny little vial of blue liquid which, miraculously, restored his sobriety ten minutes within his drinking it.

"Morning-after potion," Slughorn explained, coughing and clutching his forehead in pain. "Horrible stuff—you shouldn't have it until after you've slept. But we've still business to get through."

The business in question and the final topic of the night was 'portals'. When Tom asked them what a 'portal' was, none of the men were able to give an entirely satisfactory explanation. "They're doors you walk through, which'll take you at once from one place to another far away," Slughorn had tried to explain. But it was utterly unclear how they achieved this, and why this form of magic was generally viewed with suspicion in Europe. At any rate the twins learned that such portals would be installed throughout the castle, chiefly in the common rooms, to facilitate the escape of students in the event of an invasion by Grindelwald.

"The Unspeakables warn that they're 'brittle'," concluded the Minister. "We'll have to test them, as soon as possible."

Chapter End Notes

Even though this chapter is literally just people having dinner, I hope it doesn't come off as gratuitous—let me know what you think. My original Chapter 9 draft felt too long and cumbersome, so I decided to cut it in half. You can expect the next chapter to be posted within a week—you will, I suspect, find it at least a little bit more exciting than this one.

Alarm

Within a week these portals were put into place. A squadron of uniformed British Aurors and vibrantly dressed American specialists of Indian extraction installed them with striking efficiency. There was one in every common room, and two in convenient spots elsewhere on every floor of the castle for good measure. The portal in the Slytherin dungeon did not agree with its surroundings; it stood in the middle of everything, a huge black doorframe as wide as the entrance of the Great Hall, incongruously large and intrusive, encasing a sheet of glowing, opaque white mist.

One Friday evening in the Great Hall, Professor Dippet announced their purpose and function. Whoever stepped into them would be "teleported" to one of two places; enrolled Hogwarts students, to a secret safe location deep in the country, and anyone else, to a holding cell in Azkaban, to await interrogation by Aurors. "It is now all but impossible for Grindelwald to harm our ancient castle or her students," pronounced Dippet in his pompous three-hundred year old voice.

"But in the rare event that he, or any other malicious force, still foolishly chooses to attack us, you will hear the bells quickly ring thrice, then pause for a few seconds, before ringing thrice again. This is the alarm, and if you hear it, you shall immediately retreat to the nearest common room—any common room, regardless of your house—and enter its portal."

"These powerful artefacts are not to be trifled with," he continued. "Our friends in the American Wizarding Confederation took great labour in procuring them from their ancient forests and transporting them here. Do not propel anything into them, not even crumpled pieces of parchment. Certainly do not duel around them—a single wayward spell will make the Ministry believe that our castle is under attack and trigger their elaborate security protocols."

The very morning after the Headmaster's warning, Gryffindor lost 400 house points. A broom, an armchair, and a red-haired third year boy had been tossed into the portal of their common room. The great Hourglass that contained rubies at the back of the Great Hall was almost completely empty. Yet throughout breakfast, during which Mary's eyes returned again and again to scan that leftmost table of red and gold, she found the majority of Gryffindors not only indifferent to the great penalty they had suffered, but even amused, if not proud of it.

When Mary sat with her brother in the library that afternoon, she noticed that the particular determination which cast his face was at once a little bit more mellow, a little bit more tranquil, yet also somehow more enthused and more passionate than it usually was. It was the look he made, whenever he contrived a plan.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked him.

"April the eleventh," Tom returned at once.

They sat down.

"April the eleventh?"

"April the eleventh, at midday," said Tom with a feverish smile. "That's when they'll test the portals."

"Test it in what manner?"

"They'll evacuate all the students from the castle."

Mary looked around. No one was nearby. She leant in and hissed to Tom, "how do you know that? Who told you?"

"No one," he said with a scoff. "I could've asked Slughorn, but there would've been no sport in that. I figured it out. Do you know how Professor Beery uses enchanted cans to help him maintain the greenhouses? Last night I snuck into the greenhouses and inspected the cans—they're all scheduled for much more watering than usual on Sunday the eleventh. It's because he won't be there."

Though she was impressed by the depth to which her brother contemplated their Herbology Professor's watering cans, Mary was not persuaded. "That's all? The prior incantatio of a few watering cans is enough to convince you that they'll evacuate the castle?"

"In tandem with the fact they'll test the portals at noon, yes." The hardness of Tom's tone told Mary that he was beyond convincing otherwise. "I did a little bit of reading, you see. The portals draw their strength from the moon, and lose it under the sun. It follows that they're at their weakest at midday, which is why Slughorn and the Minister, or whoever is in charge of their operating, will sound the alarm right before lunch—they want to make sure that the portals holds up at their weakest hour."

"Perhaps you're right," said Mary.

Her brother was often right. Mary used to hold this fact in pride, but now, it irritated her. Like dampness feeding a great growth of mould in the corner of an old cupboard, Tom's obsession was fed by the leaps and bounds with which his nascent adolescent intelligence grew. Always, he needed to prove, likewise to her, himself, Professor Slughorn, and everyone else in the castle, that he was more capable than they could possibly expect. He did not need a reason to act; often he acted simply to prove that he could act. Mary thought that he would never be truly satisfied. This obsession manifested not only in outbursts of magic, but rather in everything he did—in fact, it manifested to Mary most often in the way he talked to her.

Tom spoke with a firmness that permitted no response but acquiescence. "You'll spend the day with Abraxas Malfoy. Make sure that, at around a quarter to twelve, the two of you are somewhere far from the Dungeon, if not the castle altogether. When the bells sound, Malfoy will get scared and faint. You'll save him. You'll levitate him to the portals. You'll refuse to leave him. You'll remain by his side no matter where the portal takes you. You'll stay by his side even when we're all back at Hogwarts, and he's consigned to one of the cots in the Hospital Wing."

"Why me? You're the one obsessed with Malfoy," said Mary, pouting and folding her arms. "You do it."

"For one, I'll have to distract Antoine Rosier, who's otherwise always by his side," he said, "but it has to be you, because Malfoy's mother died when he was little."

"What?" Mary broke into incredulous laughter—her brother's explanation struck her as a preposterous non-sequitur—but as her laughter abated, so did she come to understand what he implied. Tom's reasoning was at once perverse, inexplicable, and intuitive, like magic itself.

Thus for the following days, Mary courted Abraxas Malfoy. Abraxas was, although in a way one of the most boring boys she had ever met, one of the most interesting ones, too. Most of the boys who talked to Mary sought to charm her, whether by subtly or overtly alluding to their family's prestige and wealth; by solemnly casting the little spells that they learned just for her with excessive flair; or by simply trying to make her laugh. Then, there was Abraxas, a type in himself, who welcomed Mary's company, but made no effort to maintain his right to it. He permitted her affection, in the way a flower might permit an enchanted watering can to nourish it, or a sickly son might allow his mother's doting. But Mary was not offended; rather, she was charmed. She liked that Abraxas lacked what was seemingly a defining trait of boys—the need to prove themselves to her. It was peaceful to be with him. He was the antithesis of Tom.

At last, April the eleventh came. Mary spent half an hour in the morning before her dresser; she was to look beautiful for the occasion. She wore an emerald-green suit-skirt ensemble that one of her admirers presented her for Christmas; it barely covered her knees. A white summer scarf, as thin as muggle paper and limpid under the sun like a wedding shawl accentuated her thin neck.

Under the pretence of gathering flowers for the birthday of a first year girl named Lydia Cotterill (it was truly Cotterill's birthday on Monday; but Mary didn't particularly care, and she suspected Abraxas didn't either), Mary brought Abraxas from the castle, to a small clearing in the Forbidden Forest where bluebells blossomed galore. The pair of them brought a basket each; they needed to harvest a great deal, for they would not only give Lydia a bouquet of flowers, but also make her a necklace from their flattened, magically ever-ripe petals, as per Mary's suggestion.

Mary checked her watch. It was only a few minutes till twelve. If Tom was right, the castle's alarm bells would ring very soon. Abraxas would faint; she would rescue him, and upon waking up, he would become helplessly affectionate for her—forever—and by extension, for Tom. Yet though the plan made sense, and though it did not cost her much more than the larger part of a Sunday, she could not dispel the bitterness that rose in her breast every time Abraxas bent over to uproot a blue flower; every one of his stoops reminded Mary that Tom essentially decided which boys she was allowed mingle with, and which not.

It had been over a year since she talked to Arcanius Fawley; over a year since Tom's machinations impelled Ilaria to isolate Mary from prize boy of Slytherin. Being thirteen years old, Mary considered a year a frightfully long unit of time. A year separated from Arcanius … Mary was unsure why she even thought of him, her first 'passing fancy', after so long. Perhaps it was because she saw him that morning, serene and paternal, helping a gaggle of giggling first-year girls with their herbology homework. Perhaps it was because often, they still exchanged looks when passing in the common room or through the castle—and never was his gaze indignant or indifferent—always was it tender, vaguely desirous, and markedly sad.

Mary gasped. Two successive realisations hit her with wondrous force. Firstly, she needed to see Arcanius Fawley. Needed to talk to him, touch him (or have him touch her, like the way Tom touched her, though that would be too good to be true), see him laugh or smile or cast a little spell to amuse her—anything really, anything at all—immediately. Secondly, she had just the opportunity to do this. It was April the eleventh.

Abraxas noticed that she was standing still, contemplatively looking at a bluebell she held in her hand. "Mary, what's the matter?"

"I've got to go to the bathroom," she blurted, tossing the flower to the floor. "Wait here! Don't move!"

Half out of affected urgency and half out of excitement, she ran back to the castle. Her plan was perfect. She would satiate her overpowering hunger for Arcanius which, if left unfulfilled, would somehow, she was sure, leave a lasting wound on her, all the while accommodating Tom's stupid little plan. If Tom was right, it would be an extraordinary day; she and Arcanius would be together, and Arcanius would be terrified—and when someone was scared, anything was possible. She would reassure him, or if not, she would distract his fear with pleasure. Elatedly panting for breath, Mary found an empty classroom, sat on a chair, and kept her eyes stuck to her watch. 11:54, 11:55, 11:56, 11:57, 11:58, 11:59 …

The bells rang! Tom was right!

The ringing was orders of magnitudes louder than Mary, who was used to the slow clamour of church-bells in London, had expected; she covered both ears with her hands. But it finished as soon as it came.

Then, she heard screams. Most of the student body had taken Dippet's speech on 'the sounding of the bells' with a sort of excited disbelief; it was a what if proposition that ought to have been impossible, it chief purpose, like a scary story one told to friends huddled around a fireplace at night, was entertainment. But the horror had become reality. However, quickly, that primal vital instinct common alike to wizards and men and mandrakes and fleas—the will to survive—woke from its sempiternal slumber to possess the students of Hogwarts, who now no longer screamed (or rather screamed with much more temperance), but acted with a sudden decisiveness that impressed even Mary, who knew that there was no invasion. "Everyone, wands out!" "Walk in groups!" "Let people from other houses in your common rooms!"

She joined a large procession of students, all of whom had their wands drawn and pointed towards whichever corridor they were to cross next, all of their hands trembling. By the time they got to the Entrance Hall, Mary disembarked down the staircase to the Slytherin common room, running with feigned fright. There around the menacing portal was a small group of prefects who, quite admirably, handled the conundrum with some semblance of poise. They ushered some younger students through the portal while pulling others back to inquire of their peers who had yet to arrive, all the while furiously dictating to an enchanted quill that scribbled incessantly on a huge floating sheet of parchment that contained a table of all the students of their house.

Among these Prefects, of course, was dear Arcanius. Mary could not help herself; she licked her lips at the sight of him. He spoke in rapid but reassuring tones to a third-year girl who claimed her friend had evacuated with the Hufflepuffs; judging that the girl, from her exasperation, must have been telling the truth, he snapped his fingers at the quill and permitted her to leave. Before the next student could bother him, Mary ran to him and tapped his shoulder. He spun on his heel and made a strangled noise upon seeing her—they had not talked to each other in over a year.

"Mary," Arcanius intoned her name cautiously, unsure what to make of it. "What a relief—you're the last second-year who's not—"

"Abraxas Malfoy's in the Forbidden Forest," Mary blurted out.

"What?!"

"I-I left him there," she said, straining her voice to sound guilty. "We were picking flowers, but I had to go to the bathroom a-and then … the bells!"

"Bloody hell. Bloody hell!" Arcanius yelled, before savagely rubbing his temples and letting out a long, exasperated breath. "The bells would've knocked him out! You know of his condition, don't you?"

"Oh I do Caney, I do! Poor Abraxas! Poor, poor Abraxas!" Mary lyrically lamented. "We were in a clearing full of bluebells. It's not far from the edge of the forest."

For a moment, Arcanius said nothing. A stern, desperate look emerged on his face—he exchanged a glance with the seventh year boys' Prefect, who examined him with mixed pity and contempt, as though to acknowledge the abject difficulty of his situation, while also denying to offer any advice or consolation as to not embroil himself in it.

Mary looked up at Arcanius with hopeful supplication. "Caney," she said coyly. "Help me save him. Please. I'll come with you."

"Damn it all!" Arcanius exclaimed more to himself than anyone. "Let's go."

Arcanius strode decisively towards the exit of the common room; Mary had to jog to keep up with him. Auspiciously, someone had discarded their new racing broom by door conceivably out of fear of the castle's nonexistent invaders; Arcanius grabbed it at once, commanded Mary to "hop on", and took off.

Mary wrapped her arms tightly around Arcanius' waist and laid her head against his back. He flew poorly; whether this was because he was terrified (where she trembled in pleasure, he trembled in fear) or simply unathletic (though he had a handsome figure, anyone who could fly well also walked and generally moved fast; he was always slow and leisurely), she did not know. She panted in delight, which thankfully he either did not hear or construed as the suscitations of a terrified little girl. They had never nearly been this intimate, not even a year ago in her first year, where on some sleepless nights she sat in his lap, which she understood was permitted by the ordinary sibling-like affection—contrary to the extraordinary one she had with Tom—that their relationship at the time approximated, owing equally to the facts that she was at the time but a first-year girl, and that he had the stupid slag that was Ilaria. Now, Mary neared the end of her second year, and possessed a figure that drew much more intently and intensely the eyes, minds, and loins of boys; now, she would challenge Ilaria.

"Where do we fly?" Arcanius asked. His voice was calm, but Mary felt him tremble against her.

"Follow my finger." Mary protruded her thin arm beneath the prefect's strong, tense one. "Go slowly."

After departing the castle, it did not take them long to find Abraxas. The first-year boy had, contrary to Mary's expectations, not immediately fainted. He must have, upon hearing the bell, sought to run to the castle, for he had managed not only to find his way out of the forest, but had progressed even forty or so yards on the uphill gravel path that lead to gate of the Entrance Hall—only at last to collapse—leaving in his wake two baskets (both his and Mary's) on either side of his dormant body, whose flowers had been scattered about by the wind.

Arcanius descended and rushed to the fallen boy, drew his wand, and with a crisp "Rennervate!" brought him back to life. Mary had hoped that the Prefect would have simply contented himself with levitating the younger boy back to the castle, so that the two of them could talk with intimacy and privacy. Rather than resent Abraxas' intrusive presence, however, Mary would make use of him; she would, through him, demonstrate to Arcanius the extent of her tenderness.

"Abraxas!" Mary exclaimed, pulling him into a hug. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

The younger boy, though he said nothing, returned Mary's hug with an arduous strength that she did not expect him to have.

"We've got to fly back," said Arcanius, hoisting himself back on his broom.

"Caney, give me a moment," Mary implored.

She waved her wand to render upright the baskets Abraxas had dropped, and returned to them the bluebells they had scattered about, in a motion resembling teacups recuperating spilled tea. Then, with a motion of her hands, she brought the pair of baskets upon each other to form an enclosure, and weaved the rims of each basket into each other, so that all the bluebells were within a single enclosure. Finally, she transfigured straps from the wicker of the joined baskets, so that it could be worn like a backpack, a prerogative which she took herself.

To her dismay, Arcanius insisted that Abraxas, sickly as he was, was to sit in the middle position of the broom. Thus on their return to Hogwarts, Mary hugged not the firm, strong physique of the older boy, but the soft, frail body of the younger one. She no longer trembled in pleasure. Where Arcanius was, despite his effort not to show it, afraid of the spectre of the Grindelwaldians, Abraxas was utterly terrified. Indeed, the younger boy held his wand in a shaking, perfunctory grip which would not, had there truly been invaders, have been able to cast even the feeblest courtyard hex.

As they flew, she whispered sweet consolations to Abraxas. "It will be alright." "We're almost there, Arcanius and I won't let you get hurt."

By the time they got back to the castle, the bells had ceased. It was utterly quiet, unnaturally so. While the imperious sun flooded the corridors with daylight through its many arched windows, the castle was even more peaceful than it was during the dead of night, where at least crickets sounded their ambient chorus.

"Hominem revelio," Arcanius scrupulously whispered before turning every corner.

It did not take long to return to the Slytherin common room. But once they did, terror came across the face of the boys—the portal was gone. So, of course, were the students—but the opaque sheet of white mist that was the portal had simply vanished. All that stood there was a doorframe without the door.

"No, no …" Malfoy whispered, his entire body sagging into Mary's for support.

"Not to worry," assured Arcanius, though his face too had gone very pale. "I have a portkey to my family estate in my dormitory. Let me fetch it."

Mary waited in the common room with Abraxas, who trembled as he tightly clutched her arm with both of his. She indulgently ran her fingers through his long, sleek blonde hair. Where he seemed on the verge of tears as she consoled him, she felt ecstatic; she wanted to leap with joy! She would get to see Arcanius' house—she had never been inside a magical home, let alone one as grand as she knew the Fawley one to be! She wondered, for a moment, whether there were any other students in the school who knew that the whole ordeal they had just endured was nothing more than an experiment by their very own Professors and the British Ministry of Magic. Surely, she thought, there must have been a Prefect or two involved in its planning—but not even Arcanius was in the know.

Arcanius returned. In his hand was a straw boater hat with a blue ribbon—an item that looked like part of the uniform of a prestigious public school in London.

"Hold it," he instructed.

Mary and Abraxas did as bid.

"You'll feel dizzy, but no matter what, don't let go," Arcanius said gravely.

The Prefect pressed his wand on the cap of the boater and, for a moment, Mary indeed felt dizzy—terribly dizzy, as though the entire world had suddenly rotated on its side and back—before the three of them simply fell to the ground, the portkey dropping unceremoniously back on the floor of the common room.

"Anti-portkey wards," Arcanius remarked in a shaky voice. "I suppose it makes sense that Hogwarts has those … but I never knew. Perhaps it's the Grindelwaldians who put it up …"

"We have to fly," Mary pointed out. "Beyond the range of the wards."

"Yes." Arcanius nodded grimly. "Hop on."

Thus, they departed the direction from whence they came. After exiting the castle and flying South—that was the direction the sun went during summer, Mary recalled from first-year Astronomy—both the boys considerably relaxed; Mary felt Abraxas' muscles loosen, and Arcanius' breaths went from short and jittery to long and measured.

They landed on the side of a small grassy mountain; the natural scenery before them, of which the distant castle was only a small part, was beautiful. Mary wondered whether older students ever flew far from the castle to find themselves little patches of nature as the one they presently discovered; for they would be ideal for nocturnal picnics. She thought to ask Arcanius, but, given the gravity of their situation, refrained from doing so.

"Hold it," Arcanius said the second time that afternoon as he extended his boater. "Make sure not to let go."

Mary and Abraxas once again did as they were bid. With his wand, Arcanius activated the portkey and, at once, Mary was sucked into the sky. Like a small bird in a cyclone, she helplessly spun with such a rapidity that all her muscles, beaten by the 'wind', became terribly sore—it did not help that her breakfast began to suddenly rise up her stomach—all the while she screamed and grasped the boater for her life. Then, as quickly as she was pulled into the sky, she was thrown from it.

She fell bottom-first on the grass, and looked up at the blue sky and what appeared to be the overhanging arch of a deep red ceiling, which span and span and span and span. She rubbed her eyes.

"Your first time portkeying, I take it," Arcanius said with a hint of amusement, extending a hand.

As he pulled her up, she immediately took advantage of the symptoms of her 'first time portkeying' to lean with all her weight against him, grazing her butt against his leg. "Pardon me," she said tenderly. She saw that Abraxas, who she momentarily feared had collapsed through the vertiginous journey, stood upright and wore his usual expression of slight fatigue.

Then, she rubbed her eyes and finally gave her surroundings a proper look. She could not believe what she saw.

"Your home is … beautiful, Caney!"

"It is."

Indeed it was. A grand, glaringly pureblood mansion that stylistically fused ancient Greece and Victorian England, it at once sported doric columns and Palladian windows. The mansion was made of marble but covered in a sprawling network of glowing pink ivy. Atop three stories that measured sixty yards lengthwise each, it sported a stark, overhanging cherry-red ceiling. It rested on a wide plain, just by the side of a river the width of the Great Hall which looked like molten silver under the afternoon sun—and rather than a lawn or a front yard, it was surrounded on all sides by the most beautiful and biggest garden Mary had ever seen. The garden extended over a hundred yards in every direction. It was overwhelming in its variety—everywhere Mary looked, a dozen different kinds of trees, impossibly huge flowers, and exotic fruits that she had never seen before (not even in books), attacked her field of vision. In the midst of all this were fountains pouring glimmering blue, green, orange and purple water, some of which contained small, colourful crystalline fish that poured with them; and charming little wooden outhouses, which hosted the gardening elves uniformed in green towels.

However, Arcanius, to whom all this was familiar, wore a face of resignation rather than wonder. Rather than unlocking the large oak door, he knocked on it. The three Slytherins waited only for a moment. It was opened, and there before them was a bespectacled old elf wearing what looked like a miniature white robe, by the side of a pretty, round-faced girl who Mary immediately recognised as Arcanius' little sister.

"Hi, Helen," Arcanius greeted the little girl.

"Caney!" she squealed, tackling her brother in a hug, before releasing him only to barrage him with questions. "Why're you here? It's April! Did something happen at Hogwarts? Daddy said not to use the portkey unless something very bad happens. Who're they?"

Arcanius answered only the last of these questions. "Mary, Abraxas, allow me to introduce you to my sister, Héloïse, whom we all call Helen. Helen, this is Mary Riddle, of whom I've written to you before, and Abraxas Malfoy, whom you've met before."

"Mary Riddle!" Héloïse squawked, jumping before Mary and looking up at her to intently examine her chin. "Is it true you're a genius? Is your brother one too? Did you really steal Ilaria's necklace?"

"That's enough, Helen," Arcanius warned with an edge to his tone Mary had not heard before. "Go show Abraxas to a guest-room, will you? He needs rest."

"You don't look like your dad at all!" Héloïse now examined Abraxas, who stood at the same height as her. "Except for your hair."

"We've met before, Héloïse," Abraxas pointed out.

"When? I don't remember."

"When we visited Malfoy manor in 1936," came Arcanius' impatient voice. "Allez, Helen."

"Hm!" the little girl huffed. "You've still not told me why you're home!"

"The alarm bells at Hogwarts sounded. We were to go through the portals, but unforeseen circumstances obliged us to take the portkey instead, so now we're here. That's the long and short of it," said Arcanius. "Now go!"

"C'mon then Malfoy. Don't mind my brother—he's a twit."

The girl dragged Abraxas by the hand to disappear into the hallway.

"Master Arcanius," reverently addressed the bespectacled elf. "Shall Fabian inform Master Hector of your return?"

"No, leave father alone … he's busy," Arcanius told the elf apparently named Fabian. "But check on Malfoy; he's a rather sickly boy, and the day's surely taken a toll on him. Restore him with whatever potions we have in stock. Then, send an owl to secretary Wilhelmina's, saying that Mary Riddle, Abraxas Malfoy and I are safe at the Fawley estate—she'll relay this to the Hogwarts staff."

"Yes, Master Arcanius." The elf gave a deep bow, and disappeared with a crack.

Mary turned to the older boy, and furtively brushed her hand against his. Seeing that he was unbothered by this overture, she daringly snatched his hand entirely, and raised it to her face to apply it against her cheek. This, too, he accepted—with pleasure even—for he applied pressure on his fingers to feel the softness of her face. She gave a gentle laugh, trembling again, imagining how it would feel, if his fingers could imprint themselves elsewhere on her body. His expression, though no longer anxious from the imagined cruelties of imagined Grindelwaldians, nor impatient at his gregarious little sister, was nonetheless still impenetrable to Mary—he was thinking about something.

