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Chapter Text

“I only want you to understand the kind of world that you will be coming into if you choose Hogwarts.”

It had been hours since Mr. Malfoy left, and still his words were echoing in Hermione’s head. She sat at the table in the dining room and shivered, her eyes locked on the pamphlets about Hogwarts.

It had sounded so wonderful when Professor McGonagall came to talk to her several months ago. The best magical school in Britain! Small classes! A House that would be like your family, and traditions of many wonderful witches and wizards growing up there and going on to be a credit to the school!

And best of all, the chance to leave behind schools where she had always been ostracized for her intelligence and find a whole new system where people wouldn’t care about that because they were there to study magic just like she was, and what could be better than that?

And then Mr. Malfoy had come in and told her that because her parents were Muggles, she would never find social acceptance.

“Hermione? Are you all right, dear?”

Hermione swallowed the tears and glanced up with as brave a smile as she could at her mum, who was standing in the doorway of the kitchen and staring at her worriedly. “I’m fine, Mum. It’s just…the fees for Hogwarts are going to be really expensive.”

“We can afford it, don’t worry.” Mum came over and hugged her. Hermione leaned into her arms and felt a little calmer. “And I’m sure that you’ll make all sorts of friends once you’re around other people like you!”

“Yeah,” Hermione whispered, and kept smiling until her mum went back into the kitchen. Then she closed her eyes.

She didn’t want to tell her parents what Mr. Malfoy had said. They might not let her learn magic at all, and Hermione wanted to. Even knowing that she was going to be different and looked-down on…that wasn’t all that different from the rest of her life, right? She could still go, and learn magic, and even if she had to leave the magical world after Hogwarts and get a job in the Muggle world, she could do it. She was smart. She could study for her Muggle exams at the same time as she working on her magical homework.

But it still made Hermione’s chest feel as if it was filled with snow. She had so hoped Hogwarts would be different, and she’d feel comfortable there and have friends. She had hoped.

“Maybe it’s time to put away childish things,” she whispered to herself, and wiped some tears off her cheeks.

She’d just started to stand up when someone knocked briskly on the front door. Hermione glanced into the kitchen, but her mum didn’t react. Maybe she hadn’t heard it. And Dad was probably still at the office.

Hermione went to the door and opened it.

And her life changed, although she didn’t know it at the time.

“Miss Hermione Granger?” The man standing in front of her was tall, with dark hair that he kept short, and he was wearing a quietly good suit, the kind that some people wore when they dropped their spouses off at her parents’ office. But looking into his eyes, Hermione was suddenly sure he was a wizard.

“Yes, sir,” she said, since the man looked like he was at least in his forties. “Can I help you?” She hoped it wasn’t another scolding about Hogwarts and how much people would hate her. This man didn’t look as rich as Mr. Malfoy, but he had money to buy a suit like that.

“I have a message for you about another school besides Hogwarts that you could attend. May I come in?”

Hermione snapped her gaze up to his face again. He had dark eyes, grey, she thought, and he was looking at her with a faint smile. She took a deep breath and said, “I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t want to go out of the country.”

“Oh, this school is in Britain. In London, in fact.” The man seemed to enjoy Hermione’s staring at him, from the way his smile widened. “It’s a rather different school than Hogwarts, which is probably why they haven’t mentioned it.” He looked into the house, then looked back at Hermione with his eyebrows raised.

Hermione knew she was bright red, but it was hard to stop staring and step aside. “Sorry, sir. Come in.”

The man strolled in and nodded at the neat, understated wallpaper and the seascape on the wall with the same amount of attention that Mr. Malfoy had sneered at them. Or so Hermione thought. She supposed that she didn’t know a thing about what wizarding homes looked like, so she couldn’t be sure. Maybe their walls were all marble and the pictures all talked back. That had been something Professor McGonagall had mentioned.

“Um, did you want something to drink?” Hermione glanced towards the kitchen. It was strange her mum hadn’t come out to see who was in the house.

The man followed her gaze. “I put up a charm to keep this conversation private,” he said quietly. “I assume that you’ve already received the official Hogwarts visit as well as the unofficial one?”

Hermione swallowed and nodded. Then she blurted out, because she had to ask someone, “Sir, is what Mr. Malfoy says really true? Do people hate students with Muggle parents at Hogwarts?”

“Not everyone,” the man said. “Professor McGonagall, for example, if she is the one who made the first visit to you?” Hermione nodded. “She does not. But her father was a Muggle, and she is unusual among Hogwarts staff. Many of them are either purebloods or half-bloods who violently hate Muggles because they were abused by them. And the children follow what their parents tell them.”

Hermione closed her eyes. “So I would suffer there.”

“Yes. And—forgive me, Miss Granger, but I’ve looked up your academic record. I think you would suffer regardless.”

“Because I’m not good enough for Hogwarts?” A whole new worry gripped Hermione’s throat.

The man smiled and shook his head. “Because you have the kind of marks that would place you above ninety-nine percent of the purebloods you’d encounter there. And that means they would despise you. Try to hurt you.”

Hermione stared at him. “Physically hurt?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so. If you’ve purchased one book already, it’s probably Hogwarts, A History, and you’ll have heard about the trick steps and the hidden rooms and the staircases that switch destinations?” The man waited until she nodded, then pulled out a chair at the dining room table and took it. “It’s so easy to hex someone else and blame their falls or stumbles or any physical damage on the structure of the school. And with your parents back in the Muggle world and unable to learn of what happens to you except by owl, who can say whether they would be informed at all?” The man studied her, then nodded. “And you would probably still want to attend Hogwarts, even so. Even if it meant you had to lie to your parents. Our kind want magic, need it and deserve it. You probably haven’t told your parents about what Mr. Malfoy said at all, have you?”

Hermione clasped her hands together and whispered, “You’re starting to scare me with how accurately you can predict this, sir. Or were you watching the house?”

“Closely enough to see Malfoy’s visit,” the man agreed, with a shallow nod that made him look like he was keeping his eyes up to watch for danger. “But forgive me, I haven’t even told you my name. I’m Headmaster Thomas Riddle of the Fortius Academy. I teach Defense, as well.”

“Fortius? Is that like Forte?”

“Close.” Professor Riddle smiled at her and leaned forwards in the chair. “It’s the Latin word for ‘stronger,’ as well. And I’d like to offer you a place at the Fortius Academy, Miss Granger.” He pulled a letter out of his robe pocket and held it towards her.

Hermione took it slowly. The parchment felt like the one that her Hogwarts letter had come on, but less thick. She turned it over and saw what was presumably the seal of the academy, a silver wheel split into four sections with different animals on them. Hermione squinted a little, and made out a winged horse, a snake-like dragon, a bird that seemed to have pointed feathers all over it, and a creature that looked like a cat with a bird’s head.

“What are these creatures? And why do they allow you to have the Academy if you take students from them? And why do you want to invite me? Is it just my marks?”

Professor Riddle held up his hand to stem the tide, which made Hermione apologize, but he just shook his head. “No, it’s natural for someone as smart as you are, Miss Granger. To take your questions in order. The creatures are the symbols of our four Houses, which are based on but different from the Hogwarts ones. You’ll be Sorted based on your magical affinity. The winged horse indicates those whose affinities tend towards air, Herbology, and mind magic. You’ll Sort into the House of the Dragon if your affinities lead you towards water, Divination, and offensive spells. The House of the Phoenix—” Hermione reckoned that must be the bird with the pointy feathers, which weren’t feathers, but flames “—is for those associated with fire, Charms, and the magic of creation. And the House of the Gryphon represents the earth, Transfiguration, and defensive magic.

“Hogwarts wants you to attend because they want your tuition and fees.” Professor Riddle sighed. “It wasn’t so, always, but the purebloods took control of the Board of Governors and began to change things to their liking. They tolerate my academy’s existence because they think it skims off the undesirables, so to speak. They’ll tolerate your leaving because you’re Muggleborn. They’d fight harder to keep a half-blood, and I’ve been warned never to approach pureblood students.”

Hermione nodded quietly. “And do you invite every Muggleborn in the United Kingdom, sir?”

“The ones whose mindset is conducive to Fortius and who show the power to attend, yes.”

“I hadn’t considered there might be different levels of magical strength. Can you tell me how strong I am? How strong are you? Mr. Malfoy said something about how purebloods are always the strongest.”

Professor Riddle considered her closely, as if the question covered more than Hermione knew. Hermione bit her lip but maintained the stare. It sounded more and more like she would be better off going to Fortius, but she didn’t want to attend a school where she would be afraid to ask questions.

“I am going to have to ask you to swear an oath not to reveal the results of what I’m going to show you, Miss Granger.”

“Why not?” Hermione demanded. She had managed to read all her schoolbooks between Professor McGonagall’s visit and Mr. Malfoy’s, and she didn’t want to swear an oath that could literally kill her.

“Because a great deal of pureblood propaganda is based on the idea of their having greater magical strength. Therefore, I pretend that I only take the weak students—”

“And you pretend to be weaker yourself than you really are!” Hermione said triumphantly, before she clapped her hands across her mouth. Her primary school teachers had always hated it when she interrupted.

Professor Riddle only smiled, though. “Indeed. I think Fortius will be very lucky to have you, Miss Granger.”

“Will you show me how strong you are, sir?”

Professor Riddle considered her closely enough that Hermione began to feel that she shouldn’t have asked the question. But then he nodded and sat back, and when he held out his hand in front of him and closed his eyes, Hermione gasped a little. The feeling of magic bearing down on her was overwhelming. It was a feathery, tickling pressure that crowded the edges of her eyes and filled her nose and made her want to sneeze.

Professor Riddle’s fingers flexed, and suddenly the skin on his palm slid aside and a vine grew up from it. Hermione stared in awe as it turned a little, and flexed, and opened silver leaves and a silver flower and swayed back and forth in a wind she couldn’t feel.

Then Professor Riddle snapped his fingers and the vine and the flower crumbled into shining dust that flew over and seemed to meld into the walls. Professor Riddle shook his hand and silently turned his palm towards Hermione. Hermione leaned closer, not sure what he wanted her to see.

Then she saw. There were small dents in the center of his palm where the vine’s roots had been.

Hermione shivered. It hadn’t been an illusion, like some of her magical books had talked about. It had been real. She looked at Professor Riddle with wary respect, and found him studying her with raised eyebrows.

“Some Muggleborn children would run in fear after seeing that display,” he said. “Do you want to come to Fortius?”

“Can you teach me to do that?”

Luckily, he got the spirit of her question rather than the literal meaning. “Yes. I think your magic will be strong enough to create any alterations you want, although some have magic more attuned to alterations of objects, some to the alteration of the body, and some to altering animals…”

Hermione settled down to absorb all the information she could, determined that she would attend Fortius and swear any oath she had to. She would have to tell her parents something about Hogwarts that wouldn’t alarm them so much they wouldn’t let her go to Fortius, either.

But she was going to go. And it wasn’t just that Professor Riddle had a school specifically for Muggleborns. Hermione was smart enough to know that he must have a reason for establishing Fortius, that he wouldn’t have done it out of the good of his heart.

That reason had to be change.

She wanted to be a part of it.

*

Tom Riddle smiled slightly as he marked Hermione Granger’s name off his list and stepped briskly to the side of the thestral he’d left eating a mouse under a Disillusionment Charm in a Muggle garden. There was little chance that anyone else magical who had seen death lived in the street, but Malfoy might have left a spy behind.

For a moment, Tom let his hands clench in the thestral’s mane, causing the reptilian horse to lift her head to stare at him. Tom got himself under control a second later, and nodded his apology to the mare, slinging a leg across her back. The thestral snorted but stood placidly. For the most part, the Hogwarts herd had accepted Tom’s invitation to come with him when he established Fortius, and the fact that he treated them like the intelligent creatures they were was the main reason why.

The next child on his list wouldn’t have received a visit from Malfoy or a Hogwarts letter yet, and so would perhaps be a bit harder to deal with. But Tom knew some of the reasons that that child was living in the Muggle world, and he thought he could exert the right amount of pressure and persuasion.

He touched the thestral’s neck and whispered the destination, and she stretched her wings and sprang into the air. Tom Disillusioned himself, as well, as she rose high and fast and turned to the southwest.

London passed under him, a tangle of buildings that Tom loved to watch. There had been a time he was desperate to escape it, but, well, the war had been over for a long time. He had lived. He had survived being a supposed Mudblood in Slytherin House.

He had survived the revelation that being the descendant of Slytherin meant nothing to the majority of purebloods in the same House, not with his Muggle last name and Muggle living situation. He had shown off his Parseltongue by then, but luckily not his magical strength.

Malfoy’s father had laughed at him, and told him that descending from an inbred Squib and a Muggle man negated any supposed influence of Slytherin’s blood. Then he had led two other boys in beating Tom nearly hard enough to break his legs. They wouldn’t waste magic on a Mudblood.

Tom went still and cold when he thought of that, but the thestral was hardly unused to that sort of thing. She continued her steady flight, and soon she was swooping down towards one of those unimaginative neighborhoods that always made Tom wonder if he wouldn’t succeed in charming the Muggleborn children who lived in them. Someone who had grown up in an area like this might have an imagination as narrow as the streets, might not want to come to Fortius and study magic.

But he would not wish defeat on himself before he had begun. The thestral landed in the right place—they had the genius for places that post-owls did for names—and screeched softly. Tom patted her and dismounted, gazing at the large house in front of him.

He glanced down at the list in his hand. Yes, the address matched.

He crossed the neat garden, knocked on the door, and asked for Harry Potter.

Chapter Text

Harry sighed as he leaned against the back of his cupboard. It was far too small for him now, but the day was so hot that the shade was almost welcome. Aunt Petunia had had him working in the garden until almost noon, and then Harry had convinced her he was on the brink of collapse and one of the neighbors might say something.

Of course, his throat still ached, dry, and his stomach still rumbled, empty. But those were things he was used to. He wasn’t used to heatstroke.

Distantly, he heard someone knock on the door, heard an unfamiliar voice say something, heard Aunt Petunia’s shrill reply. But he didn’t expect those things to have anything to do with him. He shut his eyes and groped in his mind after the dream he’d had last night.

Sometimes Harry almost thought he could remember his parents.

He knew from stray comments that Aunt Petunia had dropped that his mum’s name had been Lily, and she had had green eyes like his and red hair. Harry knew nothing about his father except that he was supposedly a drunk.

But in the dream, his parents were strong and kind, and they had been holding him. His father, who had dark hair and glasses like Harry, had bent down and hugged them and whispered, “Lily, get him to Serious.” Harry, now that he was awake, wondered what kind of place Serious was.

His mum had shaken her head. “No, darling. Come with me, run—”

And then there had been a horrible noise like the banging of drums, but Harry had lost the rest of the dream because Dudley had woken him up leaping down the stairs. He didn’t know if the drums were really part of the dream or not.

“Boy!”

Harry jumped as the door of the cupboard went flying open. Aunt Petunia loomed beyond it, staring at him with such hatred that Harry immediately assumed Dudley had made up another story about Harry hurting him.

He was just opening his mouth to deny it when she snapped, “There’s a freak here to see you.”

Harry stood up and left the cupboard uncertainly. He didn’t really know what she could mean. Harry was a freak because he had no parents, and sometimes strange things happened around him. Why would someone else who was also an orphan come and visit him? Was there a Society of Freaks or something?

Was this someone from an orphanage?

Harry’s throat and stomach were both clenching with new sensations as he walked out into the drawing room and saw the man sitting there on the chair where Uncle Vernon usually sat to watch the telly. He stopped. The man didn’t look at all like someone Aunt Petunia would have thought was a freak. He had neat hair and clean nails and wore a suit.

Harry glanced over his shoulder, but Aunt Petunia had gone back into the kitchen. Harry thought she was almost running. He turned to the man on the couch and opened his mouth.

“Just a moment,” said the man, and pulled out a white stick from his sleeve. Harry blinked at it. He blinked even harder when the man swept the stick through the air, seemed to listen intently for a moment, and then nodded and put it away.

“Now we can speak freely,” said the man, and smiled at him. “My name is Professor Thomas Riddle. I know that you probably already know about Hogwarts, but I’m from the Fortius Academy.” He paused.

He seemed to expect an answer. Harry obliged. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Riddle blinked and stared at him. Then he said, “I mean that there are two different schools of magic that might compete for your attendance, Mr. Potter.”

Harry snorted and folded his arms. Riddle was kind of impressive, true, but Harry had dealt with impressive teachers before. All of them backed away from him when it turned out that the Dursleys denied his abuse. Harry had never found someone who would persist beyond that initial denial. And this was a silly prank. Or maybe a means of luring him away from the Dursleys’ abuse and doing some of the things people discussed in dark voices at his primary school. “I’m going to Stonewall. I know that. That’s all the Dursleys will pay for.”

Riddle studied him in silence for a second. Harry shifted his weight. This wasn’t going exactly as he’d thought it would. “You can get up and walk out any second now,” he added. “And tell whoever put you up to this that it didn’t work.”

“Do you know of magic, Harry?”

“My name is Potter to you, Riddle.”

For some reason, that made an odd smile cross Riddle’s face. He leaned back in his chair, flung one leg over the other, and said, “I imagine that whoever put you here didn’t think your relatives would deny the existence of magic altogether. They thought they would abuse you and make you all the more relieved to escape into a magical world, no matter how you might be treated there.”

Harry stared at him. “You’re still on about magic? I don’t know a lot, but I know magic doesn’t exist.”

“No, you don’t know a lot,” Riddle agreed coolly. “Listen to me, Harry Potter. You are magical. A wizard. The child of a wizard and a witch—”

“Aunt Petunia’s said my mum was a witch sometimes, but that’s not what she meant.”

“I imagine she would know almost nothing about it. And both I and the people who put you here overestimated her desire to know more about magic.”

“Stop talking about who put me here. I know my uncle and aunt had to take me in because they were my only living relatives. And I came here after my parents died in a car crash. That’s the way it is.”

“Ah, I see. You are fighting so hard against what I am saying because that is the best way to protect yourself from getting false hope up.”

Harry clenched his hands very hard behind his folded arms. But he didn’t let his expression change. Say that Riddle did understand some of what it was like. Say he had even come to invite Harry to a special kind of school. It wouldn’t matter, in the end. The Dursleys would never pay for something like that, and if Riddle had targeted him because he thought Harry’s family was rich, he’d be disappointed.

“Have strange things never happened around you?” Riddle continued in a quieter voice still. “You might have moved things without touching them, or forced animals to obey you, or altered the color of someone’s hair or clothes—”

“How did you hear about that?” Harry took a long step back. Now he was wondering if Riddle was from a hospital instead of a school.

“Ah, yes. That’s a common manifestation of accidental magic.” Riddle stood slowly. “Listen, child. This is a wand. I’m going to hand it to you, and I want you to tell me what you feel.” He held out the white stick that he’d used to make the gesture earlier.

Harry took it slowly. And nearly dropped it. It wasn’t the weight of it, which wasn’t so heavy even though he wasn’t used to it. It was the thrumming warmth that struck up his arm towards his heart.

“What do you feel?” Riddle prompted.

Harry glared at him. “Wood.”

*

This one is going to be difficult.

Tom had to admit he was relieved, though. He had arrived just in time. Whoever had left Potter here—probably Malfoy, knowing him—had chosen the Muggle guardians well. Another month, and Potter might have been primed to leave the Muggle world behind entirely, believe the wizards who would tell him that he was dirty because of his Muggleborn mother but he could make up for it, and embrace the pureblood prejudices without looking back.

It was a common tactic of the purebloods, at least with half-blood orphans: abandon them in the Muggle world and then swoop in to the “rescue.” Tell them that the harder they worked, the more they attempted to embrace the pureblood nonsense, the closer they would come to achieving the “ideal” of someone raised in the magical world. The half-bloods usually swallowed it whole. There was no fanatic like a convert.

And those half-bloods married purebloods and reared their children in the same way and went around cringing and apologizing for their power, thinking it a fluke.

Rather than their rightful inheritance, Tom thought, and smiled at Potter. “More than that, I think, Mr. Potter, from the way you nearly dropped it.”

Potter snorted. “If magic is real, then fine. I wish for you to go away.” He brandished the wand at Tom.

A fast flow of magic seized Tom around the middle and bore him back against the couch on the other side of the room. Tom went with it, he was so startled. He found himself in a sitting position before he could blink.

Across the room, Potter dropped his wand as if it was on fire and backed away from it, his eyes wide and his breathing unsteady.

Tom cleared his throat and adjusted the hang of his suit. He had to admit, he hadn’t expected that, but it might have done more good than hours of argument. Potter was trembling like a rabbit and staring at the wand, but when he lifted his eyes to Tom’s, they burned with the kind of excitement that Tom remembered seeing in himself.

Of course, Tom had expected him to be powerful, but there was the fact that he had achieved that kind of result with Tom’s wand…

Later, Tom told himself, and raised his eyebrows at Potter. “Beginning to believe me now?”

Potter nodded to the wand. “You pick it up and do some magic. You could have pretended to go along with going away because you knew I didn’t believe you.”

Tom clucked his tongue as he walked forwards and picked up his wand, and ignored the spark of gladness that leaped through him at having it reunited with him. “You are indeed, suspicious, aren’t you, Mr. Potter?”

“Oh, yeah, everyone tells me that all the time.”

Tom raised curious brows before he realized what Potter likely meant. From the mulish look on the boy’s face, his relatives, and other people, had probably spread tales about him being a criminal or involved in adjacent activities.

Tom simply nodded and said, “Well, then I will perform a bit of magic I don’t think you can take as a joke.” He pointed his wand at the low table in the middle of the drawing room and wordlessly Transfigured it into a lion.

Potter’s eyes were as wide as the lion’s when Tom glanced at him. Tom studied him for a second, and said quietly, “I did not Transfigure it to eat you.”

Potter nodded, then glanced away, his jaw hard as glass. Tom knew that perhaps it was unnerving for Potter to have Tom anticipate his responses so well, but this boy was much like Tom had once been, despite living with his blood family.

And there was the matter of his ability to perform a powerful Banishment Charm with Tom’s wand.

Again, though, that would have to wait. Tom Transfigured the lion back into a table despite his temptation to let it claw at the Dursleys’ furniture. “And so you believe me now when I say that you’ve been invited to a magical school, Mr. Potter?”

“But why? It’s not like my marks are the best.”

“All magical children receive training in a magical school,” Tom said patiently. “However, there are two for Britain. Hogwarts, which is the school your parents attended, and Fortius Academy, my school, which I hope you’ll attend.”

“Let’s pretend for a second that I have the money to do either. Why should I go to yours?”

Tom blinked again, then sighed. It was his own fault for forgetting how little Potter knew. “Let us sit down, Harry. Please,” he added, when he saw the way the young man stared at him.

After a grudging moment, Harry nodded and did as he asked, perching on the edge of a chair as if he didn’t get to sit there very often. Intense green eyes watched Tom from beneath a mop of shaggy black hair that would have marked him as a Potter to any magical person with eyes. In fact, Tom would be surprised if Lucius didn’t have spies watching the house.

Not that there had been any today, but they might still come by on a regular basis.

“You know nothing of the truth about how your parents died,” Tom checked.

“No. It wasn’t a car crash.”

The boy was trying to sound firm, but his voice wavered. Tom shook his head anyway. “No,” he said. “It wasn’t. There is a certain amount of prejudice in our world, Harry—”

“What a surprise.”

Tom found himself appreciating the boy’s sense of humor, but he did raise his eyebrows this time, and Harry subsided. “Thank you. Now, we call non-magical people like your relatives Muggles. I’m sure you’ve discovered throughout your ten years in this world that some people are polite, some discourteous, some treat you roughly and some kindly.”

“Not much of that last,” Harry muttered, but he nodded.

“Well, there are magical people who can have Muggle parents. The causes of that are disputed, but it happens on a regular basis. They are called Muggleborns in our world. When they enter that world, they face people who grew up there, and some of those people hate them for coming from outside the magical world.”

Harry nodded. “And my mum—she must have been Muggleborn, right? If I’m really related to the Dursleys.”

A note of doubt had crept into his voice. Tom did his best to smile reassuringly. “You are. Don’t doubt that.”

“Wish I could.” Harry folded his arms and looked unhappy.

“Your relatives cannot prevent you from going to a magical school, and they lied about your parents’ deaths,” Tom continued. He would have to address Harry’s resentment towards Muggles at some point, but it didn’t have to be right now. “Your father, James Potter, was what is called a pureblood, a magical person born from a long magical lineage.”

“And one of the people who are usually prejudiced gits?”

“The prejudice was not as bad in his time as it is now,” Tom said. “At least, when he attended Hogwarts. He and your mother fell in love. They married, and had you. But there were people who had tried to persuade your father to marry a pureblood instead, and people who resented your mother for rejecting—let us say, offers they’d made her. Still others who resented her for being more brilliant and more magically powerful than several purebloods combined, which undermined the lies they were trying to spread about only purebloods having powerful magic.

“I am sorry, Harry, but your parents were murdered for loving and marrying each other, for having a half-blood child. They were brought down in a magical rite referred to as a Sacred Hunt.” Tom hesitated, but the wideness of Harry’s eyes urged him on. “A literal hunt, in which the magic of the victims is harvested for the benefit of the killers. They were butchered like deer.”

Perhaps I didn’t have to that blunt, Tom thought, as he watched Harry make a wounded noise and bend over as if someone had punched him in the chest. Tom hesitated, then stood up and walked over to put a hand on Harry’s shoulder.

“Did they go to prison?” Harry whispered. “The ones who did this?”

Tom shook his head. “I’m sorry, but they didn’t. It was known to the people who found the remains afterwards what had happened, but there was supposedly no sign of the criminals, and the Sacred Hunt isn’t technically illegal as long as at least one of the victims is Muggleborn.”

Harry said nothing for long seconds. Tom chided himself again for saying it like that. He did believe that Harry deserved the truth, and most of the other professors he had sent would have softened it too much, but there had to be a middle path—

Then Harry snapped his head up. “I hate them,” he said.

“The ones who murdered your parents?”

Harry nodded, his eyes fierce and burning harder now than when he’d talked about the Muggles he lived with. “And purebloods. I want them to suffer. I want to take everything away from them and laugh about it.” He gripped his knees as if they were wands and then asked abruptly, “How did I survive?”

“Your mother created a sacrificial magical protection that depended on her being—killed in exactly the way it happened,” Tom said. “Two of your parents’ friends found you under that ward after the Hunt was done. The killers had departed, but probably intended to come back for you later.” He hesitated again.

“Tell me, Riddle. Tell me everything.”

Tom nodded. There might have been a chance of a middle path, but now he had to live with the decision he’d made. “You don’t have to worry about your parents’ killers not suffering, or getting away with what they did. Your parents’ friends delivered you to someone whom they thought would protect you, and then they tracked down the killers and slaughtered them.”

Harry’s mouth dropped open a little. Then he said, “Who—who was the person they gave me to? And what happened to my parents’ friends? Who were they? Where are they now?”

“The person they gave you to was Albus Dumbledore, then then-Headmaster of Hogwarts,” Tom said quietly. “He, unfortunately, was a reformer who thought that a civil war would be the worst of all possible outcomes, and tried to pacify the purebloods as much as possible. It’s one reason that Hogwarts is now overrun with their lies, although Dumbledore is no longer in the Headmaster’s position. He saw you as an innocent victim—which you were, of course—and also as a possible means of reconciliation between the two sides, if the scale was, ah, balanced by your parents’ deaths and then the deaths of their killers. He publicized what had happened, and then he delivered you to the Minister for Magic.”

“I don’t have any Potter relatives?”

Tom shook his head. “Not in the immediate family, and once you were in the Minister’s hands, he successfully kept you away from some of the people who might have been able to claim you on the basis of more distant kinship. Besides, well, your guardian was to have been one of your parents’ friends, and he—was unavailable.”

“They’re dead, aren’t they? For what they did.”

“Actually, no,” Tom said, and was pleased with the nature of his news, despite the awfulness of it, when Harry’s eyes lit up again. “The man who was supposed to have become your guardian, Sirius Black, is a pureblood, albeit one who had rejected everything his family taught him. By their own laws, they were forbidden to imprison him or kill him. They ordered his house arrest, however, and so he hasn’t been seen in public for ten years. The chance that he will be able to leave or escape is extremely unlikely.”

Harry swallowed and nodded. “And the other one?”

“His name is Remus Lupin. A half-blood, so, yes, they would have killed him. But he—well, werewolves are real in our world, Harry. Three nights after your parents’ deaths was a full moon. Lupin transformed and unleashed himself on the purebloods. He had never done anything like that before, from the information I was able to gather. He had been too afraid to do so, one of the rare werewolves who didn’t grow up around others of their kind and thus tried to reject instead of embrace the wolf. But he came out of that night having embraced it. That was clear enough in his eyes when the photographs of him taken after that slaughter came out.”

“They captured him? Then why is he free?”

Tom shook his head. “He showed himself long enough to promise that if harm came to you or Black, he would find a way to bite a child from every pureblood family in Britain. They believed him. It’s a rare werewolf who’s been trained as a wizard, and because of his magic, once he embraced the wolf, he could transform at any time, not just the full moon. He made himself into the demon of their worst nightmares. So the Minister for Magic brought you here, and told people you were being raised by blood kin. Which,” Tom drawled, “is technically true.”

Harry sat still for long moments. Then he asked, “Where is Lupin now?”

“Abroad,” Tom said. “At least, I think so. I know they haven’t captured him, despite years of searching, and I believe they would have if he was still in Britain. And if he had been in the country, he probably would have known that you were being abused here.”

Harry opened his mouth, then closed it. Tom watched him, his understanding of Harry’s struggle aching in him. Harry wanted to deny being abused, but at the same time, he thought doing so would convince Tom to leave him here.

“I want to go to your school,” Harry finally said, in a small voice. “But I still don’t know how I’m going to afford it.”

“The Potters had money, like many pureblood families,” Tom said gently. “You’re the last member of that lineage, Harry. You can use that money to pay for any school you want. I’ll take you to Diagon Alley myself.”

“Diagon Alley?”

“The primary wizarding district of shops and the like. In London.”

Harry bit his lip and nodded. Then he said, “Does it—I mean, I feel better knowing that—” He looked at the floor. “I still want to punish people. Does that make me a bad person?”

“No,” Tom said. “Believe me, Harry, I understand exactly what you are talking about.”

Harry looked up at him, and his eyes had changed again. There was a look in them that made Tom suspect he was seeing the boy who had pitted himself against his relatives to survive their abuse, to deal with it.

“That’s part of the purpose of your school, isn’t it?” Harry whispered. “So we can punish the bad people?”

“It is,” Tom said. “But I must emphasize, Harry, that I get along by pretending to accept magically weak students and students no one cares about. They would care about you if they knew I was here. You must not show your magical strength in public, outside the grounds of the school.”

Harry nodded, but he looked worried now. “If they would care about you visiting me, then how are we going to keep them away after you leave?”

We. Tom savored the word, and held out his hand.

“I never intended to leave you here,” he said. “Mr. Potter, would you consent to a kidnapping to the grounds of Fortius Academy?”

Harry laughed, a sound that Tom suspected he had made all too seldom in his life, and took Tom’s hand.

Yes, Tom exulted privately.

Chapter Text

“I grant you indulgences, Severus, but I cannot tolerate failure.”

Lucius watched with distant amusement as Severus Snape bowed his head in front of him. There had been a time when the man had thought himself as good as any pureblood. And he did have power, enough to be an asset.

But he had nothing else—no bloodlines, or wealth, or beauty—and he had been devoted to that Mudblood who had married Potter. Lucius had briefly thought that Severus might try to get “revenge” on the people who had killed her in the Sacred Hunt, but then Black and Lupin had slaughtered them, taking Severus’s vengeance away from him. He had said, when Lucius had asked him, that his focus had now switched to Lupin and Black, that he hated them for completing the slaughter that should have been his. And Lucius, a powerful Legilimens, had detected no lies.

As if I would have allowed a half-blood to kill purebloods. But it was useful to let Severus believe the fiction.

And it made it natural to put Severus to work on the potion that would eventually poison werewolves through the air that breathed. That he had not succeeded was of no importance. It kept a leash on a potentially dangerous man and let Lucius attend to other matters.

“I will try to do better, sir,” Severus murmured.

“See that you do.” Lucius sat back and stretched a little. The Minister’s position suited him just fine, but the chair was confining at moments. He had kept it, however, because it was an important continuity link between the past and the present, as the magical world adjusted to purebloods’ dominion. “Dismissed for the day. Return to Hogwarts and prepare for the upcoming school year. Draco will be attending this year, you know, and I expect him to be under your special protection.”

“Of course.” Severus smiled. Well, Lucius found it difficult not to smile at the thought of his son, too. “Thank you, sir.” He turned and left without another word.

At least Severus is efficient. Lucius wished he could say that for half of the purebloods who surrounded him.

Then again, purebloods were not meant to be servitors. The Ministry was still working to achieve the delicate balance needed between allowing some half-bloods into the magical world, as well as those whose status was more ambiguous, like the children of half-bloods and Mudbloods, or those who didn’t have the good sense to hide their creature lineage, and the need to keep them in their place.

Truly, Lucius didn’t expect to see the end of that work, unless his idle preparations for immortality worked out. Perhaps in his son’s lifetime.

He left his office and moved down the corridor, acknowledging the nods, bows, and kneeling of those he passed, according to their blood status. Useful customs, bowing and kneeling. They signaled everyone’s awareness of proper subservience while also preserving useful lives so that Lucius did not have to duel or execute someone on the spot.

Good thing, that. Lucius found dueling dreadfully boring. He always knew the outcome.

When he reached the private lift that would take him directly to the Department of Mysteries, he then had to wait while the Aurors inspected it. Lucius held back his yawn without difficulty. Yes, it bored him, but there had been an assassination attempt last week, and that always made the poor dears so anxious.

As he got into the lift, Lucius remembered something else, and glanced to the left. Yes, the blood left from the assassin’s decapitation had been cleaned.

When he arrived in the Department of Mysteries, Lachesis Burke, Head Unspeakable, was waiting for him. She was a calm, tall woman with eyes that flickered and turned slowly through many colors, a side-effect of an enchantment gone wrong that she’d been caught in a decade ago. Since the other side-effects of that blast were extraordinarily useful, Lucius had refused all the calls to have her dismissed.

“Minister,” she said, with a deep nod.

“Burke.” Lucius fell in step beside her as they proceeded down the sleek black corridor into the Department of Mysteries. “You haven’t found the Potter child, then.”

“No, sir. I’m sorry.”

Burke spoke the words without any variation in her breathing or tone, as usual, but that was part of the price he paid to have as complete control of her as he did. Lucius shrugged. “You will keep searching.”

“Yes, sir.”

The corridor bent sharply in front of them and then deposited them into a large, circular space fringed with blue instead of black stone, the way the rest of the Department of Mysteries was. Lucius considered the large hovering black artifact in front of him. It was egg-shaped, but the skin, if one touched it, was cool, and the leathery texture of a dragon’s egg instead of a bird’s. And so far, the Department of Mysteries had not figured out how to open it.

“A demonstration, Burke?”

“Yes, sir.” Burke stepped away to the side and spoke softly to one of the hooded Unspeakables waiting for them, who nodded and departed the room. Lucius passed the time until the return of the man and the resumption of the demonstration by considering the swirl of silver power holding the device up. That swirl traveled with the artifact when it was moved. Nothing they had found could disrupt it, just as nothing could damage the skin of the egg.

They need not be able to understand it completely, however, to use it.

The Unspeakable came back into the room with the Muggle prisoner a few minutes later. The blank eyes and the steady walk spoke of the Imperius Curse. Lucius nodded, and the Unspeakable pointed their wand and spoke a Finite.

The man’s calm dissolved immediately, and he began to scream. Burke turned and floated him into position next to the egg.

Lucius, as always when he was this close to a Muggle, studied the prisoner’s ragged beard and the heaviness of the jaw, and nodded. Yes, once one began to look for it, the signs were undeniable. These creatures were not even the same species as wizards. Less refined. Closer to the ape.

His researchers were still working to crack the secret of Mudbloods. Did they steal magic in the womb from pureblood children, who were then born as Squibs? Did their parents perform some sort of ritual accidentally? Did the shared common ancestor that purebloods and Muggles must have had millions of years in the past occasionally manifest in a throwback?

They were serious academic questions, and Lucius did hope that he lived to see them resolved.

The Unspeakable who had brought the prisoner stepped back out of the way, and Burke cast a simple Blasting Curse at the egg.

The swirl of silver power beneath it darkened, and the darkness coursed up into the egg, although the egg’s skin was so black that the disturbance was visible only as a ripple traveling across a still pond would be. Then the egg sparkled, crackled, and snapped a silent, invisible charge of power at the floating, screaming Muggle.

The Unspeakables didn’t need to step back because they were already in position for the sprayed blood to miss them. Lucius wiped a drop of it off his cheek and sighed with annoyance.

“I’m sorry, sir.”

Lucius shook his head. “It’s my fault, Madam Burke. I should have stood further back.” He studied the charred body of the Muggle, now only a collection of blackened bones that might have excited no notice if they were found next to a campfire. No, again the egg had been too quick. He had missed the moment when the floating essence of the Muggle, the distilled dirt that distinguished them from purebloods and other humans, had been removed from the body.

“Continue your experiments,” he told Burke. “The egg will be useful if we can but harness its power more reliably.”

“Yes, sir.”

She accompanied him back to the lift, and Lucius traveled up by himself, silently pondering as he went. The disappearance of the Potter child from his Muggle relatives’ home didn’t greatly concern him, but it was annoying. If someone had taken the boy to harvest him, then Lucius should have been told. If he had wandered away, he should have been easily found.

Lucius suspected magic was involved, but there were few purebloods who would act against his orders, and no half-bloods powerful enough—either magically or socially—to do so. And Mudbloods didn’t even muster a resistance. They were taught the absolute basics they needed to be, at either Hogwarts or the so-called Fortius Academy, and then expelled back into the Muggle world.

Lucius sighed. It was probably a sign that Remus Lupin had returned to Britain, and that meant that he would have to urge Severus to proceed faster in his work on the werewolf poison. Genius couldn’t be rushed, but Severus’s was clouded by the chaotic emotions and dirty blood that had come from his Muggle father. The man would have to find some way to make it work.

The lift opened, and Lucius stepped out and smiled at his wife. “Ready for lunch, dear?”

“Yes. I think we could try that little place in Classic Alley, the Crystal Swan?” Smiling, Narcissa linked her arm with his. “I heard that they have a ward that can reliably distinguish purebloods from Mudbloods, and which mutes half-bloods when they pass through it, so we shouldn’t be troubled.”

Laughing, Lucius kissed his wife. It had proven annoyingly difficult to separate the categories of wizards and witches based on blood, even though Lucius knew their blood was different. Apparently the magic needed to bind to small particles which they hadn’t yet discovered through their research.

“The Crystal Swan sounds wonderful, dear. Lead on.”

*

Severus Snape moved through Diagon Alley, his steps long and his head slightly bowed. It was the best way for a half-blood to move around pureblood-controlled areas, he’d found, as if he was apologizing for existence.

And it worked. So many gazes slid straight past the bowed head and, where it was required, the flare of the green aura around him that marked his blood status, that they never noticed the hatred and the rage burning in his eyes.

Yes, Black and Lupin had been foolish, and Severus would have let Black fall into a pit if one had opened at his feet with the man dangling over it while clinging to a branch. But he hated the pureblood society that had slaughtered Lily more.

It had begun to smother her spirit when they were still students at Hogwarts. Severus had seen it long before that moment in fifth year when he had foolishly thought that repudiating her friendship would grant him higher status in Slytherin House. Lily’s laughter had faltered, her smiles had slowed, and she had begun to keep her opinions to herself more and more, refusing even to answer questions in class. That was utterly unlike the Lily he knew.

Perhaps her falling in love with Potter shouldn’t have come as such a surprise to Severus. After all, Potter was a man who had openly and arrogantly set himself against the pureblood supremacists. He was someone who could be counted on to shelter a Muggleborn, to hold out a hand to her that might be condescending but wouldn’t be deadly.

Severus paused to dodge a pack of children who were already learning to own the streets.

And Potter had been proclaiming his love for Lily for years, of course. That it had turned out to be true was not the most surprising thing in Severus’s life.

Severus let one hand rest for a moment against the front of his robes, and then took it away. His experimental draught rested there, the one he spent far more time working on than the anti-werewolf potion, and he sometimes dreamed of taking it out and unleashing it in the middle of the alley or some other crowded magical enclave.

Then they would scream, the entitled purebloods.