"You saved us, Caney," Mary said softly. "I hope you're not cross with me."

"No, Mary, of course not. Why would I be?" he asked.

"I pulled you into this mess," she said ruefully. "I could've taken care of Abraxas, if only I weren't so frightened."

"No, you did the best that you could, Mary. It's my responsibility as a prefect to ensure both Abraxas' and your wellbeing."

The desire that had lingered in Mary's stomach for the past hour mutated into something else. On the one hand, Arcanius' assurance that he bore her no resentment made her very glad. It made the day, the hour, the very minute, in which she currently floated through perfect. On the other hand, she suddenly wanted to deride him; to laugh at himself for taking himself so seriously. It was she who was in charge; not him. And who cared about prefects? She wanted, almost, to attack him with the nasty curses Tom taught her. But when her senses turned to the firmness of the long, handsome fingers of his hand that held her cheek, nothing but adoration, devotion, and tenderness for Arcanius, as though he were her father—her father that she had never met—overcame every nerve of Mary's body.

"It's not your fault at all," he continued, his voice now much more measured and indulgent. "One can hardly expect Hogwarts students to go about their days, worrying at all times that Grindelwald might attack them …"

"What do you think was their goal? Could they have been after you?" she asked.

"Me?" Arcanius gave a hearty laugh, and removed his hand from Mary's face. "No, though I see where you're coming from. They may very well have been after Dominic."

"Dominic?"

"Dominic Spencer-Moon," the older boy clarified. "My successor, as son-of-the-Minister-for-Magic. He's a nice fellow, a Gryffindor in the year below me. But nevermind all that, we're safe now. Let me show you my house."

Hand in hand, Mary was slowly led by her beloved prefect through his home. He had another elf bring her a tall mug of guava juice, which she sipped absentmindedly as he gave his halfhearted tour. The house itself, albeit three centuries old, was only acquired by the Fawleys seventy years ago, when Hermes Fawley, Arcanius' great-grandfather, renovated what was a "gloomy gothic abbey" into the small palace that Mary admired with his great-grandson today. Mary was then shown Arcanius and Héloïse's bedrooms, both of which left her with an eclectic sense of desire, jealousy, and indignation. It was wrong that she had known nothing but squalor when she was Héloïse's age. Yet Mary knew if she got the opportunity to lie on either of their huge beds, huddled together with Arcanius, as Ilaria had certainly done, she would be cleansed of all her ingratitude at once.

Then, the 'gardens'. The gardens of the Fawley estate were larger, it seemed to Mary, than even the largest public park in London, and undoubtedly more botanically diverse, too. Though there were several little outhouses of garden-elves who devoted all their time to caring for the garden, Mary still marvelled at how it was all maintained so neatly and beautifully.

"My mother loves horticulture," Arcanius told her. "The elves do most of the work, but mother and her many friends—who've taken to calling themselves the 'Order of Antheia'—attend to it every Friday to issue orders on what's to be added, removed, or rearranged. They're not a real magical Order; one has to get those registered by both the International Confederation of Wizards and our own Wizengamot."

The pair of them then arrived before a most elaborate oeuvre of magi-horticulture; a bower, the size of a large veranda, made entirely of intertwining magical ivies that drooped with purple flowers whose petals glowed and moved in the shade, like seaweed. Suddenly, eerily and delightfully, Mary heard soft singing—a little like the church choirs of London, except that the lyrics were utterly incomprehensible, neither in English nor Latin, though it was clear that, rather than condemning the world for killing Jesus Christ, they celebrated it for all its revelries.

Mary had never heard sweeter music.

"Saffron sirens, or singing saffron, depending on who you ask," explained Arcanius, observing Mary's smile. "Strictly speaking, they're not allowed in Britain."

"It's—it's the flowers making the music?" Mary asked incredulously.

Arcanius nodded.

"Well, they're lovely." Mary sat on a smoothed log, conceivably made to serve as a bench, in the bower's shade. She patted the spot next to her for Arcanius to sit down. "Why're they not allowed in Britain?"

"You'll notice that they're not really making music," he explained as he sat down. "They makes you think that you hear music."

What Arcanius said was right and for a moment, Mary felt nauseated. She received the music not through her ears; it was produced within her mind, in the same way that she might imagine eating an apple, rather than actually eat an apple—except that the flavour and savour was actually there, as imaginatively tangible as if produced by whichever part of the brain or soul generated the phantom sensations that made up what one called 'dream' or 'nightmare'.

"We must hear different things, then," said Mary.

"Very astute, Miss Riddle, ten points to Slytherin." Arcanius laughed. "For me, it's the harp. It's soft yet elaborate, and not a single note is too heavy or too light. What about you?"

"People singing," said Mary, not wanting to elaborate on the notion of a muggle church choir, nor on the tension between nature and Christ in the muggle religion. "It's quite lovely. I don't see why they should be forbidden."

"The ones we have are neutered—"

"Neutered?"

"Saffron sirens are, to borrow a term you will learn in fourth-year herbology, rhizomatous, meaning they grow from a network of roots below the ground. The ones which we presently enjoy have no roots—they wouldn't be able to survive, were it not for the various restoration potions that the elves feed them every day."

"How dangerous are the wild, rooted ones?" Mary asked coyly, inching towards him so that their hips touched.

"Morgana let a colony of them run wild on Avalon," said Arcanius, who appeared to welcome Mary leaning her entire body against him. "Many of the wizards and muggle knights who sought to slay her were entranced by the music of the flowers—they starved to death, happily, I suppose, and their rotting flesh fed the colony's roots. It was Merlin who finally destroyed the colony, with fiendfyre."

To her shame, the name Morgana immediately provoked in Mary's mind the silly facsimile portrait that one found on her chocolate frog card. Chocolate frog Morgana, with her impassive gray stare, long brown hair, and dark, elegant robe, looked an awful lot like Ilaria Greengrass. Mary suddenly felt insecure; both the collectable card and the sixth-year girls' Prefect were pretty—she wondered therefore whether Arcanius felt any special affection for the Morgana card over, say, that of Bowman Wright, the bearded metal charmer who invented the golden snitch.

Feeling her heart rapidly sink, Mary had to do something, so she blurted the question that she had been aching to unshackle from her heart for the past two hours.

"How's Ilaria?"

"What?" Arcanius asked in a low, somewhat accusatory tone. "Ilaria's doing well, of course."

"Are you happy together?" Mary pressed. "When you're together neither of you smile very much. I suppose Aria hardly smiles anyway—don't you find her very dour? But you smile a lot, Caney. You've smiled more at me today than you have at Aria in the past week, haven't you?"

Arcanius gave an uncertain laugh. "What are you trying to ask me, Mary?"

"Are you happy?"

He paused for a moment, his deep blue eyes resting intensely on her inquisitive black ones, before he answered with artificial resolution, "I suppose I am."

"Love is not without its difficulties," he continued. "This year's been very rough on Ilaria. Her family's endured a lot. But we're there for each other."

Mary leaned further into him, and turned her head so they were truly face-to-face. "Love doesn't have to be difficult."

"And since when have you been an expert of love?" asked Arcanius, with a sarcasm so gentle that it seemed to dissipate into sincerity.

Mary responded to his question with another of her own. "Don't you enjoy our time together?"

"Yes, very much," he confessed.

For a moment, silence reigned.

Then, Mary kissed him on the lips.

It was a small, bashful peck that went as soon as it came. But it was enough to awaken something in Mary which had, until that moment, only motivated her actions unconsciously; it made her stomach rumble, as though awakening within it some ancient hitherto dormant monster that sought to desire the world and its beings, so that it would not desire her—and as she felt this primal outcry from her stomach, so did she see in Arcanius' eyes the same violent hunger that must have been aflame in her own—Caney likes me back. Caney likes me back! Caney likes me back—

As though her first kiss was but a scourgify to clean a cauldron before using it, her second kiss, so arduous and forceful that she unconsciously tackled Arcanius to the ground, was every ingredient at once, for twenty servings of amortentia. Her breasts pressed against his hard chest. Their tongues collided like clouds to form thunderous love, and each tried to outdo the other in both giving and taking pleasure. His mouth tasted like toast and jam—it suddenly endeared her very much that Arcanius liked sweet breakfasts—while his hands were coal pokers, hard and resolute as they ran down her back to the underside of her thighs, to squeeze here and there, leaving blistering tingles everywhere they greedily snatched.

Then, he shoved her off him with all the force a fifth-year boy could muster against a second-year girl, jumped up, and straightened his robe.

"Enough! Enough! What've you done?! Get away, go!" Arcanius backed off, horrified, as though Mary had suddenly transformed into a hideous monster.

And indeed at this moment Mary wished she could transform into something, preferably a small and quick creature, to scurry away—the look on Arcanius' face terrified her, she imagined, as much as the bells earlier in the day must have terrified Abraxas. But her terror was not one of fear; it was one of disappointment so piercing that it threatened to devoid her life of all its meaning, for the rest of her life, were it not immediately dispelled.

Yet she managed to suppress the storm in her heart, and asked in a musical voice laden with dissonant pleading, "Caney, don't you love me?"

"No, of course not!" he exclaimed at once, but then, upon seeing the immediate impact of his words upon her face, at once mellowed his tone. "Oh, Mary! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound so cruel—"

"But I love you!" she yelled, with no pretension this time, tears streaming down her face. She swiped her hand at the bower and tore from it a handful of the musical flowers, whose song in her mind remained outrageously pleasant.

"I'm sorry," he repeated ruefully. "I'm sorry, Mary."

Arcanius, whose aspect was now so caring and so concerned, like the father Mary never had, returned to her, squatted down by her, and held her in a hug with what he surely intended as consolation, but was felt by her as cold formality.

"You don't love me," he said, as though pointing out an obvious fact to a child. "You're obsessed with me. It's not the same thing. If you loved me, you wouldn't have kissed me."

"But you kissed me back!" Mary exclaimed, sniffling. "You kissed me back!"

"I did," he confessed, his voice charged with an embarrassment that made Mary want to run away all the more. "I find you very lovely, Mary Riddle, very lovely—but there's already a girl who I love. One mustn't act on their every desire."

"You want me," said Mary, "but you're afraid to have me. Where's your gall!? A Slytherin takes what he wants!"

"A Slytherin has ambition," Arcanius retorted, permitting her to rest her head on his shoulder. "Part of which entails restraining his appetite. You can't have everything you want. The ideals of our culture are worth living for; there is nothing greater than to aspire for them. Loyalty is as much a virtue as cunning, and they do not contradict each other."

Mary ignored his platitude, and wiped some more tears from her eyes. "Tell me I'm beautiful again, Arcanius."

"You are beautiful, Mary Riddle."

"Do you mean it?" she asked severely.

"With all my heart," he said, his deep blue eyes focusing on her with sad reverence again.

She could not help herself. She grabbed his head with both her hands as though wrestling a cauldron from the grasp of a troll, and kissed him on the lips a third time, now with more wrath than abandon.

Then, she ran. She ran as quickly as she could through the garden, as though fleeing a shopkeeper whose prize wares she had just smashed. Arcanius would not be able to catch up with her; she grew up a creeping, crawling guttersnipe in London, and he, a wingless cherub in Eden. But the garden now disgusted her. It contained all the trees in the world, but it had no character—no life. Its multitude of colours was as revolting as paint mixed with vomit. What had been the perfume of a thousand flowers now struck her as venomous; she longed, out of everything, for the scent of Abney Park cemetery in London—wet bark, wet soil, and the smoke of the fires she and Tom lit at night. In Abney Park wild cats crawled, rats and shrews scurried, skylarks sang, and pigeons cooed. At the Fawley estate, there was nothing but castrated flowers and humiliation.

Mary felt an odd sense of relief when she returned into the mansion; the scent of the flowers had become unbearable. But the relief came as soon as it went; it was replaced by an overwhelming numbness. She felt defeated, dejected, unworthy, unhappy. Without knowing why, she ran up the stairs and broke into Arcanius' bedroom. For a moment, she wanted to draw her wand and destroy everything, but she suddenly realised, in a moment of clairvoyance, that her situation was anything but hopeless.

She was better off than Ilaria. She was superior to Ilaria. Given the frigid comportment of the couple, and that Arcanius' answer to Are you happy together? was dry and explanatory, like the opening of a potions essay, made Mary realise with certainty that their relationship was in its terminal stage of life. Yet it was also true that there were marriages, Mary learned from older Slytherin girls, that were nothing but one long deterioration of love that culminated in death. But it meant the seduction was not over. She had plied Arcanius' lips and heart open so easily, if only for thirty seconds. She excited him, then infuriated him—when had Ilaria done either?

As she contemplated this, she noticed that she still heard the choir in her head singing soft praises of life and love, and thought for a moment that perhaps the utter love and despondence she had endured one to the next in the span of a minute had empowered the song of the singing saffrons to permanently blotch her mind—before she realised that she had, in her fist, a dozen of the flowers which she had torn off the bower in a fit of anger. They still moved. She put them in her pocket.

She unwrapped the glassy white scarf from her neck and put it on Arcanius' bed. She drew her wand, pointed it at the scarf, and whispered "geminio." The duplicate scarf, which looked slightly less transparent (though no boy would be able to tell), and which would probably disappear sometime within a week, she wrapped back around her neck. Her real scarf, she took, pressed to her mouth to give it a long, sultry lick, before planting it under Arcanius' pillow.

Let him miss me, she thought. She had already gotten a kiss from him, and that her first kiss came from him—he, the former Minister's son and fifth-year Slytherin boys' Prefect—meant she could get a kiss from anyone, perhaps even the new Minister's son.

Mind Magic

In a cot in the Hospital Wing, tucked under a thick quilt that went all the way up to his pale little chin, Abraxas Malfoy appeared in equal parts a sleepy infant and a sickly animal. On the right side of his bed stood Antoine Rosier, whose feminine head of brown hair accentuated the concern fraught on his tanned face, and on the left, Mary and Arcanius Fawley, who wore intensely strange and repressed expressions that Tom did not like at all. Ever since the pair—the three of them, Tom reminded himself, for Abraxas was among them—returned to Hogwarts two hours after the rest of the students, he had not had the opportunity to talk to Mary privately. She and Fawley were first called to the Headmaster's office, where they stayed for an hour, presumably reciting their account of the day's events to not just the Headmaster, but also officials from the Ministry, after which they immediately went down to the Hospital Wing to check on Malfoy.

But it was not just circumstance that emancipated his sister from her obligation to talk to Tom; she, whenever he looked at her, would hide from him at once, not permitting their gazes to commune for any longer than two seconds. It was infuriating; were it not for that Tom found the very notion of regret, remorse, repentance and all those grandiose re– words repulsive, he would have regretted orchestrating his sister's abduction of Abraxas' affection. It was as if he had cast a difficult, grievously important spell for a ritual, only to find that he had done so with somebody else's wand.

It was unbecoming to wait for her, as she waited on the unconscious Abraxas. But it would be unbecoming, too, to force words from her. While coercion would certainly elicit the truth from her, as Tom knew from experience, it would also renew and enflame in her the resentment she already felt against him. And how could he coerce her, who looked in that moment moment more angelic than human? Sadness seemed to amplify her already superfluous store of beauty. How was it that such a beautiful being could incite his ire thus? Let her come to me, he thought proudly, before spinning on his heel and leaving the Hospital Wing.

On his way out, he beheld a scene.

Near the exit stood Ezekiel Tansley, a bespectacled fourth-year Ravenclaw boy whose otherwise thin, plain face always wore an absent expression, and whose unruly dark hair looked as though it had never seen either brush or soap. He was cleaning a cauldron which, given that it could not simply be scourgified, must have been tainted by potent ingredients. Tansley was defined by two characteristics; intelligence, and a lack of friends. He had excelled so far in his ordinary classes that the professors collectively permitted him to spend his days in the Hospital Wing, where he assisted and cohabited with the exigent Madam Milosz. What Tom had not known, however, was that Tansley was a—

"Mudblood!" sneered the swaggering Alexius Lestrange who, followed by Amos Nott and Thane Mulciber, came in through the doors by which Tom was about to leave. "Still scrubbing pots and pans like an old muggle's wife, are you?"

Tansley, who appeared accustomed to the abuse, made no response. Lestrange, unhappy with his unprovoking provocation, shoved him to the floor, and swished his wand to splatter foul green substance all over his cauldron. As though none of this had happened, Tansley simply stood back up and continued cleaning his cauldron, while Lestrange and the other two older boys, both sneering, walked past him. Tom clenched his fist; though he did not care about the 'justice' of the situation, and though he would always be more fond of his fellow Slytherins than those they picked on in other houses, he loathed the weakness of Tansley. There was but one moral imperative in life, and that was to fight back.

"Hello, Tom," came Thane's genial voice, bringing Tom from his thoughts.

"Thane," greeted Tom with an acknowledging nod. "Alex, Amos—here to see Malfoy?"

"Indeed we are," said Thane. "I hope the little bloke's alright."

"He could be worse," said Tom in a neutral tone. "I'll see you later."

"Hold on, Tom." Lestrange stopped Tom with a firm hand to his shoulder. "What was pretty little Mary doing all that time at the Fawley estate, with handsome ol' Archie?"

Tom shoved the fourth-year's arm off him. "None of your business, Alexius," he said calmly, "but not what you think it is."

With that, Tom left the Hospital Wing. He did not look back, for he resented Alexius' suspicions, whatever they were, because they were the same suspicions that tormented him—suspicions that very likely possessed some degree of truth. Indeed, everything was within the realms of possibility. Tom's heart felt heavy.

As he returned to the Slytherin Dungeon various students accosted Tom and dared, like the dolt Lestrange, to inquire of the affairs of his sister and Fawley. He gave terse, perfunctory answers and kept walking, all the while suppressing the urge to challenge each idiot who asked him something to the effect of "d'you reckon Arcanius Fawley fancies your sister?" to a duel. By the time Tom returned to his dormitory, he found that his rage had subsided into a sort of weary irritation. He needed to rest, he needed to think.

"Leave," Tom told the inseparable pair that was Alphard Black and Oscar Montgomery, whose elegant weekend robes further compounded his irritation. They quickly left.

"Leave," Tom told William Wilkes who, lying on his bed, amused himself by abusing a half-melted chocolate frog with his chocolatey hands. Wilkes quickly left.

Tom, still in the black robe-jacket he had donned for the day, fell on his bed. He let a long sigh escape from his mouth and tried not clench his fists, for he knew that physical and mental tension were mutually causal. He needed a clear head. He needed useful thoughts. Every fibre of his being wished for him to force Mary's pretty little face to tears, bittersweet tears to course down her soft, shapely cheeks, so that she would both tell him the truth, and give his handkerchief—or his tongue—something to swab. If nothing else, he was certain Arcanius Fawley had never tasted his sister's tears—that was a saveur which only Tom could know, love, and protect. For a moment a sense of gratifying ticklishness ran through his loins and made him forget the wrath that gnawed at his heart. Then, he violently shook his head. Foolish, foolish thoughts!

One small consolation Tom had was the unlikelihood of Mary to have intentionally wound up stuck at the Fawley estate for an entire afternoon. She, like most of the other students, had probably thought the portals infallible. Tom knew they were not; he learned that they, like ice, were susceptible to 'melting' under the pressure of heat—in this case, the thermal and magical heat of four hundred young witches and wizards. He also knew that ice did not melt all at once; if a large block of ice were placed over a boiling cauldron for a minute and then removed onto a cool surface, it would not entirely melt in that minute, but rather take several more, for the effect of the initial touch to materialise over time—so it was with portals. Undoubtedly, whoever arranged the trial-alarm had hoped that all the students would reach the portals within a short window of time. Undoubtedly, Mary was unaware of this. Her plan, then, must have been to spend nothing more than a few inconspicuous minutes with Arcanius Fawley—not three very conspicuous hours. Perhaps, that was why she looked so upset. Or perhaps not; perhaps something else.

It was then that Tom realised that attempting to divine the entire truth of the matter through sheer 'reason' was a useless exercise. Mary's original intention was unimportant; what mattered was what she had actually done. The spell proves the intention more than the intention proves the spell. It was then that Tom recalled Abraxas Malfoy had been there, with the guilty pair at the Fawley estate, and would certainly have some most useful information. While Mary had, under Tom's instruction, courted Abraxas' affection for days, Tom was certain that he would be able to steer whatever loyalty Abraxas felt towards Mary to himself.

He spent the rest of the afternoon reading In Virtute Tenebrae alongside A History of Post-Statute Prometheanism. The substance of the books were intimately related; one told of the development of 'Dark' Magic over the centuries, and the other elaborated on its application in the world. It was all very tragic, he thought; again and again, the great spirits that were 'renegade sorcerers' or 'Dark Lords' or 'wayward warlocks' were battered back to the ground from whence they sprung. None succeeded in turning the tide of history away from mediocrity.

At dinner, Tom sat far from Mary. It was not he who made this distance, but she; she sat herself among the fourth-year girls, all of whom Tom found remarkably deficient in charm and beauty, compared with her who possessed both qualities in divine superfluity, and all of whom excitedly inundated her with questions undoubtedly engendered from uncouth hypotheses concerning Arcanius Fawley. She made no acknowledgment of Tom who sat in their usual place.

Tom made a quick meal of lamb tripe stew (supposedly, tripe nourished one's magical faculties; Tom thought this a superstition, but indulged it nonetheless), and went to the Hospital Wing. It was eerily dark; it was late enough that it was almost entirely deprived of daylight, yet not so late that Madam Milosz thought the lamps and lanterns worth lighting. Thus Abraxas Malfoy was rather lonely, but not entirely so, for there at his bedside, propped atop a tall stool like a praying mantis, was the Ravenclaw savant, Ezekiel Tansley.

"Riddle."

Tansley spoke for the first time. His voice was neuter and feeble; had Tom heard it in the black of night, he would not have known the age, nor the sex, of its speaker.

"Tansley," said Tom. "I see you're not at dinner."

"I prefer to sup here." The Ravenclaw spoke very quickly, but very quietly. "It's more peaceful here."

That was when Tom noticed the floating plate beside Tansley; on it were what appeared to be slices of toast, slathered with honey, haphazardly stacked one over the other. Tom scrunched his nose.

"Malfoy's asleep," said Tansley, noticing Tom's eyes turn to the younger boy. "I had him imbibe three-and-a-half ounces of Elixir of Hypnos to facilitate his recovery."

He spoke as though he were reciting a medical report. He must have read more medical reports than he talked to people.

"Sleep is vital to healing—as much as nutrition and hydration," Tansley clarified uselessly. "But it won't cure Malfoy's sickness, only temporarily neutralise it. There may be a method by which Malfoy's sickness can be attacked at the causal level, but Madam Milosz won't permit it."

"And what might that be?"

"Legilimency." Tansley's voice suddenly lit up. His disinterest had, quite eerily, transformed into utter passion by his utterance of this unfamiliar word—immediately piquing Tom's attention. Then, he fired off rapidly. "I'm unsurprised that Longinus Malfoy—Abraxas' father—has not arranged for a magipsychotherapist—someone trained in therapeutic Legilimency—to check on his son. British purebloods have never been nearly as attentive to the muggle world and its developments as their continental cousins—"

Tom interrupted to pose the greatest of the many questions that the rambling Ravenclaw engendered in his mind. "What is legilimency?"

"So you are a muggleborn. A very clever one at that, just like me!"

It appeared that Legilimency was to wizards, what church and the London tramway were to muggles—notions so obvious and common that it was taken for granted everyone knew what they were—and thus accordingly withheld from explanation.

"Perhaps," confessed Tom, suppressing the indignation in his voice. "I'm an orphan."

Tansley caught the meaning of his words at once. "Blood status, Riddle, is a social thing—not a biological one. You might have been the son of a Minister—but growing up in a muggle orphanage makes you a muggleborn."

Now, Tom was truly indignant. "Well, Ezekiel, if we take your definition, then I'm less of a muggleborn than you are. Lestrange called you a mudblood. He considers me a friend."

"Lestrange is a single fourth-year boy. He accepts you, yes, but the culture to which he belongs will not, Tom. But you're talented. Perhaps they'll accept your grandchildren—that's just how it works."

"You're doing well for yourself, are you not?"

"Healing is by necessity a meritocratic discipline—intelligence and magic heals—being in possession of a venerated surname doesn't."

"Can one not say the same for any discipline?" Tom retorted. "Take Aurors—intelligence and magic keeps you alive in a fight—being in possession of a 'venerated surname' doesn't."