But he forced himself to pull his hand away from it. In the days when he had been foolish enough to believe propaganda that claimed there were differences between the types of magical blood, he had tried to create a potion that would attune itself to pure blood alone. But he knew now that one could not distinguish the blood of a pureblood from a Muggleborn, or, often, their magic. So he had created a potion that would home in on certain patterns of thought.

But there was still too much chance that he would release it in public and accidentally catch some half-bloods and Muggleborns who had been convinced to accept the purebloods’ beliefs about them.

So. He would wait.

He turned the corner to proceed to the Apparition point, and found himself rocking to a stop. An older man in a neat suit was walking past him, but although he was dressed as a Muggle, that wasn’t so unusual. Muggle parents were still allowed in Diagon Alley, a convenient center point to place spells within their minds that would keep them charmed and compliant no matter what happened to their children.

No, it was the green-eyed boy at his side who had caught Severus’s attention.

Severus would know those eyes if he only saw them for a moment on a crowded train. He found himself slowing down, but the man in the neat Muggle suit turned his head a little. Severus restrained himself to a look of contempt such as the man and boy would probably be well-used to receiving, and turned on his heel.

But inside his head, the drumbeat of his heart played an awful syncopation.

He stopped as if compelled to examine the inferior wares in the window of Dashing’s Apothecary and watched out of the corner of his eye as the man and the boy stepped into Ollivander’s. Damn it. Severus couldn’t muster an excuse to linger long enough in the Alley for the length of time it would take them to come back out. There were telltales here who would carry the word to Lucius if he did, and Severus could not afford to draw attention.

But if the boy, Lily’s son, had come from the Muggle world…

That suggested that Lucius had placed him with his Muggle relatives, indeed, as Severus had suspected but not dared to ask about.

The man with him could not be Petunia’s husband. Not enough glaring and stomping and muttering about “freaks.”

Severus still had contacts, and people who owed him favors, and those who would not have lived but for his skill in Potions. He would make sure that Lily’s son was not suffering under the hand of whoever this was.

*

“Wow!”

The word burst out of Harry despite how childish he knew it made him sound. He turned bright red a minute later, but Riddle only chuckled, and so did the strange man who came out of the back of the shop.

“Oh, yes, Mr. Potter, a pleasure to see you.” The man drew out a measuring tape and wrapped it around the air, and it flew over and began to measure Harry on its own. “And Mr. Riddle, I remember you. Thirteen inches. Yew.” He opened his mouth as if to say more, but the heavy look from Riddle made him shut it.

Strange, Harry thought as he blinked when the tape flew past his nose. He’s the Headmaster at a school that’s pretty despised. I wonder why Mr. Ollivander gives him respect enough to shut up when Riddle just looks at him?

It was something that Harry had to keep to himself for now, even as the tape snapped itself shut and flew back to Ollivander, but he resolved to remember it. Now that he was away from the Dursleys, in the middle of a world that had killed his parents, he had to be alert every second, and he was the only one he would ultimately trust to protect himself. Trust in Riddle was a long way away.

Even if Harry had let Riddle kidnap him, that was more about how awful it was at Number Four than because he trusted the man.

“I think, Mr. Potter,” Ollivander chattered as he reached for a box and took a wand out, “we’ll have a search to find one for you. Now, try this—beechwood, heartstring from a dragon—”

Harry started to reach out for it, but Riddle shifted, and both Harry and Ollivander glanced at him and blinked. For some reason, Riddle’s face was shuttered.

“No,” he said. “He’ll need whichever one you made that has a phoenix feather the most similar to mine, Garrick.”

“He hasn’t even tried one yet,” Ollivander began, sounding as annoyed as Aunt Petunia did when Harry asked for food. “How can you know—”

“He used my wand effortlessly,” Riddle said. “It’s likely that we’ll have brother wands, and you know it. That’s why I brought him here instead of to the shops where the other Muggleborns and half-bloods who attend my school get their wands. Come on, Garrick. Fetch it, wherever it is.”

Harry found himself grinning in a silly way as Ollivander went into the back of the shop. Riddle glanced at him. “I suppose you think I’m high-handed now, but I am only trying to save time. You’ll find out that it’s something I value.”

There was a warning in his tone, but Harry shook his head. “It’s just, this is the first time I can remember that someone was happy about sharing something with me. Aunt Petunia gets so upset whenever someone reminds her that I’m her nephew.”

Riddle stared at him hard, but didn’t say anything before Ollivander came back with another box. When he opened it, Harry caught his breath. This time, he wasn’t going to deny the magic. There really was a warm thrum coming from the wand, and it reached towards him and surrounded him.

The wand was actually bouncing up and down in the box like an eager child. Harry didn’t recognize the wood, but he didn’t care, at the moment. He reached out and scooped the wand up, and the warmth hit his hand.

Harry closed his eyes. Yes, this was his wand.

“Holly and phoenix feather,” Ollivander was saying, in what sounded like a happy voice. “Unusual combination, never thought I would find—well, Mr. Potter, give it a wave!”

Harry started and popped his eyes open. He was surprised that the others couldn’t sense it, but apparently they really couldn’t.

He thought about flinging Ollivander across the wand shop, just because it would echo what he’d done to Riddle, but the man had done nothing to him, and it seemed silly to have his first two demonstrations of magic be the same. Instead, Harry focused on the boxes around him and said, “Fly!” as he gave his wand a sharp swish.

The wand boxes all leaped off the shelves, and the ones that Ollivander had already brought out leaped off his counter. Harry laughed as they danced all around the shop, dipping up and down as if they were supported by invisible wings. He spun in circles, and the boxes echoed him, their spirals getting tighter until they settled back where they’d been.

He turned back to Ollivander and took some pleasure in how open-mouthed he was. Then he nodded and began to talk about Harry’s parents, and how skilled they’d been at Charms and Transfiguration. Harry nodded, and listened.

But he had to admit that more than half of his attention was on Riddle, and the man’s fierce grin.

It really was a change, to have an adult be proud of him.

But a nice one.

*

“And this is the wand shop that we’re supposed to go to? It’s just, in the books I read they only talked about Ollivander’s…”

“I know,” said Professor Johnson, putting a hand on Hermione’s shoulder for a second. “But Muggleborns aren’t allowed in Ollivander’s shop anymore, and half-bloods only on sufferance. It’s best that we come here.”

Hermione bit her lip and felt a hot surge of defiance in the center of her chest. “But Headmaster Riddle is working to change that, right?”

“Yes, he is,” said Professor Johnson, and smiled fiercely at her as they entered the nameless little shop off the street in Paris that Professor Johnson had Apparated them to. (Hermione had been dismayed to find out that she hated Apparition). “And I am. You are. We’re all part of that.”

Hermione wasn’t sure she was part of that when she wasn’t even a first-year student yet, but she kept silent. It wasn’t hard to do that when she was in Professor Nora Johnson’s company. She was as tall as Professor Riddle and as imposing, her skin a few shades darker than Hermione’s own, her dark hair meticulously braided and bound around her head, so that she was wearing what looked like a crown. Even after she had told Hermione a little about herself—how she’d been the only one with magic in her family until her little cousin Angelina had flown a teakettle over to herself when she had a broken leg, for example—Hermione was still a bit shy around her.

“Professor Johnson, welcome.” The voice came out of the shadows at the back of the shop, and a white woman stepped out who wore shimmering silver robes and had silver hair that cascaded around her shoulders and down her back. Hermione blinked. She thought the hair actually trailed off into the darkness like a wedding dress’s train. “And a new student. What is your name, young blood?”

Well, that’s unnerving, Hermione thought, but she managed to meet the woman’s electric blue eyes and say, “Um, Hermione Granger. Um, madam.”

“Hermione, young blood,” said the woman, and nodded several times, and then reached behind her and came out with huge, long wooden boxes in her hands which seemed far heavier than she should have been able to hold. But she lifted them without difficulty and put them down on the long white counter that curved through half the shop. “You will tell me which of these feels stronger to you.”

“How do I do that?” Hermione hated feeling so lost. She glanced at Professor Johnson.

“Pass your hand over them,” the professor murmured. “You’ll feel a tug towards one or the other.”

Still a little unnerved, Hermione stepped close to the strange woman and extended her hand. Nothing happened for long enough that she started to worry. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to attend a magical school after all.

But then her hand jerked sharply to the left, and the woman nodded and slid the right-hand box back into the shadows with a long shove. Hermione listened, but there was no clatter of the thing falling to the ground. Instead, the woman turned the left box around and touched her hand to the top.

A series of white stars blossomed down the top of it like scars in the wood. “Again,” the woman said.

Hermione swung her hand back and forth, and this time it was faster. Her wrist oscillated towards a star about two-thirds of the way up the box. The woman nodded and made that one vanish, and the stars rearranged themselves, coming closer together now.

“Again.”

And Hermione did it again, and again, and each time, the space between the stars shrank. And at last her hand drifted down gently onto a star near the middle of the box, and the woman closed her eyes and sighed.

“Ah, this wand has been looking for a match, long and long,” the woman whispered, swaying back and forth in what was almost like a dance in place. “It will be happy, and you will be happy, and the air shall rejoice…”

This was all a little mystical for Hermione, who looked at Professor Johnson uncertainly But the professor appeared calm, so Hermione tried to be the same way. Besides, her books had seemed as if stranger things happened all the time in the magical world.

The woman held out her hands, and a wand formed in the air right over them. It was as if the shadows and light from the woman’s silver hair spun themselves together and made a cocoon, and then the cocoon split and there was a wand there. The wood was shiny enough that Hermione blinked, and Professor Johnson made a soft sound behind her.

“What is it?” Hermione asked, even as she reached towards the wand. It pulled her hand more powerfully than any of the boxes or stars had.

“It’s yew, that’s all,” Professor Johnson said. “The same wood that Professor Riddle’s wand is made of. It’s not common.”

Hermione had a conflicted moment to feel pleasure at that, and then the wand touched her palm.

Air whistled around her, and Hermione found herself plunged into a memory of a hot day when her parents had taken her to London and they’d been walking for what felt like miles, and then stepped into the cool of a shop to get an ice. This was the same feeling, cold like a blessing, like a fever breaking. Hermione waved the wand, the way it was whispering at her it wanted to be waved.

The air quivered and split, and a pink light like the kind that used to shine from a lamp Hermione had had as a little girl came forth. Hermione beamed, and the woman crooned, and Professor Johnson clapped her hands.

“Feather of an Abraxan in the core,” said the woman. “Handle it well, young blood. Use it wisely.” She paused. “Seventeen of your Sickles.”

Hermione blinked. “I thought the gold coins were called Galleons?”

“I only accept silver,” said the woman, in the kind of tone that Hermione knew not to question.

She nodded and got a handful of the silver coins out that Professor Johnson had helped her exchange when they first landed in Paris. Her hands were shaking so hard with excitement that it was hard to measure out the correct amount at first.

It was really happening. She was really a witch.

*

There was no warning, no tremble of the wards or the innumerable protective spells that Severus had set up around his quarters. He simply turned and there was a man behind him, standing with his back to the door that led into Severus’s bedroom.

Severus’s wand leaped into his hand. The man raised an eyebrow and…

Dropped his shields.

The surge of magical power through the air drove Severus to his knees, as he would have fallen if confronted by a mighty wave. And that wave was hanging over him now, ready to crush him more than drown him. Severus knew that, and he fought to hide his expression, his fear. He would have preferred to die on his feet, and with purebloods screaming in front of him for preference, but he had had little enough to live for since Lily’s death.

The wave didn’t fall. Severus finally dared to look up and saw the man step away from the door.

And although he didn’t wear the Muggle suit now, Severus recognized him as the man he had seen in the alley earlier that day with Lily’s boy.

“How…” he breathed.

“Professor Severus Snape.” The man nodded to him. “I never approached you before now because I doubted, despite your power, that you would be an asset. Your private grief seemed to wrap you away from everything except the willing service you gave our beloved Minister.”

“Beloved,” Severus said, and the man smiled.

“My name is Headmaster Thomas Riddle,” he said, and of course Severus had heard of him. He simply couldn’t remember ever seeing him. And he had had no idea that this power could lurk inside anyone, no matter what their blood status. “Now, however, I have little choice but to take you into my service, given that you saw my newest student today.”

“You want me to teach at Fortius?”

“No. I want you to stay in your place, and feed me information instead of Malfoy. Pass to him the information I request that you pass. Teach the half-bloods who come through these halls to conceal their power and their pride, if you can, since some purebloods will still believe they are strong in the way they will not believe it of Muggleborns, and keep the secret of Harry Potter’s attendance at Fortius. In return, I will be pleased to let you participate in my vengeance in any fashion you wish.”

“You are going to…” Severus felt his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth in the way no curse could have plastered it. Riddle only watched him with dark eyes. Severus had to be the one to unstick his tongue and say, “You are going to bring about a revolution.”

“Yes.” Riddle gestured lazily, and an image of the wave that Severus had been envisioning appeared, towering over them both. Severus felt the dark power thrumming in it, and he knew he didn’t imagine it when Riddle’s eyes flashed red. “You pictured it as a wave? Most people do.”

“Those who know about it,” Severus dared to whisper.

“True enough. The purebloods don’t.” Riddle leaned towards him. “I will annihilate you if you betray me.”

“I will swear whatever oath you desire,” Severus said at once. He hadn’t been this impulsive since Lily’s death, but the thrum under his breastbone, like the touch of a hand on a new wand, promised to make up for everything. “As long as I know that you are going to crush them instead.”

Riddle flashed him a smile as dark and low as his voice. “It will be their tsunami.”

And when the power retreated enough that he could reach for his wand to cast his loyalty oath, Severus knew that no student who had claimed their wand that day, not even Harry Potter, could be more joyful than he was.

To ruin them.

It was all he desired.

Chapter Text

“I know you could have Apparated us, sir,” Harry shouted into Riddle’s robes as they soared over the walls of Fortius on the back of an apparently invisible demon winged horse. “Why did you decide to have us ride the thestral instead?”

“I wanted you to absorb the sight of Fortius from the air. Look down. If you are not too afraid, of course.”

After that, Harry would have looked down even if he was afraid, but he truly wasn’t. Being in the air on the back of something just felt natural to him. He wasn’t sure if he would have felt the same way if he’d ever ridden in an aeroplane, but at this point, that didn’t matter.

He looked down.

A heavy stone wall was passing beneath them, and so were the gates in that wall, which looked as if they were made of iron braided together. Harry would have thought they and the wall were just decorative, but when he really concentrated, he could see the subtle golden glow that ran around them and bound them together.

“What happens if someone hits that glow on the wall?” he yelled at Riddle.

Riddle chuckled in a way that promised absolutely no good for anybody who did that, and gestured ahead. Harry supposed that was an answer of sorts, and looked.

Before him sprawled what had looked like a blank landscape before they crossed the wall. Harry supposed that made sense. You wouldn’t want to have Muggles in balloons or something getting a glimpse of this place that had preserved space, incredibly, within the city of London.

There was a long path that might be made of glowing white stone which ran up the center of grassy grounds. It split off into lots of other paths, too, which led to various buildings of stone, brick, and more glowing white stuff that Harry supposed might be marble (not like he’d ever seen it before). Water was everywhere, too, gliding alongside the central path and the side paths and sitting around in pools. It looked cool and marvelous. Harry wondered if they taught you how to swim at Fortius. He hoped so.

There were all kinds of buildings: what looked like a garage for cars but probably wasn’t, a wide-open one with pillars that the wind could blow through and flat roofs, greenhouses, small sheds, one like a small castle that Harry wondered if people slept in, slender towers, blocky towers, and a huge round one that towered over everything else. Harry thought it should be in the center, but instead, it was on a hill to the left side of almost everything.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“I can’t see where you’re pointing, Harry,” said Riddle’s pleasant voice. “Describe it.”

Harry scowled. This was already becoming a thing. Riddle wanted him to describe things, and speak in complete sentences, and all this other nonsense. Besides, if Riddle knew he was pointing, he could probably tell the direction Harry was pointing, too.

“The big thing that looks like a church.”

“Nothing here has a steeple.”

Harry sighed as the thestral slanted over to the side and the big domed building came closer. “I mean, it looks like churches I saw on the telly sometimes. It has a huge round dome and it’s not reflecting the sun the way those do but those were made of gold, I think, and it has what look like giant doors on the side—”

“Take a breath, Harry.”

“You said I should speak in complete sentences.”

“I did not mean run-ons.”

“What does that even mean?”

Riddle laughed at him. Harry scowled some more. Riddle’s laughter didn’t feel the way that the laughter of other children in his primary school had, or the teachers who sometimes uneasily tried to laugh off what he knew now must be magic. But Harry still knew when someone was laughing from a position of superiority, and this was awfully like this.

“Run-on sentences are ones that do not have enough pauses in the middle of them.” Riddle touched what must be the thestral’s head and said something in a low murmur, and it flew further on towards the huge domed building. “You’ll learn some of the grammar in Professor Owens’s class.”

“Grammar?” Harry stared at Riddle’s back, but infuriatingly, he didn’t turn around or do anything other than chuckle. “I thought we were going to learn brilliant things here! Spells, and curses, and ways to hurt our enemies!”

“Bloodthirsty, aren’t you?”

“You would be, too, if you’d grown up with some Muggles like the Dursleys.”

“Oh, Harry,” said Riddle, his voice floating over Harry like cold mist. “I grew up with Muggles who were not like the Dursleys, but at least as bad. I understand the desire to torture, to curse, to punish. But your life cannot be based only on that. I am not training soldiers here. I am training revolutionaries.”

Harry blinked and kept still for a moment. They were almost to the domed building, and he thought that meant he was going to find out what it was, but his mind was busy with something else right now. “You—you think revolutionaries need to know grammar?”

“You think they don’t?” They aimed towards the dome, and then began to spiral down in a long motion that made Harry catch his breath. But not because it was scary, because it was brilliant. He’d never dreamed of something like this when he’d lived with the Dursleys.

Just yesterday. He and Riddle had spent the night in the Leaky Cauldron—a real wizarding pub—and Riddle had briefly left on some kind of errand, but Harry hadn’t minded that. He’d chatted with Tom, the old barkeep, and eaten his first Chocolate Frog and laughed at a ridiculous song that came out of the wireless.

A magical song. He was magical. It was still almost too much to absorb.

“You never answered my question.”

Harry started to reply, but the thestral landed then, and the jolt ran right up into his mouth and almost made him bite his tongue. Harry coughed as the thestral trotted across the grass and came to a stop in front of the domed building, and finally managed to answer. “Fine, I don’t know. Why do revolutionaries need to know grammar?”

“To pass among the purebloods when they need to.” Riddle glanced over his shoulder, smiling, and Harry leaped to the right conclusion.

“You’re training spies, too!” Harry bounced in place on the thestral, who snorted, and then felt bad about it and patted the thing that felt like a scaly wing nearest him. The thestral hopefully accepted the pat graciously.

“Yes. Among other things. And a revolution that is lasting will not only destroy, and curse, and burn. It needs people who understand the way society works, and can forge a new one out of the ashes.” Riddle tilted his head towards the domed building. “But for now, come and meet one of the beings who will help us forge it.”

*

Potter was silent from what seemed like awe as they approached the vast doors on the side of the building. Tom had no delusions that it would last, though. Potter’s mind was searching, and probing, and the kind that would reach into cracks and pry answers out of them—if the probing was encouraged.

Tom meant to encourage it, although of course not the kind that would undermine what they were trying to build here.

When they halted in front of the doors, Tom turned to Potter. “Why do you think this building is so large?”

“Well, at first I thought it was a church and you had religious services in it or something.” Potter’s eyes regarded him for a long moment before he turned around and stared at the doors again. They were ancient stone, although Potter seemed to appreciate their size more than anything. “But then I thought that doesn’t make sense. There’s no cross or star or anything.”

“Star?” Tom asked.

“Sometimes churches have a star.”

Tom nodded and put the thought aside for a moment. The boy might be misinterpreting Judaism for all he knew, or perhaps it was another thing he had seen on the Muggle telly. “In this case, it is because an important ally of our school lives here, and the building has to be large enough to accommodate her.”

“A giant?”

Tom smiled. “In a manner of speaking.” He turned to face the stone doors again. “Belasha, would you come forth?”

Potter jumped at the sound of the Parseltongue, but that was only to be expected. Tom just made sure that he had a tight grip on the boy’s shoulder so he wouldn’t bolt as the doors slid open with a low creaking sound. No expense or magic had been spared to make sure that they could move easily, and Belasha wouldn’t have to nudge them with her snout every time.

The basilisk slid into the open, turning her head back and forth slowly so that her green scales would blaze in the sunlight and the boy could admire her. Tom laughed and stepped forwards. “You vain thing.”

“Vain creatures win admiration.”

That much was certainly true, Tom thought as he scratched her head that she had lowered to him. Her mouth was big enough to swallow him in a single gulp, but he was well-used to her size by now. The sensitive area of scales around her small horns made her twist her head further to the side and flicker her tongue out.

“It’s—it’s huge.”

Tom glanced down to see that Potter was pressed against the back of his legs, peering around him. “She is a basilisk, Mr. Potter, and her name is Belasha. I am sure that she would prefer, as I do, that you address her by name and as a she.”

Potter’s throat bobbed as he stared at Belasha, while Belasha twisted her head to the side and rolled her coils to show off the small flecks of gold and red among the deep green. “I—you said something about basilisks yesterday. How come we aren’t dying or being turned to stone by her eyes?”

“Basilisks Petrify people, they don’t literally turn them to stone,” Tom corrected. Then again, Potter wasn’t doing badly for being in front of a giant snake for the first time in his life. Tom had had students run away, wet themselves, and faint. Potter’s eyes remained wide, but he seemed to think that there was no danger as long as Tom wasn’t running. Or maybe he had actually listened when Tom had identified Belasha as an ally of the school. “And Belasha was wise enough to agree to an enchantment that gave her full control of the power of her gaze. Before, she could not look into someone’s eyes without doing as you say, Petrifying or killing depending on how direct the meeting of her eyes was. Now, she can choose to do so, even when she’s roaming the grounds of the school at night.”

“Um. Does she do it to people who are—annoying?”

It was something that Tom let some particularly mischievous students of the school believe, hut he suspected Potter was asking out of wariness that could become terror. He had known pain and the edge of hatred in his aunt’s household. Tom must not allow it to develop too much. “No. Only to enemies of our school, and those she collects as prey.”

“The child is pretty, Tom. His eyes are almost the shade of green of my scales.”

“I’m sure he’ll be flattered to hear it.”

“Um. What’s that you’re speaking?”

“Parseltongue. The language of snakes.” Tom considered Potter, and found that he had locked his hands behind his back, the better not to show them trembling, probably. Perhaps that was enough interaction with a basilisk for right now. “Have you finished eating that Nundu, Belasha?”

“No. And it was challenging to kill, too. You are finally becoming a proper caretaker.” Belasha rolled one more coil, in case Potter hadn’t had enough to admire yet, and then turned and slithered back into her lair. The doors slid shut behind her.

“Wow,” Potter sighed, sounding awed enough that Tom had to keep his lips from twitching.. “She’s brilliant. But there’s one thing I don’t understand?”

“Yes?” Tom asked encouragingly as he turned away from the building. The thestral mare had already trotted away to rejoin her herd. From here, it was certainly easy enough for Tom and Harry to reach the sleeping quarters, and Tom thought that part of Fortius better shown-off from a ground perspective, anyway.

“If the grounds are invisible to anyone outside the school, why do you need Belasha to roam around and Petrify people?”

Tom smiled. It was a properly paranoid question, the kind of thing he might ask himself. “Because there are people who can break past the magic to enter, Mr. Potter. Some of the purebloods are less convinced than others that I am the harmless half-blood acquiescing to their power that I pretend to be, and they have tried to enter the school grounds before.”

“What’s ackwesing mean?”

“Acquiescing,” Tom corrected as they rounded the corner of Belasha’s quarters, and pretended that he didn’t see the way Potter rolled his eyes. He would have had little independence and ability to ask his own questions with his relatives. Tom didn’t want to quash those qualities now. On the other hand, Potter’s attendance at grammar and elocution classes had become more urgent than ever. “It means bowing down to. Agreeing.”

“Those are different things.”

Tom raised an eyebrow. “Not the way I mean them.”

He looked from the corner of his eye to find Potter regarding him with a skeptical look. But then his jaw dropped again the way it had when he saw Belasha, and Tom turned to see what had prompted this.

Nothing, apparently, but the full view of Fortius. Potter was staring at the pool of water that spread out long, rilling fingers of creeks along the paths, and the bridges that—ah, that floated in the air, their ends a few inches above either bank. That would be remarkable to a child who was essentially Muggleborn, of course. Tom reminded himself again not to be led by the kinship between their wands and their similar childhoods into thinking that Potter was exactly like him.

“Um. Wouldn’t it be simpler to just have the bridges go from one bank to another?”

“Simpler, but we can use magic. Why wouldn’t we?”

Potter’s shoulders went back at that, and he took what sounded like a deep, cleansing breath. “Yeah. And we have just as much of a right to magic as the haughtiest purebloods, don’t we?”

“We do.” Tom smiled at him. “More, in fact, because we aren’t wasting all our money on research that attempts to prove Muggles and Muggleborns aren’t human.”

“What?”

I timed that revelation well, Tom thought as he watched the indignation run through Potter and his magic flare out around him. The air around him stained with red and blue until it glowed like stained glass. Potter turned to face him and folded his arms.

“How can you let them get away with that?”

“I lack the political power as yet to stop them. And if I had shown my magical power forth to convince them, then someone would have attempted to gain control of me. There are spells and potions that can control people, Mr. Potter. Control their minds, their actions, their bodies, or simply hurt them if they disobey.”

Potter narrowed his eyes instead of looking sick the way Tom had thought he might. “And things weren’t so bad when you were younger, right?”

Tom nodded as he escorted Potter over one of the floating bridges, a graceful arch of white wood that Potter touched with wondering fingertips. “Correct. Now, any powerful half-blood is seized and subjected to control and indoctrination—”

“What?”

“Brainwashing. To convince him or her that the purebloods are right, and they should apologize for their own ‘dirty’ Muggle or Muggleborn parent.”

Potter stopped walking, and Tom turned to face him. They were nearly to the other side of the stream, and Tom had wanted to see the look on Potter’s face when he saw around the corner of the teachers’ quarters. But he supposed that the betrayal in the wide green eyes was its own reward.

“But no one would be stupid enough to fall for that.”

Tom let his expression smooth out as he leaned an elbow on the side of the bridge. “Do you really think that, Harry? Didn’t you ever believe what your relatives said about you, if only a little?”

Harry shivered. (Tom supposed that he should give up and allow himself to call the boy by his first name when they were not in class). “I—this isn’t about me. It’s about other people who’re better than me.”

Tom leaned forwards, and waited longer than he’d thought he’d have to until Harry raised his eyes back to Tom’s face. “Listen to me,” Tom said softly. “You are stronger than you know.”

“I slept in a cupboard. I let them make me sleep in a cupboard. If I have all this magic, why didn’t I just throw them across the room and claim what was mine?”

Ah, here’s the crisis of confidence. It had, admittedly, taken longer than Tom had thought it would. He squeezed one of Harry’s hands and said, “Because you didn’t know that magic was real. And one reason we call it accidental magic before children get their wands is because it happens in bursts of potential, without conscious direction.” He left aside his own experiments in magic at a young age. Harry was a different person than Tom had been, even given everything. “You might have tried to throw your relatives across the room and only ended up turning their hair green, or something similar. Accidental magic is often more frightening than offensive. Offensive and defensive magic both take years to master. Regardless, I will not stand for you putting yourself down. Do you understand?”

Harry stared at him for a second, and then abruptly snapped to his full height—inconsiderable as that was at the moment—and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Tom smiled, let go of Harry’s hand, and stepped around the corner of the teachers’ quarters. Harry followed him without seeming to notice what was going on in the outside world, in favor of the one inside his head.

And then he stopped and gasped in an awe-stricken breath.

Tom sighed. There it is.

*

From the air, Harry had seen that a lot of the buildings at Fortius were made of white stone that was probably marble. But he hadn’t realized what they looked like. It was probably only visible when you were on the ground.

In front of him spread a long swathe of green marked by those white stone paths and little shining rivers, and four buildings, two to either side of the green. The buildings were made of stone like the rest, but shaped like animals. The one nearest to Harry was a huge, rearing horse with wings, the wings spread out with small signs of windows and ladders on them. Right next to it was a giant bird with its wings also spread and its head thrown back, encircled by stone things that were probably supposed to be flames. Harry remembered Riddle telling him about phoenixes last night.

And on the other side was a creature that must be the gryphon, hind legs like a cat’s and eagle head and wings, although it was standing on all four legs instead of rearing. Even as Harry watched, a door opened in the huge curved beak, and someone stepped out and simply floated down to the ground. Other people followed, some of them small enough that Harry knew they couldn’t be adults. He spun around to Riddle, staring the question he couldn’t ask.

Riddle smiled at him. It had too many teeth, but it was still better than any other smile that Harry had got from an adult. “Yes, Harry,” he said simply. “Everyone learns the kind of magic necessary to living here.”

Breathless, Harry turned around to inspect the last building, which was low and curled close to the ground, unlike the others, beyond the gryphon. It was a snake of some sort, he thought, but then saw the horns on the head and changed his mind. No, a dragon. There were probably long corridors inside that coiled body, he thought absently.

“Why are they shaped that way?” he asked. “Isn’t it sort of—silly?” But he didn’t think it looked silly. He thought it looked brilliant, and he couldn’t wait to live in one.

“They were originally built as simply stone buildings, but the magic of the Houses altered them.” Riddle nodded to one of the students—at least, she was small enough to be a student—who had settled to the ground and was advancing towards them. “Look at Miss Johnson there, and you will probably be able to see it.”

Harry squinted, and made out a swirling, dancing white light around the girl, who had dark skin and thick hair in braids. “What’s that?”

“It’s the magic of the House, which accompanies every student Sorted into a particular one. If the student is in danger, the magic manifests to protect her, and to send a message to the professors. If there’s something else wrong that doesn’t need a professor’s intervention, like a simple argument with another student that has no bullying involved, then the magic appears and offers comfort. Or separates the two students before the fight gets physical.”

I wish I’d had that at the school Dudley and I attended. Harry swallowed and said something to distract himself. “And that, what? Turned the buildings into a gryphon and a horse and a phoenix?”

“And a dragon. Yes.” Riddle sounded amused about something, but he smiled as the student marched up to them and halted in front of him. “Hello, Miss Johnson.”

“Professor Riddle, you’re still wrong about the defensive use of that charm. I talked to Professor Alger, and she said so.” Johnson’s chin was tilted up, and she nodded as if that decided everything. The magic hovered behind one shoulder, and then another, moving too quickly for Harry to really see it, but he thought he caught a glimpse of a claw and a beak for a second, and thought Johnson was probably in Phoenix House.

“With all due respect to Professor Alger, she teaches Offensive Magic, not Defense.”

“But you’re wrong,” Johnson said, and then marched off. There were two girls waiting for her, and a boy who looked maybe a year older than Harry. They all burst into chatter as they met up, and then one of them said something excited and they broke into a run around the corner of the gryphon’s claw.

“So, um…those are where the students in that House live? And sleep?”

“And go to some of their classes,” Riddle said, and nodded.

“There are enough professors for that? Or do some students have to go from one building to another?”

“We have enough professors that we are the ones who go from House to House, for the most part, although certain specialized classes can only be held in some other places, like the Offensive Magic class that these students came from. As we grow larger, that might not be sustainable, but it’s only a few years since Fortius Academy began to have more than a hundred students at a time.”

Harry blinked. “I thought it was older than that.”

“Some decades.” Riddle shrugged. “I couldn’t establish the school as soon as I wanted or attract that many students as soon as I wanted. I had to study the magic that would allow me to defend the school, the legalities to establish it, the diplomacy that would allow me to work around the purebloods’ understandable reluctance to lose fees-paying students at Hogwarts.” For a moment, his eyes shone with that red color Harry thought he had seen once before. “The history and laws and magic that would allow my revolution to succeed.”

“How is this school in the middle of London, anyway?” Harry demanded as Riddle steered him around the animal-shaped buildings and into the middle of the green grass again. “Someone was bound to notice if that much land just went missing overnight!”

“There are charms that would prevent Muggles from remembering,” Riddle said, but his face had the kind of amused smile that it had had when he was talking to Johnson. “But it would have been counterproductive to my ultimate goals to anger the portions of the Muggle government that are aware of magic by taking a section of London away from its citizens. No, I found the land elsewhere, bought it, and then placed it in London.”

Harry stared at him. Riddle walked on a few paces and nodded to a building that looked like it was made of marble cheese, with big holes in the sides. “So you can see that this is where the students eat, and—”

“Wait,” Harry interrupted. “I’m going to need some more explanation of this.”

“Of the dining hall? The holes are windows that are protected with magic instead of glass—”

“No. I mean, the land. You bought the land elsewhere and then placed it? How? You just picked it up and plopped it down?”

Riddle turned to face him. “Yes. Essentially.”

Harry stared at him. Then he said weakly, “No one’s that powerful.”

Riddle gave him one of those smiles that seemed to emphasize his teeth. Around him, for a moment, the air was filled with curling snakes of power, and Harry was absolutely sure that Riddle’s gift of speaking to snakes was no accident. “I am.”

Harry stared at him some more. Then he asked what he thought was the most interesting thing, instead of the most frightening thing. “I could use your wand. I threw you across the room. Am I going to be that powerful?”

“Exactly as powerful? I don’t know. That’s not the best way to judge a wizard’s power. I’ll need to see you casting upper-level spells with a wand in your head before I know for certain. But…”

Riddle took a step towards him and bent down, staring at him. Harry stared back, his heart wild with excitement. Unlike the other times an adult had bent down to his level, this didn’t feel condescending.

“I think so,” Riddle whispered.

Harry felt as though someone had tied a gold medal around his neck and given him revenge on the Dursleys at the same time. He was going to be able to defend himself and maybe stand on even ground with a wizard powerful enough to plop a school in the middle of London.

He loved everything about his new life.

Chapter Text

“Did the latest payment arrive on time, Arthur?”

Arthur did his best to subdue his own nervousness while he met Lucius Malfoy’s eyes through the fire. “It did, Minister Malfoy. Thank you for your thoughtfulness and your generosity.”

The words burned his mouth, but, well, they had all made sacrifices, hadn’t they? Some people valued peace, and some (like Malfoy) power, and some gold. What Arthur valued was his family. Without the Minister’s generous stipend for all pureblood families, they wouldn’t have been able to afford to have as many children as Molly had wanted.

And, of course, without the experimental research into potions that Malfoy’s government had funded, they wouldn’t have had their three daughters at all.

“Ah.” The lines around Malfoy’s mouth eased a little, as if the news mattered to him, and he nodded. “Good, good. I look forward to seeing your twins at Hogwarts this year. That is,” he added, with another quiver of his lips that hinted at a smile, “your second pair of twins. Ron and, what is it, Victoria?”

“Yes, that’s the name of our daughter, Minister.” And Arthur couldn’t help the deep fondness that crept into his voice. Daughters were rare in the Weasley family. Victoria was the first born in at least fifty years.

And then they had two more, him and Molly. Truly, they were living in an age of miracles.

Immediately, the thought scorched Arthur, because of course it wasn’t an age of miracles for Muggleborns or those half-bloods who had any sort of power. But…well, he couldn’t do much to help them if he’d remained like he was in the past, could he? At least this way, with a voice that was respected in the Ministry because of blood purity politics, he could push for gentler laws and the reforms that Headmaster Dumbledore had wanted.

“I do look forward to them meeting Draco.”

“Yes, sir,” Arthur murmured. The whole of magical Britain knew that Minister Malfoy’s son was to attend Hogwarts this year, of course. The Minister’s family were all celebrities who had breathless articles devoted to them in the Daily Prophet each week. “Between you and me, young Victoria fancies him a bit.”

Malfoy laughed. “Ah, well, I can’t promise that Draco will be able to return her feelings, but I’m sure he’ll behave like a proper gentleman with her.”

“Yes, sir.”

Malfoy turned abruptly, looking over his shoulder into the invisible space of his office, and then sighed in annoyance. “My apologies, Arthur. I am enjoying our conversation, but I have a crisis trying to take up my attention. You’ll understand, I’m sure,” he added, as he began to dust his knees off. “After all, you’re a man of some importance in the Ministry yourself.”

Only because of my blood. But Arthur smoothed out the truths that wanted to trip off his tongue. He couldn’t help anybody, not the Muggleborns and not his family, if he was sacked. “Yes, sir. Have a good day.”

The green cast to the flames winked out, and Arthur sat back and raised a shaky hand to his eyes. He always felt that way after a conversation with Malfoy.

His family had the money it had needed to thrive. Molly didn’t have to spend time running herself ragged to take care of the children. They had Victoria, and Ginny, and Evangeline—and the others, of course, but those last three were miracles that they couldn’t have counted on without the research into potions.

“We’re very blessed,” Arthur said aloud, and didn’t startle at the bitterness of his own voice.

*

“You’ll be careful, Mum, won’t you?”

“Yes, of course.” Pandora Lovegood bent down and kissed her daughter gently on the head. “You understand that just because the Ministry Divinators foresaw danger for me once, it doesn’t mean it’s always there when I go into the lab?”

“Yes, Mum. It’s just—”

Luna clung to her. Pandora sighed and let her hand slowly stroke her eldest child’s forehead. Luna was the only one who had been old enough to remember the Divinators’ warning that Pandora would die if she tried to conduct a certain experiment in her lab on a certain day. Prometheus and Selene had only been a toddler and an infant at the time.

“I know.” Pandora kissed Luna again. “But I promise that I’ll be careful, and because I’m an accessory to the Unspeakables, I have some of their protections woven into the lab now.” It was the same speech she gave every time, but it reassured Luna, so of course she would give it again. Luna’s eyes deepened and softened as she listened. “I love you, shining moon.”

That at least got Luna to smile. “I love you, too, Mum.” And she stepped back, watching intently as Pandora descended the stairs.

It’s sort of a relief that Luna will go to Hogwarts this year, Pandora admitted to herself as she entered the lab and tapped her wand against an enchanted crystal sconce on the wall, which made all the other sconces flare to life as light leaped between them. She needs to focus on something other than me. Pursue her own interests. Not think so much about death.

Of course, some of that came from Xeno and his obsession with the Hallows. Pandora shook her head as she walked towards the polished granite table covered with cauldrons, pliers, measuring tapes that were a variation of the ones Ollivander used in his shop, and all the other tools she needed for the work. He was a dear man, or she wouldn’t have fallen in love with and married him, but he was dotty about the Hallows.

Pandora faced the crystal cauldron on the nearest lip of the table and closed her eyes, letting thoughts of her family drain away. Balance. Center. Essentially, practice Occlumency of a specialized kind that shut away everything but thought of what she was trying to do. Otherwise, the delicate magical research could go sideways. It was finicky enough that it responded even to thought patterns.

Once she was calmest, Pandora opened her eyes and began another day of measuring magic.

*

“You need a strong wand, young man.”

Neville nodded nervously as he followed his grandmother into Ollivander’s. He could have come with his mum and dad, but his father was an Auror and always busy, and his mum was a Healer who’d had a rush of new dragonpox cases lately. And two of the dragonpox cases were Neville’s younger brothers.

Besides, his grandmother would make sure that he got matched with the right kind of wand. There had been studies done that showed some of the wands handed to purebloods in the past were—not the right kind. That was why some purebloods had been mistakenly labeled as weaker than Muggleborns and the like. Ollivander’s was so old and beloved that the Ministry had stopped short of accusing the owner of actually doing it on purpose, but they had bound him with vows to do his best about the matching.

Neville took a deep breath and looked up as Mr. Ollivander came out of the back of the shop. He had a tight smile that dissolved a little when he saw them.

Gran gave him a regal nod. “We’re here to see about my Neville’s wand,” she said, and then took a seat near the shop door. She watched Ollivander as sternly as the eyes of the stuffed vulture on her hat.

“Of course, of course.” Ollivander considered him for a second, and Neville shifted under the stare of those silver eyes. But then he put back his chin and stood up a little straighter.

He had received lessons in self-confidence from the time he was a young child. They were necessary for all purebloods in Britain, who had spent so much time being battered down by people like former Headmaster Dumbledore. Well-meaning people, from what his Gran had told Neville. But they were the kind who promoted lies in the name of promoting equality. They had said that Muggleborns were just as strong as purebloods, and that blood didn’t matter, when, well, it wasn’t true.

Your heritage is the foundation of everything you do. Neville had learned that lesson when he was a toddler, and everything he had learned since had reinforced it.