"Wrong, wrong, wrong," Ezekiel said, wagging his fingers, stuffing his mouth with folded slices of honey toast. "Aurors are the primary enforcers of the Ministry's power—it is important that their recruits come from trustable, respectable families. Of course, if you're a really good mudblood, the Ministry might just be generous enough to let you in …"

Their argument before the sedated body of Abraxas Malfoy went on only for a few minutes. Where Ezekiel, the blubbering savant that he was, was completely honest, Tom operated on a false principle—he did not particularly care about muggleborns. He recalled the two groups of Gryffindors, both lead by socially cognisant muggleborns, who proudly sported English and Indian flags after the assassination of some lackey of the Raj—he felt as distant to them as he felt to the purebloods, if not more so. There was another crucial difference between Ezekiel and him; where the former had a wandering, erratic mind, Tom never lost sight of his primary object. Their entire conversation was a tangent from the initial question of Legilimency, to which Tom then returned:

"You've still not told me what Legilimency is, Ezekiel. Focus."

"Right-alright. It's mind-reading," Ezekiel said casually, stuffing his mouth with more honey toast. "If applied onto Malfoy in a therapeutic context, it may enable him to confront the origin of his curse, and therefore undo its effects."

Mind reading! Tom's mind suddenly felt heavy; although he thought himself one of the quickest learners at Hogwarts—perhaps one of the quickest learners in England—the implications of mind-reading utterly overwhelmed him in that moment—physically nauseating him, even, as though he had in the span of a second recovered the memory of a past life. He turned pale. Was that what Professor Dumbledore had done on him and Mary, to find out about the lamb, and humiliate them so? He would have to read about it; he would have to read…

But that was not the sole revelatory thing Ezekiel had said. Tom pressed on the other. "Hold on—Abraxas is cursed?"

"I spoke too quickly. Shouldn't've said that, Ezekiel, shouldn't've said that," Ezekiel chided himself, as though he were chiding someone else. "Yes, I read Madam Milosz' report on him, which she got from his father, who surely got it from St. Mungo's. His father's first wife tried to kill him, when he was five years old; his father's second wife, who is his mother, died saving him—now he's like this."

Tom rested his blank gaze on the dormant form of Abraxas. It appeared that the varied tales of his housemates, though all individually false through either fantastic exaggeration or fabrication, were on the whole true—Abraxas Malfoy had been cursed by a vengeful pseudo-stepmother. The notion of it was at once exhilarating and appalling; that a curse could do such lasting damage on a wizard disgusted Tom as much as it excited him. It excited him very much.

"Why?" asked Tom. "Why would Malfoy senior's first wife do that?"

"I don't know the finer points of the story," shrugged Ezekiel, "and it's hardly something I could ask Abraxas."

Partly owing to the fact Abraxas did not look like he was going to wake up anytime soon, and partly owing to the immense itch Tom felt to glean something—anything—of Legilimency, Tom left the Hospital Wing for the library. There, he borrowed four books on the topic, and hurried back to his dormitory to read them through the night.

He blew out his last candle at a little past one o'clock in the morning. Although the events of the day had thoroughly exhausted him, Tom had no desire to sleep. Yet he closed his eyes and forced his patience to endure himself.

The next day, potions class in the morning. They were to brew Strengthening Solutions, a concoction which Slughorn aggrandised by alluding to its use by the heroic warrior-mages of antiquity, who, intoxicated, were rendered capable of handling the otherwise cumbersome metal weapons of their contemporary muggle footmen with such impossible dexterity and terrifying lethality that they became venerated as Gods walking on the Earth.

Everyone's excitement abated a little, when Slughorn clarified firstly that it was unlikely anyone would be able to brew a potion that could enable them to lift five-hundred pound rocks as easily as Perseus or Achilles did, and that secondly, the brewing process would span six lessons; three weeks.

Tom and his sister reconciled over their usual workbench. Mary, albeit sleepy, tired, and no longer painted in makeup as she was yesterday, no longer regarded him with either defiance or evasion; rather, she looked at him with a faint little smile, as though everything were normal. Her sleepiness gave her the effect of a little fox which had just come out of its hole in the morning.

"Long night?" Tom asked.

"I stayed up talking to Florence," she confessed with a giggle.

"Of yesterday's events?" he asked, wrinkling his nose as he unfurled a desiccated griffon claw, which was so soft that it felt alive.

"Of yesterday's events."

"And when do you intend on talking to me of them?" Tom pressed his wand to cleaver, and sharpened it twice with a honing charm.

Mary defanged her bouquet of baby fanged geraniums. "There's not much to say. I wanted to see Caney, if only for a few minutes—I didn't know we'd end up in his house all afternoon."

Tom smashed his cleaver down on the claw to carve off its thumb. As he pondered whether or not to tell Mary that he didn't believe her one bit, she continued.

"I'd never seen anywhere so nice, Tom!" she said in an envious huff. "It was right by the Thames in a peaceful, undisturbed part of the country; the house was old but new, you see, and their garden was bigger than you could imagine—and full of plants! Magical plants! They'd dozens of house elves too! I hope we'll get a place like this when we grow up."

"Of course we will, Mary," Tom said at once, depositing a dozen chunks of chopped-up griffin claw into a mortar. "Ours will be better in every way."

"Good," his sister mischievously smiled. "So, I need your help. I stole some flowers from his garden—I'd like to grow more of them—but they've not got seeds."

"Then how will you grow more of them?" asked Tom, who pressed his wand to his pestle, and strengthened it likewise with a honing charm.

"There's a potion which 'regresses' plants into their seeds," said Mary, "but I can't for the love of the devil find the recipe for it!"

"We'll find it," assured Tom, "but what's so special about your flowers?"

"I'll show you after class."

Indeed after class, Mary took his hand (as though nothing had happened yesterday) and skipped merrily to the Slytherin dungeon. Tom was left in the Common Room to wait as she descended to her dormitory to retrieve her 'flowers'. When she returned, she came back not with a small bouquet as Tom had expected, but with a large, glowing blue jar that enclosed moving, purple flowers firmly implanted in soil.

"A preservatorium," said Mary, furtively introducing the jar. "It slows the uprooted flowers' otherwise natural decay. But we have to make the potion soon; I'm not sure how much longer the flowers will live."

With a tap of her wand, she vanished the thin metal lid of the jar and—

Music!

Tom, as far as he could remember, had always been at best indifferent to music, and at worst, deeply repulsed by it. Yet the sound which emanated from the trembling flowers was pleasant—no—it was magnificent. It was not, strictly speaking, music at all, but rather an amalgamation of individually pleasant sounds—the wind against the leaves at Abney Park cemetery; droplets of gutter-water splashing against their windowsill at Wool's (when they were about seven or eight, the twins found it greatly amusing to evaporate or freeze these as they fell); the sound of Mary's laughs, giggles, and sighs; the rhythmical bubbling of cauldrons of properly brewed potions; and the distant thumps of scattered library books returning themselves to their proper positions on the shelves at the end of the day—interlayed into a beautiful, primitive harmony.

"Singing Saffron," Mary said gently. "Well tell me will you, Tom? What do you hear?"

He gave her a terse answer of "London and Hogwarts", not revealing that she was the human voice around which all the lesser harmonies coalesced. She tapped her wand on the jar twice to materialise once more the thin metal lid, stopping the music.

"Five ounces of Thesmaphorium would be enough to regress them into seeds," said Mary, "but I've searched the library thoroughly—nothing."

"Then it's surely in the restricted section."

"But we've no way of getting in there—"

"Ezekiel Tansley," Tom thought aloud. A fleeting look of distaste came over Mary at the mention of the name. "He has a pass. You'll get him to get the book for us."

"What do you mean I'll get him to get the book?"

"You have a way of getting boys to do what you want," said Tom.

Mary glared at him.

"Moreover, they're your flowers," he added.

"I wouldn't even know what to tell Tansley," she said, crossing her arms. "I hardly feel comfortable with him knowing that we'll brew Thesmaphorium—what if he tells?"

"He won't tell," said Tom. "But let's meet him in the Hospital Wing tonight. I'll tell you the book you'll have him fetch."

Mary went off for lunch; Tom went to his dormitory, directly to retrieve something under his bed—his old suitcase from London. The right half of it was filled with neatly folded clothes; the left, with what anyone else would have thought of as garbage, but which was in reality the totality of things which Tom had owned from before coming to Hogwarts, that he thought would be useful for Hogwarts. From it, he took a magnifying glass—an ornate instrument with a silver frame and a sleek, decorative dark wood handle—that he had stolen from a businessman's briefcase in a Mayfair hotel.

He had thought of enchanting it for a while, but never got around to finding the time or necessity to do it; now, he had both.

It took longer than he expected; he missed the entirety of lunch and most of their afternoon class, which was thankfully History of Magic—Professor Binns was as much disturbed by his tardiness as he would have been by the rustling of leaves—but by the time he got to the library in the evening, the lens of the magnifying glass was no longer mere glass, but a glowing sheet of green crystal. Tom first went to consult a general 'anthology' of potions—Thesmaphorium, he learned, was one of the dozen 'sacred' potions used in the annual agricultural rituals of the Roman Empire. With that in mind, he tiptoed along the Restricted Section, which appeared like a huge confession booth under its vaulted ceiling.

Tom pressed his magnifying glass to the windows (whose existence made him derisively snort) of the Section, and then his wand to his magnifying glass. If he tapped magnifying glass once, it would zoom in; if he tapped it twice, it would zoom out. Although the Section was utterly unilluminated, the magnifying glass rendered everything legible with a sheen of green light. He aligned his glass in every possible angle before every window to discern the titles of as many books as possible. Soon, he spied a certain Potions Herbologickal, Volume III; Renewall & Transformacione.

When they met that night in the Hospital Wing, there was a greater crowd than Tom had anticipated. Rather than merely Ezekiel Tansley by Abraxas' bedside, there appeared to be the entirety of the Slytherin first-year cohort, making a ceremony of solidarity. Nonetheless, Tom whispered the name of the Restricted book to his sister, who simply gave a nod.

"Tom!" squealed Lydia Cotterill, waving. "Hello—I didn't expect to see—you—here!"

A pigtailed first-year blonde, her blushing smile revealed to Tom that she might be useful for him.

"Lydia Cotterill." He gave the girl a wide smile. "Professor Slughorn speaks highly of your potions."

"H-h-he speaks highly of you, too!" she blurted, before noticing Mary and adding, "and of your sister, of course!"

"Hm." Mary's eyes flickered between the first-year girl and Tom, while her mouth curved into a knowing smile. She left the pair alone to greet Tansley.

"Say, as two talented students," began Tom, stepping forward as to be so close to the little girl that their bodies were almost touching, "would you like to aid me in one of my personal projects?"

"Sure," she said, trying to feign something resembling graceful acceptance—but Tom saw the utter delight that her halfhearted facade tried to conceal.

"Then you'll meet me tomorrow night at half-past seven, outside the Common Room," he told her, "and you'll tell no one you're coming."

With that, Tom gave the girl a confidential smile, squeezed her hand, and walked past to watch the evolving seduction between his sister and Ezekiel Tansley. Tom knew for certain that Mary had no affection whatsoever for Tansley, which is why his brow furrowed deeply when he beheld her practically pressing Tansley to a wall, with a sultry smile on her lips and an irresistible glamour in her eyes, while Tansley simultaneously stammered and smiled and trembled and laughed. The sight, at first, made him perversely proud insofar as it was a natural display of the feminine force of character which his sister possessed, before it revolted him very much—if this was what she did with a boy who she didn't even like, what would she have done with a boy that she did like?

Tom had seen enough. He returned to his dormitory.

At lunch the following day, Mary dragged him to an empty classroom and opened before him Potions Herbologickal to the page of the recipe of Thesmaphorium. Tom was dismayed. The list of ingredients complicated everything. How did one, for instance, acquire the bile of sus scrota? What even was Moonstone? Mary hadn't the slightest clue, either. But it was her flowers that she wanted to 'regress' into seeds; so it was she who took the responsibility of obtaining the ingredients. Tom had other schemes to attend to, at any rate.

At night, when he met the little Lydia Cotterill outside the Common Room, she wore an obscene amount of lipstick.

"Good evening, Lydia." He extended a hand and a smile.

They went to the abandoned second-floor classroom that he and Mary had played with fire in a year and a half ago. Much to his surprise, the ashes of all the old furniture they had burned remained there, unsweeped, undisturbed.

"This place smells," complained Lydia, wrinkling her nose.

Tom did not object to her complaint. He drew his wand to transfigure two particularly large heaps of ash into grey wooden chairs.

"Take a seat."

"Have you heard of Occlumency, Lydia?" he asked gently.

The first-year, whose expression had been one of unabashed excitement until that moment, visibly turned apprehensive. She gave a small nod.

"Perhaps, then, you know that practicing it requires a partner," Tom said. "Likewise with Legilimency."

Her small blue eyes widened as she realised what he was implying. Tom saw that she was about to say something in protest, so he deterred her with a soothing question—

"You trust me to keep your secrets, don't you?" he asked, raising her chin.

"Father said never-to-let-a-boy-cast-Legilimens-on-you!" she blurted.

Her teeth clattered; her chin trembled. It was only a matter of time before she leapt from her chair and ran away; Tom realised that his situation had suddenly become dire.

So, naturally, he leaned in and planted a kiss on the slope of her cheek—not even half an inch from her lips. As he rose to observe her again, she was no longer quivering—rather, she sat frozen, her cheeks flushed with red and her face immobilised in a sort of ecstatic terror as though she had just been hit by a particularly pleasurable petrificus totalus.

"You see?" said Tom, raising his wand. "You're safe with me. Now—Legilimens!"

First, nothing. Then, Lydia broke into a fit of laughter. Tom gritted his teeth, albeit perhaps she wasn't laughing at him. Perhaps her laughter was, like steam rising from water, a sheer vaporous overflow of the intensity of the situation. Perhaps she did laugh at him, albeit not disparagingly, but to relieve the stress of both of them—but he needed to know for sure!

"Legilimens!"

This time, Tom plunged into a swirl of colours and feelings. One of Professor Slughorn's favourite activities was to warn students, before they were to brew any given potion, of the painful and bizarre fates due to those who drank poorly prepared concoctions of said potion. It was as though Tom drank such a potion. Though he still felt himself seated on his transfigured chair, none of his other senses remained firmly connected with reality. He saw, as though through a huge curved window that encompassed his entire field of vision, cursed somehow so that everything on the other side was distorted or otherwise imperfect, Lydia Cotterill brushing her teeth in front of a mirror of the first-year Slytherin girls' dormitory's bathroom. He felt it too, in his (her) mouth, which was smaller than his real mouth, against her teeth (which still ached, as she (he) had only lost another one of her baby teeth last week).

A flurry of scenes. Lydia's father, a potioneer-turned-politician, negotiating the sale of his family apothecary with an Irish wizard. Lydia's cousin, Edmund Spritedust, a third-year in their house who at once teased her yet ensured that she ate enough at lunch and dinner, and did all her homework. Lydia's quick little hand, chopping bundles of dittany during potions with a practised efficiency that boys admired and girls resented. Lydia, with her fellow first-year girl and best friend, Hortense Rowle, comparing the gemstone butterflies that Mary had enchanted for them. Lydia and other first-year girls talking at once admiringly and enviously of Mary. Then, of Tom. She was enamoured with Tom—Tom saw himself in another light. She stared at him all the time during mealtimes in the Great Hall, more often even than he stared at Mary.

Yet, Tom had no control over what he saw, albeit this owed in part to the sheer disorder in his mind engendered by its apprehension of the totality of Lydia's experiences, whose force utterly impeded his ability to even form a desire.

Then, all of a sudden, everything returned to normal—Tom was back in a bleak little room full of ashes, and everything was strikingly square and tidy. He saw his wand on the ground. He didn't even noticed that he dropped it, although it appeared that its falling had severed his connection to Lydia's mind. The walls did not bend into curves; the windows did not transform into faces—the world of the material, Tom realised with some sense of gratitude, was one that abided by much stricter laws of physics than the world contained within the mind of a first year girl.

Tom noticed that the girl in question looked deeply ashamed and embarrassed. Clearly, Lydia had not expected him (nor had he expected himself) to unravel so much of her.

"We'll stop there for today," said Tom. He forced a smile on his face and softness onto his eyes. "You will help me again, won't you?"

"O-of course," she stammered, likewise squeezing a smile on her face.

Thus the two (or rather Tom, with Lydia's compliance) decided that they would improvisationally meet again, sometime within the week, as Tom thought a fixed schedule would not only be inconvenient, but possibly rouse suspicion.

The Harvesting of Flowers

Chapter Notes

To old readers (specifically, anyone who began this fic before October 2021), please note that the current chapter is only the second half of the old chapter eleven, which I divided in two for the purpose of formal coherence. The actual new chapter is chapter thirteen, which I have uploaded in tandem with this. That said, perhaps rereading this chapter (which I have considerably revised) will help contextualise chapter thirteen, which relates the first half of the summer before the twins' third year. I'm sorry for not uploading in a long time; please know that this story isn't abandoned. Currently, I have a three month period of complete free time ahead of me—let's hope that I will be industrious in it.

Afternoon potions, Wednesday. "Everything for the potion will be ready within a week," Mary whispered to Tom, her warm breath tickling his ear. She talked not of the Strengthening Solution they were to brew for Professor Slughorn, but of Thesmaphorium.

Although Tom nodded approvingly, there was something suspicious in the confidence and quickness with which Mary executed her plan. "So soon? How?"

"I recruited the help of Tansley and Abraxas."

"You what?"

"Recruited the help of Tansley and Abraxas," she repeated innocently. "They're my flowers anyway, like you said. Is something wrong?"

"You've barely known Tansley for a few days," said Tom. "How can you trust him already?"

"I can just tell," she said with such petulance that Tom knew any further inquiry on his part would be fruitless.

It was in fact Ezekiel Tansley who approached his sister with the offer, as Tom was to later learn. As the steward of the Hospital Wing, Tansley had his own private study that doubled as a brewing workshop. If Madam Milosz needed any potions, Tansley would be sent the following weekend to Diagon Alley to buy all that she required. If any of the apothecaries did not have the potions she required, Tansley would buy the ingredients to brew them himself. All his expenses were covered by Hogwarts. But Thesmaphorium was particularly expensive, and not a medically justifiable expense. Thus came Abraxas, whose monthly allowance of four hundred galleons permitted the realisation of the project.

Tom partook in the brewing. Much to his surprise, Abraxas, who was only recently discharged from the Hospital Wing, returned to it, apparently content to spend hours watching Tansley, Mary, and Tom himself put the costly ingredients he purchased to use. Tansley's study, though a rather claustrophobic little space, thankfully possessed a huge window that allowed his cauldron's disgusting fumes to escape.

Where the Strengthening Solution required two weeks to brew, Thesmaphorium required a month and a half—just in time for the end of semester. Mary did almost all of the brewing; she applied herself to the cauldron with a frenzied intensity reminiscent of the six year old girl who slaughtered a pigeon to avenge Metis. Thus, towards the end of the semester, the twins informally enacted a division of labour. Tom, whose study notes were otherwise highly idiosyncratic and illegible to eyes that were not his own, now prepared them with a special diligence so that his sister could easily read them—he often did this on a small desk in Tansley's study, while Tansley and his sister worked at the cauldron.

Tom continued to meet Lydia and practice Legilimency on her. "You must try and expel me from your mind," Tom demanded of her. She thought he meant it for her sake; he meant it for his own. He needed to become competent at invading minds; that she might become competent at defending her own was incidental. Unfortunately, where Tom rapidly became more competent at navigating her mind and uncovering all its little nooks and crannies, Lydia hardly became better at defending it, not so much from incompetence, as from the pleasure she derived by his invasive presence.

May came. Tom was no closer to learning what his sister and Arcanius Fawley had done at the latter's home; his initial plan of wheedling information from Abraxas was to no avail, for where Antoine Rosier was charmed by Tom's capacity as a courtyard duellist, as any healthy eleven-year wizard would have been, Abraxas, inexplicably, preferred the company of Mary, and her conversation, which often amounted to nothing more than gossiping about other students. In fact, Tom was certain that Abraxas disliked him. Tom somehow knew, with complete certainty, that Abraxas quietly raged whenever Tom drew Mary's attention away from him, or whenever Tom spoke harshly to her.

Then, Grindelwald invaded France.

It was a spectacle a hundred times more exciting than the Hogwarts Quidditch Cup. Although Professor Dippet insisted that copies of The Daily Prophet were only to be imported every Sunday, older students began smuggling prints—not just of The Daily Prophet, but various more audacious publications, such as one of France's own most eminent ones, L'appel du Clarion, whose correct rendering was argued over by its quarrelsome translators (various older students, mostly Ravenclaws) on a daily basis.

Poland had been a training ground for journalists and correspondents, for the Battle of France was transcribed, described, and photographed so painstakingly that it unfolded in real time through Hogwarts castle. Boys devoured the reports of the skirmishes between the Freimagier and the combined forces of the French Ministry; some of the less judicious among them sought to learn and use the curses detailed within these reports for hallway duels—the Hospital Wing quickly became busier than ever, and the great hourglasses at the front of the Great Hall were subject to greater subtractions of gems than ever. Girls showed each other newspaper cut-outs of particularly handsome Aurors or even Freimagier magetroops, and everyone waxed lyrical about the suffering of muggles.

Abraxas Malfoy's heart was more invested in the Battle of France than anyone else's. Bizarrely, every wizarding skirmish or muggle battle that the Germans won was received by him like the notice of the death of a relative. When news came of the fall of the Headquarters of the French Auror Office, he collapsed at the breakfast table, and was relegated to the Hospital Wing for the third time in the year.

"Why does it bother him so much?" Tom asked Tansley one night. "Is he really so scared that if Grindelwald defeats France, he'll attack us?"

"That's not an implausible eventuality, though," said Tansley, "but no. Abraxas is bothered because his mother was French—he considers, in his traumatised child-mind, every attack on France as an attack on her memory. You understand, don't you?"

Tom wanted to say that he did not understand, because his mother had died giving birth to him. But he held his tongue. In truth, albeit he venerated Grindelwald as the greatest living wizard, Tom was afraid of the Freimagier. They were ruthless and cruel; if they attacked Britain, he would have no means to preserve Mary from them. He was, by necessity, bound to his country—he was knowledgeable enough to decide his allegiances in theory, but not powerful enough to decide them in practice. Oh weakness mine, Tom thought to himself in the poetical voice of Sir Hervouet, how I despiseth thee! How I despiseth thee!

But he did not sulk. We've nothing, Tom. Yet we've everything. Isn't it beautiful? His sister's words rang in his head like the music of her singing flowers. It was true. All he had was his prodigious ability to learn—it was all he had—but it was enough to make him superior to all the world. It was only a question of time, of which Tom felt simultaneously impoverished of and profoundly supplied with. He knew he was young, but the war on the continent was a vortex which seemed to suck time out of air.

"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat," said the newly inaugurated Prime Minister Winston Churchill to the British Empire. Tom found it rhetorically unmoving. However as an object of contemplation, Tom found it most useful. In The Principles of Change, Mòzǐ alleged that everything in the world exists in a state of cyclicality; history was not exempt from this. Where the wand movements for spells of the Latinate and Germanic physikalisches were often intense and rapid—suited for combat—those of the Chinese were long and leisurely; they drew letters in the air, and these letters would remain manifested anywhere between the length of a few minutes and several years, if not decades—but they would always eventually cease. Even spell had lifespans. Tom observed this; after a week of studying the linguistics of the enigmatic language, he drew the character for water with his wand:

水

Three inches long and three wide, blue and diaphanous like a crystal but shimmering like water under the sun, a small stream of water steadily dripped from it to form a small puddle on his dormitory floor. For a few minutes, Tom sat on his bed, mesmerised as it grew brighter and brighter, stronger and stronger, as though its light gave it power—it became so bright that it was no longer blue, but radiantly white like the sun, and water poured as amply from it as from a fully turned bathtub faucet—before it began to diminish, diminish and diminish until it was dark and almost completely barren, dribbling only little droplets every now and then. Thus 'blood, toil, tears, and sweat' formed but the droplets of water that formed the puddle of history. Yet history is eternal; the puddle, then, must necessarily be but a stage in the lifespan of a historical period. Yet was it the youth of one period, or the senility of another? The muggles to whom it was addressed would have thought it the former; Tom knew it was the latter.

Every small cycle was partial to some greater cycle. The moon revolves around the Earth, as the Earth revolves around the sun. In Virtute Tenebrae alleged that the Empires of recent millennia were so 'short-lived' (citing 300 years on average), because they were by and large governed by and for muggles. The great Mage-Emperors of yore (whose earliest domain was Arcadia, and whose latest, Egypt) maintained stability for tens of thousands of years, albeit 'modern' magical historians, whose historiography was infected too much by muggle intellectualism, contend that they never existed at all. In either case, Tom recognised the existence of two concurrent cycles—modern 'muggle' history, and the detestable, malignant magical epoch in which he was currently situated, that freer wizards in the future would remember as the age of the 'Statute'. Thus 'blood, toil, tears, and sweat' was but the natural consequence of muggle self-governance—the more Tom reflected on it, the more he considered Churchill tautological. The entirety of muggle reality, separated from magic, was but blood, toil, tears, and sweat—not a reality worth living in.

Yin and Yang. The eternal interplay of chaos and justice, according to Mòzǐ, happened slowly. Yet just as a river had to flow in a direction no matter its mildness, so did the internal dance of creation never cease its movement. So could the development of every modern phenomenon, miracle or malaise, be comprehended through the study of history—and there was no disrupting the justice of history. History (whose other name Tom knew as 'nature') considered the rampant development of muggle industrialism unsustainable; as the machines grew ever larger and ever more complex, so did muggles, motivated by the inextricable self-awareness of their frailty, seize the opportunity to breed like rabbits. Inevitably, muggle civilisation, like an overgrown wasp of hives, would become too big and cannibalise itself, just as the water surrounding the 水 would theoretically engulf and extinguish itself, were it not first extinguished by a wand. It was then that the Statute would fall apart; and Diagon Alley was in the centre of Metropolitan London.

In that sense, Grindelwald's For The Greater Good was not an euphemism—as The Daily Prophet alleged it was—but rather a call for universal human salvation. Perhaps the ancient Mage-Emperors existed, perhaps they didn't; in either case Grindelwald wished to become a Mage-Emperor, as much from historical necessity as from personal vanity or ambition. The International Confederation of Wizards was therefore myopic; to preserve the Statute was nothing but saving lives today at the cost of lives tomorrow. Tom thought all of this was exceedingly obvious; if he managed to figure it out within two years of his initiation into the magical world, how was it not exceedingly obvious to everyone?

It was, Tom later learned, obvious well over a century ago. The Daily Prophet often accused Grindelwald of 'Bonstregonism'. At first, Tom thought this was a method of cooking. It was not; it was the ideology of the greatest wizard of the nineteenth century—Claude Bonstrégon. Tom had not once heard of this man in two years of 'History of Magic'; his name was only ever invoked by the press, unfavourably, to condemn Grindelwald for lack of originality. A year ago Tom would have adopted the opinions of respected older students on Bonstrégon; now, he knew they were inferior to him. Thus he went to the library.

Claude Bonstrégon's father was Hadès-Blangis Bonstrégon, the patriarch of an old Lombard pureblood family who made an illicit fortune amidst the chaos of the French revolution, which had profoundly overturned not only the institutions and lives of French muggles, but also of French mages—and it was during this upheaval that Claude was born. His mother was a young muggle woman who was a nonentity. For her, no author thought it necessary to present anything more than a trifecta of facts: that she was young and beautiful; that she was either coerced or 'seduced' to sleep with Bonstrégon the father, who was ninety years old; and that she died shortly after the birth of her only child.

A half-blood bastard, Claude Bonstrégon's childhood was a complex one. His father pulled strings in the Reformed French Ministry to have his son allowed at Beauxbatons, which only permitted purebloods at the time. Claude, however, was anything but grateful. He was known to have said, 'I may be a bastard under the law, but my father is a bastard under God'. Yet despite his holy indignation, Claude was not a particularly virtuous fellow—he got expelled from Beauxbatons at the tender age of fifteen, which proved to be a very fortuitous event for him—for he had already inspired such devotion in his peers that many of them left with him in protest, and followed him to enlist in Napoleon's muggle army to fight all over Europe.

Within a year, he had broken every edict of the International Statute of Secrecy. Within two years, he was the preeminent target for the Reformed French Ministry's Auror forces. Within five years, he had persuaded the bulk of said Aurors to join forces with him; together they overthrew the 'Reformed' French Ministry to make the 'Imperial' French Ministry which, rather than passively monitoring Napoleon, actively aided him. Bonstrégon revered the Roman Empire as the zenith of both muggle and magical civilisation. For where the Auror came into being during the early medieval era as bodyguards and stewards of petty muggle Lords, the Roman Magicio jointly commanded legions with centurions; Bonstrégon, now for all intents and purposes the French Minister for Magic, abolished the former to reinstate the latter and, in doing so, induced all sorts of wizards—including many muggleborns and half-bloods—to support the Napoleonic cause.

But in the notorious campaign for Russia, the traditional Auror—and not just Russian ones, for the International Confederation of Wizards had declared both Napoleon and Bonstrégon paramount enemies of the Statute—prevailed against the revived Magicio. At last, Bonstrégon was captured and condemned to the Dementor's Kiss by the International Confederation.

Tom related all of this and more to Abraxas and Ezekiel Tansley, who proved to be fervent enthusiasts of history. A boon. At last, there was something with which Tom could gain Abraxas' favour. Incidentally, it aided Tom's understanding of himself. What was it that made the trifecta of them so abnormally enchanted by history? Especially (as opposed to the muggle world, where all learning was abstract) when there was magic itself to learn? The flattering answer was 'intelligence'. No, it couldn't be, thought Tom. For while this answer made sense if they were posed against someone like William Wilkes, it failed to account for why Alexius Lestrange—who was intelligent and well-bred, but affected a brusque stupidity—was averse to history, or why someone like Walburga Black—who was a dunce, but affected sophistication—took pride in knowing all its facts.

The answer was, Tom finally realised, profoundly psychological. He was not without self-awareness. All three of them—Abraxas, Tansley, and Tom himself—were simultaneously extraordinary talented, yet extremely deprived. Abraxas was proud of his heritage; his father was the richest man in Europe, and one of the most powerful in the magical world—yet he was still the sufferer of a debilitating, inextricable curse. Tansley was proud of his intellect—but it was this same intellect that rendered him so eccentric and that, compounded by his status as a muggleborn, impeded him from consorting with his fellow students as an ordinary fourth-year. Tom was proud of everything; his power, his intellect, his good looks—but there was such a wide gulf between the little sapling that he was, and the great tree that he was destined to be. It was these gulfs, these wide departures between where the enthusiast of history found themselves and where they thought they deserved to be, that made them cast their sight beyond the mere present, to the past, which would in turn give them a sense (or the illusion) of power over all time—past, present, and future—through understanding.

"Grindelwald's smarter than Bonstrégon," Tansley declared one day, as the three of them conversed in the library. "Which is unsurprising. But I've a caveat on what we call 'smartness', you see, the silver lining to the Statute is that the progression of all magical phenomena—spellcraft, pureblood politics, magical architecture—is that now each successive great wizard, much like muggle scientists and philosophers, builds off his predecessors—"

"Focus, Ezekiel," came Tom, who had by now acquired a habit of compelling the older Ravenclaw to collect himself. "Focus."

"Right–alright," said Tansley. "What was I talking about?"

"The armies."

"Ah, indeed the armies. We were talking about the armies. Grindelwald's not going to have the Freimagier act as Magicio; that would be senseless. It was already senseless by Bonstrégon's time—it's only obvious that it's senseless now, thanks to Bonstrégon."

Privately, Tom had developed a sentimental fondness for the Magicio. They were, for him, the incarnation of magical superiority—what would symbolically reify the wizard's inherent superiority more unequivocally than a wizard leading muggles in battle? Yet Tom knew history cared neither for his sentimentalities, nor for those of anyone else.

"There's a common misunderstanding," said Tom, stroking his chin, "that it was the sheer magical superiority of the coalition Aurors that gave them the decisive edge over the Magicio. There's no denying that they were magically superior—but this is utterly irrelevant, in face of the Magicio's strategic operandi."

"The Magicio were weighed down by the muggles," offered Abraxas.

"Indeed they were, Abraxas," Tom said indulgently. "Although I would add that they were above all encumbered by their isolation from one another. One Magicio per muggle brigade, while Coalition Aurors fought in cells of three or four—by design against the former fact. And you already know which side got the upper hand."

"The Freimagier fight like Aurors," Abraxas said glumly. "Grindelwald's going to be harder to deal with than Bonstrégon, isn't he?"

"It goes both ways," assured Tom. "Recall that until the Russian campaign, Bonstrégon's Magicio were unstoppable in Europe. The French are tough; they could mount a mighty defense—and even if they're defeated, Grindelwald won't brutalise the inheritors of Bonstrégon, if only out of respect."

Tom privately wondered the extent to which his words of assurance were true; he did not care if they were or were not. If Grindelwald destroyed France, France deserved to be destroyed.

"Keep in mind, Abraxas, that there's also a nontrivial quantity of Bonstregonists who are partial to Grindelwald—the French Aurors are as embroiled with them as much as they are with the Germans," added Tansley, much less conscientious of Abraxas' feelings than Tom. "On that, I've got to go—weekly apothecary run."

Tansley left. Tom stared at the cauldron from which the emerald-green thesmaphorium simmered, splashing softly like the gentle pitter-patter of rain against fallen autumnal leaves. It was nearly entirely Mary's work; and although Tom felt proud of her industriousness, he also felt an odd impulse to knock her work over and ruin it—it would be so easy to do so—but he stayed his hand.

"I wonder what Arcanius Fawley would do, if he knew about this," said Tom, his eyes intent on the cauldron, but his mind set on Abraxas.

"Wouldn't vex him too much, I believe," came Abraxas. "He knows Mary quite well. He's used to her whims."

What's the hell's that supposed to mean? Tom wanted to yell. He had, for the past month, taken every opportunity to subtly allude to Arcanius Fawley, with the hope that Abraxas would reveal something of what had taken place between him and Mary on April the eleventh. Abraxas never gave in—it was as though he was aware of the game that Tom played.

And if Abraxas was aware of the game that Tom played, ought Tom not let him know that he was aware of his awareness?

"You've seen my sister act whimsically, then?" asked Tom. "With Arcanius?"

For a long moment, Abraxas said nothing; and this was how Tom knew that whatever he would next say, was a lie.

"She acts rather whimsically around everyone." Abraxas shrugged. "I find it charming."

On the second of June, the Freimagier overran the headquarters of the French Ministry—the Place de Furstemberg in Paris. Two weeks later, the German muggles took over the city completely. On a memorable Saturday morning, the Slytherin table buzzed over a particularly flagrant piece of editorialism.

THE RAVISHING OF FRANCE: GRINDELWALD'S  GREAT CAMPAIGN OF SUBTERFUGE

It came, of course, from the rag that was The Daily Prophet. Nonetheless for all its faults, Tom knew that truth could be gleaned from magical Britain's most circulated newspaper, just as one could drink water from a dysfunctional tap by applying one's mouth to a hole in its piping. The author was Fabuloso Lockhart, a notorious but sought-after sensationalist, who firstly pointed out that which everyone already knew; that Grindelwald had spies placed in French pureblood society, and that said spies fomented the existing bad blood that brewed within it. Lockhart then disclosed a plot whereby a clique of 'high-ranking Bonstregonists' had 'neutralised swathes of the French Auror Forces' through 'deft and devilish application of the Imperius Curse'. This plot in itself was, at least to Tom who had read of Bonstrégon's own exploits, utterly unsurprising—war was unforgiving; of course unforgivables were liberally used. But the second half of the article was nothing but absurd conjecture; it not only revealed the names of all the supposed conspirators of said plot, but also gave extensive portraits of each conspirator's personality, and lyrical descriptions of how particular female conspirators seduced senior members of the Cour d'Eternité, the French Wizengamot, with the aid of 'Persian love-curses' whose existence Tom found dubious.

"Fascinating," murmured Thane, whose protruding green eyes nearly pressed against the paper that he held against his face.

Tom regarded him with incredulity. "You don't truly believe any of it, do you?"

"Some of it's got to be true," said Thane, shrugging. "Lockhart rubs shoulders with many important wizards. He knows more than we do."

"He knows less than he purports to know," Tom said. "But what have you inferred from his rubbish?"

"The French are fleeing here. Remember the evacuated troops from Dunkirk? Now both the French muggle and magical Ministry will be here. They'll join efforts with our Ministry—they'll do a total mobilisation together."

"Is that really so important?"

"A total mobilisation, Tom!" Thane exclaimed. "Just like Grindelwald's government—every Department of the Ministry geared for war. Even the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes …"

Tom's eyes expanded in shock. The older boy alluded to a great possibility, but one which was perhaps too fantastical. "What have you in mind, Thane?"

"They won't bother anymore, with minor little magical accidents," Thane said with a smirk. "Not when there'll be so many major ones in the war. We'll be able to do magic in summer—something in the muggle parts of this country, something fun—"

"What about The Trace?"

"I doubt they'll even bother with it—but just in case, we can acquire wands without The Trace."

Yet Tom did not particularly want to spend his summer with Thane, even if the latter appeared to want nothing short of practicing curses on muggles with impunity—for the simple reason that he could do the same with Mary. Just the two of them, to make a playground of London once more.

A little to his embarrassment, Tom discovered himself excited to converse with Tansley later that day, on what truth might be gleaned from Lockhart's ridiculous exposé. And what he learned would be invaluable indeed, albeit their conversation commenced, as always, with him redressing the older boy's tendency to prattle.

"—Grindelwald's war is still in its first phase, developmentally. The magical and muggle fronts have not converged; the Freimagier and Wehrmacht took Paris two weeks apart, though it's only a matter of time, I estimate, before some syncretic strategy is devised—"

"Focus, Ezekiel."

"Right-alright," said the Ravenclaw, gobbling down a slice of honey toast. "It is interesting though that despite it all, the Statute remains utterly unviolated. Purebloods are very uncompromising and naive when they think of the Statute, ironically enough, when their ancestors were the ones who devised it. It's not about ensuring that no muggle ever sees a dragon, but rather that if one does, other muggles think of him as crazy—and so is the case increasingly so, despite the general increase of what they call 'incidents—'

"Focus, Ezekiel."

"Right-alright. What I meant to say is that the genius of the Statute is in the fact it only gets stronger with time—and this war testifies to it. Where the Great War was devoid of magical involvement, this war is magical involvement—nine months of it hitherto—and the Statute's stronger than ever. In fact, wars often lead to the International Confederation of Magic looking for more ways to consolidate the Statute. It was in the Napoleonic Wars—a little over a hundred years ago—that they made their first effort to repossess magical artefacts from the muggle world. But it's also wars that lead to magical artefacts falling in muggle hands in the first place."

"Muggle hands," Tom repeated in disgust. "How could purebloods relinquish their 'artefacts' so easily?"

"Typically the pattern for these artefacts is that they originate before the Statute, and get somehow displaced after them. Consider … let me think … India! Yes—India! We stole a great many things from that country. In our last war against the Mysores we sacked the great city of Mysore itself, and its palace—and took, without being conscious of it, caches of enchanted jewellery and weaponry back with us. The result? Much of said enchanted goods also had protective curses against thieves; often, their muggle proprietors mysteriously died. But so did the protective curses—yes, recall Mòzǐ, Tom—curses faded more quickly when displaced from their original location, and especially when, well, no one cares about the objects upon which they are placed anymore."

"If their curses and charms fade, can they really be said to be magical artefacts anymore?"

"But enchanted objects comprise only a small portion of what the Confederation considers 'magical artefacts'—and some enchantments, when worked in tandem with other substances, are permanent. Consider the poisonous sabres of the Mohammedan Knights of Aurangzeb—they were forged with basilisk venom—which never goes away. The Mohammedan stewards of Mysore undoubtedly inherited some of these—and they are now undoubtedly in the possession of unwitting British muggles."

Tom made no verbal response. The Ravenclaw engendered in his mind a scheme to enact over the summer; one which, of course, could not be shared back to him. Tom went, instead, first to the library, where he sought resources on basilisks, on poison-infused weapons, and on the Mysore Wars. It did not take him long to find a conclusion, which took the shape of a proposal to Thane Mulciber, the next day as the pair of them practised spells along the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

"I know what we ought to do for summer."

"Oh? Do tell."

Thus Tom recalled to the fifth-year Slytherin all that the fourth-year Ravenclaw (who aforesaid fifth-year had an unhelpful aversion towards) said. In doing so, he observed that Thane was utterly disinterested in history when it bore no obvious connection to the present. But the notion of an ancient Indian sword infused with Basilisk intrigued Thane very much, as it would have intrigued any boy.

"I hope you don't intend on bringing your mudblood friend," said Thane. "Though he may be helpful …"

"No—we ought to keep the number of us to a minimum," said Tom. "Bring Lestrange."

"Surly old Alex?" Thane raised his eyebrows. "If you say so. Then what about your sister?"

Tom could not explain why, but the thought of his sister being in constant proximity to Alexius Lestrange for two consecutive months was a deeply unsettling one. Yet Mary needed to come. So Tom thought quickly; she would come, and Lestrange wouldn't—but he would not reveal this reasoning to Thane—it would be much less complicated if Thane thought that it was Mary, and not Tom, who was so protective of her own integrity.

"I'll ask her," said Tom. "I imagine she'll come."

But at dinner, Mary was not there. Then Tom remembered that their Thesmaphorium was due for harvest tomorrow, at last after two long months. He reflected on its procurement; as the brewing went on he had become increasingly inattentive to it, while Mary had become singularly obsessed with it. She was undoubtedly attending to it at the very moment—Tom supposed he would see her tomorrow.

Thus on the morning of the next day, an hour even before breakfast, Tom rushed to the Hospital Wing, to Tansley's study. Mary had already left—and in fact the cauldron, which had been on a constant boil since April, was finally flat—all of the green liquid inside had been scrupulously extracted.

"Good morning, Tom."

"Abraxas," greeted Tom, spinning on his heel. "You're not with Mary?"

"She left a while ago," he murmured in a strange voice. "She'll finally have her flowers."

"Indeed," said Tom. "Shall we see her?"

"I think you should see her yourself, Tom," the younger boy all but whispered. "You should convince her to destroy the flowers."

"What!?" Tom asked with such force that Abraxas shrunk.

"The flowers don't just make music—they—they're suggestive—"

"What on Earth do you mean?"

"They change one's behaviour—"

"You're telling me this now?!" Tom grabbed Abraxas by the shoulders. "Plain English—what do you mean?!"

"When I was at Fawley's, he got his little sister Héloïse to take me to a guest-room to rest, but instead we secretly followed him and Mary through the garden—they got to an arbour made of the music flowers, and … Mary—well—well she kissed Fawley! On the lips!"

Tom felt a cold knife plunge into his chest. He clutched his bosom, gnashed his teeth, groaned like an arthritic old man, before once again grabbing Abraxas by his weak little shoulders, and slamming him against a wall. A terrified, aggrieved look came across the younger boy's face—such a young, fearful, and delicate little face—and in a brief moment of lucidity Tom realised that he had forever broken Abraxas' trust in him, before his rage resumed like a tide overcoming the shore of his being.

"Are you telling me the full truth? Look me in the eye, Malfoy!"

Abraxas obeyed; his pair of grey, doe-like eyes that wanted to look at anything but Tom's dark passionate gaze, looked just at them.

"The full truth, indeed," Abraxas managed to whisper.

And Tom knew it was full truth, for he had in that moment achieved a great feat in Legilimency—he saw Abraxas' mind with neither incantation nor wand, albeit for a fleeting moment—and knew that Abraxas had said what he meant to say.

Without a further word, Tom left the Hospital Wing, and marched to the clearing in the forest. Mary, whose beautiful form was infuriatingly further enriched by the dim orange light of the rising sun, had already finished planting the regressed seeds of the saffron. When she turned to face Tom, he lunged and grabbed her the shoulders and slammed her against a tree, pinning himself against her.

"What is wrong with you?" he asked. "What is wrong with you?!" he screamed.

Like Abraxas, there appeared on Mary's face a genuine terror for a moment—before it quickly quelled and reformed into a countenance of pure defiance. The rational part of Tom's mind, which had been confined to a seat purely to observe the decrees that its zealous, demonic usurpers pronounced on its throne, observed that there was a possibility his sister's accidental magic would in any moment send him flying into the air.

But it did not. It seemed that she let Tom's anger keep her as an object, so that she could make a fool of him.

"Why do you care who I kiss?" she asked, more mockingly than angrily.

"You lied to me!" Tom yelled in her face. "You said the you did nothing at his posh little country house! Why, Mary, why?! Why lie?! Why?"

He knew at once that he made a mistake of letting his anger subside into desperation.

"Now you know how it feels, Tom," she continued in her mocking loveliness. "You took Caney from me and set Ilaria—and by extension, almost every girl in our house—against me, without giving me the slightest warning."

That she was so composed and eloquent, despite his taut hands on her shoulders, which were in that moment as capable of as much brutality as the talons of a buzzard, was utterly bizarre. Then, he realised the obvious; she had expected this. She had rehearsed what to say. She had told Abraxas to tell him the truth—Abraxas, whose affection for her was engendered entirely by Tom.

"But you liked it, didn't you?" Tom found himself automatically asking. "You liked kissing him. Him—Fawley—life undeserving of life."

"I like him very much," she said with sinister calmness. "It's your fault. I told you our tenderness was disgusting—you didn't listen. You took him from me so you could have me yourself. It's your fault! Your-fault-your-fault-your-fault! Don't you see, Tom?"

Although his fury did not abate, Tom forced himself to sneer. "Has your mind regressed alongside your saffrons? A necklace is not a kiss—"

"You're right, a necklace is worth much more. You give me kisses aplenty, while you've taken only one necklace from me."

Tom said nothing; he only glared at her and let his hand tighten around the handle of his wand—he wanted to blow up the entire clearing, incinerate all the bluebells, and disfigure his sister's unbearably pretty face.

"Tom," murmured Mary, whose voice had theatrically modulated again, now to a tone of solemnity. "We're even now, don't you see? No more fighting, please. Isn't it all so tiresome?"

She was completely serious; he could not tolerate this. He could not tolerate the humiliation that she had just subject him to.

"I agree, wholeheartedly," he said nonetheless, clenching all the muscles in his jaw. "But only distance will make amends for the insults you have made against me."

"'Distance'?" she at once asked worriedly. "What do you mean, 'distance'?"

"We won't spend summer together, Mary."

"What?! What do you mean? But where—"

"I have arrangements with Thane," said Tom.

Now, it was Mary's turn to grab him by the shoulders with imploring hurt and anger. It was as though the vengeful spirit which possessed him for the past few minutes had suddenly exited his body, to enter hers. He felt no sense of victoriousness, none at all—only the numbness of necessity.

"But you can't leave me! All alone in London—I-I'll hurt myself! I'll hurt myself if you do!"

"You won't," Tom said, "but I don't care if you do."

THIRD YEAR: Separation and Sacrifice

London was uninhabitable without Tom. Everything that Mary liked about the city became alien and hostile in the absence of him, for the imprints of his cruelty were still so fresh in her mind and on her skin that they corrupted even the memory of the beautiful moments they had had together. Strolling alone down the paths they had trodden together; stealing alone from the stores they had stolen from together; and gazing alone upon the keepsakes of their childhood that furnished their bedroom stirred in Mary nothing but nausea. While sadness might have induced reflection, and indignation might have supplied her magic with emotional nourishment, the numb disgust that Mary felt was analogous only to physical, animal pain—the variety of suffering which dulled every horizon and taught no lessons.

The city had changed. War invigorated it. Tom would have quipped that conflict gave meaning to muggle existence. The wireless at Wool's Orphanage, which had once been used exclusively to divert its staff late at night, was now the foremost pleasure of the orphans, for the BBC had, in reducing its multiplicity of channels into a single channel, taken on a mystic, ascetic quality that drew the attention and imagination of children. News of the war's developments in its manifold fronts; grandiose speeches by politicians who formerly only spoke in humdrum; and the austere, almost skeletal music played by the BBC staff musicians formed a trifold stream of psychic stimulation for the spiritually malnourished orphans. Of course, that the wireless was now on for sixteen hours a day, every day, required its battery acid to be steadily replenished; and whichever orphan was tasked with going to the Radio and Cycle shop nine miles down the A1 would have truly beheld the energetic face of wartime London; he would see men in uniforms everywhere, marching in tidy groups of five, twenty, or even fifty; he would see processions of trucks carrying paintings and statues from museums fleeing bombers that had yet to come; he would see the replacement of currency with little brown books at grocers and markets; he would see that boys now played hide and seek with pretend rifles.