No one had to be mean to anyone. Gran had always taught Neville to be polite to Muggleborns, and not call them Mudbloods, the way so many people did. But one also had to be conscious of one’s illustrious heritage, and the fact that Muggleborns weren’t as rooted in the earth as purebloods were, and that their magic was more chaotic and, well, dirtier.

With half-bloods, of course, it depended on power. Gran was progressive, and so were Neville’s Mum and Dad. One could make allowances for a half-blood raised in the Muggle world, and it would have been monstrous to harvest them or call them names. They understood their place most of the time better than Muggleborns did, anyway.

“Let’s see, beech and dragon heartstring…”

That one barely made sparks fly out of the end, and Ollivander snatched it away and replaced it with ebony and unicorn hair, which was replaced with apple wood and phoenix feather. Then came a string of ash wands, all with different cores, and another ebony one, and birch and unicorn hair—

“There.”

Neville smiled as he watched red and gold sparks leap into the air. That was a good sign that his House would be Gryffindor, like his mum’s and dad’s, and that he would continue following in their footsteps and supporting his lineage.

“That will be seven Galleons, young man.”

Gran paid Ollivander solemnly, and then escorted Neville out the door. Her hand on his shoulder, usually so stern that it was almost a pinch, was comforting now. Neville looked up at her, bit his lip, and dared to say, “You think I didn’t shame anyone, then, Gran?”

Gran smiled down at him, and it was a real smile, something Neville had hardly ever seen on her face. “Of course not, Neville. That’s a magnificent wand, and you’ll be a magnificent young man.”

They went back to the manor, Neville’s heart floating so high in his chest that it could have carried him without a broom.

*

“You are to be commended on your attempts to redress inequality at Hogwarts, Minerva.”

When Headmistress Celaeno Carrow spoke in that particular voice, Minerva had a strong urge to transform into a cat and scratch her eyes out. All it really took was a single strong leap, a slash with one paw from the left and one from the right…

But that would leave her students defenseless. Minerva bowed her head a little and nodded. “Thank you, Headmistress,” she murmured, eyes on the Nundu kitten chained to the leg of Carrow’s desk. It had been blinded, declawed, and fed potions that robbed it of its poisonous breath. It lay still and silent most of the time, head cradled on its motionless paws.

Minerva knew exactly how it felt.

“No, I mean it,” said Carrow, and leaned forwards, her smile sweet, her blue eyes large, her black hair long and stringy. Purebloods never bothered to do much about changing their looks, secure in their perception that they were the top of the hierarchy. “You have actually restrained your Gryffindors from bullying Slytherins in the corridors, taught the half-bloods their place, and encouraged Mudbloods to attend the school while being realistic about the challenges they’ll face. It’s commendable.”

“Thank you, Headmistress,” Minerva repeated in a stronger voice, and continued to keep her head bowed. Carrow was a Legilimens. If she saw through Minerva’s eyes to her thoughts…

Remember that you have a position to keep up as Gryffindor’s Head of House.

“Despite your own misfortunes, you know that it is better for Mudbloods and half-bloods to be here instead of without the walls.”

Minerva nodded in whole-hearted agreement for the first time. Yes, there was the Fortius Academy, but they didn’t accept all students, and, well, they didn’t have the academic grandeur that Hogwarts did. They were so young. They focused on blood status in a way that Minerva found damning, and they didn’t have the number of professors they should, and some of those professors were from other countries and had foreign ideas, and they didn’t teach all the disciplines that Hogwarts did.

There was still value, Minerva thought, in walking these halls, in being Sorted into one of the Four Houses that the Founders had created. How Sorting was done at Fortius, she had never been able to find out for sure. And how could anyone be sure that they were in the House that best matched their personality and goals if they didn’t sit under the Sorting Hat?

Fortius didn’t even have a system of prefects, from what Minerva had heard. They left all discipline and patrolling up to the professors. Minerva pitied them, no longer able to focus on education.

“About the Mudblood who struck young Mr. Burke the other day.”

“She’s been expelled and her wand snapped.” Minerva kept her voice brisk and business-like. It was the best way to deal with blood purists, she’d found. And in this case, it would keep them from visiting more harm on the poor girl who’d fought back against the vicious “pranks” that Mr. Burke of Slytherin had played on her.

Minerva felt both sympathetic and exasperated when she thought of Adelaide Finch-Fletchley. What in the world had the girl been thinking? One didn’t fight back against someone whose father and uncle sat in the Wizengamot. One came to the professors and asked for help, which Minerva would have granted.

She could have taught the girl Impervious Charms which would shed prank hexes and jinxes like they were water. But Finch-Fletchley hadn’t asked, and so she had been expelled to make her own way in the world, neither belonging to the Muggle one nor in the magical one, half-and-half in a way that Minerva thought would be a far worse fate than anything Burke could have done to her.

“You’ve handled it already, then?”

“Yes, I thought that the best, Headmistress Carrow.” Minerva frowned a little. “Should I not have done that? I did Floo the Mudblood Discipline Department in the Ministry, but they said that that was the punishment on record.”

“Say, rather,” said Carrow, after a long, silent considering of her that was designed to make Minerva fidget and didn’t work, “that next time, I would prefer to oversee the punishment myself, and might appreciate a little less enthusiasm in the cause.”

“Of course, Headmistress.” Minerva bowed her head again, but this time it waw to veil the relief that threatened to burn through her disguise. “I’m sorry.”

“No need to be sorry, Minerva. I think you should go back to your duties as Head of Gryffindor, however. There are many students who seem to delight in roaming the corridors near curfew.”

Minerva nodded briskly and stood up. “Yes, and unfortunately, my House causes the most trouble for all that we’re the smallest one in the school now.”

The Headmistress laughed, a sliding, eerie chuckle that had always reminded Minerva of a hyena that had found wounded prey. She tried not to remember that hyenas could kill lions. “Well, can you blame the Hat for finally seeing what it should have seen all along? Or even Mudbloods for wanting to avoid a House with a reputation for daring and brashness in a world where we all understand our place?”

“No, Headmistress,” Minerva said obediently.

“Oh, go along with you, Minerva.” Carrow flapped a hand at her. “I know well enough that not all Gryffindors are like that. You got to keep your job, after all, didn’t you?”

Minerva nodded, and smiled, and escaped.

As she rode down the moving staircase, she watched the walls change about her in silence, and seethed.

But what good would it do to show Carrow any flash of temper? Minerva knew well enough that any pureblood they brought in to be Head of Gryffindor would find the position humiliating, and would take out their temper on the students.

Well, either that, or they would be a sadistic bastard who delighted in torture as much as Carrow herself did.

No, for the sake of her students who had no other advocate, she must keep holding the line, no matter how much she hated it.

*

“Are you going to be all right, Miss Finch-Fletchley?”

The Muggleborn girl nodded and pushed the hair out of her eyes without looking at Tom. “I—yes, Headmaster. I just—don’t understand why you appeared and snapped me up like that the minute I was expelled from Hogwarts.”

“Part of the Academy’s purpose is to offer a sanctuary to young Muggleborns and half-bloods who get expelled—”

She spun around to stare at him. Finch-Fletchley had blonde hair and brown eyes, and she looked as if she was continually on the verge of crying and stopping herself. Tom had to admit he was impressed with her strength, even if she had been in the House that was known for that kind of thing. “I don’t mean that. I mean why did you offer me a place now, and not when I was eleven? I would have been happier here!”

“Miss Finch-Fletchley.” Tom waited a moment until she was focused on him, and not staring around the soft blue Fortius infirmary as if waiting for someone to emerge and ambush her. “I did offer you a place.”

“You didn’t! I would have remembered—”

She cut herself off. Tom nodded. “Exactly. I am afraid that, since you refused and said you wanted to go to Hogwarts for the sense of tradition it offered, I made sure that you did not remember my visit.”

“You Obliviated me. That’s awful.”

Finch-Fletchley looked like she was about to cry again. Despite what people like Lucius would say, Tom wasn’t in the business of enjoying tears, and so he controlled his sigh and sat down in the chair that was next to the hospital bed she’d got off earlier, after their own Healer had checked her over for any magical shock or worse consequences from her wand being snapped. “Yes, I need to protect the school and the students here.”

“I’m a student here now.”

Tom concealed his pleased smile. He hadn’t been sure, until that moment, that Finch-Fletchley had actually accepted his offer. “You are. But you will still have promises and oaths that you need to keep. For one thing, you’ll find that you can’t speak of certain school secrets outside these walls.”

“Because of the purebloods?”

“Partially. Also because of the people who might think that a half-blood shouldn’t be running a school, and some older Muggleborns who will be angry that Fortius didn’t exist when they were in Hogwarts and want to ruin it.” Tom shrugged when Finch-Fletchley stared at him. “I’ve dealt with several of them now. I wish I could have rescued them, but the timeline couldn’t be sped up.”

“I see it,” Finch-Fletchley breathed. “I see how I could have become bitter like them.” She closed her eyes and shivered for a second. Then she focused on Tom again with a keen gaze that he was glad to see. “I don’t have a wand.”

“You’ll be matched with one in one of the shops that our students go to. Don’t worry, they’re much more discreet than parading down Diagon Alley to get to Ollivander’s.”

“That’s good. And—I have a little brother. I don’t think you offered a place to him. He said he was going to attend Hogwarts.”

Tom thought a moment before he responded. “I didn’t offer a place to him because you had refused, and I thought he likely would as well, if only because he’d want to attend the school that his older sister did. And, well, his marks aren’t as good as I’d like.”

Finch-Fletchley sighed. “Justin’s—too used to coasting on our family’s money. He would have got into Eton, no problem, just because of who our father is.” She folded her arms to hug herself. “I know, now, that he’ll want to come here. My parents will insist on it. I’ll make sure that his marks stay in an acceptable range.”

“If you wish to take on that burden. We also have capable professors and tutors.”

“Most people find Justin so charming they don’t hold him to his promises.”

Tom chuckled, remembering his own days in Hogwarts and how easy it had been to charm some people into doing what he wanted. “I assure you, I’m familiar with the type. So are my professors, many of whom have either been that kind of student or are used to them. Your brother won’t want for people to keep him on track.”

Finch-Fletchley closed her eyes. “Thank you. That was what bothered me the most about being expelled from Hogwarts—the thought of my brother going there next year and suffering the same things I did.”

Her shoulders trembled abruptly, and Tom stood. “I’ll contact Professor Johnson to escort you to get your wand in a few hours’ time. Perhaps you’d like to rest first?”

“Yes, thank you, Professor Riddle,” Finch-Fletchley whispered.

If she let the tears out, she did it after he’d exited the room.

Tom paced silently down the corridor to his office, high in the tower that stood next to Belasha’s lair. He was pleased with how that had gone. Even when expelled from Hogwarts and summarily refused a place in the world they had thought would be theirs, not all Muggleborns came to Fortius. Some of them had simply absorbed too many tales at Hogwarts of how “inferior” Tom’s school was, and others had mourned the loss of their magic so deeply that they wanted to withdraw from it altogether.

But the ones who were willing to struggle to reclaim the world that was indeed theirs were among his strongest students.

And his strongest revolutionaries.

Tom stepped into his office, a large half-circular space with a window that overlooked Belasha’s dome and the new student dormitories where, tonight, Harry Potter would be sleeping. Tom crossed over to the far side of the room, where an innocent-looking crystal globe stood on a bookshelf. It was a half-dome, and looking at it, someone might have thought it was a broken crystal ball, kept perhaps by someone with not enough talent in Divination to use a whole one.

In fact, it was a magical device that could perhaps change the world in the future when Tom released news of it. For now, he had no intention of suffering the fates of Muggleborn and half-blood spellcrafters in the last few decades: accusations of stealing ideas from purebloods, and Obliviation at best, the Dementor’s Kiss at worst.

Tom laid his wand on the globe, and it woke and began to shimmer with a subtle chime. Tom bent over it, breathed on the embodied, anchored spell, and said, “Spy time.”

The summons fled outwards, on the nearly undetectable link of a long-lasting Imperius Curse that existed between the crystal and Tom’s best spy in the enemy camp. It wouldn’t do to be found having used the spell himself; there were new charms that could search out any spell a wand had ever cast, and casting the Imperius on a pureblood rated an instant execution. But with the Imperius in this form, it was both much less likely to be found in the victim’s mind and undetectable on Tom’s wand. The crystal was the spell. Unless it was activated, his control over the pureblood didn’t exist.

For what Tom required of his spy, the control didn’t need to be constant.

His Floo lit perhaps half an hour later. Having such a buried spy did mean that sometimes she couldn’t get away immediately. Tom sat back with a small smile and watched as she came through the fire and collapsed to her knees in front of him—something Tom had to admit he enjoyed.

“My lord,” she intoned.

That impulse, Tom hadn’t planted in her. But there was something cringing and subservient in so many purebloods, who didn’t know how to react to a powerful wizard as an equal.

Tom leaned forwards. “What have you to report, Narcissa?”

Chapter Text

Tom sat back with a thoughtful frown after Narcissa had departed via the Floo. He hadn’t realized that the purebloods thought they had wards capable of alerting them when a half-blood or Muggleborn entered a restaurant.

Of course, they didn’t really sense blood status. Which meant the wards were detecting something else, and alerting when they found it.

Tom would have to investigate what that was, in case he wound up in a situation where the wards started to detect him. If Malfoy or someone else prominent in the pureblood government found out about his tightly-furled magic now, things would go from delicately-balanced to disastrous.

He had just begun to write down a few notes about how best to get information on the wards in the restaurant Narcissa had spoken of when someone began knocking furiously on his office door. Tom slid the note under an acceptance letter from a Muggleborn student who already had family here and called, “Come in.”

“Forgive me for intruding…”

Tom had never seen Janet Clarkson, the Herbology professor, so pale, for all that she had some Nordic heritage and looked that way naturally. She took a step into his office and then halted, shivering. Tom stood up. “It’s all right. What’s happened, Janet?”

She looked him helplessly in the eye for a second, then opened her hand. Tom took a step nearer, and then stopped. In her palm rested the crushed remains of a small scarlet bead.

“I’ve kept it on my desk since that little girl accepted her letter,” Janet whispered. “It broke five minutes ago.”

Tom closed his eyes and nodded. The beads were tied to the life-force of any Muggleborn or half-blood student who didn’t currently live at the school, although for most of them, that only mattered during the summers. It would break only if they had died. And it would break in this manner only if the child had been harvested.

“I had a meeting this evening with Lucienne,” he said. “Will you find her and tell her that something else came up?”

“Of course.” Janet hesitated a long moment, but in the end, she decided that she didn’t want to know what he was going to do. Wise of her, given that Tom wouldn’t have told her anyway. She nodded to him and then turned and walked out of the office, a few red flakes falling from the hand that held the bead that had been a life.

Tom stood there, remembering the life that it had been, a girl named Cassandra Riptoe, who had laughed with delight when Tom went to show her magic on her eleventh birthday last year. Who had liked flowers. Who had asked if she could bring a kitten with her, and had been thrilled when Tom told her about Kneazles.

He let the memories settle into his bones, and condense into chill power in his stomach. Then he slipped a few prepared crystals into his pockets from his desk, bent down, and picked up one of the red flakes from the floor.

It was enough. With the memories and the portion of the bead that had been linked to Riptoe’s life-force guiding him, he turned and Apparated to the place where the Sacred Hunt had taken place.

*

It had ended in a wood. It always did. If there wasn’t a wood nearby where the Hunt had begun, the magic would make trees grow.

Tom knelt down and let his fingers furrow gently across the ground, stroking the dirt, gathering up enough information that he felt it coded on his nails before he lifted his hand to his face.

The spells he had cast on himself long ago—wonderful things could be done with Parseltongue—translated the smells of the dirt into other smells as his tongue flickered out. Smells of magic, of skin, of blood. Tom bowed his head and let his memories sort through the smells until he remembered where he had encountered them.

And, more to the point, which faces had been associated with them.

Names swam into his mind, wavering like grass in wind, and then strengthening, solidifying. Helios Rosier. Jeremy Burke. Alecto Carrow. Lilian Goyle.

Tom opened his eyes, and grimaced a little. Alecto Carrow was too highly-placed for him to touch; even an “accidental” death would cause people to ask questions about why the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and the cousin of the Headmistress of Hogwarts had died so suddenly. But Tom laid another mark against her name in the ledger of his mind.

The others, however…

All of them were relatively low-status purebloods, children or spouses of families who hadn’t earned as much power as the Malfoys and the Carrows.

Tom smiled and stood, stretching a little. The smell of their magic was perhaps even a better link than the memories of Riptoe and the link to her that had formed through the bead. Tom turned his head and sniffed once, and he knew where his prey was. Rosier in London, probably Diagon Alley. Burke in the North. Goyle in Lincolnshire.

Tom crouched and then leaped into Apparition, letting the lure of Rosier’s magic pull him into the hunt.

And, crooning in his ears like a restless bird, his own hatred.

*

Helios Rosier, a squat wizard with a blond beard and a loud, annoying laugh, was having dinner in a small restaurant called the Offered Hand off Diagon Alley. Tom leaned, invisible in his Disillusionment Charm, against the stone wall and watched him through the lit windows, and smelled the foreign scent of Riptoe’s magic that hadn’t settled yet into the force of Rosier’s.

Tom pulled his own senses back when it seemed for a moment as if the restaurant’s defensive spells would react, and waited.

Rosier left the Offered Hand near seven, with a companion who waved once before he departed. Rosier walked alone towards the Apparition point, humming under his breath. Tom wondered that he never felt the predator’s gaze following him.

But, well. That was one of the minor reasons that purebloods were less worthy of Tom’s time than half-bloods and Muggleborns. They became complacent so easily.

Rosier didn’t even Apparate right away, although that might have been because harvested magic would need at least a week to sink fully into the harvesting wizard’s power and not cause instabilities in spells. Instead, he reached into his pocket for something that pinged as a Portkey against Tom’s senses, still humming.

Tom grabbed him.

Not with his hands, but with the curling tendrils of smoky magic that had been hanging about him since he got the message about Riptoe from Janet. The coils of cold strength lashed around Rosier’s throat—more powerful than many could have summoned, but still not nearly the full extent of Tom’s power—and the man gurgled as he groped frantically for the Portkey.

Tom let it activate, and pull him on the journey. It would be better, afterwards, if the Aurors knew that Rosier had traveled home.

They landed in a small room with pegs for cloaks all along the walls, and Rosier immediately rolled on the floor, still choking, this time reaching for his wand. Tom knelt down next to him and tightened the coils, just a little.

Rosier tried to scream as his windpipe cracked, but there was no sound.

“I know that you won’t understand what it’s for,” Tom told him calmly, sunk into the coldness that had overcome him the minute he’d seen that crushed red bead. “But this is vengeance.”

Rosier’s hand flapped around near the sheath on his arm that held his wand. Tom glanced at it, and got more gasping noises from Rosier as the small bones in his hand began to pop, one by one, not so close together that each sharp, exquisite pain didn’t show up by itself in Rosier’s consciousness.

Then Tom did the same with the other hand. Then the bones of his legs. Then his ribs. Then his arms.

Each time the pain would have rendered Rosier unconscious, Tom stabbed a spike of his own magic into the man’s brain and woke him up. By the end, Rosier was sobbing as best he could with his head turning back and forth, his eyes wide and unseeing. Tom thought of destroying them, too, but that would mean the illusion he had to weave afterwards would be that much more complicated. He left them alone.

“And now,” Tom said, and rested his hand above Rosier’s heart.

Rosier seemed to guess at the last moment what was going to happen to him. Perhaps part of his brain was working after all. He tried to croak something, tried to move his broken limbs to reach out and stop Tom.

He couldn’t.

Tom ripped Rosier’s magic free. What the purebloods had to do with the Sacred Hunt ritual and in combination, he could do by himself. He regarded the hovering, silhouette-shaped magic with a curled lip. It roiled, and looked and smelled like a chicken stew going off.

Floating on top of it, though, was a soft pearly film that represented all that was left of Cassandra Riptoe’s power.

Tom pulled a round crystal from his pocket and held it out. The magic zipped into it. Tom nodded. He never left any trace of harvested magic on victims he killed like this, in case someone suspected that someone had avenged the victims.

If he had a use for it, it was a use that the harvested victims agreed upon.

He stood and began to wave his illusions around Rosier. He would exist without his magic for a few more weeks, wide-eyed and grieving and suffering from the “magic-eating plague” that attacked certain people without reason. Then he would die.

Illusions made it look as though his misshapen hands, and limbs, were the result of tumors raised by the plague, and more spells bound his tongue so that he couldn’t tell anyone of what happened this night. After thinking about it, Tom did heal the crack in his windpipe. It wouldn’t do for this one symptom to differ from the ones that Tom had inflicted on other purebloods.

As he turned to depart, Rosier managed to croak, “You—you are a monster.”

Tom smiled over his shoulder. “I learned from lots of people.”

*

Previous experience with Rosier had told him that the man would have followed along with the harvesting process, but not chosen Miss Riptoe for himself. That meant that either Burke or Goyle had chosen the victim.

Tom was betting on Goyle. She had only married into the family, and she had had a half-blood grandmother, so she was a little less inbred than the rest.

Therefore, he went after Burke first, landing easily outside the wards of the house. He studied them, and smiled. They were blue and brilliant and linked to Burke’s mind. They would warn him instantly when someone began to manipulate them or attack them.

That was all right. Tom wasn’t here to do either.

He shut his eyes and breathed in and out for a long, still moment. Then he opened his eyes and reached out with the same touch that had ripped Rosier’s magic away from him.

He blanketed the wards, hovering above the lines of them the way an outstretched hand might hover above skin. Then he jerked his head.

The wards vanished.

A piercing scream reached him. The destruction of wards linked to him that way would have done—unfortunate things to Burke’s mind.

Tom crossed the black stone walls and then the house’s dark grounds in the direction of that scream, walking in a leisurely fashion. A hippogriff that Burke must have imported to guard the place started towards him in a slow stalk, and then seemed to feel the magic out and crawling around him. It reversed direction.

Tom chuckled and climbed the steps to the tower where Burke was waiting.

He had stopped screaming by the time Tom reached him, but only because, obviously, his throat was already torn up. He clawed mindlessly at his face, a young man with long stringy black hair, his eyes staring wide and distant and horrified at the far wall.

Not the way Tom would have chosen to kill, given how quick it was, but it had dealt with the dangerous wards, and given how well-known Burke was for hiding behind the wards, it would make Tom’s method of disposing of him plausible.

He ripped Burke’s magic free as he had with Rosier’s. The madman shuddered and then curled on the floor with a moan. Maybe it was a mercy, as annoying as the thought was to Tom.

Tom spent a few minutes arranging the tower, which was the center of Burke’s manipulation lab, with the glyphs and ingredients necessary to make it seem as if Burke had lost control of a magical experiment. All the ingredients that would have been required to do it were already there. Then Tom fed a trickle of his own magic back into Burke so that he would be plausibly drained instead of impossibly drained, and pulled the delicate matrix of Riptoe’s magic away from Burke’s so that he could store it in a second crystal.

The man had ceased sobbing by then and lay on his side, face emotionless. He would die before more than a few hours had passed, Tom judged. The twin losses of magic and sanity would give him no will to move when the ingredients began to release their poisonous fumes into the air.

Tom paused outside Burke’s house and closed his eyes for a few minutes. Even for him, depriving two wizards of magic and overcoming Burke’s wards was a bit of a struggle.

But not enough to prevent him from following the scent of Lilian Goyle’s magic.

*

“I want to make a bargain with you.”

Goyle’s voice was high with fear. Tom paused a few feet away from her house and waited in silence.

Goyle turned towards him. She was a woman so slender that “gaunt” would be the more appropriate word, with flyaway grey hair that she tried to compensate for by tucking it close to her head in a braid. She had dark eyes wide with fear even in the light of Tom’s Lumos Charm.

“What bargain do you imagine you can make?”

“You’re tracking the people who harvested that Mudblood child.”

Tom nodded, seeing no reason to lie. Goyle’s eyes were already so wide that starlight gleamed off them. “And you cannot bring her back to life, so I repeat, what bargain do you imagine you can make?”

“I can give up her magic, and not report you to Minister Malfoy.”

Tom smiled. “You’ll give up her magic anyway. And Minister Malfoy doesn’t know a thing about what I’m doing here.”

Goyle backed up a long step and then visibly forced herself to halt. She stared at him. “But you can’t kill people and get away with it!”

“We wouldn’t be here if you believed that argument.”

Tom had already seen the bright blue light of a trap ward flickering behind Goyle, which told him why she wanted to delay the confrontation. If she could hold him here long enough, then the ward would spread out and engulf everyone who didn’t have explicit permission from the owner of the land to be in the area. The nature of the ward meant that magical power was no defense against it. They would be held like fish in an impregnable net until the property owner came to dissolve the ward and retrieve them.

On the other hand, trap wards took time to form. And Goyle hadn’t launched this one soon enough.

“Malfoy will figure it out!”

Tom sighed, shook his head, and struck.

This time, he didn’t try to rip out all of Goyle’s magic. Partially removing it from her body was sufficient; it hovered above her, a fluttering, moaning mass of sickly silver, and Tom took out a third crystal and gathered Riptoe’s stolen magic from her. Then he shoved the magic back into Goyle’s body, and she collapsed on the ground, weeping.

Tom watched her, and felt nothing. He glanced at the blue light. Still another ten minutes before the trap ward would form completely.

“I’ll—I’ll tell Malfoy,” Goyle said, and struggled to lift her head.

“If you could do that, I’m sure you would,” Tom said without much interest, and pulled out the fourth crystal he had brought along at the beginning of the evening. He felt a tug of resentment that he had to sacrifice it for this; originally, he had intended it to contain another situation. But he was the one who had acted immediately to hunt down Riptoe’s murderers instead of waiting until a few days hence, when he could still have pulled her magic away from them.

He set the crystal on the ground and crushed it with his foot. The white, buzzing glow inside it spread out and enveloped Goyle. She gave a single gasp and slumped over.

Tom watched the grey wisp of her expelled soul that trailed away into the night, then faced the being left before him. She had Goyle’s looks and her voice and would be able to summon a shred of her personality, and that was all that was needed for the fortnight that she would exist.

“You understand that you need to lock down the house and refuse all visitors?” Tom asked. It was best to lay out what he wanted in simple instructions that the doppelganger was capable of repeating.

“Yes.”

Huge, alien eyes fixed on him for a moment, then shimmered into the human darkness of Goyle’s. Tom nodded. “You will answer Floo calls, but refuse all requests for a personal meeting. Act as mysterious as you like. Do not communicate with anyone who tries to come into the house. Apparate if necessary. Locate yourself in a locked room two weeks from now.”

“Yes.”

The doppelganger stood up and walked into the house. Tom watched it go and then sighed and Vanished the pieces of broken crystal on the ground before he reached into his pocket and touched his own Portkey. Everything he’d done this night had exhausted him so badly that he didn’t want to try Apparating back to Fortius.

As the world swirled around him, Tom glanced back once at the Goyle house. He knew he would hear the news in a few weeks that Lilian Goyle had mysteriously vanished, with nothing left behind of her. The doppelganger would fade and crumble into mist within those two weeks, but anyone seeing it happen would know something was wrong, hence Tom’s instructions to it to locate itself in a locked room where no one would see the dissipation.

But for now, he had the three crystals infused with the strength of Riptoe’s stolen magic, and he had to give her the choice he gave every person murdered in these farcical hunts by purebloods.

*

As he strode towards the boundary wall of Fortius, a soft movement stirred the grass behind him. Tom kept walking, knowing that Belasha had come only to keep him company.

“What happened to the child whose magic you bear?”

“She was killed.” Tom paused near House Gryphon’s clawed feet and stared upwards for a moment. Light shone through the windows. He could hear students’ voices if he listened for them long enough. He did, to remind himself who still lived and why he was doing this. “I took the magic from her murderers and killed them.”

Belasha moved her tail in approval, approval Tom was fairly sure he wouldn’t have obtained from most of his teaching staff. Of course, to a basilisk, enemies powerful enough to take on instead of flee from were better off dead. Food, if they could be. “And you did not bring their bodies back for me?”

Tom smiled for a moment and rested his hand on her neck, feeling the scales sliding like armor beneath his fingers. There were few beings he cared for, given how weak many of them were, and what would happen if he allowed them inside his defenses. But Belasha was safe, in all senses. “I required their bodies to be found. Or, in one case, I got rid of it.”

“Waste.”

Tom laughed and finally felt able to move on from Gryphon House. His steps sure, he strode across the last steps to the boundary wall, and laid the crystals glowing with Riptoe’s magic in front of him. Belasha curled her neck above his head to watch.

As had happened when he did this before, the magic came out when he spoke her name. “Cassandra Riptoe.”

The swirls of brilliant white light filled the darkness for a moment, and then coalesced into a shape that was only a girl’s, Tom knew, because that was what felt familiar. She examined her glowing arms for a long moment, then stared at him.

“Where is my soul?”

“I don’t know,” Tom told her gently. “It’s the magic I capture, not the soul, because that is what the people who killed you took. I think your soul has probably passed on to whatever awaits after life.”

The girl considered that, turning her head to look at the wall for a moment. Then she turned back to him. “What do you want?”

The dead had none of the delicacies of the living. Tom was fine with that. “I wanted to ask if you would give part of your magic to protect the school. Some of the others who were killed and harvested did that.”

This time, the shade of the girl’s magic drifted over to the boundary wall. She touched it with one “hand” and then sighed like a satisfied vampire. “I can feel how many there are.”

Tom nodded. “I would make them fewer if I could, but I can only prevent so many harvests, and then only by bringing the students to the school most of the time.”

“And these others agreed to help you because they are defending the people who might become victims like them.”

“Yes.”

“I was ten years old.”

“Yes.”

“Ten!”

Her magic flared like a falling star, and something broke away from her, turning to face her. It looked rather like a shade of the same girl as she might have become a few years hence, perhaps thirteen, tall, with long hair falling down her back in a braid. She was made all of smoky grey, except for a few pale twinkles here and there in her skin.

“I will leave you this part,” said the pale Cassandra. “And the rest of me will go.”

She faded even as she spoke, and the smoky grey figure stepped forwards to stare into Tom’s face. Tom gave it—her—a shallow bow. She was similar to the shades who had stayed before, although darker than some of them. Cassandra had left more magic than most.

Then again, not all of them were outraged about their deaths. Some were only upset, others fearful, or outraged at him for killing their killers. Tom found himself quietly thankful that Cassandra had some sense.

And all the more furious that he would never learn what that sense could have done in the context of Fortius Academy.

“I can sense the others in the wall,” said the shade, and reached out to run the ghosts of fingers down the stones. She only brushed them with a corner of her power, but Tom felt the others in the wall stir and reach out to her, yearning. “But I don’t know how to join with them.”

“Let me cast the spell,” Tom said, and waited for her to nod before he raised his wand.

The phoenix feather in the core of the yew wand sang softly to him as it supported his weakened magic, a long, descending trill of utter sorrow, and the shade threw back her head and joined in. Tom could feel his own magic rising to that tune, and Belasha swaying behind him. It had never been this strong before. Cassandra had left even more magic than he’d thought, and would be a mighty addition to the school’s defenses.

The air seemed to shiver, and different wind currents collided. Then a flash of darkness consumed Tom’s vision, and the phoenix song abruptly ended. Tom threw up a hand before his eyes.

“She has joined with the wall,” Belasha told him.

Tom lowered his hand and strained to see. Yes, a new grey current, the shade of darkened quartz, ran above the boundary spells protecting the wall. Hands reached out to grasp and hold it, and he heard the voices of other murdered children raised in shivering cries of welcome.

Cassandra was as at home as she would ever be.

Tom tucked his yew wand back into its sheath and stood silently for a second. Then he glanced at Belasha.

“What do you think happens after you die?”

“You vanish.”

Tom nodded. Basilisks were practical about such things, or so he assumed, since he had only met one other than Belasha. And death was not an experience that he intended to have for many decades, in any case.

But as he walked away from the wall, he wondered if it would be so bad, should he have the chance, to dedicate his magic to the protection of others like him.

Chapter Text

“Welcome to Fortius Academy, Miss Granger.”

Hermione stood still while Professor Johnson stood calmly beside her, staring around at the buildings looming in every direction. It reminded her of some of the fantasy books she had read when she was younger, or a book picturing an idealized Athens. There was so much marble everywhere, and some of the buildings looked like temples.

“It’s so beautiful,” she breathed, and the wand in the holster strapped to her forearm gave a little throb, the way it had been doing constantly in the week since she’d bought it.

“It is, isn’t it?” Professor Johnson gave her a pleased smile, and invited Hermione further into the Academy’s grounds with a sweep of her hand.

Hermione followed her eagerly, eyes still darting in various directions. There was water everywhere, too, and green grass, and a kind of subtle light that seemed to cling to and shine on everything although the sky was cloudy today. With every step, her heart lifted. Even if that was the result of some magic like Cheering Charms that she’d read about, it still made her thrilled to the depths of her soul to be here.

“Where are we going first?” she asked, when she became aware that Professor Johnson was leading her down a particular white stone path that seemed to stab through the heart of the grounds like a motorway.

“I thought you would like to see the Houses, since you’ll be spending most of your time in one of them come the start of the school year.”

“Yes, please!” Hermione became aware that she was almost skipping alongside Professor Johnson, and tried to make herself stop. She didn’t want to look so absurdly young. “Can I be Sorted today?”

Professor Johnson smiled at her. “That will wait until your first proper day of school. But there’s no harm in looking around and seeing where you might like to be.”

“I mean—I thought we were Sorted based on magical affinities? That means we don’t really get to choose, doesn’t it?”

“To an extent. But the Headmaster created his Sorting system only based on Hogwarts’s system, not as identical to it.” Hermione stifled the urge to say that she knew that and she could read. “One thing he found particularly annoying is that the Hat Sorts based not just on personality traits, but the student’s family history and the like.”

“Why would it do that?”

“Most students do want to be Sorted into the same House as their family.” Professor Johnson paused next to a small white building with its door open, through which Hermione saw books. She immediately wanted to go inside, but she held still and looked into Professor Johnson’s face, because this seemed to be important. “On the other hand, the Hat seemed to consider their family history independently of that. Students’ own choices factored in, but not as much. In short, its decision was not transparent. Headmaster Riddle wanted to create a system that is.”

Hermione gnawed her lip, and nodded. “What House do you think I’ll be in, Professor?”

Professor Johnson’s face relaxed, and she laughed a little. “The system is transparent, but I can’t tell what your magical affinity is without some testing, Hermione. I don’t know right now.”

Hermione just nodded again. She supposed she would have to wait like everyone else. At least she could explore the grounds beforehand. She pointed at the library. “Can I go in there and borrow a few books?”

“Of course.” Professor Johnson’s eyes narrowed a little. “You should be aware that the books are spelled so that Muggles can’t see or touch them, and if any damage happens to them, even something as minor as a drop of tea being spilled on them, they immediately return to the library.”

Hermione stared at her. “People don’t take care of books when they’re at the table?”

Professor Johnson laughed abruptly. “I don’t think we need to worry about you,” she said, and ushered Hermione into the most wonderful library she had ever seen.

That was only partially because of the windows high on the walls, in the shape of small latticed curlicues and flowers, which ushered in soft cool draughts, or the deep wooden bookshelves that were carved with lions and dragons and gryphons that reached out protective claws towards the books. It was mostly because of the books themselves, which were about magic.

Hermione darted from shelf to shelf, speechless with delight, not sure what she wanted to look at first. Professor Johnson followed her down the aisles, quietly pointing out the sections on Transfiguration, Charms, Arithmancy, History of Magic, and all the other subjects Hermione knew she would be taking at Fortius.

It was enough to make Hermione want to move right onto the grounds and stay there until term began on the last day of August.

When her arms were stacked, mostly with history books, she backed around a corner to see the top of a high shelf and tripped over a stool.

“Ouch!” said the stool.

Hermione blinked and turned around. Even in the magical world, she couldn’t imagine that a lot of the stools were enchanted to speak.

The stool turned out to be a black-haired boy who glared up at her accusingly. He was sitting on a stool, but one that was barely high enough to keep his knees from folding up to his chin. On his lap was a huge leather book that Hermione immediately coveted, since it had a moving ink drawing of a dragon flexing its claws open and shut.

“Who are you?” the boy demanded.

“This is one of our new students, Hermione Granger,” said Professor Johnson, coming around the corner of the shelf. She waved her wand, and the stack of books floated out of Hermione’s arms and hovered safely in the air. Hermione wanted to learn that spell, too. “And this is Harry Potter, one of our students who will be in your year, Miss Granger.”

Hermione smiled and held out her hand, glad that Professor Johnson had taken the books. Potter studied her intently for a second. Then he shook her hand.

“Are you here with a professor, too?” Hermione asked politely, only for the boy to look shifty.

“I’m on the grounds for the summer,” Potter said, after a quick glance at Professor Johnson.

“Oh? Are your family with you? Are you one of the Muggleborns whose families wouldn’t let them come? I’m Muggleborn. I’m the first in my family to have magic, imagine. It’s tremendously exciting. What do you think you’ll want to study first? What House do you think you’ll be in? How do they determine magical affinity, do you know?”

Hermione slowed down when she saw the bewildered look on the boy’s face, and blushed a little. “Sorry. My mother says I tend to talk too much. And ask too many questions.”

“I think asking questions is a great thing,” said the boy, with emphasis that puzzled Hermione. He took another quick look at Professor Johnson, and then faced her again. “Well, I’m sort of Muggleborn. I grew up with Muggles. But my family didn’t want me to come, and it turns out my parents were a witch and wizard, so I came here.”

“They’re dead? Oh, no. I’m sorry. What happened to them?”

Potter hesitated again. Then he said, “Purebloods murdered them.”

Hermione clasped her hands to her mouth. Professor Johnson sighed. “I’m not sure that you needed to tell Miss Granger that, Mr. Potter.”

“Why? She asked!”

Hermione took a deep breath and sat down on the floor next to the little stool Potter was occupying. “Thank you for telling me,” she said, and then winced at the look Potter gave her. “No, really. I mean that. It’s important.”

“Why?” Potter canted his head to the side. He had the wildest hair. Hermione’s mum would tell him to hold still so she could brush it for him.

“Because Professor Riddle talked to me a little about how purebloods control the magical world and he wants to change that, but they haven’t threatened me. Except indirectly, when Mr. Malfoy came and talked about how I wouldn’t be happy at Hogwarts if I thought I was going to be as good as a pureblood and I had to learn to know my place. It’s good to remember how terrible they are, so we can rise up against them someday.”

Potter looked again at Professor Johnson, but this time, there was a sharp expression in his eyes. Hermione snorted and waved her hand. “Don’t worry, Professor Johnson is the one who told me about some of the plans they have for the uprising.”

Professor Johnson nodded and leaned against the nearest shelf, while Hermione’s books floated next to her. “The purpose of the school isn’t a secret to anyone who attends or teaches here, Mr. Potter, and it’s not something you need to guard.”

Potter blinked. “Okay.”

“What happened to your parents is awful,” Hermione said firmly, and reached out to shake Potter’s hand again. He seemed a little shocked, but he let her take it, and he let her go on holding it. “I hope that you’ll never have to go through anything like that again. But we know other kids will, so we have to stop them.”

“Sometimes I just want to—hurt them all.”

It was a whisper. Hermione thought Potter might have been about to say kill, but that wasn’t something that he would confess to a complete stranger.

She leaned forwards and said, “I know. So do I. But I think it would be better if we humiliated them and made them grovel the way they want us to do.”

Slowly, a smile bloomed across Potter’s face. Hermione thought that he might look less wild if he smiled more often. “You know, Hermione,” he said thoughtfully, “I think we’re going to be very good friends, you and I.”

*

“You know very well that you carry the family honor.”

“Yes, Father.”

“I don’t want to hear any reports from Hogwarts about you behaving in a way unfitting of a scion of the Malfoy line.”

Draco breathed in slowly and looked up at his father. Lucius Malfoy wasn’t as tall as a few of the other people who worked at the Ministry, but to Draco, that didn’t matter. He couldn’t remember a time when his father hadn’t loomed over his life. And that was right and proper and necessary. That was the only way he could preserve their legacy to pass it on, pure and untouched, to Draco. And now that the first day of his first year at Hogwarts had arrived, it was time for Draco to begin sharing the privilege and the burden.

“Yes, Father,” he said. “I promise that Professor Snape will find nothing to complain of in me.”

For a moment, he wondered if he should have said that, if he had been presumptuous in assuming that he would be Sorted into Slytherin. But Father smiled at him, and that was rare enough that Draco stood taller.

“Make friends with the right sort. Keep the Mudbloods in their place, but use grace and courtesy as much as you can. There is no reason to wield ugly weapons when beautiful ones will do.”