Indeed, many thought that the Germans, who had hitherto been unstoppable, would soon fly their bombers over London. Though Mary thought this improbable—for where Britain had India and swathes of Africa, Germany had but a man with a funny moustache who produced many machines—she would have quite welcomed it. She would have liked to be entombed under the smouldering debris of the orphanage, for dying so suddenly and pointlessly in the place she was born would certainly make Tom regret every single wrong he had ever done her.

London made her think of such paradoxes as these; Tom was unforgiving to her as far she was alive, but were she to die, he would repent of everything—of every last strand of hair on her head that he had ever lightly pulled in chest, of every night at Hogwarts that he had given her only a tepid 'goodnight' because of his enthralment to this or that book instead of her. Mary could not tolerate this thought. She could not tolerate her brother's pride—but everything around her reminded her of it, of his pride—the ration book Ms. Cole left in her room that was intended for him; the intrigued stares of the other orphans every time she left the room without him; the three ceramic vases that stood on the table in the centre of their room, the glass jars of expired, rotting candy and chocolates that decked their shelves which she had stolen with him—Mary could, in a word, no longer tolerate London without Tom.

It was thus that she anxiously scribbled, on a bit of scrunched parchment she discovered in her shirtdress pocket, the following words:

My dear Florence,

You must let me spend the summer with you. You must; tell your father what he needs to hear. I cannot stand it here any longer.

Senate House at once repulsed and impressed Tom. Nineteen floors high, built in the uniquely twentieth century style known as Art Deco, it was a monolith carved entirely out of skeletally coloured limestone, with small, indented windows that reminded one of the hollowed casements of jails and dungeons. Where Westminster Abbey represented Medieval London, and the House of Parliament represented the half-humanist, half-monstrous British Empire as she was in her eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Senate House, Tom thought, was the soul of the technocratic hive that was modern muggle civilisation; constructed in merely nine years, it was nominally the administrative centre of the world-consuming University of London that had among its alumni statesmen, scientists, political radicals, psychoanalysts, Indian princes, and the heirs of American industry potentates alike, it was sequestered by the Ministry of Information for wartime use. Altogether then it was at once weaning pen for the international muggle elite, a disseminator of imperial propaganda, and a building twice the size of Hogwarts castle.

"This reminds me of a building I saw when I visited New England. A tower, I believe the muggles call them, with hideous little windows and few decorations just like this one, built by an American prince called Rockefeller," said Alexius Lestrange, as he, Thane Mulciber and Tom climbed the grand stairway connecting the third and fourth levels of the building; these levels respectively constituted the University of London's admissions office, and the ground floor of its enormous multi-story library.

"Americans don't have princes, Alex," said Tom. "The United States of America is a republic—the Rockefeller bloke you're talking about is a businessman who trades in oil."

"Can one not be a businessman and a prince at the same time?"

"Yes, but John Rockefeller is not a prince. His grandfather was a lumberman."

"Can one not be a lumberman and a prince at the same time?"

"Alex," said Tom, placing a forgiving hand on the older boy's shoulder, "a lumberman is a man who cuts trees for a living."

Tom had not visited a muggle library since he was nine. If someone had told his nine-year-old self that he would next visit a library in 1940, with a pair of older boys who possessed the same secret powers that he did, during the midst of another Great War with Germany, he would have thought them mad and stolen their wallet. But he did not rue the absurdity of his circumstances; they were more dream-like than nightmarish, and all he had to do to recall that he was awake, rather than asleep, was look at aforesaid older boys. For indeed, despite Tom's best efforts to render them inconspicuous, Alexius Lestrange and Thane Mulciber attracted the bewildered looks of the university students and the government footmen that swamped Senate House.

Upon disembarking on the fourth floor, the three Slytherins were at once overwhelmed. Where the Hogwarts library was ancient, spacious, and picturesque, Senate House Library was the office of a bibliophilic accountant replicated ten times lengthwise and sidewise. Moreover, where pedestrian muggle libraries were indexed by large painted signs with intuitive descriptors such as 'geography', 'history', or 'children's literature', Senate House Library's system of registration was as obscure as a seventh year's arithmancy textbook; the first sign that Tom saw said "e.112—e.181, T. Aarons to M. Dobkin."

The study desks found intermittently between these meticulous bookshelves were all small and rather pathetic compared to the ornate tables one found in the Hogwarts library; most of them would not have been able to host more than four occupants at once. On one particularly busy desk Tom found six bespectacled men overlooking the diagrammatic sketch of an airplane on a placard-sized sheet of yellow paper.

"We'll have to ask for directions," Thane said sagely. "Tom, look—that muggle looks like he knows what's where."

Indeed, Thane lifted his bony hand and pointed a finger at a resigned looking young librarian in nondescript black attire who pushed a trolley of books presumably needing to be returned.

"Is he a priest?" asked Alexius. "The fellows who dress in black and pretend they're wizards."

"No, Alex," said Tom. "He's a lumberman."

"Piss off. Go on then, let's talk to him."

"I'll talk to him," said Tom. "You two will keep your mouths shut."

Tom approached the librarian from behind and tapped his shoulder. "Excuse me, sir, I don't suppose you know where one might find primary sources on Britain's wars in India?"

"That depends on what you mean by primary source," the librarian replied at once. "Do you mean the posthumously published diaries of individual soldiers? Or do you mean their ante mortem memoirs? Or perhaps the abundance of academic writing done by the domestic observers contemporary to these soldiers which falls just as much under the appellation of 'primary source' as private diaries and commercial memoirs do. State institution records—"

Tom cut him off. "My great-great grandfather fought and died in the Siege of Mysore. I would like to learn anything I can about his last moments in this world."

"Your great-great grandfather died in the Siege of Seringapatam," the librarian corrected, entirely unaffected by Tom's sentimental fib. "Mysore refers both to the Kingdom to which Seringapatam was capital, and to the large trading town some thirty miles south of it. It was the city of Seringapatam that was besieged by the East India—"

"Yes, of course, sir. I stand corrected, sir." Tom gave the librarian a deferential smile. "I would like to learn anything I can about the Siege of Seringapatam."

For a moment, the librarian said nothing; his grey eyes—the only part of his body with any spirit, besides his loud mouth—smartly glanced about, before fixing themselves bizarrely at the ceiling, as though to magically perceive the upper floors of the building. "You are in luck. After the East India Office was decommissioned in 1858, vice chancellor Lefevre offered the Heythrop College dormitories as a repository for their archives; and they were, earlier this year in fact, imported into this very building—you'll find them on the thirteenth floor. They will contain what you seek."

"The thirteenth floor. Understood," said Tom. "Thank you, sir."

The librarian continued along with his trolley.

"What a swot," Alexius sneered. "He's Ezekiel Tansley if Hogwarts hadn't so generously taken him in."

To get to the thirteenth floor, they had to take an elevator. Tom was relieved that there were no more stairs to climb; the older boys, however, did not share this sentiment.

"Are you sure that thing's safe, Tom?" Thane asked, narrowing his eyes at the protracted iron bars that formed the gate of the elevator.

"Yes," Tom said quietly, not wanting to attract attention to his pureblood friends' unusual proclivities. "Now come in."

Thane apprehensively stepped into the elevator, examining its walls as though they were the walls of Azkaban. "Why's it have to be so small?"

"Because it has no need to be big," said Tom. "Alexius, hurry up, will you?"

"Let's take the stairs instead," Alexius said defiantly. "Come on Tom, I'm not stepping into that—it's a bloody cupboard!"

"There are no more stairs, Alex," Tom pointed out. "You'll have to come in or you'll have to go by the fire exit ladder."

"But how does it go up? Muggles have got no charms, what pushes it up?"

"Accio." Tom impatiently snapped his fingers, lassoing Alexius into the elevator.

Upon Tom pressing the discolouring yellow button of '13', the system of gears and pistons that worked the elevator whined and whirred; the platform on which the three Slytherins stood abruptly shook, and Alexius Lestrange's hand reached for his wand. Tom stopped him. They soon reached the thirteenth floor.

The thirteenth floor was much more amiable than the fourth floor. For one, it had no pretensions of being a library—the bookshelves in it were entirely perfunctory; there were almost no desks; and it was entirely bare of students. There were only two people apart from the Slytherin boys on the scene: a very old man in an antiquated red uniform seated atop an old armchair by the window, leisurely smoking his pipe as he sifted through a series of old documents; and a young, debonair Indian whose attention was completely absorbed by the dilapidating relic of a book between his thin hands.

Half of the floor consisted of the India Office's donated archives. A third of these archives were East India Company documents; it did not take the three Slytherins long to find what they needed—a one hundred and fifty-year-old scrapbook with a leather spine and paste-paper sides entitled, An Illustrated Directory of Objects from the Fourth and Last Mysore War, manufactured in joint effort by the Gentlemen Officers of Prendergast's 25th Dragoons. It was precisely what its name signified; perusing it, Tom found a most eclectic mix of things, from deeply yellowed newsprint cutouts of barebones pencil field sketches of British army camps, to reprints of paintings worthy of the Royal Academy with titles such as 'The Last Effort and Fall of Tippoo Sultaun.' It was towards the end of the book that Tom found what he needed—five consecutive pages of detailed monochrome sketches drawn by a certain Captain J. C. Meares, of the 'Artefacts and Souvenirs confiscated by His Majesty's Troops'—in plain English, the plunder taken by the victors of the war.

Examining Meares' illustrations with the aid of a half yard parchment scroll entitled 'Sanskrit Magical Symbols' he purchased from Flourish and Blotts, Tom soon found, sandwiched between a white turban and a Persian opium waterpipe, precisely what he was looking for—a dagger whose spherical pommel was inscribed with what was undoubtedly a rune.

The rune was of a circular shape; in its centre was a simple etching of a snakelike man's face, and from the pair of convex trapezoidal lines that comprised its neck distended a spiral that comprised the entirety of the circle—it was, according to 'Sanskrit Magical Symbols', a naga—a creature that symbolised purification, for it was purported to aid the righteous, and hurt the corrupt. Tom happily interpreted these terms at his discretion. It was not only the pommel of the dagger that suggested its magical origin; the entirety of its hilt was but a pair of entwined snakes whose heads jutted out to make cross-guards—and indeed it looked more like a pair of snakes trying to assume the form of the hilt of a dagger, than the hilt of a dagger trying to assume the form of a pair of snakes. The blade itself looked, though simple if not primitive, sharp enough to easily pierce human flesh.

There was something poetic about its position between such objects as a turban and an opium waterpipe; the former, being made of fine cloth, could not have been manufactured more than a century ago, and the latter was, in Tom's judgment, no more than two centuries old. That the snakes were so unabashedly entwined and that the dagger's blade did not match the ornamentation of its hilt suggested a comparative longevity to the objects it was between; evoking a sense of incongruous juxtaposition that one might feel looking upon an ancient pagan altar sandwiched between a butcher's shop and a bakery. Tom, who knew that only the most worthy things survived the tides of history, knew also where to get this dagger—

The Ceremonial Katar of The Sultaun, Antedating not only the earliest vestiges of Mahommetanism in India, but even the Prophesier Mahommet Himself,

It was donated to the India Museum on Leadenhall Street in 1817 by Mr. John Ablewhite, nephew of our brother in arms, Major John Montague.

My dear Mary,

Father said yes! When I first asked he was not so obliging, because my cousin Osborne's staying with us too, you know him, he's Fawley's mate, he's here to go with Father every day to the New Ministry they're building in the Middle of London. & well Father said he's not used to having 2 children about, let alone 3, &c, even though Osborne you & I are no longer children. But I managed to convince him in the end! Sad little Mary, of course you can stay with us! You needn't pack much either, we've plenty of clothes & all. I'm not sure when this letter will reach you, but I presume it arrives before Friday. So, how does Friday sound? Meet me in the morning, say nine, at The Leaky Cauldron.

Much love,

Your Florence

When Mary met Florence in the dimly lit pub of The Leaky Cauldron on Friday morning, she hugged her with an ardour that surprised the both of them—for while they were indeed best friends, and while they did not disdain the physical aspect of adolescent feminine sociability any more than a pair of first-year Hufflepuff girls would have—Mary embraced Florence with all the violence, anguish, and yearning that she felt but could not channel for Tom.

"Mary!" the other girl squealed breathlessly. "It's lovely to see you, my darling, indeed, but—let go! You're suffocating me!"

Mary released her friend and lovingly examined her from head to toe. She wore a purple summer robe, at once loose, playful and elegant, that folded around her more like a large embroidered blanket than it bore any resemblance to the uniform robe of Hogwarts. "You look splendid," said Mary.

"And you look awful!" exclaimed Florence. "What is that ghastly dress?"

Florence pinched the fabric of Mary's gray shirtdress and scrunched her nose.

"I've not got anything else appropriate to wear," Mary said diffidently. "I presumed your father would want me to wear something modest."

"Modest? You look like a cemetery elf, Mary Riddle!" Florence burst into laughter. Then she took Mary by the sleeve. "Come, we'll get you something pretty—no, we ought to have breakfast first. You look famished."

The pair of girls seated themselves at the bar; the barman, a portly, moustached man with as amiable a disposition as there ever was, asked them what they would like to have.

"Pork chops with scalloped potatoes and a large butterbeer with ice," said Florence.

"What can I get for a sickle and three knuts?" asked Mary.

"She'll have the same as me," Florence interjected fiercely, squeezing Mary's hand under the table, "and we'll also get two muffins, of whatever sort you have the freshest."

Mary thought that her friend had rather ordered too much, but she held her tongue. Rather she simply expressed her gratitude. "How kind of you, Flo."

"It's nothing," Florence said with a small smile. "Say, Mary, what happened to the robe Malfoy bought you? The deep red one—it would've agreed with father's prudishness."

"Abraxas bought it for me in February," replied Mary. "I've gotten larger since. It'd expose too much of my legs and too much of my figure altogether—excellent, of course, for certain circumstances—but I don't think it would quite accord with your father."

"I would suggest Madam Meisel's, but perhaps it would be in your interest to keep it small for 'certain circumstances'," Florence said with a grin.

"Precisely, Flo," said Mary, returning her friend's mischievous expression.

Soon, their food arrived. It was at once frightening yet delightful: frightening, because the portions that had been served to the pair of thirteen-year-old girls could have very well satisfied adult men; and delightful, because it smelled, looked, and tasted great—better than anything Mary could have hoped for in muggle London. There was something deliciously decadent in butterbeer—there was at least an entire ounce of butter in Mary's tankard—while outside of Diagon Alley one was not permitted more than two ounces of butter a week. Florence devoured her pork chops with an indiscretion unbefitting a young pureblood lady; but this very indiscretion signified, ironically, the comfortable upbringing that she had—for Mary took her time with her pork chops, fully conscious that a pound of pork cost six shillings even before the war.

Leadenhall Street was, like the part of London to which it belonged, a sinking battleship.

It was one of the most important streets in the 'City of London'—or, as the purebloods called it, 'Roman London' (an appellation not only more historically appropriate, thought Tom, but also practical, in distinguishing it from London, the city of eight million people). Yet none of Roman London's buildings, imperious though they were, were more than five stories tall, as stipulated by the Building Act of 1894—a regulation that sought to preserve the visual integrity of City monuments such as St Paul's Cathedral. Personally, Tom sympathised with the ethos that formed the basis of such a legislation—St Paul's Cathedral was, even to him who had seen it innumerable times, quite marvellous indeed. For it, austerely white like the full moon, pilastered like a classical building of government, and positioned quite literally in the heart of the city, was a testament to the virility of the young British Empire. It did not reek of old Rome and Normandy in the way that Westminster Abbey did; being only two hundred years old, it encapsulated adolescent aspiration on a civilisational level—Tom saw something of himself in it.

Yet Roman London with all its buildings, including this monument to the agnostic Britain that conquered the world, was very much but a sinking battleship in the sea of modernity, for mere prettiness was no engine for civilisation; there was no longer any need—whether financial or martial—for buildings like St Paul's Cathedral. Only buildings like Senate House could truly serve as conduits for the power of twentieth-century technocratic civilisation; there would come a day where a hundred Senate Houses would clear the skyline of the Building Act of 1894; for if they did it in New York, would they not so in London too? If left unhampered, the lifeless liquefaction of Senate House would drown the world.

Thus the battleship that was Roman London was indeed sinking. For the three Slytherin boys who had parsed through old colonial documents in Senate House library a few days ago, it sank most inconveniently, for the India Museum—where the Sultaun's dagger was supposed to be—had been shut down in 1879 and replaced by a bank.

It was then that Tom understood that all muggle banks were appendages of Senate House; they were partial to the same conspiracy that sought to suffocate everything beautiful in the world. Nonetheless, he was not deterred. Upon posing some questions to a few City locals, Tom learned that most of the India Museum's collection went either to the British Museum or the South Kensington Museum. He and his boys made inquiries at the former on Tuesday, and the latter on Wednesday; the Sultaun's dagger was at neither. Returning to Roman London, he made some more inquiries, and learned that a small portion of the India Museum's supply had been, during the mayhem of its shutdown, sold by its unscrupulous director to various private collectors under the guise of raising funds for the relocation of its collection. Records of these semi-licit sales, fortunately, existed; these were likewise in Senate House Library, the apparent repository of all muggle knowledge.

It was thus that the Slytherin boys found themselves back on the thirteenth floor of Senate House Library, three days after departing it for the first time.

"The Katar of Tippoo Sultaun—sold to Mr. Warren Herncastle of Norfolk for £850, the sum of which was appropriated to fund the resettlement of other articles," Tom read aloud from the India Museum's artefact registry book in his hands.

"We'll have to go to Norfolk, then," Thane said with a sigh. "This is proving to be a real goose chase."

"If we go now, we could make the Diagon Alley Floo Directorium before the afternoon rush," said Alexius, who irritably pulled at the collar of his muggle shirt.

"No, we can't have our itinerary traced by any magical authority," said Tom. "We'll go by rail."

"Muggle rail?!" Alexius cried out. "You're joking. Do you want Thane and I to die so desperately, Tom?"

"Relax, Lestrange," Tom scoffed. "You read too much of The Daily Prophet. The Doodlebug disaster happened in America, not here. Trains derail in Britain every now and then, but rarely do such incidents kill more than a dozen people."

"I'm with Alex," Thane said soberly. "There's no death more ignoble than dying in a muggle machine."

"Fine," said Tom. "I don't suppose either of you know how to ride a horse?"

Alexius leaned against a bookshelf and sighed. "What about a car? They seem much more pleasant than trains anyhow. Aren't there muggles who you can pay to bring you along from place to place by car?"

"Alex, cabs do not go from London to Norfolk," said Tom.

Thane clapped his hands and sprung to life. "Alright, fine, we'll take the train—but we'll sit in the middle carriage to be safe."

Sometime towards the end of the eleventh century, the proud, ferocious battle-hardened Norman cavalcade that conquered England set its eyes on Wales. Atop the sturdiest warhorses of Europe, these men, whose great-grandfathers knew neither Christianity nor civilisation but who were supplied with civilisation's finest lances and sabres, cut through the ancient country of Gwalia like the flame of a candle accidentally consumed an entire stack of parchment. Yet it was but a burst of passion—a flame that burned as quickly as it did brightly—and when it extinguished, it would not reignite; at least, not anytime within the next century. Indeed, twelfth century Britain was a time of slow, excruciating tumult; while The Anarchy plagued England, the native Celtic princes of Wales liberated themselves of the Norman Yoke—even the fortress that William the Conqueror himself built in Cardiff upon Roman foundations went deserted.

It was not until the latter half of the thirteenth century that Edward I, the robust, tempestuous, long-legged barbarian-knight of a King who was little loved but deeply feared by his subjects and adversaries alike, at last subjected Wales to England. However, even after Llywelyn the Last was at last disposed of and Mount Snowdon was encompassed within the domain of an English marcher lord, there persisted resentment, rivalry, and therefore bloodshed after the war. Edward received reports of attacks on travellers by giant spiders, of merchants whose wares were stolen by elves, and of otherwise young, healthy lords suddenly dying in their bedchambers with no apparent cause of death but ominous letters from the old Norse alphabet painted on their doors with tar. The shrewd King wavered not; recognising Dark Magic, he at once sought out its best antidote; Royal Magic, or, Magic aligned with the interests of the King.

Thus, a new position was created in the Royal Household; the Royal Arcanologist, a post that would exist for no more than two hundred years. The first to hold this venerable office was Tarquin d'Estrivers, who, having spent many years in Wales as a dragon hunter, was now appointed to that same happy country to hunt his fellow wizards. d'Estrivers excelled at his job; he was not only a powerful battle-mage, but also a diligent diplomat—while he did indeed hunt down insurgent Welsh mages, he recruited many of them to the cause of the King. As his pacification mission progressed, so did d'Estrivers find under his authority an increasingly unmanageable number of prisoners. He could not send them all to Azkaban—doing so would incite the wrath of the good Welsh wizards. Rather, he constructed, some dozen leagues west of Cardiff, a building that could alternately be designated a 'large house' or a 'small fortress', which, being established in a prime spot along the Vale of Glamorgan, served as both a court of law and a court of good company for Welsh mages that obeyed His Majesty. This house-fortress-court became known as Tarquin's Court.

In the interval of seven centuries between the reign of Edward I and the summer of 1940, Tarquin's Court underwent a few critical changes. Firstly, its eponymous builder died and bequeathed it to his son, who made it the primary residence of the d'Estrivers family. Secondly, it stopped being a forum for the Welsh as both Great Britain melded into a political entity and the Statute of Secrecy split one old world into two new worlds. Finally, the name d'Estrivers gradually changed to Travers.

"But isn't it all so dismal?" Mary asked Florence as the pair of them sat on the sloping lawn of Tarquin's Court, facing the blue-grey sea of the Bristol Channel. "History always depresses me. Even if they lived well, all those people are dead. Don't you prefer what's alive here and now, Flo?"

"Oh certainly I do," said Florence, who struck the grass with her wand here and there to produce misshapen little flowers. "I couldn't care less about my ancestry and all that tosh. Sometimes I wish I were a pretty muggle girl in London—it can get so lonely here."

"What a silly fantasy, Flo. Muggle girls wish they were you. I prefer nature to history. Looking at buildings makes me sad, especially if they're old, for old buildings are all suffused with so much pain, don't you think? I'd much prefer to gaze upon oceans and mountains and forests all day."

Yet, despite Mary's words, she very much appreciated the handsome brick country-house that stood behind her; it had an air at once of patrician dignity and grand solitude, for it indeed stood very alone on the coast of the Vale—the coastal horizon was but endless cliff and beach, and looking inland, one saw more farmland than human lodgings, and more wilderness than farmland. Indeed, where Scotland, whose emblem was Hogwarts, demanded Mary to always improve, always act, and always love, and where England, whose emblem was London, overwhelmed Mary with its superabundance of people, buildings, and memories, Wales was, in that moment, a little patch of garden in an otherwise unforgiving universe.

"You're getting quite philosophical about this," said Florence. "Tom likes history."

"Yes, he does, Flo, which is why he's become so miserable."

Then followed a moment of silence. Florence broke it by placing a hand on Mary's shoulder. "Come, I'll show you around the house."

Dinner at Tarquin's Court was a tense affair. Mary, wearing the black summer dress with intricate lacework that Florence bought for her earlier in the day, had thoroughly glamorised her face with powder, lipstick and mascara, while a shower and the benign application of the hot-air charm created in her long hair a perfect balance between wavy and straight. Mr. Travers looked exactly as he did in the newspapers. He was reserved, haughty, and always scanning you with his eyes; he rarely smiled, and never laughed; and he was attired in black like an investigator of the muggle secret police. Osborne Urquart, Arcanius' friend and a to-be sixth-year Slytherin who was somewhat handsome in his own right, looked positively like a child by the side of his uncle.

"Have you written to Walburga Black like I asked, Florence?" asked Mr. Travers, who cut his duck breast with ritualistic gentility.

"No, father."

"And why not?"

"I wouldn't know what to say," Florence said with an edge to her voice. "Wally-Burger rather despises me, father."

"Because you have given her cause to despise you, a mistake which you shall rectify tonight. Compris?"

Osborne Urquart, who leaned comfortably into his chair, smirked smugly at Mary as though to invite her to partake in his schadenfreude; Mary looked away.

Florence uneasily fiddled with her cutlery. "Father, I do not believe Walburga and I would get along."

"Then you will make her get along with you. You must understand, Florence, that a witch can have two kinds of friends in this world. Firstly, friends with whom you find amusement—such as Ms. Riddle—but secondly, and more importantly, friends with whom you can forge alliances, such as Walburga Black. You need not personally like those of the latter category; but you need them to like you."

"Father," said Florence, dabbing her mouth with a handkerchief, "I believe Mary is far superior a witch than Walburga will ever be."

Now, Mr. Travers turned his cold, humourless blue gaze to Mary, who felt her heart tremble against her breastbone.

"I suppose that it cannot be denied, Ms. Riddle, that you possess an excellent figure, an agreeable height, a charming visage and, as per what my daughter and Horace have told me, a keen magical intellect—you will one day, if you maintain your graces, find a pureblood husband of good stock—but you, unlike Walburga Black, have no heritage to speak of."

Osborne Urquart's irritating gray eyes were now fixed intently on Mary, as though contemplating Mr. Travers' assessment of her with the same seriousness with which Mr. Travers delivered it.

"Thank you, sir," Mary murmured, staring at the tablecloth. She wanted to muster the courage to say what Tom would have said; that though her heritage was yet unknown, it was surely a great one—but unlike Tom she neither cared, nor believed, that she possessed some secret ancestral prerogative. Moreover she never felt quite so easy around unfamiliar adult wizards in the way that Tom did.

Mr. Travers returned his gaze to his daughter. "Speaking of intellect, Florence, Horace tells me that he finds your potions wanting. Tomorrow you will begin lessons with a tutor at ten o'clock in the morning; he will come every weekday this summer."

"Father! No, please!" Florence cried out. "My partner in potions is that gormless Pettigrew girl! Of course my potions are found wanting—I-I'll study on my own accord—"

"Do not talk back, Florence."

Florence held her father's gaze with defiant solemnity for a few seconds; then she, too, averted his gaze and acquiesced. "Yes, father."

Despite Mr. Travers' want of amiableness, he treated the girls and his nephew to a sumptuous three-course dinner. Dessert was hot date pudding topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, which was garnished with the petals of real vanilla flowers.

Where Mr. Travers went to attend to business documents in his sombrely extravagant study, the girls and Urquart went to Florence's bedroom, a lavishly appointed chamber with violet furniture, violet painted walls, violet curtains and naught but violet scented candles for lighting. None of them changed into their nightclothes; Mary, well aware that she was dressed like a doll, batted her eyelashes at Osborne Urquart, whose gaze she at once cherished and detested. Although Arcanius was more handsome and more gentle than his Urquart, he had never watched Mary with such unabashed enthusiasm—and she both appreciated and resented this subtlety of manner that Urquart utterly lacked. What she did not appreciate at all, however, was Urquart's impudent manner of conversation.

Urquart was at Tarquin's Court for his own convenience; he would come and go as Mr. Travers came and went, to assist in the great project of building the new Headquarters of the Ministry of Magic. He recited, in great detail and with great enthusiasm, all the particulars of his job as an 'excavator'—a young wizard who excavates dirt so that new, more experienced wizards could place down supports to actually build—to the girls. Indeed, the new Headquarters was being built underground; was that not exciting? Florence and Mary were amused by this for a few minutes; their amusement then quickly wilted into tolerance, which soon threatened to deteriorate into annoyance. The three of them reclined on a trio of violet chaises that were arranged in a triangle.

"Ten subterranean floors!" exclaimed Urquart, gesticulating wildly with his veiny hands as though this somehow exemplified the largeness of ten subterranean floors. "Consider that Hogwarts has only got seven floors, and each of our ten floors will be bigger than Hogwarts'—"

"Our ten floors. Dear cousin, let me remind you—you are not a member of the Wizengamot. You are a student at Hogwarts," said Florence, stifling a yawn.

"Well, I'm working for the Ministry now, am I not?"

"Unfortunately for the Ministry, you are indeed."

Florence and Mary broke into giggles at this. Urquart tactfully chose to laugh with them rather than continue his charade; but Mary saw in his mirthless eyes the customary desperation boys had when they wanted to be reassured.

"Is it not possible that you will one day become a member of the Wizengamot, Osborne?" Mary asked with a smile. "After all, you're friends with Mr. Travers and Arcanius—"

"I wouldn't be in the same faction of the Wizengamot as either my uncle or Arcanius," Urquart said promptly. "They're too soft."

"Too soft on what?" Florence asked irritably.

"On centaurs. On werewolves. On muggles. On Knockturn Alley—"

"Oh shut up," said Florence, rubbing her eyes. "You don't know anything."

"And I suppose you do?"

"Arcanius is soft indeed," Mary said in a dreamy tone. "Speaking of him, do we know what he's up to?"

"Not much," replied Urquart. "His sister's starting Hogwarts next year. He's fond of the little bint. I suppose he's right to be. She plays the harp very well, did you know?"

"Is that so? Arcanius, fond of his sister? That wasn't the impression I got when I was at his estate."

"He's impatient with her, but he cares for her a great deal. More than he does for Ilaria, even."

Urquart stared at Mary in that way again. His grey gaze was twofold; on the one hand, there was in it plain desire for her, which she considered increasingly distasteful, for he would not have stared at a sixth-year girl he wanted in the same way; and on the other, one of assessing, to see whether his words produced on her their calculated effect. But he would not have guessed at what she thought of at that moment; she thought of Tom. Tom and Arcanius were both impatient brothers. But Tom had told her that he did not care whether or not she hurt herself; Mary had a hard time imagining Arcanius ever saying something so foul.

Nonetheless, there was something sweet and even relieving, in the thought of Arcanius reclining on one of the many cushioned chairs in the drawing room of the Fawley Estate, listening leisurely to his little sister work her magic on the harp.

"Say, are you writing to him?"

"To Arcanius? Well, of course I am."

"Could you send him something for me?"

"Riddle, surely you know that Arcanius isn't exactly happy with you," he said rather severely. "I don't know what happened between him and you at his place, but he's not an easy person to upset—you must've done something very bad."

"Very bad indeed," Mary said with an indulgent smile. "Please, Osborne? Let me send a small something to him. You needn't even say it was from me."

"How would that work?"

"This is not going to end well," Florence mumbled as she yawned.

"Oh, I'll procure my souvenir for him right now."

Mary got up from her chaise, and pulled a finger at Osborne to follow her. They went into the guest chamber that had been arranged for her at the other end of the third floor, where she pulled out of her Hogwarts' pointed hat (which, upon some helpful charmwork performed by Ezekiel Tansley, she had been using as much as a bag as a hat) a tiny little embroidered blue silk pouch, which contained two objects: a tiny, labelless crystal blue bottle of perfume, and an enchanted business card the size of a muggle playing card:

SEXTUS PRINCE

Perfumes | Powders | Potions

172b Diagon Alley

The effect of the enchantment was on the font of the text; the letters looked like they were reflecting undulating, moonlit water. Mary, who had reapplied lipstick throughout the night, reapplied it on her mouth a third time. Then, she gave the card a long, deliberate kiss. Finally, she sprayed on it the fragrance whose top notes were citruses and cantaloupe, and whose base notes were asphodel and pearl dust.

Mary furtively handed this artefact to Osborne. He took it rather angrily, held it closely to his face for whatever reason, and inspected it with a strangely agonised countenance. He did not move for a very long time.

"Well?"

"Well, Riddle, you're mad if you think I'm giving this to Arcanius."

The chamber, whose windows were entirely undrawn, was flooded with moonlight and the spectral shadows of ancient beech trees. Osborne fretfully looked back and forth between the card and Mary, as though there was some mortal decision that had to be made between them.

"How did you know I was mad?" Mary asked innocently. She closed the space between them, and tiptoed so that she could whisper into his ear, "send it."

By The North Sea

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

The Slytherin boys were at a quiet country beach. Though the day was cloudy, there was no rain. There were few other people with whom they had to share the scene apart from the reticent locals.

Tom, whose unruly black hair now fell to his jawbones, stared pensively into the miserable greyness of the North Sea. He spotted, at the edge of the shore, a few mossy rocks jutting from the sea, which the foamy low tide overtook, renounced, and overtook again with the serene cyclicality of a sleeping child's breathing.

It was on a beach like this that he and Mary found and adopted Metis seven years ago. Tom wondered what they would have thought if they had known, then, of all that would pass in the years to come. Had such a revelation been planted in their well-made little heads, they surely would have fainted. Yet, Tom could not look away from those eerily familiar rocks and their coats of moss; he saw, if he forced his eyes not to blink for sufficiently long, dancing on them the phantom of his six-year-old sister, whose face was so innocent, whose smile was so joyous, and whose soul was that of an angel's specially appointed by Heaven to comfort him, and to be comforted by him.

Were it not for his recognition that the two were indivisibly one, Tom would have missed the six-year-old Mary more than the thirteen-year-old that she had become. Or perhaps not; for the latter was a much more complex creature than the former, and thereby more kindred to himself—if the child Mary was perfectly divine, the adolescent Mary, who was incarnated out of the dust of the latter on the day Isaac Booth separated her from Metis, was a fallen angel—and was not the final object of magic to make wizard the final arbiter of the Great Chain of Being? The final chapter of In Virtute Tenebrae said so:

Do what thou wilt.

Yet, Mary had still kissed Arcanius Fawley.

Tom grit his teeth. His anger was, like the North Sea, an eternal, depthless force ever in motion. Reason and imagination were but little barques that sailed through its star-consuming storms. Yet sailed they did; Tom found that his anger could be steered by force, like a leopard could be dragged at the end of a chain—between his sister and Fawley, it simply found its object in whichever was nearer. Tom knew well that any boy in Fawley's position would have done the same that Fawley did—for no boy with a healthy liver would be able to resist Mary's angelic lips. Tom knew well that any reasonable lawyer or priest would have attributed culpability to his sister for seducing Fawley; that both the gavel and the pulpit would have exonerated Fawley for his powerlessness before demonic femininity incarnate—but Tom was no lawyer nor priest; he held Fawley culpable of a mortal sin. For Tom knew that regardless whether he forgave Mary or not, he would go on loving her—and it would destroy both of them if he loved her without forgiving her. So he had to direct his anger at someone else—Winston Churchill, Lord Woolton, Ms. Cole, Professor Dumbledore, and Arcanius Fawley all made good candidates. Yet, even if Tom performed this liturgy of blame and deflection, there still remained the possibility that his sister would not forgive him in kind.

A voice broke Tom out of his morose thoughts.

"Let the feast begin!" called Thane who, approaching Tom with Alexius by his side, carried in his arm a huge bundle of what appeared to be greasy newspaper—breakfast. Alexius, in his turn, held a large cast-alloy coffee pot by its wooden handle. The pair of them sat down around Tom, who had already set down a picnic blanket. Thane unravelled his greased newspaper to reveal an obscene quantity of deep fried fish—cod, haddock, and a dozen herrings large and small for good measure—atop a mound of chips.

"Rob a restaurant, did you?"

"We paid the chef a shilling and two groats," said Thane, his mouth twisting into a smirk, "the confundus charm goes a long way in your world."

Tom took a herring and bit into its head. "This is not my world."

The dozen ounces of grease that suffused the boys' breakfast sent a wondrous aroma in the air; soon enough, they were besieged by inquisitive seagulls.

Alexius drew his wand and pointed it at one of their besiegers. "Calixifors avicula!"

The seagull before Alexius squalled in horror as it transformed into what appeared to be a Hogwarts dining goblet, or rather, a freakishly deformed attempt at one—it was, like an emaciated cow, spotted here in crude gold and there in an abominable feathery silver substance, all the while being craggy and twisted like a primeval work of pottery. Seeing what had become of their compatriot, all the other seagulls fled in flight.

"This cup is not fit for use, Alexius," Tom said coolly. "Allow me. Finite Incantatem."

The bird regained its avian shape.

With the delicacy and precision of a musician, Tom waved his wand to perform a four-step spell, whose final note was a crisp, symmetrical gesticulation of both hands that signified duality. "Calixifors Avicula Geminitra."

An unrepentant smile emerged on Tom's face as he watched his superior magic unfold. The seagull was seamlessly rent into two handsome, spotlessly white porcelain teacups. His palm agreeably tingled against his wand, which seemed to quiver in pleasure at its master making such good use of it. He set the two cups before his pair of older friends, and then levitated the teapot over to fill them.

"Excellent stuff, Tom," exclaimed Alex. "But that only makes two cups. All the other gulls have fled."

"I don't want coffee," Tom replied quite simply.

For coffee stank of the bothersome country girls that Ms. Cole employed as sublieutenants at Wool's. Tom, however, had no such qualms about fried fish, a dish which he had been fond of even in his London days. While they had breakfast, the boys chatted over a large map of Norfolk which they stole from the local library earlier in the day. By the time they depleted half of the greasy newspaper's provisions, they were more than sufficiently satiated. The coffee-drinking on the part of the older boys continued only for a few more minutes; Thane, upon seeing his cup begin to grow feathers, carelessly threw it up in the air with one hand, and violently jabbed his wand at it with the other—"Bombarda Praecisa!"

The porcelain shattered into blood, flesh and feathers. Alexius' cup, in turn, slipped out of his hands as the dismembered carcass of half a seagull.

"Crookbacked wanker of a Mulciber!" Alexius snarled at Thane, wiping his bloodstained hands on his brown linen trousers. "You're cleaning this muck off me."

"Want me to scour you, do you?"

"Do something at all! Don't leave the remains of the bird unvarnished for all the muggles to see, you pillock!"

"Have a soft spot for muggles do we now, Lestrange? For the soulless little piglets they call children, perhaps?"

"Whatever happened to keeping our magic inconspicuous?"

"Both of you quit bickering," said Tom, who stood up and clapped his hands. "Breakfast is clearly over; let's get to work. Vanish the dead bird, Thane."

'Work' began, on that cloudy, somewhat miserable day, with a walk to a phone box two hundred yards down the old cobblestone promenade of the beach. There, Tom cast a gluing charm on his map of Norfolk to stick it to the side of the box. With the aid of a bag of duplicated three-pennies, he called the Norfolk Area Director and ensured that the line could be maintained indefinitely. "Good morning, sir. Will you please give me the number of the register office in Bowthorpe?"

"Ken do, bor," came the gruff, fuzzy, North Anglian voice on the other side of the phone, between bouts of inconsistent static. "But I can't promise yow noothing on wather thay answer o' no. Them registry men air busy nowadays, bein'as everyoone fleein' the city's gorn' about findin' thairn family whatnot, and thairn phone lines are too."

Tom accepted this; in fact it engendered in his mind a strategy. He scribbled the number the man recited on a little handheld notebook. He spun the rotary dial a few times, and soon found himself talking to a man from Bowthorpe, a large village that was some twenty miles west to the city of Norwich.

"Good morning sir. I'm inquiring not after any particular person, but the name Herncastle—my grandmother's maiden name—I heard that perhaps there may be remnants of her old family in your locality."

"Be a tad moor specific, bor," came another harassed rustic bureaucrat over the phone. "Do yar lookin' for any Herncas'le a' all, thay could have bairn born wal atwin yisty and ninety yares ago."

Then search between 'yisty' and ninety 'yares' ago, you imbecile, Tom wanted to say, before realising that he could not threaten a phone at wandpoint. "Let me think on that, sir."

Having purchased such an expensive dagger in 1879, Warren Herncastle must have already been a man of established fortune that very year, but whether he was entering into manhood or in his last years of it Tom did not and could not know; so he grudgingly made an assumption—that Herncastle must have had a son, daughter, nephew, or niece who bore his name.

"Could you check all the files between 1860 and 1900, sir?"

"Narrow tha' down 'o twe'y yares, do you'll please."

"How about thirty, sir?"

"Very wal," came the grave voice on the phone, as though it was making some life-and-death concession. "Go on, then."

"1865 to 1895."

"Very wal," repeated the phone. "Oor archivist will hev a look a' thur folders for yow; I'll put yow on 'owld for ten minutes."

Thane and Alexius, different though they were in other points (where the former was morosely calm, somewhat mystical even, and physically hideous in his lanky, sinewy form topped with a formless growth of smoothish blond hair; the latter was intemperate, brazen as a Gryffindor, and moderately good-looking, with his graceful albeit disdainful visage of a young magical aristocrat that was framed by curly dark hair) were united in possessing the restlessness universally proper to teenage Slytherin boys—the novelty they found in a muggle phone box had already deteriorated into malaise, by the time Tom explained the concept of 'hold' to them. Thankfully, while they awaited the return of the registry-man, the older boys had an opportunity to do not what they necessarily did best, but what they wished most to do—aggress against muggles.

"Pardon me son," came a bald middle-aged man in the overalls of a fisherman, "yure bairn usin' thur phone for an awful while. How much longer'll yow tairke? Oi've got an impor'ant call 'o mairk 'o men with 'rucks who'll be due to come today."

"Yar barn oozing the phone for an awful while," said Alexius, sneering at the man as he imitated he imitated the man, before breaking into hysterical laughter. "Salazar's slithering cock, your English is bad even for a muggle."

"Oi see yer a city bor. Do you're flairn thur German bombs yow ough''er show graces 'o yer new hos's."

Thane pointed his wand squarely at the bewildered man's forehead. "Confundo."

"Ah—hah? Wha am oi doin? Wha''s thur toime? Who're yow lads then? Cor blarst me, oi can't remember do've had breakfas' for thur life o' me."

The man stumbled forward like a sleepwalker jolting into consciousness and left. Thane kissed the tip of his wand and whistled proudly.

Soon, the registry man returned and told Tom the answer he had, with great forbearance, expected all along—that there were no Herncastles in Bowthorpe. Tom saw a long day ahead of him; there were another twenty-eight register districts in Norfolk. In the following two hours, he was to learn that there were no Herncastles either in the city of Norwich itself, or Erpingham, or Flegg, or Guiltcross. Thane and Alexius wallowed in a profound tedium punctured intermittently by their casting of the confundus charm alike on interlopers that protested Tom's long occupation of the phone box, and passing strangers who stared at them wrong. A few minutes short of noon, a pretty brunette, wearing a deep blue velvet dress that almost looked like a robe, skipped towards Tom, in whose estimation she was no younger than Alexius, but no older than Ilaria Greengrass.

"Hello there," said she, in an articulate voice at once impatient yet polite. "I've been watching you call and call and call for well over half an hour. When will you be done? I'm not from these parts; I've got to call my brother so he can pick me up."

"Confundo," murmured Thane, his malevolent gaze fixed with lecherous intensity at her who in that moment blinked sheepishly under his spell.

The girl babbled a few words of gibberish, gave confused, fearful stares at the trio of wizards, and quickly scurried away.

"Alex," called Thane, who pensively starred in the direction the girl had left, "why don't we go find ourselves a pretty little muggle bint?"

Alexius, who slouched against the phone box like a dog against its kennel, yawned. "For what, Mulciber?"

"What do you mean 'for what?' Don't be dense."

"Ah. Well, certainly. But who's going to confund the muggles then?"

"I'm capable of casting the confundus charm myself," said Tom, who crossed out yet another district on his map of the miserable county of Warren Herncastle. "Do what you will."

Thane smiled in approbation at Tom. "Swell. Let's go, Alex. We'll likely return to the lighthouse at night."

Tom watched the older boys leave with a spring in their steps. The phone box felt more spacious without them at either side of it. In the distance Tom saw an ancient jetty with haphazard, moss-covered supports jutting from the beach into the sea, whose tranquil surface was scarcely disturbed by the dozen meagre single-sail boats that languorously floated over it. The overhead clouds were at last, now in the afternoon, dispersing to reveal patches of blue in the sky. If he looked down this beachy coast, few muggles could be seen.

Tom was not, however, particularly moved by this vista of country life. That he still had to make a dozen phone calls to muggle office-dwellers who spoke a nearly incomprehensible dialect of English rather dulled his aesthetic sensibilities. The numbing repetitiveness of his task, however, set him thinking—was not numbing repetition the basis of existence for most humans in the world? It certainly was for muggles; there was no debating that. Yet even for magickind … Tom thought of Hogwarts; while it never took him more than three tries to produce some effect at all with a new spell, some of his peers had to practice for days to make so much as a single spark with their wand. Indeed, that he always enjoyed the practise of unfamiliar spells was a quality founded on his talent for them; it was a talent that he, as far as he knew, shared only with Mary, a fact his bovine peers marvelled at to no end.

Yet Tom knew how it felt, if only by analogy, to fail to cast Wingardium Leviosa fifty times in a row; for there was something of the tedium of fruitless repetition in essay-writing. Indeed, despite his proficiency in writing, Tom was not always able to stave off the boredom involved in essay-writing. Yet he knew well that writing, like reading, was necessary for the wizard to the end of connecting for him his disparate magical facets into one coherent system—it was writing that found the universal in the particular, and the particular in the universal—a method of investigation known as hermeneutics. It was hermeneutics that separated the illiterate muggle man, who built huts and milked cows, from his literate peer, who built cathedrals, designed airplanes, and plundered distant civilisations.

Numbing repetitiveness was the substrate of all existence; even a wizard like Tom had to partake in it if he wanted to achieve greatness. There was no excellence in the Christian notion of forbearance—but patience was, veritably, a strength. For the next five hours, Tom did not leave his phone booth even once. He made six more calls. He said 'pardon me' to provincial English thirty more times.

At night, Tom retired to the gallery of the abandoned lighthouse that he and the older boys had appropriated as a residence. A few reparos, evanescos and infundum calorias had rendered the place tolerably habitable. On one side of the gallery was a cupboard he had painstakingly transfigured into a rudimentary bed; on the other, an old stool atop which Tom sat and read Spellman's Syllabary, a book that would become his textbook for Ancient Runes, should he select it as an elective. In the middle of the gallery stood a huge, defunct beacon. From time to time, Tom would look out the murky window at the luminescent blackness of the North Sea, which reflected a clear night sky of stars much more heartening than that of London's sky, but inferior all the same to that of Hogwarts'.

Tom had stuck the map of Norfolk on his window; a third of the subdivisions of the county were marked with little x's to denote Herncastle's absence from them. The sight of it was rather infuriating. How could such a small, beautiful little thing elude Tom so? Using his wand as a paintbrush, he furiously drew around Norfolk's borders a squiggly, meandering black line that was supposed to be a snake—for he wanted to choke the county, so that it would eject Herncastle and his dagger from its mouth.

As he beheld his work, Tom heard a commotion underneath him; the lighthouse door opened, and in came the pair of older boys, who were once again bickering. Although Tom could scarcely discern the subject matter of their quarrel, he decided to let them be, for although Lestrange's voice was loud and hoarse, it was not furious, and although Thane's cool snideness had become more acerbic than usual, it was not cold. Thus, Tom returned to his study of runes. Two hours later, he was unsoundly asleep on his austere bed.

The next morning, Tom jolted out of his bed. He had a nightmare; he and Mary were lost in an unending, windowless labyrinth whose endless cells were furnished like the interior of Senate House—but there were telephones everywhere, like sap was everywhere in the Hogwarts greenhouses after Professor Beery slaughtered a grove of diseased mandrakes, and every telephone was able to call every telephone—but he never managed to find his sister, nor she him, even though phones constantly rang in the distance, signifying that both of them were trying to reach each other. Never was the sight of the morning sun more welcome than after a nightmare, in which its ascension reminded one that the external world was governed by the impartial laws of physics, rather than the anguished decrees of the unconscious mind.

But there was in this Newtonian morning vista a single Riddlean blemish. The black snake Tom had hastily drawn on the map of Norfolk on his window had moved. Indeed, where it was previously coiled in a circular shape around the border of the county, it was now a frightfully proud curved line whose head jutted out of Norfolk.

It pointed directly towards the left, towards the West—it pointed directly at the city of Cambridge.

Tom's eyes dilated in awe. He tore the map off the window and, feeling but not caring about the unwashed taste of his mouth, ran to find Alexius and Thane. Seeing as they were not in the lighthouse, Tom ran to the beach, where again they were not—they must have been getting breakfast. And so Tom conjured a picnic blanket and sat down on the sand, basking in the morning sun and visions of the ancient university city of Cambridge.

Soon enough, the older boys came.

"… did not need to get her so bladdered though, did we?"

"Alexius, tsk, tsk. Have I really got to explain this to you again? I obliviated her, and when a muggle is obliviated—"

"But she stank of it—and the grocer will remember that we bought gin."

"Doesn't matter if she remembers nothing."