Draco bowed. “Of course, Father.”

“Magic embrace you, son,” Father murmured, and put his hand on Draco’s shoulder, steering him towards the Hogwarts Express.

Draco sneered at the piece of Muggle shit as he climbed aboard, reluctantly, turning only once to wave to his parents. He knew all the reasons they needed to move slowly in purging such Muggle influences from their world. There were still people around who had supported Dumbledore and would get upset if changes happened too quickly.

But he longed for the day when the worlds would be entirely separate and when they would have solved the problem of Mudbloods.

He made his way to an empty compartment with a snake marked on the door and stepped in, nodding to the older Slytherins who nodded back to him. None of them spoke. As the Minister’s son, it was up to him to speak first. Draco placed his trunk in the overhead compartment and glanced once out the window. He was in time to see his eagle-owl, Regent, lift off from the platform. Regent was the sort of royal creature who preferred to fly to Hogwarts.

Then Draco went in search of future allies.

*

“Can you believe that we’re finally on our way to Hogwarts?”

Ron shook his head dazedly at Victoria, his twin sister, as they looked out the window at their madly waving family. Victoria waved back, but Ron didn’t. He didn’t want to move too quickly. He kept feeling they were in a dream that would shatter if he did.

His family had been poor for a long time before his birth. He knew that. But he also knew that they were purebloods, and that was what mattered.

Still, he had doubted whether they would be accepted to Hogwarts up until the moment when the owls with his and Victoria’s acceptance letters flew through the window. After all, Hogwarts was for the best of the best. Even Mudbloods could succeed there if they had good enough marks. Was blood enough to admit them?

It was. But Ron knew part of him would doubt until they got there.

The compartment door banged open, and Fred and George trotted in, grinning like madmen. Ron tried not to shrink back into his seat. Fred and George had always been allies for him and Victoria. They felt that, as the only two pairs of twins in the Weasley family, they should look out for each other.

But Fred and George had been at Hogwarts for two years now, getting good marks, and they were really funny, and everyone liked them. Ron wasn’t sure he could live up to the pressure.

Victoria didn’t care about that. She laughed at the sight of them. “Did you already get in trouble?”

“We might have got the toilet seat Ginny wanted,” George said.

“I think you’re the one who came up with the idea to send her that toilet seat.”

Ron slouched back on his seat and watched as Victoria laughed and joked with Fred and George. She was Ron’s twin, but she was more like their brothers than she was him. Ron tried to tell himself it would be different at Hogwarts and they would be seen as different, but he couldn’t be sure, especially when they would both be in Gryffindor with Fred, George, and Percy.

The door of the compartment was still open from where their brothers had come in, and Ron saw a flash of blond hair in it. Someone leaned around the door and beckoned to him.

Ron glanced at his siblings, but none of them had noticed. He swallowed and stood, edging around Fred, who was describing Lee Jordan’s tarantula, and towards the person who waited there.

He wasn’t really surprised when it turned out to be Minister Malfoy’s son, who Ron had seen a few times in photographs in the papers. Malfoy smiled at him and extended his hand. “Hullo. I’m Draco Malfoy.”

“Ron Weasley,” Ron said, and shook Malfoy’s hand carefully. The last thing they needed was for him to bruise the Minister’s son or something and end up in the papers for that.

Malfoy pulled his hand back and gave Ron a long, slow, considering glance. Ron knew he turned red, but he stood there and let himself be looked at. It probably wasn’t that far off the way Malfoy looked at anyone.

“You’re the youngest son, right?” Malfoy sounded thoughtful. “You have a twin sister and then two younger sisters.”

“Yes, that’s right.” Ron bit his tongue to avoid saying something else, but he was stunned that someone had bothered to notice.

Malfoy nodded. “Do you feel overshadowed by your older siblings?”

Ron jumped as if someone had cast a Stinging Charm on him, and then wished he hadn’t, as he watched Malfoy’s smile widen in amusement. But he took a deep breath and decided it would be stupider to ask how Malfoy had known that, or walk back into the compartment and pretend he’d never left. “Yeah, I do.”

“You have a brother who’s going into curse-breaking, and a brother who works with dragons, and a brother who’s a Gryffindor prefect, and two prankster brothers.” Malfoy was studying Ron as if he was reading writing carved on Ron’s bones. Ron had never felt so seen before. “What do you want to know? What are you going to be known for?”

“I don’t know.” Ron’s bitterness rushed to the surface, and he found himself saying the thing he couldn’t to the others, not even Victoria, who was the one who got new girl’s things first. “Everything I own is hand-me-downs. It won’t matter if I get good marks because Bill and Charlie and Percy and Fred and George got them first. Even if I get on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, well, Charlie and Fred and George played there, too. And I’m not funny and I’m not popular and I’m not a prefect and I don’t know what to do.”

“Does it matter which way you stand out? If your family is angry at you for it or not?”

Ron blinked. He’d been so consumed with thoughts of never standing out that that question wasn’t one he’d thought about. “What do you mean?”

“It sounds to me as if you have ambition.” A small smile curled up the side of Malfoy’s mouth. “And there’s a specific House one goes into if they have ambition.”

Ron swallowed. That had never occurred to him. One of the reasons he’d been so sure that he would never stand out was that he would be just another Weasley in Gryffindor. But what if he wasn’t in Gryffindor? What if he went into another place where there weren’t half-a-dozen of him?

“I don’t think I can, though. The Sorting is done by families.”

“Not just that,” Malfoy said quickly. “My father explained to me how it works. He’s been called to the school a few times, you know, to deal with a Mudblood being Sorted into the wrong House or a pureblood not being happy with their House placement. The Sorting also takes your desires into consideration. And your character. It Sorts by families because a lot of families do have similar desires and personalities. Parents raise their children to value the things they value, after all. But if you want something different, if you want it badly enough to make the Sorting mechanism think about it…”

Ron felt a slow, delightful shiver creep down his spine. He’d never considered anything like that. But there was a lot of “never” going on today, and it didn’t mean it always had to be the same.

He did have one more thing to think about, though. “I want friends. Would anyone be friends with a Weasley who’s in Slytherin? A lot of the Dark pureblood families still despise us.”

“I would.”

Ron started and looked at Malfoy, who gave him a little nod that seemed to say he’d read the secrets on Ron’s bones and judged him worthy.

“Why, though?” Ron had to ask. His voice squeaked, and he cleared his throat and continued speaking. “I mean, you could be friends with anyone. The Minister’s son and all.”

“Perhaps,” Malfoy said, slowly, as if he needed to think about the right words before he said them, “I want to be friends with the first Weasley to be Sorted into Slytherin. Perhaps I think you’re different, and I want to know why.”

Ron felt his shoulders relax a little. That sounded like something he could believe. Not that he was special yet, but he could be. If he got into Slytherin. If he proved that he was worthy of friendship with the Minister for Magic’s son.

“All right,” he said. “Bargain.” And he felt himself fill with a mad, rearing excitement, the kind he usually only got when he listened to Chudley Cannon games on the wireless.

He was going to influence the Sorting-thing, whatever it was. He was going to be in Slytherin. The first Weasley ever. The first different Weasley, the first one to be known for his House and his ambition.

He was going to be special.

*

That, Draco thought as he watched Ron almost float back to his compartment, went very well indeed.

*

“Oof, watch where you’re going, won’t you?”

Harry blinked and turned around to face the boy he’d backed into. He had sandy hair and brown eyes and a disgruntled expression, and he was still sort of rocking where Harry had smashed into him when he backed up trying to see all the way to the top of the huge ball of crystal that sat in front of them.

“Sorry,” Harry said, and grinned a little at the boy. “I just wanted to see the top if I can. It must be hanging from something, right? Something lowered it down.” After a month at Fortius, Harry knew that he wouldn’t necessarily be able to see what had lowered it, but that didn’t stop him from looking at it.

The boy stared at him for a moment longer, then nodded and said, “Reasonable enough. Just don’t alter the queue.” He held out his hand. “Justin Finch-Fletchley.”

Harry remembered meeting someone with the same last name a fortnight or so back, but she had looked so sad that he didn’t like to ask if Justin was related to her. He just nodded and shook his hand. “Harry Potter.”

“I read something about Potters in Hogwarts, A History…”

“Yeah, a few of my ancestors were professors at the school. I’m a half-blood.” Harry studied the crystal globe again, wondering. He knew that it had something to do with their Sorting, but not what. The way students were Sorted at Hogwarts was kept secret from them, and it seemed Headmaster Riddle liked continuing part of the tradition at Fortius, too, even though the ways they were Sorted were different.

“Is this the queue where we stand to be Sorted?”

Harry grinned and glanced over. There was a tall dark-skinned boy hovering behind Justin. He already had his hand out, as if he assumed he would have to shake to get an answer. “Dean Thomas,” he introduced himself.

Harry shook his hand, too. “Yeah. I don’t know exactly how it happens, though. I’ve been here a month, and I’ve talked a lot to the Headmaster, but he wouldn’t tell me everything.”

“You’ve been here a month?” Thomas blinked. “Why?”

“My family didn’t want me to come.”

Harry was afraid that he would have to say more than that, but Thomas sighed. “Yeah. My mum was—she wasn’t going to forbid me to come, but when the Headmaster came and explained to her about the blood prejudice, she wasn’t impressed.”

“But you decided to come and study here anyway?” Finch-Fletchley asked. “Why?”

Thomas gave him a look that made Harry have to cough a little. “Are you mad? It’s magic.”

Finch-Fletchley looked as if he didn’t appreciate the insinuation that he was mad, but a sharp clapping noise echoed through the room, which was huge, round, made of stone, and otherwise empty except for the huge crystal bubble. Harry turned towards the doors they’d entered by and found Headmaster Riddle walking in. He wore a set of deep blue velvet robes trimmed with silver that Harry had never seen before.

There was a silver snake gliding along in front of him. It was the wrong color for Belasha, or Harry would have thought she’d been shrunk somehow. The serpent was still big, probably three meters or so, but Harry had to admit that he didn’t think any snakes were that threatening after seeing the basilisk.

“Why does he have a snake with him?” Thomas whispered.

“You didn’t read up on his history?” asked a voice Harry would have known anywhere, and Hermione elbowed her way to the front of the queue, ignoring Finch-Fletchley’s huff, or probably not hearing it at all. “He can speak Parseltongue. The language of snakes,” she added, when Thomas’s blank expression made it clear that didn’t explain anything to him. “It’s his pet, or his servant. He can control it.”

Thomas still looked nervous, but then Headmaster Riddle began to speak, and although his voice wasn’t loud, he gained the attention of all twenty-five of them instantly.

“Welcome to Fortius Academy.” Riddle wasn’t smiling, but Harry could see the warmth in his eyes. The silver snake rose and began to sway back and forth, and Riddle reached down to run his fingers absently over its head. “All of you have chosen to accept the invitation to explore further into the magical world than most purebloods would want you to go. All of you have courage and strength aplenty. But I would wager that most of you don’t know your magical affinity yet.”

No one disagreed with him. A girl next to Hermione shifted around, looking as if she was about to ask a question, and then didn’t. Riddle nodded at her anyway, and turned to face the huge crystal globe.

“At Hogwarts, a Sorting Hat looks into the mind of each student and chooses their House based on their personalities, their own desires, and the history of their families,” Riddle said calmly. “Fortius bases Sortings on magical affinity primarily. You will, of course, learn spells based on the kind of magic that you resonate with, as well as the element. But research has also shown that wizards and witches feel more comfortable around those with their magical affinity. And, of course, it is easier to cast as large ritual circles with those of the same affinity.”

“Why do we need to do that?” whispered Hermione, but Harry ignored her. He thought he knew. Large ritual circles meant more powerful spells, which meant more powerful weapons. Harry wouldn’t be surprised if Riddle was making revolutionary covens within the Houses.

“A reminder of the affinities and the Houses,” Riddle said, and reached down to the snake at his side. It hissed a little, and reared up higher to meet him. A silver light spread down from Riddle’s wand to encompass it, and began to writhe and overlay the snake with different shapes.

“The House of the Gryphon represents earth, Transfiguration, and defensive magic.” For a moment, the snake was the proud creature with the eagle’s head and lion’s body that Harry had walked past each day for the last month on his way to the library.

“The House of the Phoenix represents fire, Charms, and the magic of creation.” The illusion around the snake grew wings and flames, and stretched both of them out as if to take flight in that moment.

“The House of the Dragon represents water, Divination, and offensive spells.” The snake snapped back to looking almost like itself, but this time with wings made of silver light and a crest of lifting horns on its head.

“And finally, the House of the Pegasus represents air, Herbology, and mind magic.” The wings of the dragon grew feathers, and the serpent was surrounded by the illusion of a wise, proud, rearing horse.

Riddle gestured with his wand again, and the illusion faded. The serpent coiled around his leg and flicked out its tongue as it watched them. If it was saying something to Riddle, then Harry couldn’t hear what it was.

“Are there equal numbers in every House, sir?” Hermione asked, sounding as if she thought they would need the answer to do well on some homework.

Riddle smiled at her. “An excellent question, Miss Granger.” Harry thought Hermione could have done without the preening that she did then. “The answer is that the numbers will be roughly equal overall. But each year usually contains uneven numbers.” He looked around. “Any other questions?”

The other students in the room were exchanging glances, though, and looked breathless with excitement. Harry was himself. He’d kept changing his mind as he read through the books in the library and learned more about elemental magic and the different kinds of spells and fields that existed. Sometimes he thought he knew for sure what House he would be in, and then he would feel he had no idea and it was impossible to know.

“Very well.” Riddle whirled towards the crystal globe and cast without speaking, a blue spell that launched itself from his wand and straight into the middle of the globe.

It fractured with a noise like music, and spirals of white light whirled up from inside it. Harry stared. He had seen nothing like this at Fortius so far, read about nothing like it in the library.

The spirals separated, and Harry saw silver flame dancing around each of them. And then they began to zip towards each student, pursuing zigzag paths and going in different directions, so Harry couldn’t tell just by watching where any one of them was going to move.

The first one he saw came to a stop chose to hover in front of Finch-Fletchley. The other boy looked like he was holding his breath while the spiral changed shapes. Then it melted into the same silver color that the illusion around Riddle’s snake had, and became a brilliant, hovering phoenix.

Finch-Fletchley laughed in what sounded like pleasure, and Harry turned around to find some of the other students already had silver animals in front of them. Phoenixes settled on shoulders, winged horses bowed their heads and scraped their hooves, dragons reared with their wings spread out, and gryphons clapped their wings together.

Restless, Harry turned back to find his own beast, wondering why it was taking so long to find him—

And discovered a white spiral hovering right in front of him. Harry caught his breath, and then had to let it out again. His heart was racing frantically. He clenched his hands and tried not to feel as if he was about to vomit.

As he watched, the spiral surged through several different shapes, before it grew feathered wings, and a gryphon landed in front of him and bowed.

Harry smiled. He hadn’t known where he was really going to go, but he had suspected Gryphon House was a strong possibility. The spells he’d liked best when he read the descriptions of them in the books were defensive ones. And he really wanted to learn to become an Animagus, so it would be great if he had an affinity for Transfiguration.

He looked around and found a winged horse in front of Thomas and a dragon gazing into the eyes of the girl who had stood on the other side of Hermione. But where was Hermione?

“Harry!”

Harry snapped his head up and saw Hermione with a silvery phoenix on her shoulder, pecking gently at her hair as if it was preening her. Harry grinned and trotted over to her, with the gryphon following him. “So you’re going to be good at spell creation, then?”

“I hope so! It sounds by far the most fascinating thing we’ll learn—”

Hermione gasped as the phoenix faded into white mist and hovered around her shoulders. Harry felt it himself in the next moment as his gryphon became the same kind of aura that he had seen around Angelina Johnson when she questioned Riddle on the day he’d arrived at Fortius. There were hints of claws and feathers and a beak here and there, but for the most part, it was a formless mass.

But warm. The magic lingered around him, holding him close. Harry knew without asking that if he needed it to, it would lash out in his defense, or alert him to danger. He beamed.

“Your beast of the Sorting will become a permanent protector to you,” Riddle said clearly, evidently because he thought that some people weren’t as smart as Harry and Hermione and might need the reassurance. “It can combine with the magic of others in your House to double your protection and help you in ritual magic, as well as increase the potency of your spells. Of course, you will be expected to stand on your own and not rely on its extra strength all your life, only in your first year when your spellcraft is unskilled.”

Riddle swept all of them with his gaze, and his face was radiant with pride. Harry found himself straightening his spine. He knew he wasn’t the only one. Riddle believed they could be strong and make a difference, and that was enough to make Harry believe it, too.

Riddle smiled, then. “Four Dragons, six Phoenixes, eleven Gryphons, and four Winged Horses,” he says. “I look forward to great things from all of you.”

And for the first time—stronger even than when he had picked up Riddle’s wand or got his own—Harry was sure that he could, too.

Chapter Text

“If you will escort the first-years into the Great Hall, Minerva.”

That was the chore Headmistress Carrow always assigned her. Minerva knew why. It did the young purebloods good to see that a half-blood witch was assigned to a place of service. And it presumably did the others good, as well, if they had any illusions about their place in their new world.

“Yes, Headmistress,” was all Minerva said, and she dipped her head a little as she went down from the Grand Staircase to meet the young students that Wilhelmina had guided in on the little boats. Some traditions of Hogwarts were still observed, although the group of students this year, at seventeen, was smaller than most had been in Minerva’s youth.

She met Severus on the way, which was unusual. Most of the time, he would already have been sitting at the Head Table, as distant from the students as he could get.

“Minerva,” Severus said in a slow drawl. “On the way to bring in the little darlings?”

“As the Headmistress asked of me, yes,” Minerva said, and brushed past him.

She thought she felt something cling to her robes for a second, but when she stopped and glanced down at them, there was nothing there. She shook her head and kept walking. Hogwarts was so full of small tricks—notches in the steps that weren’t always present, the ghosts of mice, lingering effects of prank spells—that she didn’t try to deal with them unless they caused a visible effect.

And speaking of visible effects…Minerva rearranged her face in the stern, welcoming smile that she was known for. She must let no true sign of what she felt escape her vigilance, lest she be driven from the post where she could do the most students the most good.

*

Severus stared at the colors rotating over the smooth globe that Riddle had given him. It looked to be made of obsidian, although it was faceted and had a heart that could be seen into if one turned the ball enough. Riddle had said that Severus wouldn’t have to touch someone with the globe to measure their strength, but Severus hadn’t trusted that appraisal, not fully, so he had brushed the globe against Minerva’s robes as she passed.

This was a test only. Severus wanted to see how the globe functioned, to make sure that he could use it in the Great Hall as Riddle had demanded.

The colors snapped together after a long moment of rotating, which had seemed to create a second globe above the first. Severus saw the unmistakable figure of a gryphon there, which wasn’t a surprise. With Minerva’s strength in Transfiguration and her earth-like stolidity, she would undoubtedly have been Sorted into the House of the Gryphon if she had gone to Fortius.

Severus slipped the globe into his robe pocket and turned to sweep towards the Great Hall.

*

“Welcome to Hogwarts,” Minerva said, and continued the familiar speech describing the strengths of the Houses and some of the ancient traditions of the school, while her gaze slid critically over the students standing in the anteroom in front of her.

Red hair—the second set of Weasley twins, of course. Minerva concealed a sigh. She could only hope that they were less mischievous than their older brothers, and wouldn’t cause her too many troubles in her position as Head of their House.

Blond hair. Minerva gave a semi-deep nod to the Minister’s son. Young Malfoy looked at her with a pinched, superior expression that made him resemble the worst combination of his parents.

She let her eyes roam over the other children, all expected. Pansy Parkinson, standing with her nose halfway up an invisible arse. The Crabbe and Goyle sons, behind Draco with the kind of stolid implacability that attended their families as they attended the Malfoys. Another blond head, deeper in color this time, that marked the latest Smith.

Many of them would go to Slytherin. There was only one Muggleborn and two half-bloods among them.

Maybe that was for the best. Maybe it would be for the best if those children accepted the shadow the pureblood world would cast over them early on, and accepted, too, that they would have to get their inferior education from the Fortius Academy instead of Hogwarts.

Merlin knows, Minerva thought, as she turned and opened the doors into the Great Hall with a wave of her wand, we have little enough to offer them.

*

Severus tapped the obsidian globe resting in his lap, out of sight beneath the table, with two fingers the minute the first of the disorganized jumble of eleven-year-olds stepped into the Great Hall.

There was a long, soft hum, which Severus was fairly sure he was the only one to hear. The Hall was more silent than it was most of the time, but no place filled with this many children could be entirely so. There were whispers zipping back and forth from mouth to mouth, and the clink of coins changing hands, as people bet on how many Slytherins there would be this time, and how many Gryffindors.

The number of the latter shrank from year to year.

Severus sneered a little when he caught sight of two gingers trailing along at the back of the pack. Well, there will be two more this year, anyway.

His eyes found those of Draco Malfoy, who was staring at him with the kind of expectation of deference that his father regularly did. Severus made sure to nod a little. He had a lie all prepared about why he couldn’t be more open when they were in front of an audience, but Draco didn’t seem to be interested in Severus, instead turning back to the Sorting Hat sitting on its stool with a look of expectation on his face.

The Hat began its latest song, one Severus didn’t bother paying any more attention to than he usually did. The idea of tradition and the like that the Hat supported was one he had ignored for years because he despised it, and that he ignored now because he had a more important task.

The students of Hogwarts would not be Sorted by magical affinity as those of Fortius were. But the globe that Riddle had given Severus could still discern what those magical affinities would have been.

And record them, so that Riddle could have a better idea what strengths his future enemies had.

It was so ingenious that Severus wondered why Riddle hadn’t tried to get someone on the inside in Hogwarts so that he could find out before. Perhaps the magic that could do the recording hadn’t been perfected yet.

Perhaps he had simply not known whom he could trust.

Severus picked up his goblet of water and brought it to his lips, wetting them only, as the first girl, a Bones, went beneath the Hat, and was assigned to Hufflepuff. He approved of the slowness of Riddle’s pace, and not only because the man had once been a Slytherin like Severus.

It meant the revenge would be slower, too, and to be savored.

Severus wanted them to suffer.

*

Draco had thought the Hat might speak to him, the way it seemed to have spoken to some of the others, especially Longbottom, whom it had hesitated over for a long time before it sent him to Gryffindor. But the Hat only touched his head briefly and squealed, “SLYTHERIN!”

Draco smiled a little as he sat down at the table politely clapping for him. He had known he would be in Slytherin, the way all his ancestors had been, the way Crabbe and Goyle were. The way the majority of their year would be. Daphne had gone there, too, and Pansy would come, and Theodore, and Blaise. Millicent Bulstrode seemed to have been hoping for it, but the Hat had sent her to Ravenclaw. Draco was viciously, silently pleased about that. Bulstrode was a half-blood. No point in aspiring beyond her station.

His eyes went to Ron, though. Draco thought their conversation on the train had had an impact, but was it enough of one?

Ron’s face was pale, which made his freckles stand out like dots of blood. He darted one glance at Draco, then away again, as if he didn’t want anyone to see where he was looking. Draco raised his eyebrows a little. Perhaps Ron had better political instincts than Draco had thought.

“What are you looking at, Draco?”

That was Pansy, sitting beside him now, looking as happy as she ever got. Her older sister, sitting down the bench, gave her one cool, thoughtful glance, and looked away. Draco lamented that he wouldn’t get to know Cygnet Parkinson well before she left Hogwarts, since she was already a sixth-year. From what his parents had said, she was better company than Pansy.

“The people who might get into Slytherin,” Draco said truthfully.

Pansy sniffed. “I can’t imagine there’s going to be many surprises. The worthy purebloods will come here—”

The Hat shouted Smith for Hufflepuff, and Draco raised his eyebrows at her. “You were saying?”

“Well, Smith is descended from a Founder, of course he’ll go to the Founder’s House.” Pansy flicked her fingers and dismissed the contrary evidence for her theory. “And of course it’s no surprise where the Weasleys will go.”

Draco bit his lip, and looked up as Ron walked forwards and settled under the Hat. There were only him, his twin sister, and Blaise left.

Come on, Ron, Draco thought, narrowing his eyes. Show me what you’ve got.

*

Slytherin, Ron thought the instant the Hat settled on his head.

There was a long pause, during which Ron thought he felt someone moving around in his thoughts. It was bloody disconcerting. But the Hat didn’t shout anything one way or the other, so Ron squared his shoulders and did his best to accept the sensation.

You would do well in Gryffindor, the Hat murmured, its voice ancient and creaky. That is where your family expects you to go, I believe. And a pureblood might usually do well in Slytherin, but you might also encounter prejudice because of the policies that your family supported until recently.

Ron felt something freeze in him. Does everything have to be about my bloody family? he demanded. Am I not allowed to have anything I want? Or do you just do what people’s parents want?

The Hat gave a chuckle that bounced off the sides of Ron’s skull. I suspect that I have made many decisions that students’ parents would not approve of.

Then you can make this one. I want Slytherin. I want a place that my ambitions can thrive. Where I can do what I need to do to distinguish myself.

Another silence, and Ron could hear the rising murmurs that were the voices of people wondering what the hell was happening, and why the Hat was taking so long to Sort yet another Weasley. Ron’s spine grew stiffer as he thought about that. He would prove that he wasn’t just another Weasley. He would prove that he was different.

You should know, the Hat said abruptly, that if you want to go to Slytherin because of the interaction on the train I can see in your memories, then young Mr. Malfoy was not telling you to enter that House out of mere concern for your welfare.

Ron grimaced. I didn’t think he was. I know that he probably wants to use me somehow. Dad says all the Malfoys are like that. But it’s perfectly possible to get along with the Malfoys and still do what you want. It’s what Fred and George do.

The Hat gave a chuckle that was aloud this time, and Ron heard more than one person jump. He wished he could see it, but the Hat’s brim was too low over his eyes, and he couldn’t look up or see anything on their faces.

Very well. I think that you are better-suited to your new House than any other Weasley I’ve seen recently. Do well in—“SLYTHERIN!”

*

Severus felt his eyebrows fly up as the Weasley boy put the Hat on the stool and stood to face the audience. The silent audience. If any other Sorting had caused this level of consternation at Hogwarts, Severus couldn’t remember it.

Minerva was staring with her lips parted, which was the equivalent of a dropped jaw for her. She shook her head sharply a second later and actually turned and addressed the Sorting Hat. “Have you gone senile?” she demanded.

The Hat gave a long, wheezy-sounding chuckle. Severus let his eyes pass back and forth between it and the Weasley boy, who was marching towards the Slytherin table. They sat stunned, not clapping, but Weasley didn’t look stunned. Neither did Draco, who was smiling in the self-satisfied way of someone who had achieved something he wanted.

Draco. Severus held back his sigh. Of course he would tamper with something like this, in the name of collecting allies.

Draco had just begun to clap lightly when the Hat said, “I am the Sorting Hat. I know where to send students.” It flapped its brim up and down. “And I have two more of them to Sort, so bring them to me.”

Weasley slid into the seat next to Draco, and exchanged a bright, secret smile with him. Severus wanted to groan, seeing it. Just the thing he needed, a Weasley under his watch and conspiring with the Minister’s son.

“You’re wrong!” That was the older Weasley twins, yelling as one, standing up at the Gryffindor table. Severus spared them a single glance, more to monitor the position of the two other Weasleys in the room than to see what the twins were doing. Percy’s mouth was narrow and lined. The girl, Ron Weasley’s twin sister, simply seemed stunned. “No Weasley—”

“Has ever been in a House other than Gryffindor! Put our—”

“Brother back, now!”

Minerva’s back went up, probably because she found students yelling in the Great Hall more offensive than the thought of losing a “guaranteed” Gryffindor to Slytherin House. “Mr. Weasley, Mr. Weasley, sit down, now! The Hat makes the final decision.”

“Thank you, Professor McGonagall.” The Sorting Hat sounded smug.

Severus snorted under his breath as he saw the look of loathing Minerva gave the thing, but she turned her back on it and gestured the other two students left in line, Victoria Weasley and Blaise Zabini, forwards. Luckily, there were no surprises there. Weasley-Ella went to Gryffindor, and Zabini to Slytherin, as expected.

Nine new Slytherins, the same count as Severus had anticipated, although the members were a bit different. He had thought Millicent Bulstrode would be the ninth, not Weasley. He sipped at his water as Minerva swept the Hat off the stool and Headmistress Carrow rose to her feet, eyes glittering.

All the students immediately shut up and paid attention. You did, when Hogwarts’s Headmistress spoke. She had been known to torture those who didn’t.

Severus mentally contrasted it to the way Headmaster Dumbledore had handled matters when he was a student here, and snorted to himself again. Well, yes, Dumbledore had been less intimidating, and he would never have resorted to torture—except for the cute little speeches he liked to give that students would spend hours trying to riddle apart later. Severus had known there was no meaning behind them from the time he was a second-year student, but precious little could convince other Slytherins of that.

“Welcome to your future,” Carrow said, her dark eyes passing slowly back and forth across the tables, as if marking the way every student sat or tilted their heads back to look up at her for signs of sedition. “You should take your schooling seriously. That means adhering to the rules of courtesy and pride, among other things. Take pride in your heritage. Understand it. Take pride in the heritage of your House.” She leaned forwards, hands resting lightly on the table. “And know the rules.”

The words sank into a silence as deep as a pool at the foot of a waterfall. There was no applause as Carrow sat down and gave the nod that would signal the house-elves to begin serving the feast. That was the way Carrow liked it, though. She thought too many signs of enthusiasm, other than for torturing Mudbloods, meant people were planning something against the regime.

Severus glanced down at the obsidian sphere in his lap again, and smiled slightly as it flashed the image of a dragon. So it had recorded the magical affinities of all the students Sorted today, and agreed that Blaise Zabini would be Sorted into the House nearest to Slytherin if he was attending Fortius Academy.

Severus expected to see Riddle tonight, and to receive another sphere that he could carry around to analyze the magical affinities of older students. Know your enemy.

“What are you looking at, Severus?”

He turned to face Filius, slipping the obsidian sphere into his robe pocket with a slight motion of his hand. “My future, with the most students Sorted this year under my care,” he said, with a slight grimace. “And a Weasley to boot. Who knows what mess that is going to cause?”

Filius sighed and nodded. “And I will have a half-blood to console,” he said, turning to look at Millicent Bulstrode. Severus saw that she was sitting at the edge of the Ravenclaw table, her arms folded and her shoulders turned to those of her Housemates who were trying to talk to her. “I hope, in time, that she can accept what happened is for the best.”

Severus returned some light answer, and began eating. It took him more time than it should have to realize that Minerva had not returned.

*

Minerva stared at the Sorting Hat as she held it, turning it around and around in her hands. Technically, she should have returned it to the Headmistress’s office right away, and then gone to the Feast. But she didn’t know how to bypass the new ward Headmistress Carrow had set at the end of the corridor, and although she could have guessed, or gone and asked the Headmistress before she left the Great Hall, standing here until the Feast was done would both outline her dedication to the task and convey the impression that she was a half-blooded idiot to Carrow—something particularly good to convey right now.

The main benefit, of course, was that she didn’t need to go back into the Great Hall and stare at the paltry three first-years she would be nurturing this year. For the first time in the school’s history, there would be a bedroom with a single student in it. Victoria Weasley, in this case.

“Why did you do it?” she whispered, her voice breaking. “Why did you—why have you gone along with what they asked you to do, these last few years?”

She knew she could be in danger if the Sorting Hat reported this conversation to Headmistress Carrow. But the Hat had never willingly spoken to her. Minerva was as safe as she could be.

“I Sort where students belong,” said the Hat, and yawned with a noise like a Muggle student’s satchel being zipped. “I Sort what you give me. And the majority belong in Slytherin. Mr. Weasley went to the right House for him.”

Minerva closed her eyes. She knew, of course, that purebloods like Lucius Malfoy would like to see Gryffindor House, and probably Hufflepuff, destroyed altogether. The traditions that flowed from Godric Gryffindor and Helga Hufflepuff were both inconvenient for them and more likely to turn students against Minister Malfoy’s administration.

But eliminating them completely would risk the wrath of older purebloods who had been in those Houses. Starving them of students, however, was acceptable.

“Has it occurred to you,” the Hat abruptly demanded, “that I can do nothing else with the quality of students I have?”

Minerva looked at it again. It was the first time she could remember the Hat saying something that wasn’t in response to a direct question. “I don’t know what you mean. All of our students have the magical strength and marks to attend Hogwarts.”

“Perhaps I should have said quantity,” the Hat said. “Perhaps I should have said blood.”

And then it closed its brim, and no matter what other questions Minerva asked, it wouldn’t answer her.

In the end, she did stand there until Headmistress Carrow came back to the gargoyle, but it didn’t matter. She wasn’t hungry anyway.

*

Tom stood at the window of his office, gazing across the expanse of Fortius’s grounds, and noting the softly glowing lights behind many of the windows. He smiled a little. Classes would begin later than usual tomorrow morning, both to give time for a tour of the school for those who might not have seen everything yet, and to give some recovery time for those who stayed up late tonight, chattering to and learning the names and natures of their new Housemates.

Tom stepped back and reached for the jar of Floo powder on his mantel. It was time to go to Hogwarts and exchange obsidian orbs with Severus. At least, it was if the man had done as Tom had instructed. It would be interesting to see how well he fared in this first test of his loyalty.

A low noise sounded from behind him. It was the thready edge of a growl, and Tom halted, his fingers digging into the jar’s sides. The wards on Fortius should have held every threat out that could produce a noise like that.

“Don’t move, Riddle.”

Tom continued gazing straight forwards, but he reached out with his mind to touch a connection he usually didn’t call upon. Although their natures and magical affinities were not close enough to bond as wizard and familiar, he did have a tie to Belasha because of his Parseltongue magic. She would come if she sensed he was in danger.

The noise didn’t repeat itself, but the man slowly circled in front of him. Tom was grateful for the lack of speed, in fact. It gave him more time to reach out to Belasha and stir her from the sleep that had consumed her this afternoon after she’d devoured two oxen.

The man finally came to a halt in front of Tom, close enough for Tom to see his face—or he would have been able to, if a deep cloak hadn’t shaded it. The man’s fingers played lightly across the wood of a rowan wand. That made Tom blink despite himself. Rowan wood, deeply involved in protection against Dark magic, normally wouldn’t answer the will of a wizard who had broken in wanting to harm the children or torture someone.

But the sight of the unusual wood, combined with the noise from beforehand, made Tom reach out and send a soothing emotion to Belasha, asking her to halt without the words that he couldn’t send from this distance.

“Do I have the pleasure of addressing Mr. Remus Lupin?” he asked.

The man started, and the thin growl Tom had heard before broke out again. Then he lifted his left hand and swept back the hood of his cloak, keeping the wand in his right hand trained on Tom.

Tom had thought he’d known what to expect, since he had relatively recent photographs of Lupin from some of his Ministry spies, but it turned out that he hadn’t after all. Lupin’s hair had gone entirely silver, an odd metallic color that didn’t look like the grey of age, but like the fur of a wolf in winter. His eyes, likewise, were entirely golden, as if he stood permanently in a flow of light that touched only them, and his ears slightly pointed. He reminded Tom of pictures Muggles painted of elves.

“How did you know?” Lupin demanded in a voice several octaves lower than a human wizard’s.

“It’s rare that someone who could growl would manage to pass through the wards without alerting me,” Tom said, keeping his eyes on Lupin’s. His hand tingled with the urge to grasp his wand, but he kept it still. At the moment, reaching for any weapon would be one of the stupidest things he could do, and he knew it. “And I knew that once I removed Harry from the home where the Ministry had placed him, I would probably be seeing you.”

Lupin continued to stare at him unwaveringly. “You might as well say it.”

“Say what?”

“Say something that could growl like that. And call Harry by his last name. I know that’s what people like you do.” Lupin’s lips pulled back so that Tom could see teeth he thought had been deliberately sharpened for the intimidation factor.

“No, I do believe that werewolves are people,” Tom said. He kept his voice as mild as possible, and stared mostly at Lupin but partially off to the side. “And Harry is Harry to me, although of course I’ll have to call him by his last name in class. He reminds me a lot of myself in childhood.”

Lupin sniffed visibly. Tom controlled any reaction, and waited. Then Lupin said, “You aren’t lying.”

Tom shook his head. “I am not. I found that Harry had been placed with the Muggle relatives of his mother, and they had abused him. They—”

Lupin flowed towards him, so fast that he looked like a current of visible air instead of a person. Again, Tom kept his hand away from his wand, and let Lupin grip him around the shoulders and slam him back into the wall.

He also kept to himself the doubt that he might not have been able to compete with Lupin’s speed even if he’d wanted to.

“You’re lying this time,” Lupin said, his voice near enough to Tom’s ear to remind him of nightmares he’d had as a child, of something snarling beside his bed in the dark. “I know it. The purebloods knew what I’d do to their children if they harmed Harry.”

“They probably thought you would never find out,” Tom said, tilting his head back a little to get his windpipe as clear as possible. Sharpened nails rested against his neck, enough to create dents in his skin. “And they thought Harry would go to Hogwarts this time, and be so grateful for the magical rescue that he would never mention his time with his relatives.”

“You believe that. You don’t know for sure.”

Tom hadn’t known that a werewolf’s nose could pick up subtleties like that, which irritated him. Had the people reporting to him not known it, either, which would mean a failure of their diligence, or had they left it out of their reports because they didn’t believe it was important, which would mean a failure of their intelligence?

Lupin snarled softly, and Tom reminded himself that he would figure it out later. He sighed and said, “No, I don’t know it for sure. But there isn’t any other reason I can think of for someone who plays the game like Lucius Malfoy to have left him with abusive Muggles when he knew about your threat.”

A long moment passed in which the loudest sound was Tom’s heart in his ears and the panting of what felt like a large beast next to him. Then Lupin released him.

Tom let his feet settle on the floor and spent a moment smoothing out his robes. Then he looked up to see Lupin prowling back and forth in front of him. There was the slight rasp of nails on the floor that meant Lupin was probably barefoot underneath his robes. Tom didn’t bother trying to confirm it.

“Why did they want to control Harry that way?” Lupin asked, his voice a tired rasp without the growl.

“He has power,” Tom said. “He didn’t believe magic existed, but he used my own wand to throw me across the room when he was simply willing it to happen. I think that Malfoy and whoever else was in charge of the placement wished to control him and his magic in the future. Perhaps for a marriage, perhaps for a harvesting.”

Lupin’s mouth opened, and yes, his teeth had definitely sharpened, although perhaps by his transformations rather than magic. “I see,” he said. “That will not happen to Harry.”

“No, I agree. Legally, he’s a student of Fortius now and he won’t be able to be removed—”

“No, it will not happen because Malfoy will be dead.” Lupin turned towards the fireplace.

“Consider something, Lupin,” Tom said, and he knew it was his bored tone that made the werewolf glance back at him. If he had sounded angry or anxious, Lupin would probably already have vanished through the flames. “If you murder Malfoy, or infect his child, then the British purebloods will unite against you more than you already have. You won’t be able to play the role that I hope you’ll play.”

“What do you mean?”

“The role in Harry’s life that I’d hope and think he wanted you to play, as a dear friend of his parents. And someone who can help him, and other students if you’re agreeable, prepare for a future life as participants in this war we find ourselves fighting.”

Lupin’s nostrils flared again. “You’re a manipulator to your core.”

Tom shrugged, although it annoyed him that his mannerisms and deflections presumably wouldn’t work on Lupin unless he learned a charm to conceal his scent. “True enough. But what I said is still true. Malfoy placed Harry in an abusive household, he is safe here now, and I think he would prefer you alive and in his life than on the run.”

Lupin tilted his head, making it look like his neck was longer than normal and conveying the air of a wild predator at the same time. “And I suppose that you would manage to house someone who is still a fugitive in most of Britain without running into legal issues of your own?”

Tom snorted. “We can conceal that you’re you from everyone but Harry and perhaps some of the professors. We’ll create an alternate identity for you that you can interact with the other students in.”

Lupin studied him slowly. Tom didn’t think it was his imagination that Lupin’s eyes lingered on his throat and the curve of his neck, but he tried not to let it bother him.

“Will your other professors go along with this? Will the other students of your school feel at ease being taught by a werewolf?”

“My professors are as committed to the battle as I am. And we’ll introduce our students one by one. But you should remember, Lupin, that most of our students are Muggleborns or Muggle-raised half-bloods. They often didn’t have the chance to learn the prejudice against werewolves that you’re worrying about.”

Lupin studied him for a moment longer, and then nodded. Some essential tension fled from his body when he did, and although Tom could still see the pointed ears and the silver hair and the golden eyes and the sharp teeth, he looked more human than he had.