"Good morning chaps." Tom greeted the pair with a raised eyebrow. "What's breakfast?"

Thane laid three largish, full-to-the-rim paper bags on the picnic blanket. "We robbed a bakery this time."

"Well done. Come, I have something for you, too—you as well, Alexius."

Tom unravelled the map in his lap.

"Well, what is it?" Alexius asked impatiently. "All I see is that you've made an untoward scribble on our only map, Tom."

"It's a snake," corrected Tom. "I drew it last night around the border of Norfolk—it's moved on its own accord to point to Cambridge. That's where we'll go."

"Tom … let me tell you something, spiritual muggleborn that you are—if a wizard draws an ink sheep on a parchment, the sheep will piss ink on the edges of the parchment. It doesn't mean anything. Your magic makes ink move like pissing into a lake makes the lake move."

"Alex, let me tell you something, pervert that you are. Unlike you, I do not—and would not be able to—analogise magic to urinating. There are no accidents in magic," Tom said coldly. "Don't call me a muggleborn again."

"But I said spiritual muggleborn—"

"Serpens mallēsempra!"

Out of Tom's wand a large, metal-coloured square-headed snake shot forth, forcefully struck Alexius in the chest, and dissipated into nothingness, all in the blink of an eye. Alexius kneeled over groaning and cursing, both his hands clutching the undoubtedly bruised area of impact. Tom smiled as he sheathed his wand; the hex was of his invention.

Thane, utterly indifferent to Alexius' suffering (a nosebleed was in the process of being redressed), spoke in his habitually calm register. "Perhaps Cambridge does not contain the dagger, Tom, but your magic would not alert you to it without reason—keep that in mind."

Yet Tom could not think of any other reason why he ought to care for Cambridge. Perhaps his mother, who was surely a muggle, had gone to its eponymous university—no, that could not have been. Few women went to university.

A lemon meringue tart, a pork pie, and a handful of shortbread biscuits later, Tom got up and walked with haste—he would have sprinted if it would not have attracted unwanted attention—to the telephone booth. The pair of older boys, evidently curious of whether Tom's snake was truly a divinatory symbol or not, followed along.

"Aye, its yer agin bor," came the operator of the Norfolk Area Director over the phone. "Which dis'ricts do it be to'ay?"

"In fact, sir, I believe that we'll have to set our eyes beyond Norfolk. Do you happen to know to which register district in Cambridgeshire the city of Cambridge itself belongs to?"

"Oi do—do belongs to the regis'er dis'rict o' … o' Cambridge. Ha! Oi suppose yow'd like their noomber?"

"That would be much appreciated, sir."

The number was scribbled down along the margin of the map itself, this time. Tom spun the rotary dial, and soon enough, he was talking to a man from Cambridge.

"Cambridge Register Office speaking. How may I help you?"

Even if it was from a muggle, hearing clear, crisp, distinctly accentless English was a great respite after a day of bartering with semi-cultivated provincial bureaucrats. Tom recited the story of his grandmother Herncastle to the phone with tired automaticity.

"Herncastle? The name's familiar, in fact. I'll have someone take a look for you; you'll be put on hold for a few minutes."

Tom squeezed the phone between his shoulder and cheek to signal to the other boys that he was put on wait. They, however, had their backs turned to him—they were looking at something else—or rather someone else. A girl. The same pretty brunette in a blue dress they had seen yesterday, except she was different.

She had changed, much for the worse. Where yesterday she appeared quite decent and comely, she now appeared, to borrow a word with all its magical implications, cursed; her hair was horribly dishevelled; her eyes were bloodshot and swollen while her face was discoloured; her lips were chapped, and trembled spasmodically; her dress, which had been so alluring yesterday, was now crumpled and inexplicably ill-fitting, as though it had been violently handled by someone, or many people; and rather than scenting of perfume, she scented faintly of alcohol.

Taking a step forth to examine Alexius and Thane's looks, Tom at once understood what it all meant. The pair of older boys looked pleased with themselves in the way that carnivorous animals did. The girl, on her part, clearly remembered nothing.

"May I … use the phone?" she asked lifelessly. "I need … I need to call … my brother. He's to pick me up."

"You'll have to give us a few minutes, darling," drawled Thane.

Tom looked away from them; the map which he had once again stuck to the wall of the phone box was a much less gruesome sight. It took no more than three minutes for the man on the phone to return.

"We've indeed a Herncastle, lad. John J. Herncastle, a professor of ancient history at our very university, as a matter of fact—he was born in 1882, to Warren and Julia Herncastle, at our very own Addenbrooke's Hospital."

"I don't suppose, sir," Tom said breathlessly, his eyes fixed at the little red dot labelled 'Cambridge' on his map, "that you know his address?"

"I do indeed lad. I don't suppose you have paper at hand? I will tell you everything that you need to know about him."

Chapter End Notes

To the people who are inquiring as to why The Trace did not preclude our Slytherin boys' delinquent revelries in this chapter (if you are not among these people, you do NOT need to read this rambling postscript, haha), I understand that a long time elapsed between my uploading of chapters 12 and 13, and that many of you may have forgotten secondary details during this hiatus (I certainly would have)—I apologise for any confusion caused by this. But I assure you that this is no accident—in chapter 12, Thane and Tom discuss the implications of the French Ministry in Exile fleeing to Britain; that the French explicitly adjoin their exiled forces to the British Ministry implies a total mobilisation of both states for war—the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, for example, would now be entirely occupied with mitigating the damage (whether magical, industrial, or informational) caused by active, hostile foreign wizards, leaving little time for them to deal with misbehaving teenagers, whose harmfulness they would consider comparatively negligible. Both Thane and Tom infer that they could get away with doing more magic than is appropriate in the summer to come; both of them pointed this out to each other. In chapter 10, when Professor Dippet announces the evacuation protocols of the newly installed emergency portals, he mentions that they would lead students to a secret location deep in the country—somewhere safer than the subterranean fortress that is the Whitehall Ministry we see in Harry Potter's time, implying that the latter, which would enable a much more efficient coordination of ministerial forces, has not yet been built.

By The Bristol Channel

It was a rainy Sunday afternoon. Mary and Florence reposed luxuriously on two of the three violet chaises arranged in triangular intimacy in the latter's violet bedroom. The two were giggling over some trifle or other, when Urquart Osborne, who wore a black suit-robe ensemble that looked comically serious on him, came in with a letter in his hand.

"Mary." He addressed her gravely, holding the letter ceremoniously with both hands as though it came from the Supreme Mugwump. "It seems that Arcanius has responded to you."

"Oh? Lovely. Give it here, then."

Urquart extended the letter to Mary. However, when she tried to take it, it did not budge in Urquart's hand. He looked at her expectantly, as though to suggest that he was more than a mere intermediary between her and Arcanius, and that this ought to be acknowledged somehow or other. Mary gave him a lazy, knowing smile, and he let go of the letter with a sigh. The envelope was made of a parchment so smooth and white that it resembled muggle paper. It had a rather beautiful seal; a crest of three gilded sunflowers crossed to make a golden-white star on a green backdrop.

"The Fawley insignia," said Florence, tracing a finger down the central flower of wax. "I can't say I like it. It's too gentle. The old Travers had a pair of ebony staves crossed over a tower."

"I think it looks pretty. The old Travers you say? Has your insignia changed, then?"

"It's still the same. But we no longer use insignias just as we no longer use staves. They're positively mediaeval. Only a few families still use them; the Fawleys … the Malfoys … no other names come to my mind. Ah, wait—the Blacks! That's right, those sister-lovers put Toujours Pur on everything."

Mary, not wanting to tear the handsome seal of Arcanius' letter, skimmed her wand along the top of the envelope to create a lengthwise aperture. She took out the letter, unfolded it, and read it aloud with an unrepentant smile.

"Dear Mary,

Please cease your seduction of me. I'm trying, and will continue to try, to resist your temptations. No matter what happens, if you continue to behave as you currently do, all will end poorly for both of us. That said, I thank you with all my heart for—"

"Stop it!" snarled Urquart, who snatched the letter out of Mary's hands. "I will not have you lower my opinion of Arcanius anymore."

"It's her letter!" exclaimed Florence, trying to snatch the bit of parchment out of her cousin's hands. "Give it back!"

Mary, however, had already read enough to know what she needed to know. She smiled sweetly at Urquart and continued to speak as though he had never snatched her letter. "Osborne, will you send him another letter for me?"

"On my mother's heart, of course not!"

Mary batted her eyelashes at him. "No lipstick or perfume this time. Promise."

"You've already lowered him in my estimation. I won't have you lower me in his."

"Suit yourself," said Mary with a dreamy sigh. She wriggled around in her chaise to lie in a supine position, and then tossed her lower legs into the air to kick them back and forth metrically. Resting her head sideways on her arm, she continued to stare inquisitively at the older boy.

"Alright—Riddle—I'll send one, and only one more letter this summer." Although he spoke as though he were in charge, Urquart looked at her with supplicating eyes. "Which you'll also let me read first, before I send it."

"Lovely! How genial of you, Osborne." Mary sat up at once and snapped her fingers to summon Florence's elf. "Ellie, I require writing utensils."

"Yes, mistress," the elf said before promptly disapparating.

Despite Mary's show of poise to Urquart, she was inwardly wracked with uncertainty as to how Arcanius ought to be replied to. Whatever she would write would have to be perfect; it would, like a potion tempered to an exact degree to produce an exact effect, have to balance and counterbalance the varied elements of humour, sincerity, desire, and mystery. Mary had to somehow suggest, without explicitly saying so, that things need not 'end poorly for both' Arcanius and herself. She had to be affectionate without showing affection; and she had to allude to Ilaria's inferiority to herself, without alluding to Ilaria herself.

It was little wonder then that Mary spent the rest of the day—both afternoon and evening—and most of the small hours of the following morning perfecting this epistle of love. She drew flowers and tiny, dust speck-sized butterflies along the margin of the letter (not only did they vary in colour, but also form; Mary borrowed an illustrated magical encyclopaedia from the Travers' library and drew inspiration from it). Despite what she had told Urquart, Mary sprayed the letter with the same crystalline pearl-dust perfume that had enchanted her last memento.

Tom had often chastised Mary for putting so much effort into crafting her artistic letters, when she spent so little time comparatively on her essays. When she finished her letter to Arcanius and held it before a floating candle at three o'clock in the morning, she understood the basis of her brother's chastisement—she applied her intelligence and magic to amusing herself, rather than to 'important things'—but in understanding as much, she did not agree with it. Far from it. Mary's grades were excellent and all the professors adored her—why should she labour more to win that which she already had? What made Tom's sad, shamanistic passions more important than her social bohemianism? Nothing. Mary balled her fists. At some point in the last two years, Tom no longer thought her his equal—he would have her conform to his increasingly malevolent will or he would discard her.

Mary was distracted from her brooding by a mosquito that had come in through the window—or rather where the window was, for Mary had vanished the glass to ventilate her room—to buzz loudly about her face. She sighed, placed the letter on the bureau, and drew her wand. The mosquito was transformed into a raindrop. Then, she made the glass of the windows re-materialise. All seven of the floating candles that rotated around the bureau extinguished at once.

The next morning when she handed this masterpiece to Urquart, his eyes gleamed with amazement as he read, beheld, and scented the artistry and ardour that had been infused into it, while his face contorted with an almost hideously naked jealousy at the awareness that all this adoration was not for him. But Mary worried not for him, for he would send the letter as promised, and then disappear for a week—indeed, Mr. Travers and Urquart left for Whitehall every Monday, returned on Fridays. The arrangement suited Mary well agreeably; it was blissful to share Tarquin's Court with no one else apart from Florence and the pair of elves that catered to their every whim.

Indeed, the following week passed like a dream for the pair of Slytherin girls. They shared breakfast together. From ten o'clock until noon, Florence potions' tutor, a young man named Fleamont Potter with wild black hair that reminded one of the plumage of crows and the jovial disposition of a recently graduated Gryffindor, would keep Florence in the makeshift potions laboratory by the dining room, during which time Mary would run down the hill upon which Tarquin's Court was established to a solitary beach whose sand was as white as marble and as unblemished as porcelain, for no muggle feet had tread on it in centuries.

Mary would lie on the sand, almost completely nude and carefree, with books from Florence's library, a small bouquet of singing saffrons, and Ellie the elf to bring her chilled butterbeer. While Mary was indeed alone during these two hours, she was not lonely, for she had the sun for company, and the expectation of Florence for the rest of the day. Florence's books were lovely, too; Mary was particularly taken to a visual anthology of plants entitled Dictionnaire illustré de Botanique Magique, in which she searched for and found a tantalising picture of her saffrons.

Carmen la Maudite et ses sirènes à pétales

Carmen was a beautiful girl with a Greek profile and long, vividly black hair who blinked and smiled at Mary. Mary smiled back. The girl stood upright, supported by what was either a tall cane or a short staff, garlanded with flowers that spiralled around it like ivies. The staff's handle was a small skull. With one languorous hand the girl held this skull; with the other, she picked at a latticed garden wall from which the purplish saffrons grew in abundance. Mary thought the girl rather resembled herself.

What struck Mary the most, however, was the girl's dress. Mary had never seen such a pretty garment. A loose satin gown of the shade and opulence of emerald under moonlight, it was reminiscent at once of ancient Greece and the Far East, particularly with its flamboyantly embroidered flowers of yellow, white, and green hues that evenly permeated its fabric, like lilies scattered across a lake. So intensely did Mary desire this dress that there emerged in her a curiosity for its wearer herself—who was this enigmatic French witch, with her staff of flowers and dark features that resembled Mary's own?

In the afternoons, Florence joined Mary at the beach for tea. There they would gossip, embroider, transfigure, dance, swim, and fly until dinner, after which they returned to it for another jaunt—for they could not miss the nightly processions of jellyfish, beautifully limpid and primaevally crystalline as they swam westward for summer.

Indeed, Mary's week passed so dreamily that she had almost forgotten about her brother, and all that his existence entailed. It was on Friday night, when Mr. Fawley and Osborne Urquart returned, that the latter accidentally—but quite mercilessly—reminded Mary of whose sister she was. Florence and Mary were reclined on their two usual violet chaises in the former's bedroom, when Urquart, who had been sitting on a distant armchair and quietly spectating them for some time, suddenly broke into speech.

"My dormmate Thane Mulciber is in a place called Cambridge. He's with Alexius Lestrange and your brother, Riddle. I don't know why your brother's with them, or why they're somewhere not found on the magical map of England. But if you'd like, Riddle, I can send your brother a letter on your behalf."

Mary said nothing for a moment. She closed her eyes for a long moment and let out a sigh.

"No, that will be alright, Osborne."

"Had a fight with him, did you?" Urquart asked, as he sat down on the vacant third chaise. "Ah. You don't want to talk about it. Fair enough. Anyhow, what have we been up to this week, girls?"

"Florence," said Mary, standing up and ignoring the older boy, "if you'll please, let's go for another walk at the beach."

Florence, seeing Mary's face wrought with distress that Urquart misconstrued as frivolous angst, at once assented.

"Just the two of us," Mary said to Urquart, who had also stood up.

"Be reasonable, Riddle—"

"Respect her wishes, Osborne," Florence said stiffly. "Let us be."

"I can help—"

"Leave us alone!" yelled Florence.

"It's been a long week for me!"

"You're not Mary's husband, you're my cousin! Get lost!"

Thus the pair of Slytherin girls set off to the beach. Urquart watched Mary's back as she left. It was much cooler than it had been earlier in the night, so Mary held tightly onto Florence's hand.

"Osborne's an entitled git," said Florence. "But nevermind that. What's the matter, Mary?"

"I don't know what to do about Tom," Mary said plaintively. "Oh, why has he got to be so cruel to me? Doesn't he know I can't be happy without him?"

The pair of girls took off their shoes by the edge of the beach. The waning moon's brightness was outshined by the lustre of the thousands of stars that surrounded it. "Sad little Mary. Tom's as all boys are, that's to say a proud git who makes things worse for everyone who cares about him. I'm on your side, Mary, I hope you know that."

"That I do!" Mary exclaimed, pointing fervently at the sky all of a sudden. "If you're on my side, Florence, then you'll permit me to prematurely terminate this miserable subject, because … Voilà Cygnus! There are certain runes that don't work without it, did you know? Professor Astrophel says it's the most important summer constellation."

"No, ma'am," said Florence, laughing, "but that Swan can go drown in a whirlpool. Professor Astrophel always says how she wants there to be summer classes for us to observe the summer constellations for longer—she can go drown in a whirlpool, too."

Inspired by the image of a whirlpool, Mary drew her wand and pointed it at the sea. She turned it in slow, circular clockwise motions as though to stir an invisible bowl of thick dough sidewise. Within a few minutes, she found herself in control of an imperfectly cylindrical waterspout the height of a small house.

"Oh, how lovely," Florence said dreamily, clutching her chest. "How I envy your magic sometimes, my dear Mary …"

While performing wanton acts of exacting magic was often a good way to stave off melancholy, in this case it recalled Mary to hers.

"Don't be," she said rather firmly. "My wand has been disobedient as of late."

"What?" Florence asked incredulously, gesturing at the twisting waterspout. "Disobedient enough to do that?"

"No, no. Do you recall how my wand and Tom's have cores feathers from the tail of the same phoenix? It misses Tom—or perhaps not him—but it misses his wand."

Mary let the tall waterspout gently sink back into the sea.

"How splendid then! Tom surely feels the same, and he'll regret ever being a prat to you, no?"

"I don't think so. My wand's always been the kinder of the pair. His is made of yew; have you seen yew trees? There's plenty in the Forbidden Forest. Salazar Slytherin had a yew wand. They're frightfully large and dark—while my wand is made of holly—a delicate little shrub."

"Yet you can still conjure up a storm with it!" Florence exclaimed obstinately. "Wandlore's rather like divination—there's more tosh in it than there is substance. Perhaps your wand's sad because you miss Tom."

"Oh that I miss him!" Mary cried out at the sky, jabbing her wand uselessly at the stars. "Tell me, Cygnus, that he misses me too!"

"We start Astromancy in fifth-year. That's what the Centaurs do—they talk to the stars and the stars talk back."

"We ought to have a centaur as our astronomy professor; Astrophel knows nothing truly interesting. She's a great deal versed in astrology, did you know?"

"Well certainly, Mary. An astronomy professor's got to know astrology."

"I don't like astrology. Not one bit. You're a Scorpio, aren't you, Flo? Tom and I are Capricorns. Astrophel taught me that; and did you know that Capricorn's opposite to Cancer? Our Pluto's in Cancer. Astrophel told me that it's hard for people like us to be happy."

"Don't mind your planets too much. What's your Ascendant and your moon sign?"

"I dunno. But I don't think it's true anyhow. Contrary to what Astrophel says, it's easy for me to be happy, Flo. I've been happier this past week than I'd been all year since Christmas. A happy life is easy to imagine. Arcanius will be my husband; he'll have a place like this, by a quiet beach where I'd spend my days under the sun drinking butterbeer, enchanting seashells, swimming, flying, having dinner parties … Oh Florence! Such a life it's—almost in my grasp—but it'd be impossible, because of Tom …"

Florence was not one bit impressed by her discourse. "Are you serious, Mary? You want to be nothing more than a house-witch?"

"A house-witch? Call it what you'd like, Flo—but the past week's been bliss for me."

"You, Mary? You who mastered the swapping charm in first year? Who turned wilting flowers into their seeds in second year? You who have dined with Minister Spencer-Moon and Longinus Malfoy, you who every girl at Hogwarts envies in every way—"

"You envy me, Flo?"

"Wake up, Mary! You're a Slytherin—the brightest lass Slughorn's met since Dumbledore's sister, who tragically died or whatever!" Florence took Mary by the shoulders and shook her unceremoniously. "Tom's really made a fool of you! Yes, he hurt you—rather badly, evidently, for it appears you'd prefer to die than to live in pain! Mary Riddle, a house-witch! Dear! It must be your wand. Your wand's sad and now you want to hide yourself from the world!"

"What greater things are there? I want to live the life of Carmen La Maudite."

"Carmen the Cursebearer!" Florence cried out incredulously. "What are you saying, Mary?"

"I don't know French, Flo! I saw her in a book. I'd never seen such a beautiful witch; I thought that she'd surely had a charmed life."

"She was the half-sister of Bonstrégon. The Russians snatched her and locked her in a tower for twenty years. Then they killed her."

For the second, or perhaps third time that night, Mary felt her heart tumble from one cartilage of her chest to another, a scorching pain seizing her upon the impact of the fall. Her arteries must have been in her appendix by now—and she felt, with every fibre of her fallen heart in that moment, an evil, luminous symmetry between her life and that of the poor nineteenth French witch à pétales.

"Why?" whispered Mary, who looked away from her friend because she might cry. "Why'd they kill her?"

"Her brother never even tried to save her. He easily could have. Bonstrégon never compromised his vision for his personal cares. That's what made him a Great Wizard."

"A Great Wizard? How horrible! How … false! Beauty wouldn't suffer in the hands of Greatness!"

It was as though her exclamation was a discharge not only of words, but of a portion of her soul, for Mary suddenly felt so overwhelming a numbness that she thought, for some moments, that she could never be happy again. Nausea swelled in her stomach like foamy waves swelled against rocks. She no longer wanted to talk of things that happened in the past.

"How would you like your life to be then, Flo?"

Florence, who perceived the great, silent fluctuation of emotions in Mary like a premonition of violence, jumped at this banal question to assuage her friend.

"Well, a husband's certainly going to be needed. But he won't be everything. I won't accept being a house-witch. I'll be out of the house more than I'm in it. I'll need to curse people and hunt monsters every now and then."

For the rest of the night, Mary let Florence talk of her witchy ambitions, of which there were a diverse, healthy many. Florence was as a Slytherin girl ought to be. Chattering facetiously and ambiently now, the pair of them went towards the sea, to sink their bare feet into the wet part of the sand. Mary was attracted by the nightly procession of jellyfish, whose glow reminded her at once of Ilaria's necklace and of a well-cast lumos, and whose soft, gelatinous forms calmed her fretful heart. Against her own judgement and Florence's explicit caution, Mary stooped and grabbed one of these jolly creatures with her wand-hand. At once electrifying her, she threw the creature back into the sea, but even this did not hamper her increasing affinity for its species.

When they returned to Tarquin's Court, the pair of girls heard Mr. Travers' loud voice reverberate through the house. His interlocutor's voice was quieter but as steady as his—it was a voice familiar to Mary. Florence silently gestured for Mary to follow her; the pair of them stalked down the main corridor until they reached the lounge room, whose door, permitting an acute view into its interior, had evidently been left ajar by negligence rather than intent. The inquisitive pair of girls spied on Mr. Travers through this fissure; he sat on an old armchair as though it were a throne, a glass of liquor in one hand and a long, wand-like pipe in the other; the room was otherwise devoid of life, motion, and light, save a dim fireplace whose flame was a mellow, luminescent sort of red. Mary gasped when she saw that the flame, which fanned in a most peculiar manner, was in the shape of a man's head.

"… this week, Longinus. My men are certain that they were done by homegrown blood-purists, reacting against what they perceive is our passivity towards Grindelwald."

"He's talking to Abraxas' dad in the fire!" Mary whispered in amazement.

"We'll ascribe all the attacks to the Germans," croaked Longinus Malfoy's head of flames. "The Department of Accidents and Catastrophes is far too busy for us to elect any other course of action. You'll tell Churchill as much as he needs to know."

"Bah! Churchill. The man's got the temper of a third-year Gryffindor beater. What will the Minister think, besides? Smith's got a finger in his wand-holster. He's weaning the man away from us."

"Smith hasn't got any allies," Malfoy said silkily. "He's as charismatic as that old Ravenclaw classmate of ours—allow me to recall his name—Binns."

"His apprentice is the fiancée of Hector's son. They may form a coalition against us."

"Ilaria! Your father's talking of Ilaria; who's Smith?" Mary hissed to Florence, who furiously pressed a shushing finger to her mouth.

But it was too late. Mr. Travers stirred in his seat, glared at the door, and drew his wand. Mary and Florence scrambled to run—but the door simply slammed shut. As they escalated the staircase, Mary interrogated Florence with questions.

"So?" she asked in a whisper, as though Mr. Travers, whose resonant, shrill voice could still be heard as muffles through the walls, could somehow hear them. "What was that all about?"

"It doesn't sense," Florence muttered. "Smith—that's got to be Sennacherib Smith. He's a queer old character. He's the last heir of the founders."

"The what?"

The pair of girls entered Florence's bedroom and took their customary positions on the violet chaises.

"He's the heir of Helga Hufflepuff. Hufflepuff's the last founder who's got an heir at all, which is why you've not heard of him. His whole business is three centuries outdated, like Arcanius Fawley using his family crest as a seal for his love letters to you—"

"I found that very charming."

"I know you did, Mary," Florence said with a compassionate smile, stroking Mary's cheek with her hand calloused from a week of remedial potions lessons, "and I'm sorry he let Ilaria spurn you so. But yes, all the founders have their heirs, although they all came to have them in different ways. Rowena Ravenclaw chose some talented student of hers to inherit all her bits and bobs, who in turn chose another talented Ravenclaw to inherit all their bits and bobs, and so on. But in time all these bits and bobs got lost or sold and people stopped calling whoever owned the most of Rowena's old knickers 'Heir of Ravenclaw'."

"Rowena's old knickers. How much do they go for in Diagon Alley a piece, do you think?

"Too much, Mary, too much. The Hufflepuffs and the Gryffindors kept theirs by blood, but only loosely so, I think—sometimes a heir's son would be slow witted, so they'd choose their brilliant second cousin instead. Sometimes the Gryffindors settled who was heir by duel. I'd reckon too many of them got killed this way and they just stopped the charade altogether. So now the only thing left is the Heir of Hufflepuff"

"But what about the Heirs of Slytherin?"

"Ours is most queer," said Florence. "They all came from one family, the Gaunts. Hold on, I've got just the book on this."

Florence popped up from her chaise, went to her bookshelf, and returned with a huge, hardbound black book in her arms. She gestured for Mary to move and make space for her. Sitting down beside her, Florence placed the book between them. On its cover was a sombre grey tree, hardly distinguishable from the blackness of the book's binding, atop which was printed the following in a lightless golden font:

The Sacred Twenty-Eight, Third Edition

Amended and Improved by Various Elder Unspeakables of that Noble Fellowship, the Department of Mysteries

"Gaunt Gaunt Gaunt," murmured Florence, as she flipped through the pages, "ah! Found it."

The book, which took up the surface area of a prostrate cat between the laps of the two girls, was designed so that every left page consisted of text, and every right page, of illustrations pertaining to the text. On the left page was a hefty introduction to the 'Sacred House of Gaunt', and on the right, four agreeable illustrations in a style that reminded Mary of the simple yet fantastical style of drawings one found in muggle's children's books. They were;

On the top left, the Knight of Jaunet, the apparent progenitor of the Gaunt family. Astride a horse in a golden coat, he sat with a devil-may-care look, his blond hair tied in a long, singular braid in the Norse style, his charcoal black armour absorbing but not returning the sun, his night black cape billowing like a huge, maleficent curtain in a storm. In his gloved hand was a most strange, but most beautiful weapon—a staff of entwined wood, yellow flowers jutting out of its crisscrosses, with the lengthy blade of a longsword sticking out of its end. A giant could have used it for a javelin; but for a magical knight it was at once a lance and a staff.

"What a beau," marvelled Florence.

On the top right, Salazar Slytherin himself. Mary was at once surprised by the simplicity of his figure, and the vigour of this simplicity. He wore a green robe the hue of overripe parsley, with no distinguishing features—it was neither large nor small, neither tight nor loose—except that it had no ornamentation of any kind whatsoever. No layering, no embroidery, no jewellery—nothing. Mary would have been unable to find a wizard of such asceticism in all of Diagon Alley. His bald head, wild eyes, and long, unkempt grey beard reminded Mary of a painting she had seen of an evil Russian King. One of Slytherin's hands was behind his back; the other, furtively by his side, holding his bone-coloured wand as though it were a dagger.

On the bottom left, Salazar Slytherin's daughter, Ermesinda. A beautiful teenage witch, she was dressed much more elaborately than her father, although she retained his penchant for the colour green. With the same lustrous black hair as Carmen La Maudite, she presented a face somehow too solemn and guarded for a witch her age; Mary knew that Ermesinda, like Carmen, must have suffered for her beauty. She wore around her a golden necklace with a large pendant, upon which glittering green stones encrusted to form the shape of a serpentine 's'. Elaborating on this theme, there was a long, vividly green snake coiled around her arm.

"I had a pet snake too, when I was a little girl."

"'Had', Mary? What happened to it?"

"A muggle boy scared it away."

On the bottom right, the Knight of Jaunet once again—except now his hair was black, and his armour, covered in golden heraldry. Although this knight likewise rode a warhorse and wielded a magnificent lance-staff, his face was much more grave and absorbed than that of his blond counterpart. Where the top left Knight of Jaunet could have been a Gryffindor, the bottom right one was undoubtedly a Slytherin. The ambiguity of the Knight's features came from the fact that while none of the visual depictions of him survived him for long, many written chronicles did—a ridere blæc & gold—was it his armour that was black, and his hair, gold, or otherwise?

The tale was one of possession and renunciation. Salazar Slytherin was as gifted a magical craftsman as he was unnatural a father; even his eleventh-century peers found his protectiveness a fault rather than a virtue. He made for Ermesinda a necklace that a few called blessed, but most called cursed. If any man laid a hand on its wearer, their hand would rot like carrion under the sun; if any man tried to kiss its wearer, their lips would wilt like roses in the winter. In turn, it could never be taken off the wearer—not even by the wearer herself—until she died. Or at least Slytherin thought so. The virginal Ermesinda grew like a willow tree in a cavern under a tall cliff—she was beautiful, but inaccessible to mankind. Mary had already known that Salazar Slytherin and Godric Gryffindor had a row that led to the former leaving Hogwarts; what she had not known was that Slytherin deserted not only the school that he helped found, but also the only daughter with whom she was so obsessed.

"Typical wizard," she hissed under her breath.

But the worst of Slytherin's neglect was yet to come. Wherever the disgruntled old wizard went, he had become sick—Ermesinda knew, for she became sick as well. Her locket was infused with a primal magic that had, since she was an infant, never permitted her an independent night of sleep—she always dreamed her fathers dreams. But it was no mere seasonal ague; the fact of the matter was, as Ermesinda was to learn on one fitful, sleepless night, that her father was dying.

Desperate for her life, Ermesinda offered her hand in marriage to whoever would remove Slytherin's locket from her neck. Multiple suitors tried their hand at this quest, and more than one died lost their hand from it. It took more than a knight, and more than a wizard, to deliver Ermesinda from her absent father—it took an errant mageknight. The Knight of Jaunet was an adventurer from the continent who sought glory in Britain as a dragon-hunter—his arm had been christened by the blood not only of dragons, but of varied creatures whose essences strengthened its blade. With a slash against her collarbone, he took Ermesinda Slytherin in marriage.

The Knight and Lady of Jaunet, fearing the wrath of the dying father of the latter, fled Britain, never to return. Salazar Slytherin, too, whether from death or a retreat into hermitism as some speculated, would never reappear in history after his daughter's unsanctified marriage. The Jaunets would not return to Britain until long after Ermesinda's death.

"She looks terribly like you, Mary," said Florence, pointing to an illustration of Ermesinda holding Jaunet-the-Blond's hand, "and he, well, he's Thane Mulciber but more handsome."

Mary closed the book. "Ew! Let's return to this later. We're losing our way; we were talking of Sennacherib Smith and Ilaria."

"I suppose we can read the rest tomorrow," said Florence, levitating the book onto her dresser, "we were talking of that miserable pair indeed. Smith's forty or fifty or something like that—"

"That's a very broad range, Flo."

"He's unlovely to us at any rate. What's strange is that Ilaria's his 'apprentice', because his vocation as a wizard is one of the strangest ones there is—he's an Unspeakable."

"Ilaria's going to become an Unspeakable as well, then?"

"That appears to be the case, Mary."

"Good for her," Mary said haughtily.

"But that's not all. Smith got in some trouble with the Wizengamot a few years back, and for what, no one knows. They didn't let any of the newsprint witches into the courtroom, and the trial went on for longer than a year—only for him to be let go with no charges. Some say they found dead muggles in his laboratory. The quack Lockhart said that he tried to kill the old Minister Evermonde with voodoo magic. Who knows what really happened? What I do know is people are going to talk about this. The Greengrasses have always been a very clean sort of family, and Ilaria's already engaged to Arcanius; it's strange they should mix themselves up with someone like Smith."

"Perhaps he wants to seduce her."

"Not a chance," said Florence. "Unless he nobbles her up with love potions. He's not a very fit man."

"I was only hoping that Arcanius might be made free for me."

"I should've guessed."

"Ah. Well, I hope Aria has fun with the Heir of Hufflepuff. I for one am going to sleep, Flo. Good night."

Magical healers and muggle doctors alike considered a good night of sleep one of the most excellent things in the world. Mary recognised the truth of this idea the following morning, when she reflected on the fact that Tom had never been farther away from her than he was in that moment—for Cambridge was over two hundred miles from Cardiff—and realised that this did not particularly bother her. She had Florence; she had the Welsh sun; she had her prodigious memory and magic at hand; her brother, God bless him, could be dealt with later.

The Saturday passed peacefully. Mary wore the black summer dress she had worn on the day she came to Tarquin's Court. Potter did not come on weekends; having thus the entire morning and afternoon to themselves, Florence and Mary wrote the names of every Hogwarts student (and staff member) they could recall onto a sheet of parchment, to pair every girl with a suitable boy. Florence was put with Augustus Sallow, the Slytherin boys' Prefect who had graduated a year ago, but who in the girls' joint imagination was regressed into a strapping fourth-year boy for the sake of romantic integrity. Mary, of course, was wedded to Arcanius Fawley. To spite both of them, Walburga Black was paired with Osborne Urquart.

At dinner, Mr. Travers was absent.

"Ellie! Where's my father?"

"Master Torquil has business at the Ministry, young mistress. Master told Ellie he will not return until tomorrow night."

"What Ministry? They haven't even built it yet. The Ministry's still but several houses spread out over the country," said Florence, glancing sideways at Urquart.

"Ellie is sorry for her not knowing, young mistress," the elf repeated ruefully. "Ellie tells young mistress only what Master Torquil told Ellie."

With an impatient gesture of her hand, Florence dismissed the elf.

"Your father's at 10 Downing Street," Urquart drawled smartly, pretending to sharpen his knife with his fork. "The Minister and all his men meet with the muggle wizengamot almost every day in the present climate."

"Don't talk like you're one of the Minister's men, Osborne," Florence said coldly. "You're stuck all alone with us—a pair of little girls, while all the real wizards are meeting with muggle nobles."

"Alone indeed," murmured Urquart, more to himself than either of the girls.

As dinner progressed, Mary found herself subjected again and again to a great unpleasantry; that of being intently stared at by Urquart, as though he were a herbologist looking at a particularly ripe mandrake, while he slowly masticated his food. He would certainly not have done this if Mr. Travers were present. Mary's appetite dissipated like sand tossed into the wind. At some point she put her cutlery down and could not pick it back up. This did not escape Florence's notice.

"Stop looking at her, Osborne, you lascivious toad!"

"I'll look at who I want when I want, you little pest!" he exclaimed, as though his activity was a perfectly innocent one.

"No, no. If you can't stop looking at Mary at least don't chew at her. Talk to us, go on—you know we love to hear about that stupid little hole of a new Ministry you're helping build."

Florence's tactic was to some avail. Although Urquart had not lost his object in Mary, he now sought to impress her rather than merely defile her with his gaze. Indeed, throughout the rest of dinner, he talked, or tried to talk, of the new Ministry in the way that Professor Dumbledore talked of transfiguration theory. However where Professor Dumbledore was erudite and humble, Urquart was presumptuous and proud. Consequently the girls ate quickly and retired from the dining room before dessert was even served. Unfortunately, as they climbed the stairs to Florence's room, they were once again arrested by Urquart.

Mary felt a greedy pair of hands grab her shoulders and rub her scapulae.

"Ah, I forgot to mention, Riddle. I've got a letter for you."

Turning around to shake off his invasive hands, Mary looked at Urquart with a big, hopeful smile. "From Caney?"

"No." Urquart said this word with so glacial a tone and jealous an expression that Mary shuddered; his sermon on the grandeur of the New Ministry could not induce in her the ecstasy that the mere possibility of a letter from Arcanius did. "From Ilaria Greengrass."

"Greengrass?" Now it was Mary's turn to speak jealously. "What does she want from me?"

"I suppose it can only be one thing. Here."

The enveloped bore no seal; it was secured with a crude adhesing charm that Mary undid with finite incantatem. In it was a small, rectangular piece of parchment the dimensions of a business card.

Do not you dare write to Arcanius again, you smarmy little mudblood.

Clearly, this pathetic little epigram was meant to strike fear into Mary, and her heart indeed sank—but in resignation rather than fear. She had put so much of her heart into her love letter, let alone into the person of Arcanius Fawley himself. But before she could say anything, the parchment combusted in Mary's hand and burnt her fingers. She shrieked and slapped her hands together to put out the incipient fire.

"Perhaps it is time, Riddle, that you pursue a boy who does not already have a sweetheart," Urquart drawled.

"Like who?" asked Mary indignantly. "Yourself?"

"Me? I had not thought—"

"Oh? You only leered at me through the entirety of dinner."

"Leer? I think you're pretty, certainly, Riddle, but don't get any ideas."

"Ideas, Osborne? Don't flatter yourself. The only one here who's got any 'ideas' is you."

Urquart feigned a snort. "Tell me then, what are my ideas?"

"Are you really trying to deceive me, Osborne? You're not cunning enough for that."

"I'm not cunning?" Urquart asked with a scoff. "Riddle, you thought it would be a good idea to write a love letter to a boy who is engaged to the Head Girl—yes, Ilaria's becoming Head—"

"And what's that to you?" Mary asked coldly. "What does it matter to you what Ilaria does or what I do? You're not her boyfriend, and you certainly won't become mine either."

"What?" Urquart scoffed. "I can't believe you! Florence, let me—"

"Shut up and sod off!" yelled the girl addressed. "C'mon Mary, let's go."

"Your coquette of a friend tried to kiss me on my very first night here!"

Mary laughed. "I tried to kiss you? I wanted you to do a favour for me, and all it took was for me to breathe a little bit on your ear. Are you a dog?"

"This is what you did to Arcanius, isn't it? You make a sport of cajoling boys and then denying them once they're under your thrall."

"Oh but Osborne—you surely know that I actually kissed Arcanius," Mary said with a dry smile. "I would never do the same to you."

"You truly want to ruin his life, don't you?" murmured Urquart, as though a great revelation had suddenly come upon him. "I won't let you do that. Hear me, Riddle—I won't let Arcanius get ruined by you."

"Don't make me laugh, Osborne. You can't make Arcanius do anything. He's superior to you. He's the son of the old Minister for Magic—you lob about big rocks for two galleons a week. He doesn't need you; you need him—"

Urquart snatched Mary by the arm and hoisted her entire body forward so that she was but two inches from him. Florence, reacting to this gesture of wounded pride and agonised lust on her cousin's part, took Mary by the waist and held her protectively—and Mary, in her turn, felt her heart pulsate with a sudden frenzy; the only other time she had ever been seized with concurrent desire and hatred—or indeed seized by a boy at all—was by her brother.

"You!" Osborne Urquart snarled, his saliva splattering against Mary's cheek. "You—you know nothing!"

Breathing heavily onto her face, Urquart observed Mary wildly for a few more moments. Then, he bought her into him and violently hugged her—it was not a hug of affection, for affection was an reciprocal act; here there was only the voracity of a discontent boy and the dread of his prey—here was a new Azkaban inmate clawing onto another for the warmth of their body, or with the deign to squeeze the life out of them and then cannibalise them.

"You … disgust me," he said in a strangled tone.

A moment after this nonsensical admission, Mary felt Urquart's paws prowl wildly all over her, pulling her hair, roughly delineating her neck, caressing her waist, grabbing at her bum, indenting her dress with a hundred sad creases that could easily be straightened by an ironing charm but never cleansed from her memory. More than his hands, she felt something odious, wet, and warm imprint itself intimately on her forehead—his lips or tongue. Then, worse—he tugged, with all the brutishness of a starved dog, at the laces of her dress.

"Get off her! Incendio! Off! You vile worm!"

The spell and the imprecation that followed it came from Florence; the object of the former was Urquart's hair. Urquart yelled and wandlessly conjured water over his head; capitalising off the sudden freedom afforded to her by this moment, Mary frenziedly darted up the remaining stairs, bumping here against the wall and there against the handrail. She heard Urquart stomp down the stairs, followed by a series of enraged expletives from Florence directed at him, and then Florence herself running up the stairs to get to her.

"Oh Mary!" called Florence, wrapping her arms around Mary. "My dear Mary, I'm sorry, so so sorry—are you okay? Osborne is a foul, beastly little worm! I'll get my father to send him away, I will!"

Mary said nothing, because she felt 'nothing'. In that moment her soul was swamped by a grey numbness that precluded all possibility of emotion or judgement. Nonetheless, there was some hitherto dormant, childlike faculty within her—perhaps the same power that first enabled her to distinguish hot from cold, solid from liquid, and Tom from Billy—that spurred the motions of her mind to continue to think at all; if not in verbally or emotionally, then physically. Osborne Urquart's saliva was on her forehead. His hands had, through the thin screen of her black dress, explored much of the dorsal side of her body. She needed to cleanse herself.

"I need to bathe," Mary mumbled automatically.

Florence's bathroom was a violet en suite to her violet bedroom. Albeit smaller than the bathrooms of the Slytherin girls' dormitories, it was just as luxuriously appointed—an attribute that Mary was, at that moment, quite unable to appreciate. Filling the tub with hot water, she sank into it and remained in tense, uneasy motionlessness for a few minutes, like an old, unwanted sculpture thrown into a pond. Then, there was a knock on the door—and for a moment Mary felt terror—before Florence's voice announced, "it's me, Mary. I've brought you some butterbeer."

Her desire to speak being more insubstantial than it ever had before, Mary gave her friend a mere nod of the head to express her gratitude for the huge mug that was handed to her. Drinking it, because there was nothing else to do, Mary suddenly—and quite unpleasantly—felt life returning to her. She had, in one long sip from the great mug of the decadent drink, consumed the equivalent calories of a small cake or a very large muffin; another sip, and all the dinner she had eluded was more than adequately compensated for by ounces of butter, cream, and sugar. But this sudden energy that streamed into Mary's brain did not furnish her with happy thoughts—rather, it unearthed all her worst ones.

Arcanius rejected her; and in fact Mary had known this ever since that fatal afternoon at his estate; she knew even that there was a tender part of him that preferred her over Ilaria—but these conditions somehow worsened, rather than alleviated, the pain of the basic fact. Her brother was further away from her than he had ever been; for the first time in Mary's life, Tom was utterly inaccessible to her—she wasn't even able to send a letter to him—and even if she could, what would she write? He was the only family Mary had in the world—and he had sacrificed the greatest good that both of them had over—over what?

Mary buried her head in the water so that Florence would not hear her scream.

She twisted and writhed in the bathtub like a fish might thrash on soil. Water spilled from the tub and splashed everywhere on the violet tiles. Raising her head out of the surface of the water again, Mary realised that her desolation, which had previously been numbness, was beginning to transfigure into anger. Of course, she hated Osborne Urquart; but her hate for him was a simple, animal repugnance. She hated Arcanius not for betraying her, but for betraying his own innermost desire—it was cowardice, rather than fate, that separated them from becoming lovers—and she hated that she had ever been so stupid to love a coward. Most of all she hated Tom, for subjecting her to the caprices of Ilaria, and then for abandoning her to the lecheries of Urquart.

Mary hated boys for being lecherous at all; all of them were, in their own ways. She recalled Tom hugging her in the bathtub last Christmas, with the possessiveness only an orphaned boy could have for his sister. Then Mary's anguished mind wandered beyond the scope of the wizarding world, into muggle London, where a thousand drunk men had their way with dead-eyed scrubbers for ten shillings a night, every night. She thought of how there was something of Urquart in every man, and something of herself in every woman. She thought of the war again, of muggle men turned barbarous by starvation and exertion in foreign lands, seizing muggle women to satisfy their inner demons with no mercy and no resistance; for these women there was no recourse to magic—their fates, unless they were rich, were but slavery or death. If she had been an ordinary orphan in somewhere like Warsaw or Nanking…

Mary leant over the precipice of the bathtub and vomited all the butterbeer she had consumed.

Her anger subsided into a bitterness that buried itself deep in her heart. She became numb again. The world seemed too big, too cruel, and too overwhelming to navigate alone—and alone she was, for even Florence could not fill the lacuna left by Tom. Even her magic seemed at best, a palliative, and at worst, a burden, somehow—so long as she was estranged from Tom, both her wand and the pulsations of her heart disagreed with her—but she could not do without magic anyhow. It was thus that Mary stopped brooding; she spent the rest of the time in her bath transfiguring little trinkets out of everything—a bar of soap into a rubber duck, a vial of shampoo into a singing warbler, her empty butterbeer glass into a little crystal ship—and played with it all like a mindless muggle child doted on their toys.

"Mary?" asked Florence's voice muffled by the door. "You've been in there for three hours—are you alright?"

"Quite."

"I hope you've changed the water once or twice."

"I have."

Silence ensued for a moment; Florence was evidently unaccustomed to such unresponsiveness on Mary's part.

"My dear, aren't you sleepy?"

"I think so, yes," said Mary, transfiguring a violet crab back into a violet towel. "Florence—may I sleep with you tonight? I wouldn't feel safe otherwise."

"Oh but of course! That's precisely what you shall do."

By the time Mary got into bed, she knew that she would be unable to sleep straight away. It seemed that rain was only conducive to calmness when one was already calm; as she was both sad and irascible, the rain only added to the lake of overflowing misery within her. Florence, who fell soundly asleep soon after the pair of them got into bed, did not seem to mind the dozens of candles Mary sent levitating in circles by her bedside.

Not wanting to be alone with her thoughts, Mary sought distraction—she saw the great tome that was The Sacred Twenty-Eight, Third Edition lying open on Florence's dresser, and levitated it across the room into her hands. She would rather think of the ancient descendants of Salazar Slytherin, than anything that had happened in the past day—or past hundred years.

It was not until two centuries later, after the Norman conquest and two civil wars, that the Jaunets would return to the Scottish castle tht Ermesinda Slytherin and her lover-knight fled. Menoetius Jaunt was the first of many Jaunts, later to become Gaunts, who occupied the prestigious joint station of Head-of-Slytherin-House and Potions Professor; a title which, in the mediaeval magical world of Britain, was as good as 'Lord Treasurer'—it was indeed for a century tantamount to 'Heir of Slytherin'. The Gaunts of Edinburgh, through their Hogwarts connections, became one of the wealthiest, most powerful, and proudest families in Britain—so proud that they thought the very blood that coursed through their veins too good to be spilled on any beyond their family. There were two distinct features of the illustrations of the Gaunts in this book; they were all, barring none, black-haired—and many of them were depicted with snakes as familiars.

The High Mediaeval Ages, then, saw the family's ruin. Incest, gambling, drunken duels, and defaulted debts utterly spoiled this haughty family. First, they renounced their hereditary office of Head-of-Slytherin-cum-Potions-Master; then, their patriarchs no longer registered themselves as the 'Heir of Slytherin' with the Wizengamot; finally, Gringotts liquidated their East Lothian manor—they migrated south to England, where they wasted away in solitary squalor. A depressing ending to what began as a love story—

Then, Mary read something extraordinary.

1493 saw Saturnius Gaunt, the last member of this ancient, revered house to sit on the Wizengamot, reduced to what muggles call 'snake-charming' (quite unrelated to what we understand as ophiomancy, a discipline largely unknown in our age, but practised among the Gaunts, for ophiomancy required that great hereditary mark of all Heirs of Slytherin, the power of understanding the speech of snakes, parseltongue). For muggles, snake-charming was but a frivolous diversion for the wealthy; indeed, by the late fifteenth century, the Gaunts had become court jesters for muggle highborns.

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Table of Contents

Preface

Genesis

FIRST YEAR: The Whimsicalities of Peacetime

New Friends

Christmas at Hogwarts

The Sapphire Necklace

SECOND YEAR: The Birth of Love and War

A Tender Christmas

Wounds & Butterflies

A Dinner Party

Alarm

Mind Magic

The Harvesting of Flowers

THIRD YEAR: Separation and Sacrifice

By The North Sea

By The Bristol Channel

Afterword