“I’d like to see Harry again,” Lupin said quietly. He paused. “And Sirius.”

Tom smiled. “It will take more work to free Mr. Black from his house arrest than it does to accept you here. But I have thought of some plans. He could have much to contribute to us.”

“Besides a way of keeping a powerful half-blood enamored with your school?”

“That, too.”

Lupin gave a laugh that sounded like the yelp of a rabbit caught in mid-leap. “Well. Fine, Riddle. I don’t like you, but compared to the simmering hatred that I feel for the majority of wizards and witches, that’s practically a compliment.”

Tom took that in stride. He knew that the only people Lupin might feel differently about were Harry and Black, but both of them had reasons to be on his side.

And if Lupin was agreeable later, and Tom could let it be known that he was the only one who stood between magical Britain and the possibility of a werewolf on the rampage against their children…

Fear was such a useful tool.

*

“Have you the orb for me?”

Severus swallowed and turned around. He had rehearsed what he would do when Riddle came for the obsidian orb, how he would stand tall and firm, how he would speak important words about the Sorting that would make Riddle pay attention to him—

But all the words crisped to a stop against the floating wall of Riddle’s power, and the amusement in his eyes as he stared at Severus.

Severus slid to a knee and held out the obsidian orb he had used to record the students’ Sortings and magical affinities. Riddle took it from him and spent a moment running his fingers over it. Severus looked down further lest he be tempted to stare and see if the fingers had claws.

“Were there any surprises in the Sorting?”

“The Weasley boy went to Slytherin,” Severus murmured, dropping his head further. He had forgotten what it was like to have that magic focused on him. If he could think about throwing Riddle at his enemies, it was bearable, but this man would also turn on Severus if he didn’t serve the cause of Muggleborns and half-bloods well enough, and Severus knew it. “There were only three Gryffindors.”

Riddle sighed. “I believe at one time I would have rejoiced to hear it. But now, it only shows how successful they have been in creating children who think like them.”

“Will you—will you want me to take on a more active revolutionary role here, my lord? Sir?” Severus didn’t know for sure what title he should use, but Riddle corrected neither.

“Husband your efforts to speak to the half-bloods and Muggleborns,” Riddle said, with a shake of his head. “Your place is too fragile, given your own blood status, to attempt to openly influence the young Slytherins right now, unless one of them comes to you. You have Draco Malfoy under your care, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Severus said cautiously, his brain suddenly in turmoil. He would prefer it if Riddle didn’t ask him to harm Draco.

Riddle laughed, having apparently noticed Severus’s hunching shoulders. “Relax, Severus. I make war on children’s brains, not their bodies. I only wanted to know. And how powerful did his magic seem to you?”

“I don’t think I know how to interpret that part of the orb, sir. My lord.” Severus paused. “Which one would you prefer?”

“Which one would you prefer?”

“Sir,” Severus said at last. That gave acknowledgment of Riddle’s greater power and standing without acknowledging that he had some kind of rightful dominance or inherent power.

Even though he does, whispered a traitorous, buried part of Severus.

“Very well. I will interpret the results of the orb myself.” Riddle turned as if to leave, and then turned back. “And Severus?”

“Sir,” Severus said, biting his lip against the “my lord” that still wanted to leap out.

“I’ll be sending you a book of some of the spells that I use myself soon, to bind my power and make myself seem weaker than I am. Use them. No one should question you, but if they do, explain that your power is shrinking with age. Some of them believe that of half-bloods. They should accept it.”

Severus breathed through his own resistance to the idea of being thought weaker than he was, and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

As Riddle vanished in a flash of bending light that was not Apparition and did not disturb the protections on the school, Severus consoled himself with the thought that pretending weakness was for such a short while. In the end, he would be on the winning side.

He hoped that he would be permitted to drop the protections in front of Lucius on that far-distant day, and laugh in his bloody face.

Chapter Text

“Welcome to your first Defense class at Fortius.”

Harry tried not to wriggle in his seat. He knew that he had a talent for defensive magic, and he couldn’t wait to see how they would practice. His holly wand, which lay next to him on the desk, hummed a little as if it was wriggling for him.

Professor Riddle gestured with his wand, and the long spread of writing on the blackboard appeared. Harry leaned forwards and studied it. He had better glasses now, which meant he could actually see it, but it was still pretty small and long.

“You don’t have to copy these notes down word-for-word,” Professor Riddle said, greatly relieving Harry. “This is the background that I expect you to know by the end of this week, however, so you will need to have notes on the general concepts by then. Some of it rephrases the material in your book. Some of it is from my own experience.”

Hermione’s hand was in the air a second later. Harry held back a chuckle when he saw the patient expression on Professor Riddle’s face. “Yes, Miss Granger?”

“How are we going to know the difference between what’s in the book and what’s your personal experience, sir? And how can we be sure that we understand if it we don’t have it word-for-word? And when should we be copying it? And what kind of parchment—”

“One question at a time, Miss Granger.”

Hermione snatched her hand down again and bowed her head. Professor Riddle sighed. “It was not meant as a degrading comment, Miss Granger. Only that I cannot answer your questions when you don’t pause for breath between them.”

Hermione peered up from underneath her eyelashes as if she thought Professor Riddle was making fun of her. Harry didn’t think he was, though. He’d seen his share of teachers who made fun of students at his primary school. Professor Riddle was just smiling at Hermione as if he thought the whole thing was funny.

“You should know the difference between what’s in the book and what’s my personal experience when you read the book, Miss Granger, and then come across something unfamiliar in the notes. You may copy the notes word-for-word if it helps you, but it won’t help every student, and I don’t want you to become so consumed in copying them that you neglect other topics.”

Hermione blinked as though that made sense and she was stunned that it did. Harry wondered what her teachers had been like.

“I will give you time in each class to work on your notes, usually when I pause to give students a time to reflect and think. The kind of parchment that you bought in your shopping should be more than sufficient.”

Professor Riddle folded his hands behind his back and considered them for a moment. Harry found himself holding very still, and wondered if he was hoping that the professor would call on him or not. It was weird. He couldn’t tell.

“What do you think of when you hear the word defense, Mr. Potter?”

Harry took a deep breath and sat up. He wasn’t exactly used to his primary school teachers calling on him, but he already knew that Fortius was going to be different. And the Headmaster knowing him so well had to have drawbacks as well as advantages.

“I think of protecting myself, sir.”

“From what?”

“From everything?” But Harry already knew from the expression on Professor Riddle’s face that that wasn’t a good answer. “People hitting me, sir. People chasing me. People throwing things at me. Maybe even people insulting me, although I don’t know how you would do that with magic instead of walking away from them.”

Professor Riddle looked at him with those intense eyes that sometimes seemed to throw back the light like a cat’s eyes, and then he turned and looked around the classroom. “How many other students think of defending themselves from people first?”

Several other hands rose. Hermione’s didn’t. She was studying Harry as if she thought that he was a locked box and he’d given her the key. Harry smiled weakly at her. It wasn’t like he’d told her about the Dursleys in any detail.

Professor Riddle nodded and turned back to Harry. “People are not the only ones you need to defend yourself against, Mr. Potter.”

Harry nodded, back on familiar ground. He’d rarely got the right answer in primary school, either. At least Professor Riddle was being nicer about saying that he was wrong than his teachers had been.

“But they are the primary antagonists you will face,” Professor Riddle added unexpectedly, and then drew his wand. The first row of desks floated out of the way. “Mr. Potter, come up here and draw your wand.”

Harry stood up slowly, feeling his pulse beating in his temples like it used to do when Dudley held him upside-down. He drew his wand and walked to the front of the class, but he didn’t know what he could do against Riddle. He understood better now, from reading books in the library, how lucky he had been to slam Riddle against the wall when he used his own wand against him.

Riddle smiled at him and gestured with his free hand. “You need not look so nervous, Mr. Potter. We are merely going to give the other students a little demonstration.”

That only made Harry more nervous. Sometimes his teachers in primary school had said something like that right before asking him a question about maths or grammar that they knew he didn’t know. It was a way to make sure that the class would have someone to laugh at, before the teacher came in with the right answer and told Harry off for being “stupid” or “lazy” or “not studying.”

“Calm down, Harry.”

Harry blinked and stared at Professor Riddle. He had thought first names were only for outside the classroom. But the professor was smiling slightly at him, and he nodded, as if to say that he understood Harry’s nervousness and empathized with it.

He can’t possibly. But Harry’s shoulders dropped from their tight position near his ears nevertheless.

Professor Riddle moved a little, so that his back was to the set of huge windows that looked out over the grounds of Fortius. Harry instinctively moved to the side, so he wasn’t directly across from him. Professor Riddle, who had started to open his mouth, shut it again and tilted his head a little.

“Can you tell us why you did that, Mr. Potter?”

“Because I can’t see your face if your back is to the sun,” Harry said. “I have to see your face so I’ll know when you’re going to attack. Sir.”

He worried that he hadn’t sounded respectful enough, but Professor Riddle only chuckled. “Good defensive instincts,” he said, and glanced at the rest of the class, although Harry didn’t dare turn his head in case Professor Riddle chose that moment to send a spell at him. “Remember that your environment may cause you advantages or disadvantages. But there is another, more important lesson here. Who can tell me what it is?”

The silence went on long enough that Harry glanced at the other students. Hermione was chewing on her lip, frowning in the way he already knew meant she got when she didn’t know something. Dean slowly raised his hand at last.

“Yes, Mr. Thomas?”

“You don’t have to stay right across from a professor just because they put you there, sir?”

Professor Riddle chuckled again. “Phrased in the specific rather than the general term, Mr. Thomas, but yes. You don’t need to do what seems to be required—in this case, standing directly across from an opponent—simply because it seems to be required. If you aren’t sure whether something is required, ask me. But don’t go along with the seeming.”

Hermione’s hand was in the air again. Professor Riddle nodded to her, and she said, sounding slightly scandalized, “But what about the rules, sir?”

“What rules are those, Miss Granger?”

“The rules of the school, sir.” Hermione’s eyes were huge and deep, and Harry thought that he’d never seen her look so distressed. He hadn’t even known she could. She had always seemed so calm and collected, and more mature than he was. “How can we obey the rules and still do what you say?”

“You’ll have to use your best judgment in some situations, Miss Granger. The way Mr. Potter showed some good judgment by moving so that my face was no longer obscured by the sunlight.”

Hermione looked as if she wanted to ask another question, but Professor Riddle turned back to face Harry. “Now, Mr. Potter. I want you to cast the strongest spell you can directly at me.”

“A spell, sir?” Harry asked, thinking of how he had pushed the professor across the room at the Dursleys’ with nothing more than his will.

Professor Riddle narrowed his eyes. “Yes.”

Obviously, this is a rule that he doesn’t want me to dodge around, Harry thought, grumpy, and then focused his wand and his will and his attention on the professor. “Lumos,” he said, which was sort of pathetic, but was the spell he had managed best in his mostly solitary practice.

A welling light struck from the tip of his wand, but Professor Riddle had already moved a little to the side. “A good first try, Mr. Potter. But why would it not make a very good defensive spell in a situation like this? Can anyone tell me?”

“It doesn’t hit anybody,” said Finch-Fletchley, leaning forwards in his chair as if he was about to get out of it and charge Harry and Professor Riddle.

“True, but defensive spells are meant to defend, not necessarily lash out. Can anyone else tell me?”

Hermione raised her hand while Harry fumed a little to himself. Riddle hadn’t specified that it had to be a defensive spell, just a spell. The strongest one he could cast.

Well, Harry would choose a better one the next time Riddle informed him that he should cast at him. The next second.

*

Tom kept a close eye on Harry as he listened to Granger’s answer about how the Lumos Charm probably couldn’t do much except blind an enemy, and then only if aimed in the right place. That was one of the many answers he would have accepted, that this spell depended too much on circumstances, and wasn’t flexible enough.

The boy bore watching. Anyone who could use Tom’s own wand to push him across the room did.

But right now, he seemed angrier than he should be. And that meant that he might attack any second.

Tom would have to teach him the consequences of his own disobedience and lack of thinking if he did that. But carefully. Tom himself was all too well-aware of what had happened to warp him and other Slytherins at Hogwarts when certain professors didn’t handle their emotions the right way.

Harry was no Slytherin, of course, but Gryphons sometimes had the characteristics of one. And he was proud, and hot-tempered, and touchy.

“Very good, Miss Granger,” Tom said, when she had finished. “Yes, that is one reason. The Lumos Charm will not work very well to do anything except blind, and it will usually be a temporary effect.” He swung back to Harry as the boy opened his mouth and then shut it again. “Is something wrong, Mr. Potter?”

“You said for me to cast the strongest spell at you that I could, sir. You didn’t say that it had to be the strongest defensive spell.”

“No, I didn’t,” Tom said, smiling a little. “What spell would you have used if I had made that particular request in those particular words, Mr. Potter?”

Harry looked a little uncertain now. Then he said, “I would have turned the floor to ice, sir.”

“Can you manage that reliably?” Tom asked in interest. The books in the library that the boy had been studying weren’t organized in the way that books in the Hogwarts library most often were, by skill level, and they didn’t offer much commentary on whether a spell “belonged” in the first year, or the second, or the seventh, either. That had been a deliberate choice on Tom’s part. Students who were racing ahead of their expected level rarely benefited from being told they were; they would hesitate and grow less confident, expecting difficulties they hadn’t encountered. But Tom hadn’t been aware that Harry was using battle Transfiguration with any level of success.

“I think so, sir.”

The boy’s chin was proudly uplifted, and Tom gave in to his own curiosity as well as what he hoped would be a gentle lesson for the boy. “Let’s see it then, Mr. Potter.”

Now Harry hesitated one more time, but not for long. He made an unusually precise sweep with his wand, left to right, exactly the way he was supposed to, and then muttered, “Glacies belli.”

The floor sparkled and turned to ice about half a meter in diameter in front of Tom. Tom nodded. “Well done, Mr. Potter. Why not choose that the first time?”

Harry tilted his head at the small patch of ice. “It’s not strong. That spell should have created a huge patch of ice right under your feet. But it didn’t.”

Tom smiled. “True enough. Well, I will remember to phrase my questions and requests more carefully, and let students demonstrate their skills more often.” He turned and waved Harry back to his seat, while looking from face to face. “Who would like to come up here for the next demonstration?”

*

Hermione settled back into her seat with a little tremble of excitement. Apparently, Professor Johnson didn’t teach every single History of Magic class, but she did teach at least the beginning ones that all the students from the Muggle world had to take. Which meant basically everybody, Hermione thought. There might be some half-bloods who were raised by purebloods here, but she hadn’t met them if they were. Even the half-bloods grew up in the Muggle world, like Harry.

If they grew up in the magical world, they’ve probably been convinced of all that nonsense about purebloods being superior. Or harvested.

Hermione swallowed, and her wriggling slowed a little. Harry had told her in more detail what had happened to his parents, and she’d met a few people in her new House whose parents or other relatives had been harvested, too.

It was the most horrible thing Hermione had ever heard of. She’d read a lot of history and about how bad things got back then, but those were things that had happened a long time ago. This harvesting was real and it was happening all over the place. Today.

“All right there, Miss Granger?”

Hermione blinked and looked up. Professor Johnson was standing by the side of her desk, studying her with worried eyes. Hermione swallowed and nodded, then looked around the classroom again. It didn’t actually look much like a classroom. It looked more like a greenhouse, with huge glass walls that poured sunlight in, maybe helped a little by magic, and flowering plants everywhere.

“Why are we having history in a classroom like this, Professor?’

“Oh, the plants are participants in some of the demonstrations I’ll be giving.” Professor Johnson winked and smiled at her, and then turned and walked to the front of the room. Or the center, rather, Hermione corrected herself after a moment. The desks were in a circle in the middle of the only clear space in the greenhouse, and the professor stood in the middle of it, watching as the other students filed in.

Hermione took the chance to close her eyes and lean back for a moment against the hum of the warm magic that had surrounded her since she was Sorted. For a moment, she thought she felt the brush of feathers against her cheek.

Yes, being in the magical world and having the protection of her phoenix was a wonderful thing, even with harvesting and horrible purebloods and all the other reasons that she didn’t feel safe among most witches and wizards.

Harry sat next to her the way he had in Defense class, and Hermione beamed at him. It was wonderful to think she already had a magical friend.

Harry smiled back, looking a little puzzled, and then they both turned and looked at Professor Johnson as she began.

“You probably wonder how we got into this position,” she said, sweeping her gaze back and forth across them. Hermione had the impression that she was struggling to keep some great emotion at bay, but Hermione didn’t know what that was, excitement or anger or something else. “After all, there are more Muggleborns and half-bloods than there are purebloods. How did we lose out to them? Why do the purebloods, not all of whom can be evil, go along with what the more vocal members of their group want? Why do they have the control they do?”

From the books she’d read in the last few weeks, Hermione knew some of those answers, but she held still. She wanted Professor Johnson to answer these questions. She would only help when the professor started asking questions of her own.

The professor drew her wand and gestured to the side. Hermione wasn’t the only one to gasp as the dark green colors of the hanging vines near them sparkled and twisted, forming into a depiction of a muddy, snowy field. Hermione blinked when she saw that there were two wizards in the middle of it. They were small at first, but the vision zoomed nearer like a camera, and Hermione could see that one of them had long blond hair and one long ginger hair. They both had long beards, too.

Professor Johnson whispered another phrase, and the plants began to shift and move behind the vision. They were giving the figures movement, Hermione figured out after a moment of watching. It was apparently simpler to do that than to enchant the figures into moving.

Or maybe it was just that it would have been hard to make them move that fast. Hermione watched with her mouth open as the wizards dueled back and forth, spells flying that she had no idea about and no way of recognizing, except that they scorched the earth when they landed, or made it explode. At last, the wizard with the ginger hair cast a spell that launched the thin wand the blond wizard held into the air and towards him.

When he caught it, the blond wizard fell to his knees. Professor Johnson waved her wand again, and the plants went still.

“This was a famous battle at the end of World War II,” Professor Johnson announced. “Along with the Muggle side of it, there was a magical side.” She gestured with her wand, and a leafy tendril reached down in front of the illusion and encircled the blond wizard. “His name was Gellert Grindelwald, and he cooperated with Hitler.”

Hermione shivered a little. She had seen the name in her history books, but she hadn’t read much about him, being more interested in recent events.

“He was a Dark Lord,” Professor Johnson went on in a quiet voice. “It’s a term that has no exact Muggle equivalent. The mythology of a Dark Lord states that he is powerful—of course—and that he represents forces greater than himself. The Dark, variously defined.”

“What does the Dark mean, Professor?” Finch-Fletchley asked, his voice subdued.

Professor Johnson shook her head. “It’s something we’ll discuss in more detail later, but honestly, it’s meant so many different things that it’s impossible to offer one answer. Pureblood politics, separation from Muggles, hatred for magical creatures, focus on particular magical gifts above others, liberation of all magic so that there are no laws against spells like the Unforgivables…” She grimaced at the last, and Hermione wondered if she was thinking about the fact that there weren’t laws against curses like the Unforgivables for the vast majority of people favored by Malfoy’s Ministry. “But Grindelwald in particular was on the side of dominating Muggles and fighting for pureblood rights.”

“That’s Albus Dumbledore fighting him, right, professor?” Hermione asked quickly, to show that she understood.

Professor Johnson graced her with a small smile as she nodded. “Yes, it is. And a half-blood defeating a pureblood is one of the reason that our politics took the turn they did.”

“You say it like it wasn’t a good thing, professor?” Harry asked.

“It was a good thing,” Professor Johnson said quietly. “But it was a direct refutation of theories circulating in some British publications, and the Ministry of the time, and Slytherin House, that only pureblood wizards were capable of that level of power. Eventually, they decreed that the reason Grindelwald lost was that his wand betrayed him, preferring another master.”

“So they could just shrug everything off?” Hermione drummed her hand indignantly on her desktop.

Professor Johnson nodded to her. “That was what they decided to do. At first. But then other theories started to spread.” She faced the illusion and performed several more complicated wand movements.

The illusion rippled and changed, and so did the plants behind it, squirming like worms under a blanket. This time, Hermione was looking at the inside of a chamber with a huge round table in the middle of it, a black table that had a polished gleam which made it shine like ebony. Tall wizards and witches in black and blue robes stood around it, plants making it look as though their heads bobbed and their lips moved.

“This is the signing of the Treaty of Understanding in 1974,” said Professor Johnson, and changed her illusion again so that a tall ginger-haired wizard with a long beard walked into the room. This must be Albus Dumbledore, Hermione thought. The defeater of Grindelwald and the man who had been Headmaster of Hogwarts for a long time.

“What’s the Treaty of Understanding?” Thomas asked.

“What was supposedly a means of settling peace between advocates for Muggleborns and Muggles on one side, and conservative purebloods on the other.” Hermione saw Professor Johnson’s lip twist as she stared at the illusion. “It would say how many students of each group could attend Hogwarts, and it was supposed to make provisions to bind Muggles who were aware of the magical world from talking about it.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” Harry ventured.

Hermione glared at him, but Professor Johnson was the one who answered. “It might not sound too bad, Mr. Potter. But consider what would happen if there was a greater number of talented Muggleborns than there were spots at Hogwarts. What would happen to them?”

Harry gnawed his lip. Then he shook his head. “I don’t know, professor.”

“In fact,” Professor Johnson added, “the treaty restricted Muggleborns to no more than a quarter of available spots at Hogwarts. Half-bloods took another quarter, and purebloods fifty percent.”

“How could they do that, though?” Hermione demanded. She felt as if someone had lit her blood on fire. “There aren’t that many purebloods! So how could they take fifty percent of spots?”

Professor Johnson nodded to her. “That is one reason they’ve studied and legalized a great many fertility spells and potions in the past few years. But in practice, what happened is that they looked at the number of pureblood children who would be attending Hogwarts in any given year and multiplied that by two to say how many students would be admitted.”

Hermione had to prevent herself from hopping in place and waving her hand around. It wasn’t like Professor Johnson didn’t know. It wasn’t like she didn’t share Hermione’s outrage.

“And no one protested this?” Harry had his arms folded now and a scowl on his face. “Didn’t Dumbledore protest it?”

“He felt that he couldn’t. He carried a great burden of guilt.”

“Why?” Hermione couldn’t imagine winning that duel and feeling guilty, unless it was that (her books said) it had happened fairly late in the war, and he might have saved more lives by confronting Grindelwald earlier.

“He was the half-blood that purebloods, and even some of our own people, chose to blame for bringing down the yoke on our necks, for showing off and winning that duel against the most powerful Dark Lord of the twentieth century.” Professor Johnson shook her head. “It was misplaced guilt, but the results were horrendous. Headmaster Dumbledore made more and more concessions, seeking to keep the magical world from falling into civil war. He believed, having seen one war, that anything was better than that.”

Hermione was inclined to agree, but then she thought of the harvesting and the Sacred Hunts, and changed her mind again.

“The treaty was written into laws, and whenever someone protested that a pureblood shouldn’t be the only one allowed to become Minister, or more Muggleborn and half-blood children should be allowed at Hogwarts, our enemies just pointed to Dumbledore.” Professor Johnson sighed. “They said that he could have revealed us to Muggles with his duel with Grindelwald, right out in the open where anyone could have seen it. They also hinted that he was a Dark Lord himself, waiting to take over Britain when the time was right.”

“Where is Dumbledore now, professor?” Hermione asked. She couldn’t imagine that he was content to stand back and simply let things happen like this, not when he had felt responsible enough in the first place to sign that stupid treaty.

Professor Johnson bowed her head. “He was subjected to the Antigone Punishment.”

Hermione blinked. She had heard the name before, she knew she had, from some of the books she had read on Greek mythology. She just couldn’t remember who Antigone had been, other than someone’s daughter.

“What’s that?” asked Terry Boot, a shy half-blood Hermione had only met properly last night after they were Sorted into Phoenix House.

“He was buried alive,” Professor Johnson answered quietly.

Several people in the class gasped, and Hermione winced herself. She wished she didn’t know that. She was almost sorry she had asked.

But not really, because it was history, and history was important. “And he just let them do that?” she asked.

“They told him that he was responsible for everything that had happened, and I truly do think he believed it.” Professor Johnson shook her head. “And they threatened the safety of children at Hogwarts. They fed him the Draught of Living Death and buried him.”

“So he’s still alive, then?” Harry asked, his face intent.

“In a sense,” Professor Johnson said, and grimaced. “They snapped his wand, and bound his magic. If he ever wakes or is woken, he will die instantly. The Draught of Living Death they gave him is also rumored to have been modified, so that he is tormented by nightmares in his sleep.”

Hermione stared back at the ginger-haired wizard in the illusion of the treaty signing. He had made mistakes, that was obvious, but she didn’t think anyone deserved that.

Professor Johnson let them sit in silent contemplation a moment. Then she dismissed the illusion and stood up from where she had been leaning against the desk. “Now on to the requirements of the class, such as the essays you’ll have to write…”

Hermione listened, and took lots of notes. She didn’t think she needed to take notes on the lessons that Professor Johnson had given them about the duel with Grindelwald and the treaty signing, though. She was fairly certain those were going to be seared into her brain.

*

“And you’re sure this will work?”

“How much do you know about burial traditions in the House of Black?”

Tom grimaced despite himself at the word “traditions,” which was one that purebloods used to justify a great deal of their nonsense, but forced himself to shake his head and lean calmly back in his chair. “Nothing.”

“They cremate the body. I’m going to use spells that feign Sirius’s death, which will set off an alarm somewhere in the Ministry, I’m sure.” Lupin prowled back and forth restlessly in front of Tom’s desk, his steps as light and graceful as a ghost’s. “But I’ll also set it up to make it look as if Sirius killed himself and used his own wards to cremate his body, in accordance with tradition. There’ll be a note.”

Tom narrowed his eyes. “Malfoy isn’t one to stop hunting unless he sees an enemy’s body.”

“I have a plan for that, too—”

A white owl winged its way through the window before Lupin could finish the sentence. Tom stared at it. It clutched a paper in its talons, but that only made it more unusual. The Daily Prophet usually had no more than one edition a day; the Evening Prophet would take over on occasion, and neither made a practice of reporting news in the middle of the day.

Tom stood up and retrieved the paper. Beside him, Lupin had gone taut with the wariness of a predator who knew any change from routine was a bad sign.

Tom slid the paper out of the tight roll it was in and shook it onto his desk, then stared at it. The blazing letters at the top made so little sense to him that he actually read it three times before holding it out to Lupin.

SIRIUS BLACK ESCAPES HOUSE ARREST!

Lupin blinked a few times, then tilted his head back and laughed.

Tom would have liked to share his amusement, but his mind was now spinning through a chaos of plans, wondering how to use this, how Black had done it, why he had waited until now to do it, and whom the Ministry would blame.

And when Black would make his way, as he undoubtedly would, to Fortius.

Chapter Text

“I d-don’t know who he was.”

Lucius withheld his impatient snarl. He knew, and would have known without Legilimency, that the Muggle woman was telling the truth. She didn’t know who had come and taken Harry Potter, a child who would have sustained multiple purebloods on the harvests to be drawn from him.

Of course, Lucius didn’t deny himself the pleasure of ripping her mind apart anyway. But the image that he received in return was less than satisfying. A ripple of dark robes and a grey blur for a face. But the man hadn’t carried his wand openly, and she retained no exact memory of his voice. There was nothing to go on.

Lucius closed his eyes. It irritated him that he had nothing to go on, particularly as what had previously been a minor issue had escalated in importance in the last several days.

“Sir?”

Lucius glanced over his shoulder. Behind him, Walden Macnair, clad in the dark red robes of Dangerous Beast Control, smiled and inclined his head a little. The heavy axe of his office stood next to him, gleaming.

“Would you give her to me, Minister?” Macnair locked his eyes on the Muggle woman, who slumped drooling in the chains that bound her to the floor in the Interrogation Chamber.

“What for, Macnair?” Lucius asked, curious. “She can provide you no satisfying figure to execute.” Macnair lived for executions and eliminations, but he practiced his art solely on goblins, hippogriffs, and the like. All of them were savages who had no place in a proper pureblood society, however much they might be tolerated within certain bounds, and all of them stepped out of line and showed that savage nature sooner or later. Macnair’s department was growing monthly.

“That young Nundu is growing listless, sir.”

Lucius laughed. Of course; he should have known. Muggles had some uses, after all, and Nundus preferred their prey living. “Go ahead and do it, Macnair. I would give you the husband and the boy, too, but I’m afraid they’ve already succumbed.”

“I think she’ll still have the wit to run,” Macnair said happily, and waited patiently while Lucius unlocked the chains that bound the Muggle spread-eagled, then used his wand to float her into the air. She banged her leg on the doorway as she went through it, and whimpered, which made Macnair laugh exultantly. She could still feel pain, and that meant she would be excellent prey for a Nundu.

Or so Lucius assumed. Creatures weren’t his area of expertise.

Sighing, he left the interrogation room, with its polished stone floor and ceiling and walls that acted as mirrors to reflect any attack made on the interrogator back on the one making it, and made his way to the nearest lift. It was time to visit St. Mungo’s, and although he didn’t carry good news with him, he hoped that he might soothe the man waiting there anyway.

*

Arthur leaned back in his chair, his eyes closed. His little Evangeline’s hand was hot and sweaty in his. No change, the Healers had told him.

The same thing that they’d told him yesterday. And the day before that.

Evangeline was sunken deep enough in a protective coma that she didn’t feel any pain, but Arthur could feel it for her. The fever was raging through her body, eating up her magic. It was an ailment that happened—sometimes—to young children born through the recently-discovered fertility methods. Their magic fell out of harmony with their bodies and worked like this. Some of them died.

Some of them woke Squibs, and given the state of their world lately, Arthur honestly wasn’t sure which one was worse.

“Ah, Arthur.”

Arthur jumped, and let go of Evangeline’s hand. “Minister Malfoy, sir.” He stood up and bowed hastily, but couldn’t help casting a glance back at his daughter, her red hair spread out over the pillow. “Thank you for coming.”

Malfoy studied the girl in the bed for a moment, then sighed. “A pity. I am sorry to have to tell you, Arthur, that the treatment we were counting on is not forthcoming. The child that would have been powerful enough to provide it is missing from his home.”

Arthur shuddered and put his hand over his eyes, for once not caring about looking weak in front of Malfoy. He had only managed to get Molly to go home and sleep and see Ginny because the Ministry’s Aurors had reassured him the cure would be forthcoming.

How can you even think of that cure as a good thing? You know where it comes from!

But Arthur didn’t care, not right now. His own children were the most precious people in the world to him. He couldn’t do anything for Mudbloods and half-bloods, but he could save Evangeline, if they could find a child of great enough power to harvest and add some of that magic to hers.

“Is there—is there anything else we can do?” he whispered, and flinched a little when Malfoy touched his shoulder.

“There are other children who can be harvested,” Malfoy acknowledged slowly. “But they were being saved for some particularly worthy servants of mine. You know that if I harvest one of them to save your girl, the price will be higher.”

“I know that.” Arthur licked his lips. They tasted dry. And he knew the real price would be falling deeper and deeper into Malfoy’s debt, and giving up some of the moral clarity that he had always thought he possessed, when—when Albus was alive.

“Then I’ll give the orders. As long as you understand.”

Arthur turned back to Evangeline, lying motionless in the bed. “I do. I’ll—do whatever it takes.”

I have to, he told himself, as Malfoy left the room. I can’t do anything for random Mudblood kids or the one that’ll be harvested for her, but I can do something for my own children. And what kind of parent would I be if my own children weren’t the most important people in the world to me?

*

“You are ready, Mrs. Malfoy?”

“I am.” Narcissa smiled at the Unspeakable who had brought in the chosen Mudbloods. The woman gave a deep bow to her and stepped back.

They were in the Transformation Room at the center of the Department of Mudblood Control, a large place sheathed in red stone streaked with black. Narcissa had always thought that such colors provided a good background to cast her magic against, and with a spell as delicate as this one, she needed all the advantages she could get.

If only my wayward cousin had not…

But Narcissa put the thoughts from her head. She had only managed to secure house arrest for Sirius in the first place because he was her cousin. If he chose to give up on that option and run away to his death, far be it from her to take a risk for him.

Pure blood, alas, also had to be spilled from time to time.

The Mudbloods crouching in front of her in chains whimpered. Narcissa caught hold of that whimper and blended it with her memory of casting this spell the other times, and the stone around her sang subtly in answer.

The magic rose in her, circled the center of her chest, and spread outwards.

“Cave Canem!”

The spell broke from her wand as Narcissa opened her eyes and became three pointed and sparkling spears of light. They traveled straight towards the Mudbloods, who tried to flinch away from them but couldn’t, because of their bonds.

When the spell touched them, they began to scream, despite the gags in their mouths.

Narcissa watched with a calm, expert eye as the power bent and reformed them, molding them into their new shapes, the ones they would wear until death. Bones broke and splintered, and then flowed back together, stronger than before. Their faces elongated to form the powerful jaws and long noses they would need. Strong new teeth pushed through their gums. Their skin rippled into patterns of black and red that echoed the stone around them—not necessary for their task, but ensuring they resonated more easily with the magic Narcissa had used, and that they would be able to use more power for their duties and less for growing a full coat of fur, which was unnecessary.

Narcissa smiled as their voices twisted and their brains changed last of all, becoming burning balls of rage focused around their prey.

“Sirius Black,” she said, as the Unspeakable waved her wand and broke the chains that bound the new Hounds. “He is your target.”

The one on the left howled first, and then the one on the right, before the one in the middle joined in. Their voices soared and tangled together, and then they sprang forwards, large clawed hands and feet lying flat on the floor.

Their bodies blurred, and they ran through the wall. Such barriers would not stop them or slow them down. And they would run faster than any mortal creature, propelled by the magic that locked them onto Sirius, that made them hate him, a variant of the seeking magic that post-owls used.

No matter where he hid, Sirius could not shed his name. It made a better tie than any scent, which might be washed away or confused.

Narcissa sighed a little as her sense of the Hounds faded. That was the one disadvantage of the spell, that the creator could not remain in contact with the dogs as they sped along the hunt.

But Sirius would have, at the most, an ill-suited wand that he would have found somewhere and wouldn’t have mastered, and even if he could Apparate, or if he left the country, it wouldn’t matter. He would have to stop and rest. The Hounds didn’t.

Her cousin was as good as gone. And all because he hadn’t tried hard enough to fit into the world where being a pureblood would have given him such an advantage.

Narcissa dismissed her concerns as she had dismissed Sirius the moment she found out about his escape, and turned her attention to other things.

*

The first howl woke Sirius out of a sound sleep.

He bolted to his feet, already in dog form, and elevated his sensitive ears to listen. For long moments, he thought he had been mistaken. He was in the Forest of Dean, one of the places he had thought he would be able to go without being immediately found, and there were distant calls and noises from a variety of wildlife and even Muggle vehicles if his senses reached far enough. He’d burned up the one wand he had access to escaping his prison house, and he couldn’t Apparate, but a dog could endure journeys on foot that his human form wouldn’t.

Then he heard it again. And he knew what it was, this time. The Daily Prophet he’d still been allowed to receive during his years of imprisonment had described the sound exactly: the train whistle of the Hogwarts Express, crossed with the howl of a werewolf.

Sirius stood and felt the despair well inside him. He had thought—well, that they wouldn’t bother to pursue him. Not that much. That they wouldn’t care, since he was a pureblood. That they would, at the most, send Aurors out to do the job.

Aurors, he could have evaded.

Sirius tightened his muscles against the thought. James and Lily hadn’t given up, even when they’d thought matters were hopeless. He wouldn’t, either. He wouldn’t just lie on the ground like helpless prey and wait for the Hounds to find him.

He whirled and began to run.

*

“They’re using Hounds on him.”

Tom glanced sharply at Lupin. They had searched around the outside of the house that Black had been imprisoned in, and only managed to locate a raveled place in the wards that had been worked over by the wands of experts. And now they were in the middle of the Forbidden Forest, where Lupin thought Black might have come to hide because of old memories he had shared with his schoolboy friends.

But Lupin’s head was lifted and his attention directed far outside the Forest, from the angle of his head. His nostrils were flaring, and his chest rumbling as if someone had started a forge inside it.

“How do you know?” Tom asked. He knew perfectly well what Hounds were, but he had never heard of anyone who wasn’t their prey sensing them from a distance. The Hounds were designed to be audible and visible only to the one they were hunting, at least until they were close enough that they would pursue on foot instead of by blurring across distances. That, of course, was on purpose; it wouldn’t do to disturb the Muggles and the “good” citizens of the magical world living in the spaces the Hounds might have to cross, or to have someone standing up in a doomed and heroic effort to save the one being hunted at the last minute.

And it also meant that the last moments of the “prey” would be lived in terror.

Lucius had been the one to create the spell. Tom had created a special punishment just for him, in return.

“I’m a werewolf,” Lupin said shortly. “Those things disturb the canine fabric of the country. Put too much weight on it.”

Tom determined that he would ask what this “canine fabric” was later. For now, he held out his hand. “Can you Apparate us?”

Lupin glanced at him even as he clasped Tom’s arm. “You intend to kill one? Do you know how hard it is?”

“Yes.” Tom smiled at him. “I’ve done it before.”

Lupin’s golden eyes narrowed in consideration, and then he nodded, and they were gone.

*

Sirius ran. And ran.

And ran, when it felt as if his paws would drop off and his jaws could no longer close over his lolling tongue.

But he couldn’t stop, and he couldn’t slow down, and the triple howls behind him continued to move closer, hauntingly. Sirius’s ears were picking up, now, the sound of paws other than his own in the leaf litter, but he didn’t know if that meant the Hounds were right behind him, or if they were sending the noise of their running ahead of them as a taunt. It sounded like the sort of consequence the spell to develop them might have come up with.

His ribs shuddered with the bounce of his heart as he toiled up a small hill and down into a hollow that was half-filled by an old fallen tree. Leaves crunched under his paws. Sirius slowed down, because he had to, in the shade of the log, long enough to draw in one shuddering breath.

The Hounds crested the hill.

They were wild, twisted creatures, running on four legs that all looked like human arms with wicked claws at the ends of them, red-and-black skins that weren’t clothed in fur rippling and stretching. But their heads, with the thick fangs set close together in crocodile-like mouths, were what Sirius needed to worry about, and he didn’t see any weaknesses in them.

Sirius gave a single warning bark, which the Hounds ignored, as he had suspected they would. He backed up and put his tail to a tree. He would try to sell his life as dearly as possible, the way he had been prepared to when he and Remus went after the murderers of Lily and James.

The nearest Hound reached the bottom of the hill and paused to howl. Sirius shuddered from the amount of hatred in the sound. He had sometimes wondered whether the spell made Hounds confuse their prey with the people who had transformed them.

He supposed he would never know, now.

The Hound’s eyes fastened on him, and bubbling snarls slid past its teeth. It tramped towards him, while the others came down the hill behind it and spread out in a triangle formation. Sirius’s flanks heaved with his panting. He would remain in dog form, as he had a better chance of fighting them this way, but it was inevitable he’d lose.

The sharp cracks of Apparition rang through the air, then, and Sirius jerked his head up. Had the Hounds’ handlers come to see the kill?

Not that it would matter if they had. The Hounds were utterly focused on the one they hunted once made. They wouldn’t turn to their handlers and wag their tails or fawn on them or anything else.

Sirius turned his head to see who had come to him—taking his eyes off the Hounds for a moment wouldn’t really matter one way or the other—and then gasped sharply as he saw a wolf leaping its way from underneath a pile of robes. Bigger than the Hounds, the wolf hit the nearest one in the side, tumbling it over and over. The Hound sprang up and tried to get to Sirius around the bulk of the wolf, but Remus (it was him, it had to be him) hit it again, and clenched his jaws around its shoulder.

The other man who had Apparated in was unfamiliar to Sirius, but the power snapping about him attracted even the Hounds’ attention, for a moment. The man, his dark eyes narrowed, waved his wand and conjured a whistling whirlwind of sharp-edged, transparent shards. Sirius blinked. Glass?

Then the nearest Hound leaped for his throat, and Sirius had enough problems of his own to stop him from paying attention to others for a while.

*

As always, joy overwhelmed him when he tasted the blood.

Remus sprang back from the Hound, staring for a moment at the shoulder-wound. The Hound wasn’t paying attention to it, its blazing eyes still fixed on Sirius, trying to circle around Remus even now. So that meant Remus could stand there for a moment and let the keenness, the expansion of his senses, swamp him, without fearing that he’d lose the fight because of it.

The creature’s blood tasted awful, more like acid than the liquid that ran in the veins of a deer or boar. It didn’t matter. Remus was alive, now, and the Hound was on the verge of no longer being so.

The twisted creature tried to leap above him. Remus jumped to meet it, and they twisted in midair for a heart-gripping moment before they sprawled on the earth again. The Hound snarled and snapped at Remus, forced to give him some attention before the end, and Remus howled in rage and sank his teeth home.

When he tore his head to the side, the Hound’s throat tore with it. Remus rose from the death splattered with blood and ignored the instinct to feed on the corpse, whirling about to deal with the others.

*

Tom crashed his whirlwind of ice into the Hound that was second in line for Black, behind the one that had already jumped. Tom would deal with that one in a moment, once he was sure there was no chance of catching Black in the strike.

The ice gripped the Hound and constricted inwards, bending bone as if forcing the creature back into human shape. Tom had actually attempted that once, but that one attempt had been all he needed to learn that the Hounds went mad when transformed. No matter what he did, he couldn’t reclaim their humanity for them.

But the ice-storm that sheathed the Hound’s body a second later would at least be a quick death. Tom admired the thick layer of blue, transparent ice for a moment, then conjured a sledgehammer in the air. It swung through a huge arc before smashing into the Hound and scattering the frozen pieces of its body in a spout like sparks from a firework.

Tom turned to find that Lupin had dealt with one of the Hounds and was stalking towards the third, which was worrying Sirius Black’s dog form by the throat. Tom narrowed his eyes in irritation. You had better survive, Black.

*

Sirius whined in desperation as he discovered his windpipe crumpling under the assault of the Hound’s teeth. He had bitten its shoulders and legs and got his hind feet into position to rake its belly like a cat, but it wasn’t paying any attention to those minor injuries. Hounds were made to kill their prey before anything else, and that was what was happening now.

Blackness spun around his eyes, and Sirius let his head fall back, surrendering to the pain. He wondered, for a moment, if he would see James and Lily, and how they would feel about him failing their son.

Then the weight was suddenly gone. Sirius rolled onto his side and lay there, panting so hard he couldn’t move further.

It didn’t matter, not when he was in the perfect position to see Remus grip the Hound’s tail and toss it away like a toy. It corkscrewed back onto its feet, of course, unnatural thing that it was, and Remus charged and hit it with an explosion of grey fur and black-orange skin.

A literal explosion. Sirius cowered despite himself when a sharp shower of blood struck his face, and turned it away. But not before he saw the third Hound’s severed halves lying on the leaf-strewn floor of the clearing like discarded rags.

He glanced at the man he didn’t know. He wasn’t sure what had happened to the second Hound—there was no trace of it that he could see—but it wasn’t here, and that was good enough for him.

“Black. Can you understand me?”

Sirius glanced up as the man crouched in front of him. Sirius considered him for a long moment, and decided there was nothing to be gained from playing the mindless dog. He moved his tail and head at the same time, then laid his head back down again with another whimper.

“That one nearly tore his throat out, from the looks of it,” Remus said. He was in human form again, and Sirius would have barked in astonishment if he could have. The last time he’d seen his friend, Remus hadn’t been able to switch back and forth so fast, even though he’d thoroughly embraced his wolf by then. Remus even had his robes already slung around him. “I’d like him looked at by a qualified Healer.”

“There’s one at Fortius.”

Sirius blinked and would have barked a question if not for Remus’s restraining hand on his flank. Then this was a professor at the school where Harry was probably located now? He looked closely at the man and decided that there was a likeness from some of the newspaper photographs he’d seen.

I’ll remember in a moment, Sirius told himself, and then the man waved his wand, and the tidal wave of sleep that claimed him didn’t allow him to think anymore.

*

Tom frowned thoughtfully as they came out of the Apparition near Fortius’s gates. Black was, on the one hand, a liability because he was a pureblood, and an escaped convict. And although he had managed to become an Animagus at a young age, and that augured impressive magical strength, he didn’t have the cunning to make proper use of that power, from all Tom had ever heard of him.

On the other hand, Black had access to knowledge and spells that would make him formidable—or would make the one who used them in his place formidable. And he was a chain on both the affections of Harry Potter and Remus Lupin, two individuals Tom would make sacrifices to keep at Fortius. That was probably enough reason to shelter him.

“How much did blood politics matter to your friend?” he murmured to Lupin as they guided Black into the wide, airy infirmary, built like marble, as were many buildings at Fortius. An enchantment on the windows imbued every breeze that came in with a fraction of healing magic, so the touch of air on a patient’s body could make them stronger, soothing burned skin and mending broken bones.

Lupin stared at him over the floating stretcher that held Black’s canine form. “As much as they do to me. We’ll slaughter any pureblood supremacists who get near us.”

Tom made a small impatient noise. “I know that. Did he ever have moments of arrogance that can be attributed to his blood? I know how he grew up, and the influence of a few years of Hogwarts schooling—”

Healer Awi Kapadia interrupted him, stepping up to the stretcher with her wand extended. “I am not usually expected to heal dogs.”

“He’s an Animagus,” Tom said. “Do you want us to turn him back to human form? I didn’t know if he was too badly wounded to make the transition without bleeding more.”

Awi ran her wand above Black’s ribs, ignoring the way that Lupin snarled at her. Many of Tom’s professors had no particular prejudice against werewolves, but only Awi was comfortable enough with them not to jump at the sound; her sister was one. “No, that was the right decision at the time,” Awi muttered, shoving a fold of her robe out of the way. “But now we’ll have to change him. Step back, please.”

Tom retreated willingly, but Lupin stared at the Healer. “Why?”

Awi glanced at him. “Your eyes don’t frighten me.”

Lupin blinked, and some of the golden glow died.

“Because I know that you’re emotionally compromised, and you’ll get in the way and try to pin him down or some such nonsense when he starts flailing.” Awi snapped her wand in a circle punctuated with jagged swishes, and Black trembled and melted back into an emaciated, dirty man covered with matted dark hair. Tom shook his head. Black could have kept his hair trimmed in captivity, but presumably he’d chosen not to.

“Emotionally compromised.” Lupin wasn’t snarling, but he hadn’t moved far away from Black, even as Awi decanted him onto a regular infirmary bed.

“Torn throat, long-term malnutrition, fractured ribs,” Awi said, and studied Black for a moment longer before she turned sharp brown eyes to Tom. “You’ll need to make sure that you grant me free rein with him, sir.”

“Granted,” Tom said at once. Awi had two sets of treatments for her patients, one less stringent than the other. But for chronic cases like the malnutrition Black had endured, Tom had no qualms with giving her all the freedom she needed.

“What does free rein mean?” Lupin asked. Now he sounded closer to snarling, but at least he had eased away from the bed. He watched intently as pink ribbons of light curled out of Awi’s wand, covering Black until it looked as if he was tied to the bed and completely obscured from sight.

“She’ll work up a complete treatment plan for him, and cast any diagnostic scans she feels are relevant,” Tom said, and urged Lupin towards the door. When he seemed disposed to linger, Tom rolled his eyes and cast a spell of his own devising on Lupin’s feet, one that sent him surging along as if on roller skates in the direction Tom desired. Lupin caught himself, flailing, on the doorway, and Tom canceled the spell. “Otherwise, she’ll hold back to respect patients’ privacy. Some of our students here value their privacy greatly enough for that, or would need their parents’ permission for certain kinds of healing.”

“You’re not granting Sirius that privacy.”

“No, because he’s an outsider,” Tom said. “He could be a threat to my students, and I’ll take no chances with them, Lupin. Even if he gets back on his feet fast enough to suit me, I’ll insist on psychological investigation. There’s no telling what ten years of solitary confinement did to him.”

“He wouldn’t hurt Harry.”

“And the other students? Would you give the same surety for that?”

Lupin hesitated. Then he said, “I would give the same surety for Sirius that I would for myself.”

“But you haven’t been imprisoned for a decade. You haven’t had to spend all your time brooding on the fact that you might never walk in free air again.”

“I’m a werewolf.”

Tom walked a few steps, then turned around and sighed impatiently when he realized that Lupin was standing behind him, staring at him and waiting for something. Condemnation, likely. “Lupin, haven’t I managed to convince you that that by itself doesn’t matter to me? It’s how you behave that does, and the same for Black and anyone else that I allow access to Fortius and my students.”

“Not everyone would have your patience. Or your distrust of Sirius.”

Tom stared evenly back at him. “Do you want to leave?” They wouldn’t be allowed to take either Harry or their memories of this place, but Tom wasn’t in the habit of keeping prisoners, either. It was too dangerous to his continuing work.

Lupin gave a tight shake of his head. “I—forgive me. After running without allies for so long, it’s easier to think of them as something that only happened to me in the past, not the present.”

Tom considered that, then nodded. “Very well. You will want to go to your quarters, I think. You’re too tired to be making decisions with long-lasting effects right now.”

“I hoped I might meet Harry.”

“Not with blood on you,” Tom drawled, gesturing to the long splatter that decorated Lupin’s robes.

Lupin stared down in a stillness that told Tom he truly hadn’t noticed, and then shook his head. “I will clean myself.”

“Good.” Tom turned and led Lupin across the grass to guest quarters. Always best to make sure that the man didn’t get lost along the way.

*

Remus shifted to wolf the moment he was done casting the spells that cleaned the blood off his robes. There was a bit of it clinging to his leg when he’d transformed, but he licked it off, slowly and thoughtfully, flicking his ears back and forth as the distant sounds of the school came to him. He listened for Harry’s voice, but couldn’t pick it out among the sounds of closing doors, laughter, yells, singing winds, and clanging bells.

Perhaps he didn’t have to. As he curled up on the bed and settled into a light doze, maintaining enough connection with the world around him to react instantly in the case of a threat, Remus thought he might have come the closest he could to peace in this world.

He had Sirius back. Soon they would have Harry.

And perhaps this “revolution” that Riddle was intent on pushing would have some beneficial effects for them all.

*

Sirius woke with a gasping cry and stared at the ceiling. Then he frowned. It wasn’t the familiar sight with the dotted, glowing stars of his father’s name constellation that he had seen every day for the last ten years, but an arched, gleaming stone vault that looked as if Polishing Charms had been used on every rib.

Then he remembered.

Sirius closed his eyes and lay still. He could feel, if he simply listened and turned his head from side to side, how much larger this healing hall was than the room he had spent so much time in. How much larger the entire grounds of Fortius were than his house, in fact.

If he wept in relief, there was no one there to see and condemn him.

Chapter Text

“Where are we going, Professor?”

“I have someone I’d like you to meet, Harry.”

Harry blinked in confusion, but lengthened his strides to keep up with Professor Riddle. It was kind of strange, though. He was sure that he’d already met all the professors at Fortius, and most of the students, too. It wasn’t that big.

The sensation of warmth touched his left shoulder, and Harry smiled. No matter where he went, the hovering gryphon magic of his House would keep him safe. So he was more curious than frightened as Professor Riddle led him into the healing hall.

The building was beautiful, with polished stone walls and windows that glittered as though rainbows were being lit in them, but Harry’s attention immediately focused on the two men in the center of the healing hall. One of them was sitting up in bed, and the other one was sitting on a chair next to him. Both of them looked kind of—wild. The sick one had black hair that looked as if he’d just had a bath and cut after years of not having one, and the other one had silver hair like fur.

They turned around and stared at him, and the eyes of the man on the bed filled with tears.

“Harry,” he croaked, reaching his hand out.

Harry blinked. This had to be someone who knew him from before, and he thought that it wouldn’t be someone who had had any part in killing his parents, given that Professor Riddle had brought him here—

And then he knew. There had been an old picture in the Daily Prophet when the escape happened, but it had still looked enough like the man in front of him that Harry was suddenly certain. “Sirius?”

“You remember me!” Sirius said happily, and tried to get out of bed. The other man restrained him with nothing more than a hand in the middle of his chest, which meant either he was strong—Harry thought he might be—or Sirius was really sick.

“Hold still, Sirius. He probably realized who you were from that stupid newspaper article,” the silver-haired man murmured. He glanced at Harry with golden eyes. “I suppose you don’t remember me?”

“I don’t really remember either of you,” Harry said, although he wished he hadn’t when he saw how devastated Sirius looked. “But I know that you must be Remus Lupin if he’s Sirius Black.” Harry hesitated. “You didn’t come back to Britain to bite everyone, did you? I left the Dursleys’ because Headmaster Riddle asked me to, not because someone kidnapped me and tried to kill me.”

“Yes, I know that.” The silver-haired man smiled and lifted his hand from Sirius’s chest now that Sirius was staying still. “Although I must admit to some surprise that you know about me being a werewolf and you’re not running in fear.”

“Why would I? You were my parents’ friend. You helped avenge them. And what Professor Riddle told me is true.” Harry grinned at Professor Riddle, who raised an eyebrow at him, the nearest he would probably come to a grin right now. “There are advantages to having grown up with Muggles who didn’t even know that werewolves were real. I didn’t get told all the stories I think pureblood kids did.”

“Hey, I got told those stories and I still made friends with Remus!”

“Yes, yes, Sirius, you’re very special,” Remus said, rolling his eyes. He stood up and walked slowly around the edge of the bed to study Harry. It was a little unnerving, Harry had to admit, but just because Remus stared harder than anyone he’d ever met. He still lifted his chin and looked right back.

“I can see so much of both of them in you,” Remus whispered, and Harry didn’t need to ask who he meant. “Are you—can I hug you?” He held out his arms as if to say that he wouldn’t touch Harry without his permission.

“Yes,” Harry said, and lunged forwards and wrapped his arms around Remus’s middle, burrowing into him the way he imagined he might have when he was a baby.

It was all right if he did that now. The only people around to see him were on his side. And if he even cried a little, well, it wasn’t like anyone would see it, with his face buried against Remus’s robes.

*

Tom was pleased to see that the reactions were as he had foreseen.

Harry did have a burning desire to know more about his parents, one that Tom couldn’t really gratify beyond what he knew of their deaths. They hadn’t been significant enough figures in the fight against Lucius Malfoy to attract much of his attention. But Black and Lupin would fulfill that need, and that would bind Harry more securely to Tom’s side of the war.

Black, himself, would do anything for his godson. That was brimful in his eyes as he looked at Harry. And the bonds that tied Harry would be doubly tight on him.

Lupin was more of an enigma. Werewolves weren’t supposed to be as mentally stable as he was after this length of time alone. But then again, neither were werewolves supposed to be able to wield magic with a wand or turn whenever they wanted. Tom thought, however, from the way he held Harry, that Lupin would find a pack in his old friend and his old friends’ son, and that would keep him at Fortius, too.

Tom smiled. He was looking forward to finding out what Black knew about some of the weaknesses of his family, many of whom were high up in the Ministry thanks to their blood relation to Narcissa Malfoy.

But for now, he could enjoy himself watching this reunion.

*

“But I can’t do it, Professor Elthis.”

“I know you can’t do it yet, Miss Granger. But I need you to concentrate.”

Hermione scowled a little. Professor Lavinia Elthis was always calm and cool no matter how people complained to her or how many times she had to show them something. Hermione usually appreciated that in a teacher, but she’d never had it so consistently, and, well…sometimes she just wished Professor Elthis would show a little sympathy.

Professor Elthis lifted an eyebrow, and Hermione blushed when she realized that those thoughts had probably literally been floating on the surface of her mind. She sat back down at her desk and closed her eyes with a deep breath. She could do this.

Professor Elthis’s Legilimency classroom was a good place to concentrate, most of the time. The walls were in a sort of muted blue-white color, and they curved inwards to make it feel as if the students were sitting inside a giant egg. The windows showed only a clear, rippling light, no visions of the outside, real or enchanted. And there were a few chimes hanging from the ceiling that moved with no wind and played only soothing tunes.

But Hermione just couldn’t get Legilimency. She could meditate well, and Professor Graphorn had said that she would pick up Occlumency easily. But Hermione wanted to do both.

“Sharpen your mind,” Professor Elthis murmured, the soft sound of her footsteps mingling with the noise of the chimes as she glided around the classroom. “Picture it as your weapon, ready to cut, ready to slice…”

Hermione nibbled her lip without opening her eyes. It was terrible to think that a professor didn’t know what they were doing, but she didn’t think she could use Legilimency if she went on thinking of her mind as a weapon.

Surely she could think of it as something else? Professor Elthis wouldn’t know.

Yes, she will, the moment she looks into your eyes.

But Hermione just wouldn’t look the professor in the eyes for the rest of the session. She steadied herself with a deep breath, and thought of her mind as a mirror instead, reflecting back the harmless impressions of someone else’s mind. If she was walking into a guarded house, she could hold the mirror up and reflect back their faces and make them think she was one of them and should be welcomed…

That should work, right?

Hermione concentrated on the image of a mirror so hard that her head was aching by the time Professor Elthis murmured, “Open your eyes.”

Hermione did so with the mirror still hovering behind her eyes. Professor Elthis gave her a thoughtful glance, but turned towards the oldest student in the class instead. From what Hermione had heard, Adelaide Finch-Fletchley had been a student at Hogwarts until last year, and had been expelled. So right now, she was taking the Legilimency classes with the first-years, because Hogwarts didn’t teach mental magic at all.

Hermione didn’t know why. It was dead useful—or would be if she could master it.

“Miss Finch-Fletchley.” Unlike some of the other teachers, Professor Elthis never called the students by their first names, no matter how small the class was. She tilted her head, her long white hair cascading down her neck. “Have you made your mind into a weapon?”

“Um. Sort of.” Adelaide was flushed, and she had her hands twisting back and forth in her lap.

“Tell me what you have done.”

“I made it into a hawk,” Adelaide blurted, and then took a deep breath and hastily added, “Professor.”

Hermione stared, wondering how that was a good idea. She caught Harry’s eye from across the classroom, and he gave her a minute shrug. He wasn’t better at Legilimency than Hermione, although he worked at it with the same grim determination he did anything. Hermione knew he wanted to master all the magic possible so that he could avenge his parents.

“Why did you do that?” Professor Elthis didn’t sound puzzled or upset. She sounded calmly curious. Hermione began to wonder if her mirror idea was such a bad one after all, although she still hoped she was the first one to think of it.

“Because hawks strike their prey quickly and kill it,” Adelaide said. “Or they can fly away. I’m having trouble thinking of Legilimency as something that would let me escape from someone’s mind if it turns out they’re a practicing Occlumens. I thought this would work. Um, if that’s okay, Professor.”

Hermione blinked. That was a really good idea. And it made her think that her mirror was also a good idea, because it meant that she could get around the mental block she had when she thought of hurting someone with Legilimency. If she was just reflecting back what they expected to see, it was a gentler approach.

“I see.” Professor Elthis took a small step back, still holding Adelaide’s eyes. “That may be well done. Fly your hawk into my mind, Miss Finch-Fletchley, and we will find out.”

Adelaide looked as if she was about to wring herself out of the chair in her nervous shock. But she leaned forwards and maintained the intent stare into Professor Elthis’s eyes that she’d taught them all to do when they were trying to practice Legilimency.

A second later, Professor Elthis laughed in what sounded like pleased surprise. Hermione squirmed in her chair, a little jealous that she hadn’t made Professor Elthis make that sound.

“Excellent, Miss Finch-Fletchley. I believe your hawk will work for you.”

“But I didn’t get through your shields, Professor.”

“You struck them, and then glanced away when you realized you couldn’t get through.” Professor Elthis was smiling as if she knew something everyone else didn’t. Hermione absently wondered if that was true, and then told herself of course it was; of course a professor would know more than students. “Now. Miss Granger.”

Hermione concentrated on her mirror as Professor Elthis turned and gave her the same intent gaze. Her pale blue eyes had brightened a bit, and Hermione knew what that meant. At the moment, Professor Elthis wasn’t practicing active Occlumency, so they had more ability to attack her, or at least get close to it.

Getting close was the problem, of course.

Hermione took a long breath and did her best to press forwards without moving out of the chair. That was a problem she’d had, too. She always wanted to move around physically when she knew she was moving in her mind, but that would disrupt the locked gaze that was necessary for Legilimency to work.

She felt as if she was passing through a dark forest for a long second, and the gleam of light through the classroom windows grew small and strange. Hermione swallowed, and swallowed again. She clenched her hands in front of her on the desk, and Professor Elthis stared right back at her.

Hermione saw something reflect in her mirror, which was suddenly in her hands, as solid as if it had been there all along. The reflected thing reached out for her.

Hermione tore herself away with a gasp. And there was the bright classroom again, and the other students, including Harry, looking at her in concern.

But it was all worth it, because Professor Elthis was smiling with raised eyebrows, even if she hadn’t laughed the way she had for Adelaide.

“That went well, Miss Granger,” she said. “When one of my traps reached for you, you saw it coming and managed to get away in time.”

“Traps?” Hermione stared at the professor. Somehow, she hadn’t absorbed the knowledge that there would be traps involved. She’d thought it would just be shields, and prepared herself to bounce from them.

“Of course.” Professor Elthis shrugged a little. “You don’t want someone getting into your mind unwatched, do you?”

“But I thought—this was Legilimency class, not Occlumency.”

Professor Elthis nodded. The smile had already left her face, and she looked as calm and collected as always. “It is, Miss Granger. But Occlumency is a passive defense, a different discipline, and one that I also said I wouldn’t practice against you, so you had more of a chance to get through. That doesn’t mean I’m not defending my mind with Legilimency, which is an active and relentless discipline.”

Hermione winced. That was a simple answer, and she should have guessed it.

“Do not look downcast, Miss Granger. Your mirror is an interesting idea, and I think it will work better for you in the future as you perfect it more.” Professor Elthis turned away. “Now, Mr. Thomas…”

Hermione nodded slowly. Maybe this was good, in a way. School sometimes came to her so effortlessly when she was in primary that she got bored and frustrated. Struggling with something like this would challenge her. Mum was always saying that she could use a challenge.

Hermione swallowed and straightened her back. All right. She would do this. She went back to envisioning a mirror harder than ever.

*

“Mr. Weasley, it appears that you are struggling in my class. As your Head of House, I will make sure that you don’t fail Potions.”

Ron tried to hide his wince and to keep his posture alert and stiff, the way he’d seen other Slytherins do it. He was sitting on a chair in Professor Snape’s office, and Snape was watching him with that blank, bored look that Ron had learned since coming to Hogwarts was anything but real.

Draco was the one who had warned him that Professor Snape could read minds. So Ron looked a little to the left of Professor Snape, and even if that meant he probably looked a bit of an idiot, so what? It was better than having his mind read. Ron treasured the privacy of his mind. Sometimes it was the only privacy to be had, at home.

“Yes, sir,” Ron said, when he realized Professor Snape was waiting for an answer. He cleared his throat a little. “I think—I think that I don’t know what too many of the instructions mean.”

Professor Snape stared at him. Even when he wasn’t looking at him directly, Ron could feel the pressure of those eyes. He did his best to hide his shiver.

“Explain,” Snape demanded.

“I don’t know the difference between crushing and half-crushing, sir.” Ron looked at the floor, and then back up when Professor Snape cleared his throat impatiently. “I just—don’t. The pictures in the book aren’t clear enough to tell the difference. And I can’t measure the slices I need to make as being a quarter of an inch long or a sixth of an inch long without comparing them to something else, and I’m never sure that thing is the right size.”

He cut himself off, furious with himself for babbling. People who did that would never get ahead in Slytherin House, Draco had told him. It was all about being calm and controlled, the way Draco was almost all the time, and the way Professor Snape was.

Snape leaned back in his chair. He seemed to be thinking. Ron hoped it wasn’t about what an idiot the first ever Slytherin Weasley was.

He wanted to make his friend proud. He wanted to make himself proud. His parents had written back acknowledging his Sorting but not seeming upset. Then again, they were all concerned about Evangeline.

And so was Ron. But for the first time in his life, someone didn’t expect him to stop doing everything and just focus on his sisters. Oh, Professor McGonagall had told him he could have an extra week to do the Transfiguration essay, but she still expected him to do it.

“All right,” said Snape at last, abruptly enough to make Ron jump and yank on his wandering thoughts to pull them back together. Snape’s face twitched, but he didn’t outright sneer. “I will give you private lessons, Mr. Weasley.”

Ron swallowed nervously. That hadn’t actually been the point of coming to Snape’s office. He’d hoped the man would show him a book with actual pictures, or design something for him that was the right length, such as a quarter of an inch, and let him use it in class.

But it was better than no help, so Ron forced a smile and nodded. “Thank you, sir.”

*

Severus waited until the unexpected Slytherin Weasley had left his office, and then reached down into his desk and retrieved the obsidian orb that Riddle had granted him. This was the third one, although they were only a few weeks into the term. Severus recorded as many impressions of magic as he could get away with, and sent the filled orbs to Riddle when he could.

Some of the impressions were repeats, but Riddle had told him that it didn’t matter. In fact, it helped him to have multiple orbs from which he could compare the different kinds of magical records, and see if perhaps one of them had made a mistake and one of his enemies was stronger than he had imagined.

Would Lily approve?

Severus shook his head. Lily wasn’t here to approve or disapprove. That was part of the point. That was part of the reason he was doing this.

She had died because she had violated the rules of the terrible world where Severus still lived. And Severus had dreamed of vengeance, but in his dreams, suicide or flight followed any revenge he took. The purebloods like Lucius Malfoy, or Malfoy’s allies if the man was dead, would permit nothing less.

This way, Severus got to live and enjoy his revenge, and not even have to take the risk of delivering it himself.

I hope you would approve, Lily. Both of me and of what your son has to be learning at that strange school Riddle runs.

*

“Arthur.”

Arthur jerked his head up from his folded hands. He’d given up resisting sleep sometime in the early hours of the morning, even though he desperately wanted to be awake if Evangeline was.

Lucius Malfoy was standing in the doorway of the hospital room with a glinting vial of blue liquid in his hand. Or maybe it wasn’t liquid. It looked thicker, somewhere between a potion and a drink.

Arthur scrambled to his feet. “You found—you found—”

“I did.” Malfoy came a step further into the room and opened the vial above Evangeline’s face. Arthur watched, trembling, certain that at any moment he would wake and see that this was only a fever dream.

But he didn’t. The potion splashed onto Evangeline’s cheeks and eyes, and she gave a great gasp as a soft blue glow ignited there. It swirled over and under her skin like stars in water. Arthur grabbed her hand and watched as her chest heaved and she began to breathe more regularly, as the magic of another child soaked into her and stabilized the waning power that had created her.

Arthur found himself trying to care about where that magic had come from, but he couldn’t. If it had been a Muggleborn child’s, then the child would have been harvested by Malfoy’s administration in any case. Arthur couldn’t do anything for someone who was already dead, but for his daughter, his baby, he would do anything.

Evangeline breathed softly some more, then opened her eyes and blinked at him, looking concerned. “Daddy?” she whispered.

“You’ve been sick, sweetheart, but you’re all right now,” Arthur whispered, stroking her hair. He hoped that she couldn’t see he’d been crying. “You’ll get better.”

“Where’s Mum?”

“She’s at home with Ginny. But I’ll Floo her. They’ll be very excited to come here and see that you’re better.”

Evangeline nodded drowsily, and then rolled over and went back to sleep, as if she had never been sick, as if everything had always been fine. Arthur shook his head in disbelief and glanced over at Malfoy.

The Minister gave him a slight bow, and murmured, “I would have done anything for a pureblood child I had helped bring into the world. I’ll leave you to contact your wife and second daughter.” He turned and swept out of the room.

Arthur swallowed. There had been so many reminders in that seemingly simple statement: Evangeline’s blood status, that she had been born in the first place as part of the potions research that enabled him and Molly to have a daughter, that Malfoy knew exactly how many daughters they had.

But at the moment, Molly and Ginny were waiting for the news.

*

“Why are you sitting out here, Harry?”

Harry started, tensed, and then relaxed with a sigh, shaking his head. He wished he could hear Professor Riddle sneaking up on him instead of just getting used to it after the fact, but so far, the Headmaster surprised him every time.

“Just thinking,” he said. He knew he sounded sullen. He hoped that would be enough to make Professor Riddle go away and leave him alone.

But instead, Professor Riddle sat down next to him and studied him. Harry looked away. They were on the grass near the dome that contained Belasha’s lair, and now and then Harry could feel the heavy shift of her moving around through the earth. It was comforting, in a way. He licked his lips and wondered if he should stand up and leave.

“What are you thinking about?” Professor Riddle asked.

Harry studied him through his fringe. That wasn’t a normal question, he thought. Even Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon didn’t ask Dudley that.

But Professor Riddle wasn’t really a normal person. And from the comfortable way that he’d started to lean his elbow on the grass, he wasn’t going to go away until Harry told him what he wanted to know. That kind of leaning from someone by reading their gestures was something Harry had started to study in his Spycraft class.

“Legilimency,” Harry finally muttered.

“Do try not to mumble, Harry. We want our spies and revolutionaries to have polished elocution around here.”

Harry swallowed and sat upright. “Legilimency,” he said, and the words spilled out of him despite himself. “Everyone else in the class has done something really clever with it! Even that girl Adelaide who didn’t know anything about it before this year and ‘s older than me. The others are moving on. But I can’t do it. I can’t see into Professor Elthis’s mind, no matter how hard I try.”

Harry finished his complaint, and then flushed in embarrassment. Probably Professor Riddle would be upset about him complaining about one of the teachers. The Dursleys and the teachers at primary school had always reacted that way if Harry dared complain.

But instead, Professor Riddle shifted and said in a low voice, “May I look into your mind, Harry?”

Harry turned around towards him. “Do you think you can help me learn Legilimency?” he blurted.

“I am unsure. But I will have a better idea once I have looked into your mind and seen if there is a barrier of some sort standing in the way.”

Harry nodded rapidly. He wanted to be the best spy and revolutionary he could be. He wanted to avenge his parents’ deaths and what they’d done to Sirius and Remus so bad. But he couldn’t do that if he couldn’t defend his mind or read other people’s minds casually.

“All right. Relax and fix your eyes on mine.”

Harry relaxed as much as he could. His heart was surging around inside his chest, so he didn’t know how much that was, but he stayed still as Professor Riddle leaned towards him.

He didn’t feel like Professor Elthis reading Harry’s mind. She was always like a cool breeze with a keen edge that might slice you. Instead, Professor Riddle felt like nothing at all. Harry blinked uncertainly, but that didn’t disturb the Headmaster’s intense concentration on him. He sat back a second later and shook his head.

“I can’t do it?”

Harry heard the heaviness in his voice and winced, but Professor Riddle only looked at him and said, “You have a barrier in the way. Your magic shielded you from intense trauma at a young age, and unfortunately, that makes your mind more like a turtle shell than it should be. It might actually make you better at Occlumency, because not every Legilimens will anticipate that problem or know how to get around it. But it means that you’re unable to reach out to others like a proper Legilimens.”

“Can you get rid of it?”

“Harry.” Professor Riddle looked uncertain. “You know what trauma your mind must have protected itself from.”

Harry opened his mouth to say he had no idea, given the kinds of things the Dursleys had liked to do to him even when he was a little kid, and then winced. “Oh.”

Professor Riddle nodded. “If I break this barrier, it’s likely you will remember your parents’ deaths. You told me that you had flashes of them in dreams already. Do you really want to remember their last moments on earth? Especially given how violently they died? Who butchered them?”

Harry hesitated. He would have said yes if he’d thought he could punish the people who killed them, but Sirius and Remus had taken care of them already.

Then Harry thought about the people who were still out there, like Minister Malfoy. The ones who would authorize more harvesting, more raids, and kill more people like Mum and Dad if Harry let them.

“I want to know,” Harry said, and stared at Professor Riddle. “Break the barrier.”

*

Tom glided gently back into Harry’s mind. It was full of churning, whirling energy, and Tom could see why Lavinia hadn’t spotted the barrier before now. Harry was riding so many emotions and ambitions so constantly that it was easy to assume nothing would block or stop his potential.

But that was not the case, and little though he liked the idea of shattering the barrier as a professor, Tom was coldly pleased from the perspective of a leader. If Harry had any doubt or hesitancy, these images should act like a lightning strike, searing them away.

Tom reached the barrier, and paused for a second against the coolness like a tortoise’s shell. It pressed against him as he raised his magic. It was an interesting defense, hyper-reactive in the presence of magic, and Tom almost regretted that he had to destroy it. It would have been interesting to keep around and study a little more.

But Harry had asked him to.

Tom stirred his magic and unleashed a ram of power against the barrier, shattering it.

*

Harry fell to his knees, screaming.

Suddenly he was there, in the middle of the hunt, being jounced in his parents’ arms and seeing their desperate faces. The wail of the horns and banging of the drums was all around them, and James Potter, his black hair flying behind him, turned with his wand in his hand.

“Lily! Take Harry and go!”

His mum shook her head and laid him down on the ground. Harry could only see her face clearly for a moment before she stood up, but she was beautiful, and her green eyes really did look like his. “No,” she said quietly. “They would just track me down and kill me later. This is the only way Harry might survive, and—” Her voice wavered. “I want to be with you, James.”

“Lily—”

That was all he got the chance to say before Harry’s mum began to trace her wand in patterns so complex on the air that Harry felt dizzy just watching them. And then the Hunters burst through the trees.

They were wizards and witches, Harry knew that, but the magic of the Hunt had made them into something else. Steel claws sprouted from their hands. Spiral horns like a goat’s rose from the sides of their heads. Their voices rang on the air as snarls and howls and screams that made them sound like they were being tortured.

Instead of the torturers. They ripped past Harry’s dad and whatever spell he’d been trying to weave, and struck out with claws and horns. Harry stared as he watched his father’s belly burst open, intestines collapsing around him.

His mum, meanwhile, had finished whatever spell she’d done and was standing there, eyes wide. Harry wanted to scream at her to run, run, but he already knew that he’d be too late. What had happened, had happened.

The Hunters ran straight up to her, and cut her belly open, too. One of them bared pointed teeth and bit into her neck, slicing sideways and cutting her head off. Harry screamed aloud as blood sprayed him, and his baby self was wailing along with him.

The blood ignited as it struck the air, and then there was a huge ringing sound that made some of the Hunters fall back. A golden dome blazed into being over Harry, covering him like he was a dinner under the lid of a dish.

The Hunters hammered on the dome with their fists, but they couldn’t get through. Harry, gasping and retching, remembered, distantly, what Professor Riddle had said about his mum creating a sacrificial defense for him based on her death.

In a few minutes, the Hunters gave up on reaching Harry’s baby self, and turned back to their slaughter and butchering. From the angle Harry was lying at now, he couldn’t see everything that had happened. But he could hear.

The squelching and the breaking of bones and the laughter would remain with him always.

*

Tom eyed Harry’s face carefully as he emerged from the memory. His mouth was locked in a twisted grimace, and he was bent over, panting, as though about to empty his stomach.

Then he looked up, and Tom started a step back despite himself.

He’d seen fury like that before, but only when looking in the mirror. And only when he’d been older than Harry was now.

“I know the Hunters are dead,” Harry whispered. “But everyone else made them think this was a good idea. And other people are out there Hunting and harvesting people. Kids like me and Muggleborns like my mum. Right?”

Tom nodded. He thought silence was the best course at the moment.

“I want to kill them.”

Tom smiled a little. Killing was not always the best course of action, but he was confident that Harry’s rage could be directed into the appropriate channels, once he realized that he wouldn’t achieve what he wanted with just mindless slaughter. Or Tom could always explain that doing that would make him too like the purebloods that he didn’t want to imitate.

“Welcome fully to our cause,” he whispered, and let his left hand rest on Harry’s shoulder.

Harry stood still, his eyes blazing. It was a fire that Tom would be more than happy to kindle higher.

Chapter Text

Draco shook his head a little as he studied the Weasley boy sitting beside him, deep in a Potions text. Of course it was a good thing that he was taking his studies seriously, but Draco saw such a natural lack of talent in Ron that he didn’t think Ron would ever catch up to where he needed to be.

To where a Slytherin really should be, so as not to shame the subject that their Head of House taught.

“Budge over,” Draco demanded, and squeezed closer to Ron so that he could take the Potions book from him. Ron gave him a narrow-eyed glance, but let him take it. Draco smiled. There was nothing wrong with Ron’s instincts, which was why he had been Sorted into Slytherin in the first place. He just had to work on training them more.

“Look,” Draco said, tracing his finger over the edge of the diagram that Ron had been squinting at for the last half-hour. “The reason that you have to stir counterclockwise is that the ingredients aren’t blended properly if you stir clockwise.”

“But why?” Ron slumped back and tugged at a strand of his overly-bright hair. “That’s what I want to know, and what the books don’t explain. Why does the direction make such a difference? Like…” He flipped back a few pages, although Draco didn’t let go of the book and so he couldn’t actually see what Ron was pointing at. “You use powdered moonstone in this one, too, and you stir clockwise instead.”

“Because the individual ingredients don’t matter as much as the combination.”

Ron gave him a heavy, skeptical stare. “Who told you that?”

“Professor Snape,” Draco admitted. “You know when I stay after class to chat with him a bit? He’ll start talking about what people did wrong that day, and he’s the one who told me that the combination is what matters most of all. You always have to have an eye on the whole potion, not just the properties of the individual ingredients.”

“Well, I never thought about that.”

I know you didn’t. Draco fought the temptation to say it, and won. “Well, not a lot of people do,” he said, which was also true. “But you have to think about the potion and what it’ll become.”

“Is Potions really that useful? I mean, I know we have to take at least up until OWL level in it, but I didn’t plan to make it a specialty.”

Draco laughed. “Don’t let Professor Snape hear you say that. Nothing’s more useful, to him.”

“But what do you think about it?”

Draco smiled this time. Having someone look up to him and who he could give advice to was as wonderful as Father had always said. Draco no longer wondered why Father always spent so much time advising people like Ron’s dad.

“I think so, too. But it’s not the most powerful thing you could do, even if it’s useful. What do you think about Dark Arts?” Draco turned on the couch to face Ron, who looked surprised and then cautious.

“I mean—I don’t know if I could get away with using them. I know some people can, but they’re Aurors or Unspeakables or people like that.” Ron scratched the back of his neck. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be that important.”

“Stick with me, and you will be.”

“Really?”

“I don’t lie to my friends.”

Ron beamed at him, and Draco beamed back. He wouldn’t say Ron was a friend in the way that some of the important purebloods were, but he could be a friend like Professor Snape was a friend. Ron could have important skills, and he could be valued for that, and as long as he didn’t do something wrong and Draco didn’t have to hurt him, there was really no reason for their friendship to be all that different.

“I don’t,” Draco repeated. “But you do have to learn some Dark Arts, because the important people know them even if they don’t use them all the time.”

Ron nodded. “I can do that.”

His face was a picture of determination, and Draco believed him. He closed the Potions book and hopped off the couch. “Then let me show you some of the books my father sent me, and we’ll get started.”

*

“I thought we were just going to be learning Defense, Professor Riddle.”

Miss Granger sounded hesitant to be contradicting a teacher, but Tom could see why this was important enough to her to do it. He shot her a quick smile and turned around to face her, Harry, and the other three first-years he’d chosen for this special class.

The others would join it in their third year, when most students did. But students who had a special talent for offensive magic got earlier, hands-on instruction. Tom thought it was never too early for someone to start shaping his or her instincts to handle the kind of battle that most of them would probably see as adults.

“This is a side of Defense, Miss Granger,” he said. “Offensive magic. The kinds of curses that you’ll learn the countercurses to in my ordinary class. You’re here because I’ve seen that you have a talent for it.” He glanced at Harry, who didn’t look surprised but was watching him intently, and stepped away from the large boulder behind him. They were near the wall of Fortius, in a copse of trees and undergrowth preserved almost wild. “And you’re going to prove it to me by attacking this rock.”

“I have a talent for it?” asked Justin Finch-Fletchley, sounding utterly surprised.

Tom nodded to him. “Both you and Miss Granger are here based on your performance in Legilmency class, Mr. Finch-Fletchley. You showed that you can attack an opponent’s mind and do so cleverly and without hesitation. That’s rare. Most people, even when they know that they could use that magic to distract an enemy or shield themselves, shy away from the thought of hurting someone. You didn’t.”

“But that’s a bad thing, sir!”

“No,” Tom said as gently as he could. Sometimes he forgot how naïve first-year Muggleborns often were—and this boy, despite his own sister being cast out of Hogwarts for no crime…

But he wouldn’t take out his temper on someone who would never understand why he was doing it. Tom reined it back in and shook his head a little. “Not with the world we live in, Mr. Finch-Fletchley. There will come situations when we can’t hesitate. Not if we want to survive, or want those we’re defending to survive. Or if we want to guard secret information and take it back to our allies.”

The boy still looked stubborn. Perhaps he would be one of Tom’s rare offensive trainees who wouldn’t work out. But Tom wasn’t prepared to give up on him yet. After all, many people saw a difference between attacking their professor who was an expert in the Mind Arts and doing it to someone who wasn’t.

“What spells do we get to use on the rock?” Harry asked. He was staring at the boulder with an utterly focused expression. He seemed to have worn it most of the time since Tom had shown him the true memory of his parents’ deaths. That bothered Tom, a little, but he couldn’t deny that it would make the boy an effective killer. And that was what he wanted, had to aim for.

“Any that you want,” Tom said. “Any you’ve studied, or that you’ve already learned in class. You might even try Legilimency on it,” he added, turning to Miss Granger and Terry Boot behind her, who was stamping his feet as if trying to get rid of his anxiety. “It’s true that the stone doesn’t have a mind to influence, but there are other ways that particular magic can be used.”

“What are some of the ways, Professor Riddle?”

That was the fifth member of their little group, Alita Brenn, a little black-haired, dark-skinned Muggleborn first-year who had said that she’d had an auntie who was magical, but didn’t know what had happened to her. Tom met her eyes and smiled reassuringly; even more than Granger, Miss Brenn had a tendency to wrap herself up in her own concerns and decide that she might not be able to do something. She seemed to believe that she’d be asked to leave the school immediately.

“You might score the rock with enough concentrated attention,” Tom said calmly. “Magic can be focused through the eyes, Miss Brenn, or the hands. I’ve seen people manage Legilimency with their eyes closed. You should always seek weapons in various places, and see what happens when you touch them.”

Brenn hesitated. “But…”

“Yes, Miss Brenn?”

“You’re talking about great witches and wizards who can do that, aren’t you, sir?” Brenn whispered. “Not us. Not firsties. Or people who don’t have…” She trailed off, flushing, and Tom half-nodded.

“I know that the history classes are intimidating,” he said. “You’re exposed to the lies that the purebloods tell about us, especially in the recent history classes. But you’ve got to remember, Miss Brenn, that they are lies. Blood has nothing to do with magical strength, or power, or desire, or ability.”

“Why is desire important, Professor Riddle?” Granger piped up. She was winding one curl of her frizzy hair around her finger, staring intently at the boulder, as if she expected it to speak up and plead for mercy.

“Because wanting to do something is what summons your magic,” Tom said softly, and they all turned to look at him, alerted perhaps by the change in his tone. He couldn’t help it, though. He was speaking of something he considered sacred, and his voice thrummed through his body. “That’s why children have frequent outbursts of accidental magic when their emotions are running high. That’s why someone might achieve Occlumency when striving to protect an important secret and not at other times. That’s why we must know ourselves, learn our own desires and strengths and weaknesses, so as not to succumb to them.”

He faced the boulder and extended his hand without dropping the restraints that made his power appear negligible. The magic swelled in response, boiling against its chains. Tom stared at the rock, keeping his chains in place, and cast with his will alone.

There was a deep ringing noise like the heart of a concrete bell being torn open, and the boulder split asunder.

Brenn and Boot and Finch-Fletchley gaped. Granger looked thoughtful, as if she was trying to trace the pattern of the magic with her eyes and come up with an experimental procedure that would let her replicate it.

Harry…

Harry looked at the boulder as if he wanted to destroy it, shatter it to rubble, and dance on the pieces.

Tom smiled. Unrestrained rage was not something he wanted in his revolutionaries; it would get them captured or killed years before their usefulness wore out. But rage that ran deep and burned like a volcano’s fire underground? That was useful, and not common. Even more than they feared striking to kill, some people feared letting themselves become angry.

I shall have to train him, but that is true for all of them.

“Mr. Potter?” Tom asked gently. “Would you like to try a spell?”

“But you broke it with your power?” Granger said at once, in a tone that made it less a question than Tom would have liked. “How can we do the same thing if we’re not as strong as you are, sir?”

“I was holding back my power in the way that I usually do so as not to alert the purebloods, Miss Granger,” Tom murmured, not taking his eyes off Harry. Granger was a fine student, smart and driven, but she wasn’t the one who needed the most attention right now. “The most important factor I have that you lack right now is experience in summoning and focusing my will. And I think Mr. Potter is about to give us a demonstration that age and experience do not always matter.”

Tom flicked his wand at the boulder, and the sides slammed back together at his wordless version of Reparo, splinters and dust springing from the ground and crawling into the cracks and crevices that had opened in the sides. The other students jumped or flinched at the noise. Harry didn’t move, except to draw his wand.

“Ready, Mr. Potter?” Tom breathed.

Harry looked up at him with those green eyes that seemed swimming in brilliant fires ever since Tom had introduced him to his real memory of his parents’ deaths, and nodded.

*

Harry could feel the hatred swarming and churning in him becoming sharp and focused. He hadn’t known for sure that he would be able to do that, even though he wanted to impress Professor Riddle and the rest of them. It was one thing to want to hurt his parents’ murderers. Could he really want to hurt a rock?

But he looked at the rock, and he saw it as an obstacle on the path to his punishment of those murderers, and his magic stirred.

It was the most wonderful sensation Harry had ever felt. It was like a tree that had always been rooted in his stomach, and now it was sending roots down his legs and reaching for the sky. He could do anything from the top of a tree that grew that tall.

Harry laughed. He could feel other people staring at him, but Professor Riddle’s stare was loaded with approval that said he understood. That meant Harry really could do anything.

He aimed his wand at the rock, and didn’t think about a particular spell, even though he knew Professor Riddle would probably want him to. He aimed his will down the wand, and he asked for the destruction of the rock. He left it up to his magic and the wand to choose the steps that would get him there.

There was a sound like an enormous egg hatching.

The rock disintegrated in front of Harry. He felt the magic leaving him, saw it for a second in a flow that darkened the air like water or wind, and then the torrent slammed into the boulder, and the boulder whirled into oblivion. He watched in wide-eyed awe as little pieces of the rock seemed to dance on the air for a second, joined to each other, dancing around each other, and then they flew apart and the rock was gone.

Harry sagged to his knees. The torrent had taken its strength from him, and he was very tired now. He blinked sleepily up at Professor Riddle as the man bent over him. He looked impressed, which was a good thing, Harry thought. His body was filled with a floating feeling,

The way the little things that made up the rock floated away from each other, he thought.

“Harry? Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” Harry said around a wide yawn. At least, he thought he was speaking aloud. But Professor Riddle was frowning in a way that said maybe he didn’t hear, so Harry tried to make his voice louder. “I just need to—”

Rest, he intended to end the sentence, but his head drooped, and his body collapsed in a way that meant he really needed to go to sleep.

*

“Professor? Professor? Is Harry all right?”

Granger was the loudest voice asking that, but it was more than just her. For the moment, Tom couldn’t answer them. He knelt on the grass beside the boy who had just—done what he had—and stared at Potter.

He was breathing. His thin chest was rising and falling, and his hand was clasped limply around his wand. Tom could hear his heart beating if he listened hard enough, which was an indication of the power that was driving it. No faint pulse there, although Potter seemed as exhausted as if he’d used his magic to Apparate.

And no wonder, Tom thought, as he stared for a second at the place the rock had been.

That had been controlled atomic fission.

No, not controlled, Tom thought a second later, as fear dashed through him and shook him like a dog with a rat. Not controlled. Potter was just so exhausted after he cast that magic that it couldn’t spread any further than destroying the rock.

Tom had never seen a student so dangerous in his school before now. Well, perhaps Shante Carol, but that was a special case, and she couldn’t have done quick damage like this.

“Headmaster Riddle!”

Granger was getting annoying. Tom stood up with a small nod in her direction and reached down to conjure a floating pallet for Harry. “Mr. Potter will be fine, Miss Granger,” he said smoothly. “He simply used an effort of will rather than a spell to destroy the rock, which means I will need to conjure another one for you to show me your skills with.” He studied the students for a moment. “Can anyone tell me why it would not always be such a wise thing to focus on what you wanted to do rather than a particular spell?”

They exchanged uncertain glances for a moment as Tom transferred Harry to the pallet. “Because it might have effects you don’t want it to?” Terry Boot offered after a second.

Tom managed to smile despite his own fear. “Exactly, Mr. Boot. I doubt that Mr. Potter intended to disintegrate the rock. He simply wanted to destroy it. But he didn’t visualize the means of his destruction.”

“What was that?” asked Mr. Finch-Fletchley, sounding subdued.

“It doesn’t have a name, since it isn’t a particular spell,” Tom said. “Of course, if you aren’t in control of your magic, then it might destroy things you don’t intend or even hurt your allies. I will be speaking with Mr. Potter when he wakes, simply to make sure that he understands not to just release a lot of magic like that again.”

And he would be giving Potter private lessons in controlling his magic, too. There was no way that Tom would risk the future of Fortius and his revolution for one student, no matter how talented. Harry was still welcome here, but he would have to learn finesse and not depend on the uncertain control of his will.

“Can we still cast spells?” Granger asked, shifting from foot to foot, after one more glance at Harry that was apparently meant to reassure herself he was fine.

Tom nodded and turned so that the pallet was floating next to him and he’d notice immediately if Harry moved or awakened. There was always the chance that he might come out of his magical exhaustion still trying to destroy the rock. Temporary memory loss was a feature of that sometimes. “Let me Transfigure another boulder, Miss Granger.”

When he had, transforming a portion of the dirt around where the first rock had been into a large stone, he nodded to Granger. “Do you want to go first?”

Granger was biting her lip in what looked like a mixture of longing to do so and fear about what would happen if she did. But she lifted her head when Tom’s eyes fixed on her, and after a moment, she nodded.

Her hands were clenched in front of her as she stepped up to face the boulder. She hesitated, looking at Tom. “Should I use my wand or not, if I’m going to try a Legiimency attack?” she whispered.

“Before, you were in the environment of Professor Elthis’s classroom, which is particularly amenable to Legilimency without a wand,” Tom whispered back. “I would think that you want to use it now, Miss Granger.”

That must have been the decision Granger hoped he would make, because she nodded with a relieved smile and drew hers. Then she faced the boulder and seemed to sink within herself for a long moment. Tom studied her in interest. Her magic seemed to run deeper than Harry’s, in some way, more like earth and less like fire.

“Legilimens!”

But there was nothing wrong with the power of her voice as she cried out, or the sharp gesture she made with her wand towards the stone. Tom turned, looking at it in expectation.

There was a slight shudder, and a long mark like a crack scored the top of the stone. It didn’t run as deep as Tom’s spell had, though, or of course cause the effect that Harry’s had, and Granger came down on her heels with a disappointed breath.

“That was an excellent first start, Miss Granger,” Tom assured her.

She glanced up at him. “Really, sir? But I didn’t cause…” She bit her lip again.

“Complete destruction is not always the answer,” Tom said dryly, thinking again of what would have happened if Harry had had more power to use at his disposal, or had tried something that required less power merely to create than fission. “And you’re using a spell that would normally have no effect on a rock at all. That you did is remarkable.”

Granger beamed then, and stepped back so that Boot could edge forwards. Tom began to instruct him, while still keeping a weather eye out on Harry’s gently breathing, so-far-motionless form.

He hadn’t yet encountered someone at Fortius who might have been the death of him; there had been people like that at Hogwarts, of course, when he was young. But now there was someone else.

Tom was not sure he liked it.

*

Harry opened his eyes, then hid them and groaned. The light was hurting him and his head was pounding like he was one of the drunk characters he’d sometimes seen on Aunt Petunia’s telly.

And I didn’t even get drunk!

“You worried us there, Mr. Potter.”

Harry turned his head swiftly towards Professor Riddle’s voice. He was sitting in a chair near Harry’s bed, which seemed to be in the Healing building where Harry had first met Sirius and Remus. Harry gave Professor Riddle an uncertain smile, since his face was blank. “Um. I don’t remember what I did.”

“You used magic that could have killed everyone in Fortius and tainted the land for decades.”

Harry stared at him. “What?”

“I don’t know for sure it would have tainted the land for decades,” Professor Riddle continued, after apparently thinking about it. “It had a different power source than the Muggle kind does. But it could have killed everyone in Fortius at the very least.”

Harry swallowed, shaken. “I didn’t try to do that,” he said. “I just—I wanted to get rid of the boulder. That was what you told us to do.”

“I told you to use the magic that you already knew,” Professor Riddle correctly quietly, sitting forwards and staring at Harry from so close that Harry squirmed. “Spells, through your wand, with focus and will behind them. That wasn’t a spell.”

“No. But I don’t think I could have destroyed the boulder with a spell.”

Professor Riddle sighed and shook his head a little. “Your penchant for taking instructions literally means that I have no choice but to take your training under my own guidance.”

Harry blinked and said nothing, because he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be saying.

“You will have extra training with me, on the weekends,” Professor Riddle said, and stared at Harry as if he thought Harry would complain about the loss of free time. But Harry just sat up and stared at him, waiting, wondering if this could really be as good as it sounded. Riddle nodded and sighed and said a second later, “Yes, it’ll be private tutoring in offensive magic.”

“I promise I’ll do my best!” Harry said, and couldn’t stop himself from bouncing up and down in the bed.

Professor Riddle eyed him. “That,” he said, “is exactly what I’m afraid of.”

Harry shrank back a little, but he didn’t think he had anything to be afraid of from Professor Riddle the way he’d sometimes thought he did from his primary school teachers. So he managed to smile at him and say, “Then I’ll do my best to listen to what you mean. And all your instructions.”

Professor Riddle smiled at last. “In that case, I do believe we shall get along.”

*

“How are your latest creations coming, Carol?”

Shante Carol turned her head and eyed Tom for a second. Tom just looked evenly back at her. Yes, he did occasionally think her first name, but he called her by her last one just as she’d always asked.

And she wasn’t a good enough Legilimens to know about his occasional private thoughts, anyway.

“Well enough,” Carol said at last, and made a large gesture with one of her hands over the bubbling cauldron in front of her. She was taller than Tom, with long legs and long arms and long black hair that twined busily around her legs, expressing its own kind of magic. At least it never got in the way when she was brewing. “But the bubonic didn’t work out the way I thought it would. I had to start over with that.”

Tom made a soft sound in the back of his throat. “I thought you already had bubonic.”

“I have pneumonic. I need the regular bubonic, too.”

Tom shook his head, and glanced around at the cauldrons and vials and capped flasks that filled Carol’s lab. It had taken him a long time to stop reflexively holding his breath when he stepped into the room, despite knowing that Carol’s skill was such that she never would have left plague-bearing fumes streaming into the air.

At least, not on accident. Probably not on purpose, either.

Carol had been kicked out of Hogwarts only secondarily for being a Muggleborn. The real problem had been that her Potions talent was, as Slughorn had put it, “twisted” in some way. Every combination of ingredients she touched warped into its deadliest possible form—but as the closest possible disease, not a poison.

Three purebloods had died of cholera before anyone became suspicious. And even then they thought it was an accident, since no Muggleborn was possibly intelligent enough to do it on purpose. It was the only reason Carol was still alive. They’d broken her wand and cast her from the magical world.

They thought.

Tom himself was intelligent enough to appreciate people whose magic didn’t need a wand, and who had all kinds of talent. He had met two Muggleborns whose magic had refused to manifest except as what the Ministry labeled Dark Arts—one in Charms, one in Transfiguration. They had completed their education thanks to Fortius, and now they passed as half-bloods working on the outskirts of pureblood society.

Along with Carol, they were Tom’s most skilled assassins.

“I need you to create a plague keyed to the blood of one student,” Tom said, coming straight to the point, which he knew Carol appreciated. “One that must weaken his magic and kill the most dangerous expressions of it.”

Carol’s eyes widened a little, the only sign that she was intrigued. “And what expressions of his magic do you consider the most dangerous?”

Tom drew the memory from his head and looked around for the Pensieve that Carol usually kept sitting near the front of the lab. He sighed when he saw it swarming with a thick grey potion towards the edge of a table.

“Are you going to take that out of there?” he asked.

“Not unless you want a typhus epidemic.”

Tom shook his head, replaced the memory in his own head, and looked deeply into Carol’s eyes, feeding her the image of Harry destroying the boulder. Carol tilted her head slowly back and forth when the sharing was done, obviously deep in thought.

“I assume that it’s not just explosions you want taken care of, though,” she said at last. “All the most dangerous manifestations, right?”

Tom nodded. “Honestly, the best thing would be if he contracted a fever each time he began drawing too powerfully on wandless magic. Then he would lose some concentration and certainly the will to impose his power on the world. I thought…”

His voice trailed off, because Carol obviously wasn’t paying attention to him. She turned and walked slowly towards a crimson cauldron along the far wall, Vanishing the contents with a flick of her wand. Then she began to Summon various stones and leaves from the storage cupboards beneath the lab’s single window.

Tom smiled slightly, and left her to it.

*

Minerva leaned back in her chair and swallowed more Firewhisky than was good for her. But honestly, sometimes she wondered why she was still in Hogwarts at all.

Teaching Transfiguration to students who sneered at her constantly for her half-blood status. Unable to punish those students, even the Gryffindors, who tormented Muggleborns or half-bloods who didn’t have the right politics. Staring at students, like Victoria Weasley, who had been created with magic, and wondering when the inevitable toll of that would arrive to demand its price.

Minerva didn’t know as much about Potions as she did about Transfiguration, and supposedly the creation of those children had been carried out with potions alone. But she wasn’t stupid, and she could see the way that the bodies of children like Victoria strained against their seams, bulging and rippling uneasily.

Only in their auras, for now. But those potions had been imbued with powerful Transfiguration spells, or Minerva couldn’t transform into a cat.

And human Transfiguration was almost never, ever permanent.

A knock on her door startled Minerva and made her guiltily hide the mug of Firewhisky behind an inkwell. But it was only Severus who stepped into her office, his face pale and set.

“Severus?” Minerva stood up and straightened her hat. “Is there a problem with one of the students?”

“No. I have something to talk to you about, though, and it’s important.”

Minerva frowned and sat down again. She wasn’t sure why Severus would have sought her out to talk about—something else. They worked together well enough, but they weren’t exactly friends.

Now that they were sitting down, Severus seemed at a loss how to begin. For a moment, his hands clenched in front of him, and then he saw Minerva looking at them and visibly made them relax. He finally drew his wand and laid it on the table between them. Minerva peered at it, wondering if it had a crack or some such in it.

“Minerva,” Severus said abruptly. “Do you support the current regime?”

Minerva stared at him, and then tightened her muscles as she prepared to transform. She knew how close Severus was to Lucius Malfoy. She would either flee or force them to kill her. She wouldn’t be taken alive to the torture chambers beneath the Ministry.

“No, Minerva!” Severus’s voice was a low, urgent hiss that made her pause, but not relax. “I do not.”

Minerva gasped, caught off-guard that he would say such a risky thing aloud, and then noticed the way Severus’s eyes glittered with triumph. She scowled at him, which didn’t change his expression one iota. Obviously he knew from her reaction—instead of leaping up to report him or chastise him—that they were on the same side.

“Why did you draw your wand, if what you’re saying is true?” she snarled in a low voice.

“Because I was prepared to Obliviate you if I was mistaken in you,” Severus said. Minerva scowled at him, but Severus ignored that. “But I see now I’m not.”

“What difference does it make?” Minerva pulled out her mug of Firewhisky and downed half of what remained, ignoring the burn in her throat. It couldn’t compete with the feeling the bitterness put there. “We can’t do anything about it. We can’t do much even to protect our students who are mistreated for their blood.”

“If I said we could? If I said that I already have a powerful ally who’s provided me with a magical artifact that will help us?”

Minerva’s mug thumped into the desk as she leaned forwards. She had expected him to propose a small action, such as falsifying records. That he might actually be on the brink of something larger already…

“Tell me more,” she breathed.

Chapter Text

“There’s a problem with your magic, Harry.”

Sirius saw the way that the blood drained from Harry’s face at that, and he immediately sat up and moved over to put his arm around his godson. Harry leaned against him, shivering. Sirius held him tighter and glared at Riddle, who was sitting on a chair next to the bed and looked entirely—unfairly—calm.

Sirius knew he owed Riddle a lot. His life, to start. But the man was so distant and cold now that Sirius would be willing to forget all about that debt in favor of shaking him until the truth fell out of his mouth.

“What is it?” Harry whispered.

“You displayed dangerous power in your attempt to destroy that boulder,” Riddle said, shifting just a little, so that light ran down his dark robes and made them shimmer like a starling’s feathers. Sirius hadn’t realized that many colors were in the fabric. “We have to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“From what my boy said, destroying the boulder was what you told him to do,” Sirius snapped. “You even promised him private offensive lessons. And now you’re saying he did something wrong?”

“Calm yourself, Mr. Black.”

It was Riddle’s voice that convinced him to do it. Cold, calm, indifferent. Riddle had saved him, but he could destroy him as easily, and it wasn’t like Sirius could just snatch Harry up and run into the world beyond Fortius without consequences.

“Harry destroyed the boulder with fission,” Riddle said at last, eyes shifting to Sirius.

“I don’t know that spell.”

“It’s not a spell,” Riddle snapped. “He split the atoms of the boulder, separated its being at the smallest possible boundary. It was an explosion that could have destroyed everyone in Fortius if Harry had been stronger or if it had spread beyond the confines of the boulder. Muggles can use such weapons to wipe out cities.”

Sirius sank back on the bed next to Harry, feeling winded. Cities?

“I did something like that?” Harry’s eyes were huge, his voice wavering.

“Yes.” Riddle immediately switched back to staring at Harry. “And it must never happen again. Do you understand, Harry? You’re my student and I value you, but I can’t make you more important than all the other people at Fortius. I can’t allow you to destroy them because you’re angry about your parents’ murder.”

“Wait,” Sirius interrupted. “Hasn’t Harry known about his parents’ murder for a while?”

“Yes. But we recovered his deepest memory of it, which means that he experienced it as if he saw them dying in front of him. Because he did.”

Sirius surged to his feet. “You showed him that? You bastard—”

“I wanted to see it, Sirius! I wanted to know what they looked like and what the Hunt was like!”

Sirius whirled back to face Harry, who was tugging on his robe, his face pinched. His eyes burned with a rage that Sirius had to admit was new, or at least hadn’t been there the last time he looked at Harry properly.

“I made myself forget. But then the memory wall was blocking me from becoming a Legilimens. And I want to do everything, Sirius. I want to know all the magic I need to know to avenge them.” Harry bent forwards, eyes fixed on him. “I know it’s horrible, but I’m going to avenge them. I’m going to do everything I can, Sirius. I promise.”

Sirius couldn’t get his jaw working before Riddle spoke. “And it is an admirable ambition, to make the purebloods pay for what they’ve done. But it does mean that your rage is dangerous to others, Harry.”

“What if I promised not to do that anymore?”

“I would not be able to trust your promise. I don’t think you’re in control of your magic to that extent.”

Sirius just watched, unnerved, as Harry nodded. He seemed a lot more like a little adult than Sirius had thought he would be, since he hadn’t even known about magic until this past summer. And the Muggle world spoiled and coddled its kids—

Or, no, wait. That’s just what my mother said. And why would I trust anything from that old bitch?

“So what are we going to do?” Harry asked.

“There are two choices. I can give you a potion that would bind your magic and, should you start approaching that dangerous level of power that destroyed the boulder with fission again, induce a fever that would force you to back off. Or I can instill a series of blocks in your mind that would make you unable to remember how to call or focus your will to that extent.”

Harry blinked and huffed out a breath that seemed to take most of the air in the room with it. Sirius had to sit down on the bed himself. He’d never heard of either of those things—although he supposed it wouldn’t be beyond a skilled Legilimens to do the second—but he had to expect the unexpected, at Fortius.

“Which do you think would be better?” Harry whispered.

“The blocks in your mind would be less intrusive, and easier to remove.”

“But they might prevent me from becoming a good Occlumens, right?”

“It’s a possibility,” Riddle said in a neutral tone. “Although by the time that you would come close to achieving that level of skill with the Mind Arts, you would most likely be able to control your magic and I would be able to remove them anyway.”

“So I’m just not…going to have that level of skill in the Mind Arts?”

Sirius wrapped his arm around Harry for a hug again. The poor kid sounded so disappointed.

“Most likely not,” Riddle said, and if Sirius had believed he could be gentle, he would have classified the bastard’s tone as that. “But you must not compare your level of skill to your friend Miss Granger’s, Harry, just as she would be wrong to be disappointed because she does not have your raw power. All of you will have different capabilities and different magic to offer our effort. I do think that you could be something I did not think Fortius would produce for a decade yet.”

“What?”

“A war wizard.”

Sirius made a spluttering noise that he had to admit wasn’t very distinguished. “You’re mental, Riddle,” he snapped, before he could think about the consequences. “There hasn’t been a war wizard since—since at least 1500!”

“Yes, because the skills needed to become one are rare. And the Ministry and Hogwarts have hardly been in the habit of fostering them.” Riddle smiled for a second with his eyes and his mouth both. “It doesn’t mean that people with those skills haven’t existed, merely that they haven’t been trained.”

“What’s a war wizard?” Harry asked.

Riddle switched his attention back to him, and in a second, it was as if Sirius had ceased to exist. Sirius didn’t know how the prick did that, but he managed. Riddle leaned forwards, staring into Harry’s eyes. “Someone with the skill, the ability, to take on a whole group of trained wizards and witches and win,” he said softly. “It’s not a matter of power alone. A group of individuals, if they’re large enough, will always be stronger than one person. But if their spells are mostly defensive and their powers ordinary, and those of the person they confront are not, he or she can still triumph.”

“War wizards are called that because they’re capable of winning wars by themselves,” Sirius added. “Or at least that’s what they could supposedly do. A lot of them died young, without the ability to do much of anything.”

He wanted Harry to make choices, but not to make them just because Riddle said so. Something Sirius thought was disturbing was Harry’s propensity to listen so closely and devotedly to anything Riddle said, as though he was the ultimate authority in Harry’s life.

“I want that,” Harry whispered.

Damn it. Sirius resisted rubbing his face with one palm, but only barely. He glared at Riddle from one eye. “You started this.”

“I only gave a name to his power,” Riddle said softly. He hadn’t looked away from Harry. “What will it be then, Harry? The blocks in your mind that might prevent you from attaining full skill in Legilimency and Occlumency, so that you can concentrate on offensive magic?”

“Yes,” Harry breathed. “Yes, please.”

Sirius growled, but said nothing. Riddle still looked at him with careful eyes as he stood up and took Harry’s left hand between both of his.

“Careful, Black,” he murmured. “Remember who brought you here.”

Sirius tightened his jaw and said nothing at all. It was increasingly obvious that he would need to tolerate Riddle if he wanted to have some kind of future with Harry. And Riddle had provided healing for him, and was even talking about having a Mind-Healer speak with Sirius, to lessen the effects of the ten years Sirius had spent under house arrest.

It wasn’t what Sirius wanted. But considering that what he wanted included Lily and James alive again, and Remus never having been forced to embrace his werewolf side…

He already knew he couldn’t have it.

He sat still, watching Harry, and not interfering with Riddle’s magic, to preserve what he could have.

*

Tom stared down into Harry’s eyes, so bright with fervor that he suspected Harry wouldn’t regret the decision he’d made. Honestly, it was rare to have proficiency in Legilimency or Occlumency at Harry’s age anyway. Miss Granger was unusual. Better, in Tom’s opinion, to have those abilities possibly chained down a little so that Harry could focus on what was most unique in him.

Gently, Tom traveled into Harry’s mind, neatly avoiding the memories of his Muggle relatives, his parents’ death, his blazing determination to become a war wizard. Instead, he pressed into Harry’s memory, blurry though it was, of summoning up the strength to destroy the boulder.

Tom stretched his own power around it, ignoring the way that Harry’s magic bucked for a moment to spin a flexible barrier. Then he sent his magic speeding through Harry’s mind on waves of Legilimency, seeking out similar memories, similar moments when Harry had summoned magic or rage or both, and pinpointing targets in his body and mind for what happened when that occurred.

Each of them had the flexible barrier woven around it, able to bend so that Harry could call up magic that was still impressive, but not the intense kind that would threaten the very existence of Fortius and her people.

Harry’s magic shuddered a little as Tom placed the barriers. Tom ignored that. If Harry had been older and used to calling up that magic at a moment’s notice, he might indeed have reached out in fury and smashed through the fences. As it was, he would grow and get used to the new state of his mind and magic, and get used to mastering the still-massive power that the barriers allowed him.

And when he had outgrown the need for those barriers…

Tom smiled as he began to remove the strands of Legilimency from Harry’s mind, rolling them together so that what remained was only what he had woven, what Harry had agreed to allow. War wizards had so often died young, as Black had noted, because their magic had overwhelmed them and burned out their bodies.

A war wizard who was in control of that process, ruthless master of his strength instead of allowing it to master him?

What a magnificent creature. What an asset for Fortius.

*

“Dear, you must sleep. You know that you’ve spent too much time on this project already.”

Lucius sighed and wiped at his eyes for a moment. The fire had sunk so low that he could barely see the parchment in front of him, and yet he hadn’t been aware of the reaching shadows until Narcissa spoke. He leaned back in his chair and turned to face his wife, who lingered near the doorway of his study.

“Come here, please, Narcissa.”

She did, glancing back and forth between the parchment and him. “Is something wrong, Lucius? I thought you were working on the design of those wards that you wanted all the buildings in Diagon Alley to add, to keep the Mudbloods out.”

“I was.” Lucius gestured to the parchment. “But I became distracted when I felt a strand of magic still abroad in Britain that shouldn’t be. I need you to confirm it for me.”

Narcissa’s brow furrowed as she looked down at the parchment herself. Lucius did not expect her to see what he did. The silvery patterns of swarming wards, of magic he had to adjust to find the tainted power common to Mudbloods and force it away, were in their infancy as yet, and as tangled as a spiderweb. “What magic is that?”

“Sirius Black’s.”

Narcissa’s head jerked to the side, and she turned to stare at him. “Are you sure? It couldn’t be…” She shook a hand over the ward schema. “Bellatrix’s, perhaps, or some trace of Andromeda’s?”

Lucius snorted a little. “My dear, you know that I’ve been around them often enough to know what their magic feels like. This is Black magic, I’m sure of it. I recognize it by its similarity to your own. But it is not the magic of a Black I know. Unless you think that one of your relatives has an illegitimate child…”

Narcissa shuddered, rejecting the notion of a half-blood child for a Black just as Lucius already had. “All right. Let me feel it. Where did you think you felt it?” She held out her hands over the ward schema and closed her eyes.

“Southeast of the Manor at first. I lost track of it after that, although it seemed to be traveling in a straight line. If you could locate it and track it for yourself, I would appreciate knowing what it means.”

Narcissa nodded and moved her hands in slow circles. Lucius waited quietly. Narcissa wasn’t tuned in to the magic of the planned wards the way he was, nor could someone who hadn’t drawn the schema truly understand it. But she could feel what he had been doing, the echo of his magic above the parchment, thanks to their marriage bond, and she would be able to home in on and follow the strand of stray magic even better than he had.

She jerked back a second later, a sharp hiss emerging from her lips as she stared at the parchment. “It is Sirius!”

“So we are sensing the path the Hounds took when they hunted him to death?”

“No.” Narcissa had already gone still again, stifling that frankly inappropriate outburst she had already given. Lucius had always admired her statue-like qualities. She traced a finger over the ward schema, following the path of the magic, Lucius was sure, rather than the design of any ward. “I am sensing the path he took when he escaped them.”

Lucius winced, hard. He had feared that, and even now, he had no idea how it could have happened. “The Hounds have never failed before.”

“No.” Narcissa met his eyes. “But someone could have killed them.”

Lucius swore softly, ignoring the new sensation like fear stretching its claws in his head. No magic was foolproof, he knew that. And the Hounds, superb weapons though they were, were crafted from the bodies and magic of inferior Mudbloods. It should come as no surprise that someone would have found a way to counter them.

“Can you tell where they met their end?”

Narcissa went back to listening, or sensing, her hands floating above the ward schema. Lucius watched them drift, circle back, and drift out again, and waited patiently. The ward schema didn’t correspond one-to-one with a physical map. Narcissa had to pass through what was essentially mental space and then, more or less, translate it to a physical spot.

At last, she opened her eyes, sighed, and tapped a finger down near the left-hand corner of the parchment. “Here. I can give you the Apparition coordinates, but I don’t know the exact name of the place.”

“That’s fine, my darling,” Lucius murmured, already snatching up a quill. “I’ll go myself. Tomorrow.”

“Should you, dear? I was thinking, perhaps, since I was the one who set the Hounds on Cousin Sirius and perhaps the reason he escaped—”

Lucius gently touched her hand. “Narcissa, this is not your fault. The Hounds have never failed before, and I know you are particularly skilled at enchanting them and have no reason to want to let your cousin escape. I would distrust my own magic before I distrusted you. And I know you have that new charity you wanted to be at the opening gala for tomorrow.”

Narcissa smiled. “Well, yes, I have been looking forward to the launch of the Phoenix Organization for quite some time.”

Lucius smiled back. The Phoenix Organization had finally earned the money and support it needed to go public with its project of burning the taint of Muggle blood from half-bloods’ veins. Their initial experiments had been incredibly encouraging, and Lucius would be the first to admit that half-bloods were useful in a way that Mudbloods just weren’t. They had some sense of their true place in the world, and gifts that could only come from their lineage breeding true.

“Do be careful,” he told her, caressing her hand for a moment. “This could be a trap that someone is setting for Blacks, after all.” Their blood was widely known to be the oldest and purest in England. “I insist you have an escort of Aurors with you at the gala tomorrow.”

“Already arranged,” Narcissa said, and kissed him good night, and glided from the room.

Lucius sat back and studied the ward schema again. He had to admit he was interested to see what coordinated group—it could be nothing less than that—had taken down the Hounds and if there were any signs of what they had done with Sirius Black.

He was Minister for Magic, and it was the position he had been born to fill. But he did sometimes miss the days of harried excitement when he had known that a duel might erupt any moment, and when he hadn’t yet purged the Aurors of traitors.

He would go with an escort of his own, of course, but this was the closest he had been likely to get to that edge of thrill and danger in years, and perhaps the closest he would get for many more.

*

Lucius Apparated into the clearing half-buried in leaves that Narcissa had identified as the end of the Hounds’ trail, and promptly went to his knees, choking and clutching his throat.

“Sir~”

“Minister!”

Hands were on his shoulders. Lucius lowered his head and labored to breathe, meanwhile taking his hands from his neck to wave reassurance at his Aurors. They hauled him to his feet anyway, standing back-to-back in a defensive pattern grouped around him, staring nervously into the forest.

“What happened, Minister?” asked the nearest Auror, Celestia Shafiq, softly. She was standing with her back to him, but given how nervously she was watching their surroundings, Lucius couldn’t take it as a sign of disrespect. “Did you hear someone cast a spell?” Her voice indicated that she thought little of that likelihood; she would probably assume that an attack like this had to be nonverbal.

Lucius spent a moment massaging his throat before he answered. He never wanted to show weakness in front of his Aurors. They could not all be controlled in the way that he controlled the Unspeakables and some of his other researchers without dimming their reaction time. Therefore, he had to seem a model of pureblood strength.

Better the victim of an unexpected attack than a trembling coward.

“I was taken unawares by the potency of the magic remaining in the clearing when we landed,” he said at last, when he was sure that his voice would not squeak or do anything else unseemly. Yes, it was smooth, deep, calm. “None of you sensed it?”

While Shafiq and Bulstrode continued to watch the forest, Helios Ollivander, from the pureblood line of the family, turned to him with a small bow. “No, sir,” he said softly. “Your magic sensitivity is unparalleled, we knew that, but to see it in action…”

Lucius favored Helios with a small smile. “Yes,” he said. “I think we can see now what made an end to the Hounds. Do you know the Retrocognition Charm, Auror Ollivander?”

Helios blinked and looked at him. “I do, sir. I’ve never performed it in a wilderness area, however.”

Lucius made a circling motion with one arm. “I am sure that, performed by someone of proper lineage, the charm will attach to the leaves and the dirt as well as it normally attaches to walls and doors.”

That compliment brought Helios’s chin up, as Lucius had known it would. He paused, building up strength in his broad shoulders, before he whirled and pointed his wand at the center of the small clearing. “Retro video!”

The leaves puffed into the air from the force of the spell. Lucius leaned forwards. The group who had been here had left their powerful magic behind, but no physical traces that he could see. The Retrocognition Charm, however, would reveal the past to them as a ghostly vision not unlike that a Seer would glimpse looking into the future.

The charm shivered and spun in a circle for a second, a silver finger racing around the inside of an invisible wineglass. Then a silvery form erupted into the air, slamming into the side of a Hound.

Werewolf.

Lucius locked his legs and did not move back from the apparition. It was only a ghost of the beast that had been here, of course. It would not do to look cowardly, he repeated, over and over to himself. It would not do.

Only his iron will held him still as he watched the savage beast rip apart one Hound and aim for another.

And then—

The same magic that had choked Lucius when they Apparated in tore through the past vision, such an explosion of power that it completely obscured what had happened to the other Hounds. The werewolf’s past self vanished into the magic of it. Lucius swore, viciously, and Auror Shafiq looked at him in shock. It took even more control this time for Lucius to clamp down on his instinctive reaction.

And to clamp down on his shivers. The magic had hidden what had happened, which was probably why the werewolf and its ally were not worried about being tracked by the Retrocognition Charm. But Lucius had felt enough through his tingling senses to be sure of one thing.

This was the work of one person. Not a group.

The thought shook Lucius down to his bones. He managed to reassure the Aurors that he was well as the light of the charm faded, and accept Auror Helios’s apologies that the vision hadn’t shown anything more useful, and walk in the right direction as they Apparated him back to the Ministry. But the minute he was alone in his office, he spun around and unlocked a drawer spelled with a ward that he alone knew the countercharm to.

He took out the crude crystal statuette there, vaguely shaped like a phoenix if one was inclined to look for a beak and feathers, and spent a moment cradling it, feeling the faint warmth thrumming through it.

Still faint. Still not a burning strength. And Lucius had memorized the features of the phoenix years ago. He knew that nothing had changed, not so much as a chipped talon or plume.

Albus Dumbledore still slept in his enchanted prison.

Lucius placed the phoenix statue back in the drawer more delicately than he had taken it out, and locked the drawer again, spilling a bit of his blood to secure the ward. Then he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

His nightmare had not come true. Dumbledore had not broken free, or allied with a werewolf that Lucius feared might be Remus Lupin.

But his secondary nightmare, in that case, had to be true.

There was another pureblood wizard or witch of such great power in Britain that they could obscure the results of a Retrocognition Charm. And Lucius had no idea who they were, or where, or when they might come for his position as Minister.

*

The blue crystal sparked for a moment on the pole where Tom had placed it, a star-shaped topper to the length of sleek birch wood. Then it began to glow with steady, sapphire-colored light.

Tom smiled, and turned to the second pole beside him, this time of rowan wood. The crystal on top of this one looked like it was made of pure diamond, although it wasn’t, and was shaped like a pentagram. Its light had already begun to glow, the sharp, translucent shine of snow lit by the sun.

“What do we need to do, Professor Riddle?”

Tom turned and saw Hermione Granger standing next to the pole of oak wood. She clutched a circular crystal, this one as dark red as a ruby, and looked nervously at the top of the pole she wasn’t quite tall enough to reach.

“In a moment, float it to the top of the pole. You remember the Levitation Charm, I trust?”

Granger jumped, but luckily didn’t drop the crystal. Not that Tom thought it would have shattered dropping into the grass from this height, but even a small crack might have compromised its integrity. “I—you would trust me to use that with this, sir?”

“Of course I would.” Tom arched an eyebrow. “Unless you don’t trust yourself and would rather than I give the task to Miss Brenn.”

Granger shot a quick look at Alita Brenn, on the other side of the rough square the four poles formed, beside the pole of ash, and holding the cup-shaped green crystal that would glow like an emerald when lit. “No! I mean, I can do it, sir.” She drew her wand.

Tom stepped back and nodded to Brenn. She concentrated, frowning fiercely, as the green crystal floated to the top and settled in place, the top of the pole slotting into a hole formed for it on the bottom of the cup.

Granger’s red circle followed suit a moment later. Tom nodded as the poles flared with light, and the poles began to thrum with magic at the same time. The beams of light played over the girls’ enthralled faces. They wouldn’t know all the ramifications of the ritual, but they were both more than strong enough to feel the magic in the air.

One of the most powerful protective rituals that a magical school could be guarded with called for a circle created by an enormous ruby, diamond, sapphire, and emerald. There was a reason that it had rarely been performed since medieval times, when rich wizards and witches might be able to call upon the coffers of a monarch, and hadn’t been renewed at Hogwarts when it had broken down there.

But Tom had studied the ritual, and tested it himself on a smaller area, and learned that it wasn’t necessary to have such large gems. What mattered was the crystalline structure and the color of the light cast, not the materials used. Given that, it was beyond simple to Transfigure and enchant crystals into what he required.

The ward lifted above Fortius, square-shaped as long as it was contained by the four poles. Then it became larger, spreading out and turning sideways, joining other invisible squares and circles of wards already lofted above the school. Both Granger and Brenn breathed out as it merged with them and lost its distinct sense of magic.

“Will we learn how to do that?” Granger whispered.

“Ritual Magic is open to second-years and above,” Tom agreed without agreeing. “Now, do run along to the feast.”

They did, pounding towards the dining hall, where the light and the smell of sweets was concentrated. Tom would join them for the Halloween feast in a moment, but he lingered, eyes shut, reaching out the senses that were more attuned than those of anyone else in the school to the intangible messages of the world.

He sensed the moment that James and Lily Potter’s spirits felt the outreaching edge of the ritual. He smiled. They weren’t true ghosts in the sense of the ones that lingered at Hogwarts, like the Bloody Baron. With their magic harvested, they hadn’t had the choice to make the transition to that space.

But there was a bit of them left in any case, the part that might have animated the ghost, the part that in a Muggle would have faded. Tom had asked them to come, had invited them, and they descended and curved into the borders of the ritual square.

“Your son is safe here,” Tom said softly. “He will be trained and given the ability to take vengeance. He will be admired and guarded fiercely. You have my word.”

The ritual spaces in the sky, all of them still enduring even though the poles and crystals that had created them had long since been taken down, wavered in response, the spirits Tom had invited and that had accepted the invitation shivering. Then they settled again, and Tom felt a spiral of greater warmth than he had expected descend to the school grounds.

Tom half-bowed his head. He would have liked to do this with every relative of a student here who had been murdered for their magic, but he could only conduct this ritual and invite them if he knew the exact dates of their deaths.

This time, he did. And although it had been ten years since Lily and James Potter had died, it seemed what was left of them was still determined to protect their son.

Tom turned and strode towards the feast, where his students and professors would be waiting for him.

Chapter Text

“Look carefully into the cauldron, Mr. Potter, and tell me what you see.”

Harry swallowed and looked down into the cauldron in front of him, but honestly, he couldn’t see anything except a kind of brown sludge. He shook his head. “Sorry, Professor Enfield. I don’t know.”

Professor Enfield just nodded instead of getting upset, and Harry relaxed. He had been a little more cautious of potions ever since Professor Riddle had told him that he might have to have his magic restrained by one. Professor Enfield was pretty brilliant, though. Harry hadn’t seen him get angry yet except the one time Justin was messing around and had nearly made a cauldron explode.

“Anyone else?” Professor Enfield looked around the room. He was a tall, thin man with pale skin, thinning grey hair, and wide blue eyes behind glasses. He pointed at Dean. “Yes, Mr. Thomas?”

“It looks as though it’s very slowly bubbling, sir. I just saw a big bubble come up and then disappear.”

Professor Enfield smiled. “Ah, yes. Right now, this is not so much a potion as an inert base. But not completely inert, or it would be impossible to make into a regular potion. The slight bubbles are your clue.” He rubbed his hands.

“Clue, sir?” Hermione asked.

“I want you to make a potion out of this,” Professor Enfield said happily. He waved his wand, and a whole bunch of ingredients appeared next to the cauldrons. Harry could recognize phoenix feathers, crushed cockroaches, salt crystals, and shredded lavender petals on his table. “Feel free to experiment and look up recipes in your book, work together, or swap ingredients. I’ll be on hand to prevent explosions.”

“But what potion should we make?” Justin asked, sounding frustrated.

“Anything you want, Mr. Finch-Fletchley. You have until the end of class.” Professor Enfield glanced up. They were in one of the towers near the edge of Fortius that looked as though they were designed for war, and there were only a few slit-shaped windows that let light through, but a crystalline clock perched on the wall over the windows. “Just a little over seventy-five minutes, now.”

Harry began flipping through his book, frowning. They had received training in basic things like cleaning their cauldrons and taking care of their cutting knives during the first fortnight of class, and had been making “real,” simple potions since then. But he hadn’t expected anything like this.

For a second, he wondered what would happen if he wasn’t good at it, and then shook his head sharply. So what if he wasn’t good at it? He wasn’t going to be kicked out of Fortius.

And he was so good at offensive magic that he’d needed his magic restrained, he reminded himself.

Harry nodded, and set himself to doing as good a job as he could.

*

Hermione scowled at the bubbling base of the potion. She’d added pixie dust and dried deaths-head moths’ wings to it, trying to nudge it in the direction of a Calming Draught, but the only reaction was to make the bubbles pop more energetically.

She put up her wand. Professor Enfield turned smartly away from Terry Boot’s cauldron and walked over to hers.

“What happens if we don’t have a functioning potion by the end of the class, sir?”

“Then we talk next class about why, and what this base could possibly have added to it to encourage it to form into a potion.”

Hermione fidgeted for a moment. Professor Enfield just waited her out instead of asking what was wrong, the way some of the other professors at Fortius did, and Hermione finally gave in with a small huff. “But, sir, why? Why not at least give us more of a hint as to what kind of potion we’re supposed to make?”

“I’ll tell you that at the end of class,” he said, and winked at her, and walked away.

Hermione scowled at the cauldron and her book, and decided to concentrate on the powdered boomslang skin next. It was a more powerful ingredient than she’d dared to add so far, but Professor Enfield had said he would prevent explosions, and it was clear that the pitiful little ingredients she’d chosen so far weren’t doing anything.

*

Harry ducked and yelped as Justin’s cauldron abruptly overflowed with blue fumes and bubbles. Professor Enfield was there in seconds, waving his wand hard as he conducted the fumes and the smell away from the cauldron and imprisoned them in a corner of the ceiling. He nodded to Justin, who was bright red.

“You’re all right, Mr. Finch-Fletchley,” he said bracingly. “A mistake that I was expecting someone to make. Spend the rest of class looking at the ingredients you added and writing down notes on why you think they reacted that way, and what you could do to prevent that kind of reaction in the future.”

Harry turned back to his potion with renewed determination. Yes, it was all right if he didn’t make anything, but he still wanted to make something.

Unfortunately, what he made was a suddenly-grey sludge that twisted itself into a solid ashy-colored lump on the bottom of his cauldron and began to melt through it. Harry raised his wand and hopped frantically in place, and Professor Enfield dashed over and froze the whole thing. Harry sighed. “Can I get my cauldron out of the ice later?”

“Yes, of course. I managed to stop the process before it could develop more than rudimentary intelligence.”

Harry stared at the cauldron, and then up at Professor Enfield. “Potions can be intelligent?” His voice was wavering a little.

Professor Enfield winked at him. “Under certain circumstances, yes. You should watch out for the ones that begin to melt through your cauldrons, though. Usually it means that they want to eat everything in sight and are hostile intelligences.”

“Professor Enfield!”

“Same assignment I gave Mr. Finch-Fletchley,” Professor Enfield told Harry as he leaped to Terry’s rescue.

Harry sighed and began to scan the list of ingredients. At least they had already had the habit of taking detailed notes, because half the time Professor Enfield wanted to look at them. He started to flip through his Potions textbook, looking for what it said about interactions between bicorn horn and doxy eggs.

*

Hermione scowled at the blue liquid in her cauldron. It smelled like a Calming Draught, but she was willing to bet it wasn’t.

“Very good, Miss Granger! That would be an effective poison.”

Hermione jerked back and turned to stare up at Professor Enfield. “But I didn’t want to make a poison, sir! I was trying to make a Calming Draught.”

“Then write down the ingredient interactions and try to work out why you made a poison instead, and what the poison would do.” Professor Enfield cast a Stasis Charm on her cauldron that Hermione knew would hold it until the end of class.

“Did you want us to experiment because you wanted us to make poisons?” Hermione demanded. She would never have dared be so straightforward with a Muggle teacher, but she was coming to see that the professors at Fortius valued that, as long as it didn’t cross the line into outright disrespect.

Professor Enfield chuckled at her and looked up at the clock. “We only have five minutes until the end of class, so you won’t have long to wait to find out, Miss Granger.” He bounced away again.

Hermione sighed and began to write down the possible reasons that her potion had become a poison, but she didn’t concentrate as hard as she might have. She was much more interested in Professor Enfield’s explanation than her own work, and kept one ear cocked for it, putting down her notes the minute she heard the crystalline chime that signaled the end of class.

They didn’t have anything right away after Beginning Potions Study except lunch, and it looked like everyone wanted to hear what the professor had to say. He beamed at all of them and nodded.

“As some of you have probably figured out,” he began, “the base I used today wasn’t one that would produce any specific potion. There’s no magical combination of ingredients that you could use to transform it into one of the potions we’ve already studied. I did this to see what you would come up with instead.”

“But why?” Hermione couldn’t help asking. “Isn’t that just a waste of time and ingredients, Professor?”

“No, Miss Granger. And I can assure you that the school has plenty of ingredients on hand.” Hermione tried not to blush at Professor Enfield’s obvious amusement. “This is to teach you to think more critically, especially about Potions ingredients and interactions. Not all of you will be capable brewers without recipes, but I wanted to see what you would create in any case.”

“Did you want us to brew poisons?”

“I wanted to see what you would create,” Professor Enfield repeated. “If poisons were among those creations, that would be all right. And if it was an intelligent creature like Mr. Potter’s, then I would be fascinated to see how it arose, since that’s not a result I could have reasoned to get to myself.”

“Intelligent creature?” That was Terry, luckily, so Hermione didn’t feel like she was just talking all by herself. They all turned and stared at Harry’s cauldron. He flushed a little and gestured to the ice that encased it.

“It’s okay,” he said feebly. “Professor Enfield contained it before it could get out.”

“I didn’t know you could make intelligent creatures with Potions,” Alita whispered. Hermione looked over to find that her eyes were huge and she was taking a step back from her cauldron. Hermione thought that whatever was in there was inert, since Alita had still been brewing when the class ended instead of taking notes, but she could understand the caution.

“Potions can do many things that you are not aware of, as can the other subjects you are studying at this school,” Professor Enfield said evenly. He wasn’t smiling as hard now, and his eyes swept over them. “Legilimency can damage an opponent’s mind. Defense includes spells that can kill someone. Knowledge of history changes your thinking as you approach propaganda and narratives taken for truth in the modern-day wizarding world. Even Astronomy teaches you about the influence that stars and planets have on our world from so far away.” He paused. Hermione watched him, hardly breathing.

“You know what we’re trying to do here,” Professor Enfield said softly. “You know that we’re trying to change the world, as well as give you an education. Always remember that, whether you’re working with ingredients in a cauldron or words in your mind or a spell at the end of your wand, you have the power to alter the world both for yourself and others.”

He stepped back with a smile to the nearly-silent room. “Class dismissed.”

*

“Are you all right, Arthur?”

Molly was glad to see that Arthur smiled a little as he looked up at her, but his face was still far too haggard, and he didn’t move away from Evangeline’s bedside. Then again, he hadn’t done that since they got her home from St. Mungo’s. Molly sat down on the other side, smoothing her hand absently over Evangeline’s hair.

“I just keep thinking,” Arthur said, and his eyes rested briefly on their youngest daughter. “Of the price.”

Molly shook her head slowly. She didn’t like thinking about it, either, but that was one reason she made it a point to not think about it all that often. “We paid it. We can’t go back and unpay it. And would you really want to give up Evangeline?”

Molly would have thought she would be the one most desperate to have daughters, but that had been Arthur, somewhat to her surprise. He had asked her to drink what were, at the time, highly experimental potions when she was a few months pregnant.

And they had worked. Ron and their little Victoria had been born, and Molly would never forget the look on Arthur’s face when he’d held Victoria for the first time.

Given that, she didn’t know what Arthur was saying now. She waited patiently for him to say something.

It took a longer time sitting in silence than she had anticipated, sitting in Evangeline’s little room just under the roof of the Burrow, before Arthur finally cleared his throat. “No, of course not. I would never give her up for anything.” He looked down and ran his hand over Evangeline’s shining hair. She was the one who had the brightest shade of red, Molly thought, although sometimes it was hard to be sure, when her brood never stopped moving around.

“Well, then. What did you mean?”

Arthur looked at her, then away. “Do you ever think that our—that going along with—that accepting some of the pureblood ideology isn’t what Albus would have wanted?”

Molly sighed. Yes, they’d both been part of the Order of the Phoenix that Albus had been trying to raise in the last years before he was imprisoned. But it wasn’t actually clear to Molly what its goal had been. Rebellion against the Ministry? But Albus had yielded without a fight in the end, when he could have killed at least a dozen purebloods if he had unleashed his full strength.

To resist the restrictions on Muggleborns in Hogwarts and elsewhere? But that couldn’t be true, either, not when Albus had supported some of those restrictions.

“I think,” Molly said quietly, reaching out to cover Arthur’s hand with her own, “that if we were going to prioritize what Albus thought, we should have done it before I took that first potion when I was pregnant with Ron and Victoria.”

“Do you think the potion actually created Victoria?”

Molly blinked. “Of course it did.” She’d thought Arthur knew this. “I went to a midwife early on in the pregnancy, and although she couldn’t tell the sex of the baby, she knew there was only one. And then, after I drank the potion, she could tell that there were two, and the one that read as female to her magic was younger than the other one. Which shouldn’t be truly possible with twins, of course. But yes, it created her.”

“And Ginny and Evangeline?”

“I didn’t take it with Ginny,” Molly said staunchly, which was true. She snorted at the look of shock on Arthur’s face. “Really, dear, you should pay more attention. That distinctive shade of red should have been easy to see on the table if I was. But I was a little worried about the consequences of the potion then. You remember how hard it was for Victoria to nurse? How sick she was that first year? I was concerned about it and wanted to see if I could have a daughter without the potion. And obviously, we did.”

“But Evangeline…”

Molly sighed. “Ginny’s birth was harder than I ever told you, Arthur. The Healers were convinced I would never have another child again. But you kept talking about wanting one, and another little girl. The potion would coat my womb in a protective layer of magic and allow me to have one. So I did.”

Arthur was staring at her in what looked like horror. Molly looked calmly back. Was it because he believed she had nearly died with Ginny? Well, she hadn’t. She would have lived no matter what, but it was true that Ginny’s birth had damaged her ability to bear children. Or should have, except for the potion.

“I didn’t—I didn’t know,” Arthur whispered. “I wouldn’t have asked you to take the potion and have another girl if I’d known.”

Molly stared at him. “Yes, you would have.”

“No! I promise, Molly, I love you! I wouldn’t have wanted you to risk your life!”

But even as Arthur reached his hand out to her, his gaze darted sideways to Evangeline. Molly rolled her eyes a little while taking his hand.

“You wanted daughters,” Molly said quietly. “Because few men in your family ever had them. You wanted sisters growing up, you told me, and aunts. Well, I could give you that, and by the time we had Evangeline, the potion had been tested as quite safe.”

“Now that we know the consequences…”

“We are not having another child.”

“I didn’t mean that, Mollywobbles. I mean, do you regret that you took it with Evangeline and Victoria? Because of the health problems they could have?”

Molly looked her husband in the face and wondered what he would say if she told him everything she was thinking. But she looked back down at the little girl who was hers and chose the gentler words, the lie.

“I think that they’re here, and we need to love them.”

Arthur nodded and let go of her hand. Then he went back to murmuring gentle words of his own as Evangeline stretched fretfully and reached for the cup of Calming Draught that stood on the table next to her bed. Molly rose and let herself out of the room.

She stood with her eyes shut on the stairs outside Evangeline’s door, breathing slowly out. She had been committed to survival for so many years. That had meant doing nothing to jeopardize her marriage, and it had meant acting as though she was grateful for the Malfoys’ support, and it had meant not calling attention to herself or her children. One of the things she was proudest of was the disdain in Lucius Malfoy’s eyes whenever he spoke to her through the Floo or visited the house.

But she had started thinking otherwise long ago. It was simply that she had never seen a way in which she could act without getting herself killed, and she had too many people depending on her to do that.

But now, now that they knew more about the potion and the costs to everyone, including themselves, of the children born from it…

Molly’s eyes snapped open, and she walked carefully back down the stairs. Arthur would be occupied with Evangeline for a good hour, she judged. Time enough to get a Patronus messenger about his and Lucius’s latest conversation off to Professor Riddle.

*

“How much Potions talent do you see among them?”

“More than I expected,” Jonah Enfield said, accepting a glass of wine from Tom with a nod. He dumped it down his throat and settled back with a sigh into the chair in front of the fire. “It’s always more nerve-wracking than I remember, darting around the room to make sure one of them doesn’t explode it.”

“Or eat holes in the wall, or release a hostile entity?”

“That, too. But I can tell you that you were right about the Potter boy. The base in the cauldron reacted to his offensive magic. That’s the first time in a decade that I’ve had something as hostile and aware as that form in a first-year’s cauldron.”

Tom nodded and sat down in the chair across from Jonah. While the lesson to see what first-years made of a seemingly inert base and random Potions ingredients was one of Jonah’s own design, it was one that Tom was always interested in hearing more about, since it revealed a lot about the first-years’ critical thinking and brewing talents.

“The Granger girl formed a poison that would have done for a dozen full-grown people,” Jonah added, with another sip.

“Really? I hadn’t thought that she was particularly talented in that kind of magic.”

“I haven’t let them brew poisons up until this point,” Jonah pointed out with a grin. “It’s poisons that will be her area, much more than traditional potions.”

“How did she react to that?”

“She seemed at least mildly horrified that it was a poison. But she’ll probably get used to it over time. She has a streak of ruthless practicality. She’ll realize that you can’t always fight your enemies wand to wand in the broad daylight.”

Tom nodded. That was the same sense he had of Hermione, but it was pleasing to know that another professor besides Lavinia shared it. And Lavinia tended to mark out things in students’ minds, because of teaching Legilimency, that might not ever express themselves outwardly.

“Anything else that you can tell me?”

Jonah finished his wine and put it down on the table next to the fire, wrapping his fingers around his knee. “Justin Finch-Fletchley created a particularly malignant version of the Calming Draught. I don’t know that it would be useful until we could make it less explosive, but he’s worth keeping an eye on…”

*

“Ready?”

Sirius grinned at Remus from beneath the hood of the concealing cloak that Riddle the Stuffy had insisted they wear. “I was born ready.”

“Of course you were,” Remus said, and gave him that gleaming smile that went so well with the more golden eyes he’d acquired in the last few years. Then he stepped out of the bushes that had been concealing them.

Sirius followed with a will. They were on the edge of the main Yaxley property, a large pureblood house surrounded by tracts of woodland and swamp. The Yaxleys, fervent supporters of Lucius Malfoy’s regime, raised magical creatures for the table and the hunt. Riddle had been a little concerned that some of those creatures would attempt to prevent Sirius and Remus from reaching the wards, if only to eat them.

Remus had looked at Riddle and then explained, calmly, what would happen when those creatures smelled a werewolf. Riddle had looked flummoxed in a way that Sirius immediately decided would be good for him and had resolved to put on his face more often.

“Ready to go through the wards?” Sirius took one of Riddle’s weapons that he wanted tested from the pouch on his belt. It looked like nothing so much as a half-size crystal ball used in Divination, except a deep, dark blue color that swirled like mist under the surface.

“Like you,” Remus said softly as he dropped the cloak that was the only clothing he was wearing right now, for ease of transformation, “I was born for this.”

Which wasn’t quite what Sirius had said before, but Remus was already changing, the gleaming silvery grey wolf bursting out of him. Remus threw his head back with a howl that provoked a few terrified brays from somewhere in the dim forest around them, and charged the Yaxleys’ wards.

He hit them full-speed, and the yellow fire of them ignited around his fur. Sirius winced despite himself. Remus had told him what embracing his wolf had done for him, besides the obvious, but—

The wards hiccoughed and died. The night was suddenly a lot darker in front of them, and Remus tore through it like a shadow, straight for the house.

Sirius ran behind Remus, fighting off the temptation to giggle hysterically. That was one reason so many purebloods had trembled in the wake of Remus’s threat to return and bite their children instead of simply dismissing him or thinking they could hide behind wards. An ordinary werewolf might be able to bring down wards by sheer brutal strength and the full moon rage that would make them ignore any pain in pursuit of prey.

A werewolf wizard fully in control of himself and his change went through most of them as if they didn’t exist. He was inimical to everything the purebloods who had created those wards had woven into them, including their pride in only using wand magic, their contempt for magical creatures, and their desire to keep themselves safe. Remus wanted to kill people far more than he wanted to keep anyone safe.

And he would get to kill some people, although not as many as he doubtless wanted to. Riddle had asked Sirius to deploy the orb, his experimental weapon, after all.

Sirius ran behind Remus, hearing the terrified cries from inside the house. Lights were popping up all over, dim ones, as people fumbled for their wands and lit Lumos Charms. Remus howled again, and the front door opened, their first opponent coming out. Sirius couldn’t see much in the dim light, but had the impression, from her height, that it was probably Crystal Yaxley, tallest woman in and leader of the family.

Remus went airborne between one stride and the next, hurtling at her with a long, trailing snarl. By the time Sirius reached the doorstep, less than half a minute later, Yaxley was down and more than half her body simply gone. She didn’t have a head anymore, or her throat. Remus had bounded over her and into the house, which exploded with more screams.

Sirius came in behind him and caught a Stunner on a shield, then began silently counting in his head. Riddle had told Remus that two minutes was his limit. Neither Sirius nor Remus had been happy about that, but Sirius had to admit that Riddle’s plan with the orb was intriguing enough to hold them back.

And despite the threat he had made, Remus didn’t really want to kill or infect the Yaxley children, even though only ones old enough to be home from Hogwarts would be in the house right now. Which meant something had to happen.

Sirius ended up removing one Yaxley’s wand arm himself as he waited, but the minute he hit the 120-count mark in his head, he yelled, “Moony!” as loudly as he could. Everyone in front of him flinched back.

Remus came soaring down the stairs, his fur black in the faint wandlight from all the blood that covered it. He paused beside Sirius, half-bowing, and Sirius flung his leg over Remus’s back as he lifted the orb. Riding a werewolf would be the only way to get out of range in time once the orb began its work.

“Bye, fuckers,” Sirius said with a grin, and threw the orb as hard as he could at the nearest Yaxley, who looked like he might be twenty or so. The boy flinched back, and the shield he’d been lifting in front of himself hardened as he pushed more magic into it.

Exactly what Sirius had hoped would happen. The orb shattered against the shield and began to pump the mist through the house.

Remus ran.

Sirius nearly got left behind because he only had one leg over Remus’s back when he should have been gripping with both, but hey, riding a werewolf sidesaddle was a new experience, too. He held his breath as they cleared the doorstep and traveled across the garden faster than he would ever have thought possible. A breathless whoop worked its way up his throat once he was sure he could make it.

Remus leaped through the place where the wards had been and shook himself. Sirius slid to the ground and ignored the blood that covered him. “That was fucking brilliant,” he said. “We need to do that again.”

Remus snorted at him, more expressive as a wolf than he ever was as a human, and turned back with a little shudder and clang of bone. He reached for the cloak, listening. There were no screams behind them now.

“You think it worked the way Riddle said it would?” he asked.

Sirius stretched his arms over his head, grinning. “I think that we’ll find out tomorrow.”

Riddle had estimated that was how long the mist inside the orb would take to act. It would possess and twist the mind of every Yaxley still alive. They would find one of their own to blame for the deaths, and dump that one on the tender mercy of the Ministry, who would either get them Kissed or send them to Azkaban. Riddle was hoping for the latter, Sirius knew, so that he could extend a hand to some of Azkaban’s prisoners. But even if that particular person was Kissed, it meant the death of an enemy. And their minds wouldn’t provide anything except memories consistent with the accusations, Riddle’s weapon changing and adapting to the circumstances.

The other Yaxleys would carry on as usual, or seemingly as usual, not knowing they were essentially sleeping weapons that Riddle could awaken at any time, unleashing them on Fortius’s enemies at convenient moments. And in the meantime, he could reach out to their minds and perceive the world through their senses whenever he wanted.

Riddle was, Sirius could admit, a really Merlin-be-damned scary bastard.

But Sirius was starting to think that he no longer cared, as long as they got to kill some people.

Eleven years ago, he would have hesitated to murder people. But Lily and James’s deaths and harvesting and ten years of house arrest lay in between then and now.

Kill them all. Use them all.

Sirius glanced to the side, and caught the way Remus’s eyes were gleaming. He grinned, and hoped Riddle would send them out on their next mission soon.

Chapter Text

“Do you know why you’re here, Mr. Nott?”

“No, sir.”

Severus watched Theodore Nott narrowly as he sat down behind his desk, but Mr. Nott didn’t appear to be lying. There was none of the sharp taint in the air that Severus would normally sense around someone who was knowingly deceiving him, at least. Which meant this was probably related to the boy’s father rather than to Nott himself.

“The Ministry has instituted a new policy to measure the magic of the students,” Severus lied. He wasn’t concerned about Nott figuring out that that wasn’t the case. If things didn’t go well in this meeting, Severus would simply Obliviate the boy. “We measured it on the night of your Sorting, and again recently. Your magical strength has fluctuated recently, and today, it is much higher than it was at the Sorting. Do you know why?”

Nott stared at him. His wide dark eyes were meeting Severus’s without any flinching, and when Severus dipped into his thoughts, he found only shock. “No, sir,” Nott said slowly.

Severus nodded. There was no evidence for what he feared—that someone had managed to feed Nott the magic of a harvested child without being anywhere near him—but that was exactly why he had undertaken this investigation. “Very well. I will need a small amount of your blood to conduct the next test.”

“You do, sir?”

At least the boy was taught to be cautious about someone acquiring body parts that could be used in sympathetic magic. Severus nodded. “Yes. If someone is influencing your magic, they are doing so internally, since there have been no external changes. Using your blood is the least invasive way to test for that kind of influence.”

Nott bit his lip, then nodded. He extended his left arm upwards over the desk, although he watched closely as Severus took out a vial and a small needle enchanted to suck up the blood the moment it found a vein.

Severus flattened Nott’s arm out with his own hand and sank the needle into the nearest blue vein, easily seen with Nott’s corpse-pale skin. Nott caught his breath and closed his eyes. Severus bit back the sneer.

Afraid of pain or afraid of needles? The world would be much harder on Nott in the first case, but either way, it was hard for Severus to muster much compassion. Non-purebloods endured harder things every day.

Severus looked down and saw that the needle was full. He nodded and extracted it from Nott’s arm, then healed the small pinprick with a swish of his wand. “You can remain here while I test it, Mr. Nott, if that is what you desire.”

“Yes, sir. Please. I have no idea what…” Nott let it trail off, shook his head, and sat down in the chair he had taken earlier, clutching his arm.

Severus bent over the needle and pretended to cast a complex spell on it, while in reality bringing a new orb Riddle had given him close to it under the desk. The orb hissed like a small snake and began to fill with crystal mist. Riddle seemed to have some kind of addiction to using mists of that kind, Severus thought clinically.

If they worked, however, who was he to question? Severus still remembered the enormous power that had swelled outwards from Riddle when he had dropped his shields briefly for Severus. The man who could feel like that could do anything.

When Severus at last finished the “spell” and sat down behind the desk, he tilted his head so that the orb was in sight. The mist inside it had turned dark blue, with flashes of gold here and there like lightning in a stormy sky. Severus stared at it for a moment.

“Sir? Am I going to be all right?”

“Just a minute, Mr. Nott,” Severus said absently, pretending to consult numbers on a parchment in front of him (actually prepared earlier with neutral Arithmantic equations). He was struggling to remember whether this color had been on the list of hues that Riddle’s instructions had described.

When he remembered, he regretted that Theodosius Nott, Theodore’s father, was not within reach of his wand.

Leeching. He’s leeching his own child’s magic. Feeding on it!

Severus held his face blank with an effort. He inclined his head to Theodore. “Do you remember ever feeling faint or magically exhausted during certain parts of the year, Mr. Nott, even though you had not cast any major spells?”

Theodore frowned as he obviously ran some dates and memories through his head. “Near the solstices and equinoxes, sir. My father said it was because the rituals we performed were a magical drain for someone so young.”

What a clever bastard. Then again, Theodosius Nott always had been. If he had wanted to challenge Lucius Malfoy for political leadership of the British wizarding world, Severus thought, he well could have, but he preferred the solitude of his manor or the company of his family.

To some extent. Severus thought he understood better than most now why Theodosius’s wife Belladora had died some years ago, despite being younger than her husband and in the prime of health.

“Did you feel a similar drain near the autumn equinox here, Mr. Nott?” Severus asked, as neutrally as he could.

Theodore thought about it again. Then he shook his head. “But I just thought it was because I didn’t perform the same rituals that I did at home, sir. My father is…I mean, he has his own traditions.”

Severus nodded and caught the boy’s eyes again. He had a glimpse through his Legilimency of Theodosius bending over a horrifically complex pattern of bronze and brass cages and traps, and had to bite his tongue not to spit in revulsion.

Yes, he knew now how Theodosius Nott had killed his wife, and what he was doing to his son.

“I will ask, Mr. Nott,” Severus said, and set aside the crystal needle filled with blood as well as, beneath the desk, the stormy-colored crystal orb, “that you seriously consider staying at Hogwarts for the winter holiday.”

Theodore’s eyes and mouth widened. “What?”

“Your father is leeching your magic,” Severus said. Bluntness was best in the circumstances, he judged, and he could still use Memory Charms if he had to. For the moment, Theodore seemed too stunned to speak, so Severus went on. “That is the reason for the magical fluctuations you have experienced since coming to Hogwarts, as well as your exhaustion near the solstices and equinoxes. Your magic has grown stronger away from your father, but that will not continue if you go home for the winter solstice and grant him the opportunity to do it again.”

Theodore shivered and wrapped his arms around himself, but said nothing to deny his words. Severus felt his eyebrows creep up. Interesting. Most children would have reacted emotionally, one way or the other, to such a declaration. Leeching was akin to harvesting, but done over time rather than all at once, rather like keeping an animal alive to provide Potions ingredients over multiple years. And the person who leeched but did not harvest could also implant various forms of their own magic in their victim, with an automatic Memory Charm on anything related to the leeching being the most common.

“You do not have questions?” Severus finally prodded, when he thought the silence had gone on long enough.

“I want to know if he’s doing it to Sophia and Constance, too,” Theodore whispered.

Severus stared at him. “Who are they?”

“My younger sisters,” Theodore said, and blinked at Severus. “You didn’t know, sir?”

For Theodosius to have hidden the existence of two other children…who knows what he has done to them?

Severus forced his own weakness and illness away from his face. It would not do to fail the boy in such a crucial moment. He shook his head and sat back in his chair, Vanishing the blood from the needle when Theodore’s gaze dropped to it. He would lose the child’s trust if Theodore thought Severus was keeping the blood to manipulate him. “I would daresay that no one outside Nott House knows.”

“Yeah, probably,” Theodore whispered. “I could never—he spelled me not to talk about them.”

“You remember this?”

“I do now.” Theodore’s eyes sharpened for a second, drifting up to Severus’s face, and then fell again. “I can remember how it felt to be stretched between the cages in the ritual space. I remember him—”

Without transition, he began to weep, staring straight ahead, the tears flowing in silence. Severus stared at him and then got up and came around the desk, not certain what he should do. He had next to no experience with crying children whom he hadn’t made cry on purpose.

Theodore grabbed Severus’s robes and buried his face in them.

Severus stared straight ahead, and did his best to hold still as he gingerly patted Theodore’s shoulder. It was worse for Theodore than for him, he repeated silently to himself. This, too, would pass.

At least faster than it probably would have with a typical child, Theodore sat back and wiped his tears off his face. “Thanks, sir,” he whispered. “I—I think I’m going to be all right now.”

“Do you wish to return home?” Severus asked, going back to sit behind the desk again. At the moment, he had no idea for a clear alternative; he had only thought as far ahead as delaying Theodore’s return to his home over the winter solstice. He could not, of course, keep the boy from his father with no legal recourse, and there was possibly the matter of rescuing the two Nott girls Severus hadn’t had any idea existed.

“No,” Theodore said hollowly. “But I don’t see how I can refuse. I already got an owl from Father a few days ago saying that he can’t wait to see me again.”

Severus thought carefully, and then said, “I would have to contact someone else to see what they said. But there is, potentially, a way.”

Theodore looked up at him with so much hope in his eyes that Severus immediately decided he would find some other solution if Riddle said that Theodore going to Fortius was impossible. He could not leave the child to be—

To be eaten by his father. It was heinous.

*

“Can anyone tell me what we’ll be learning today?”

“Flying!” Terry shouted. He sounded so excited that Hermione felt a little envious. She was mostly feeling…green. And like she would empty her stomach if she had to get up on a broom again. The lesson they’d had two months ago still made her twitch when she thought about it, and they hadn’t gone higher than about fifteen meters.

“You already learned that, though,” said the new flying instructor, a dark-skinned man with a long braid of silvery hair coiled around his head who had told them to call him Professor Gallin. “What’s different about this set of brooms?” He stepped back and gestured towards the fleet of brooms on the grass at his feet.

Hermione examined them as best she could, ignoring the wind whipping about outside the protected, charmed dome of warm and still air around them. The brooms did look sleeker and faster than the ones they’d learned to fly on at first. She sighed. They were going to be riding racing brooms into the wind?

“No one can tell me?”

Professor Gallin sounded disappointed. Hermione raised her hand. He nodded to her, and she took a deep breath and asked, “Are they faster, sir? Enchanted to fly faster?”

“That’s one of the things, yes. But what good are racing brooms to us?”

“You can play a wicked game of Quidditch on them!”

Hermione only barely held back from rolling her eyes. Justin had come from the Muggle world, the same as her, but he had definitely fallen in love with Quidditch even though he’d never heard of it only a few months ago. Boys.

“Yes, but are they relevant to our purpose here at Fortius?” Professor Gallin paced slowly back and forth in front of the brooms, his arms folded behind his back. “Yes, Mr. Potter?”

“They’re fast enough to be used in combat, right?”

Hermione snorted a little. The thought of aerial combat horrified her, but that did make the most sense, and she couldn’t even resent that another student had come up with the answer when it was Harry who had. He was simply better at some fields of offensive magic than she was.

That was all right. She was still making top marks and she would be useful to the revolution in a variety of ways. Things would work out.

“They are indeed.” Professor Gallin clasped his hands together and shook them. A bright silver spark ran over the brooms, and they bounced up to float in place at about the height someone could use to throw a leg over them. “We’ll conduct a few classes so that everyone understands the basics of fighting on brooms and how to use them to escape people who might be chasing you on them. Then those who show natural aptitude for them will go on to receive more in-depth training on them. The rest of you will receive some refresher training once a month or so on escaping, but it’s not a skill that you need to spend a lot of time on if it doesn’t mesh well with your other magic.”

Hermione sighed in relief. She didn’t like to think of some of the wild maneuvers that happened when people played Quidditch, let alone the kinds of things that people probably got up to in battle.

“Watch me first,” Professor Gallin instructed, and leaped onto the broom that hovered next to him.

Hermione blinked. One minute he was there; the next he wasn’t. She jumped back and looked up, thinking that the broom was so fast he might have just flown straight up and she’d lost track of him, but he wasn’t there, either.

“Built-in Invisibility Charm!” Professor Gallin’s voice said cheerfully from where he’d been, making Hermione jump for a different reason this time. “Don’t worry, I’ll teach you how to see through it, initiate it, and release it.” He popped back into being, and waved at them to get on the brooms. “Come on, let me show you.”

Hermione took a deep breath and slung her leg over the one hovering next to her. You don’t have to be the best at everything, she reassured herself. Just learn what will allow you to survive.

And save other people, too.

*

Severus’s message had infuriated him, but it wouldn’t do to arrive at Hogwarts cloaked in his own power, when the whole point of his shields was to keep purebloods from realizing how strong he was. Therefore, Tom meditated before he Apparated to the school, and homed in on the sense of distress coming from the dungeon classroom where Severus had said he and Mr. Nott would be waiting for Tom.

The emotional impression only came from someone who had used or been subjected to a scan by one of Tom’s orbs, and it only lasted for a few days. But this was enough to tell Tom that young Nott felt as strongly as Severus, if not more, about his father feeding on him.

Tom relaxed a little. There were pureblood children he had met who would have been upset, but still considered it their parent’s right to do so, and who would have simply decided they had to become stronger in order to win the right to leech their family’s magic in return.

This made it much more likely that Mr. Nott would agree to take the step that was the only acceptable one, to Tom’s mind.

He stepped into the classroom, and saw Mr. Nott’s eyes widen. Then he ducked his head and murmured, “Hi, Professor Riddle.”

So Severus had told that much of a tale. Or perhaps he recognized me from some to-do at the Ministry. Lucius Malfoy did occasionally invite Tom to those, so he could pretend to be gracious. Tom nodded. “Hello, Mr. Nott.” He glanced at Severus, who was rising from a deep bow. “Have you explained his options to him?”

“I have said that Mr. Nott should attempt to stay at Hogwarts over the winter solstice,” Severus said softly. “More than that, no, I have not.”

Tom nodded and sat down in a desk that faced Mr. Nott. “I can offer you sanctuary at my school,” he said. “But it would be a final step. You would never be able to return to your home, and your father would be furious.”

Mr. Nott swallowed and closed his eyes. “I want to say yes, but…I have two little sisters,” he whispered. “Could you get them away as well?”

“You do?” Tom hated showing his surprise this baldly, but he would certainly have thought his spy network good enough to divulge the existence of two entire other Nott children.

“Yes. Sophia and Constance.” For a moment, Mr. Nott’s fingers worried at his robes, but then he visibly forced his hands to lie calmly against his legs and leaned forwards to stare at Tom. “Can you help, Professor Riddle?”

“I can,” Tom said quietly. “But not right away.” Taking on the wards of Nott Manor…and Theodosius Nott would probably be more on the alert than ever after what had happened to the Yaxleys. “Do you think he would begin on them if you stayed at Hogwarts for the winter solstice?”

“I think so,” Mr. Nott whispered. “I don’t—know what to do. My mum’s dead, and there’s no one to oppose him anymore.”

“There might be,” Tom murmured, mind far away. He could, of course, take down the wards himself, but that would reveal his power to the world, and although they couldn’t track him down right away—pureblood prejudice simply would not allow people like Nott or Malfoy to admit that a half-blood was so powerful—it would set enemies on his trail that Tom couldn’t afford to have tracking him. Lupin could get through the wards, but Theodosius would likely have traps waiting that could kill him. Using a weapon that would putt Theodosius under the Imperius or the like would be impossible without knowing for sure if someone could both get past the wards and survive to do so.

And there were the children. The Yaxleys had not had children the age of Mr. Nott’s sisters living with them. Anything Tom did had to keep them in mind.

Well, he did have one advantage over someone who was trying to take on Theodosius without any warning or ward blueprints. He glanced at Mr. Nott. “First of all, would you be willing to come to Fortius with your sisters if I could rescue them?”

Mr. Nott stared at him. Then he gave a jerky nod. “I couldn’t take classes, but I’d rather survive.”

“You could take classes. Why could you not?”

“Everyone knows that Fortius isn’t a school for purebloods, sir.”

Tom smiled. “I do accept the occasional pureblood student. It’s simply that most of them would rather come to Hogwarts, and of course, they’re indoctrinated by their parents so thoroughly that I couldn’t trust them with the school’s secrets in the first place.”

“There are secrets?”

Oh, yes, that’s the right bait to lure this one. Tom smiled again at the way Mr. Nott’s eyes had gone hooded, and nodded. “Yes, and I am prepared to offer you one of them tonight, in exchange for a magical promise from you to keep it secret…and an agreement from you to offer one.”

Mr. Nott blinked. “I don’t know many, sir. It turned out the most important one I was holding was one that I didn’t know I had, even, the one about my father leeching my magic.”

“In this case, I would ask if you are willing to part with the blueprints for the wards to Nott Manor.”

Mr. Nott sucked in a breath so sharp that for a moment Tom thought he might faint. He stared and stared. Tom stared calmly back. If the boy was as intelligent as Severus had described him, he must know that he was likely signing his father’s death warrant.

If he did not know, or if he chose to be ignorant, Tom would not tell him. Now. He would make it clear before he went to collect the boy’s sisters, however. The last thing he wanted was to make this boy a dagger of resentment pointed at his back.

“I—you’re going to break them?” Mr. Nott whispered. “How could you do that? My father says they’re unbreakable.”

“I would be more concerned about what would happen to your sisters in the moments between breaking them and catching up with your father. But you have my word that if we can bring them down or slip through them without his noticing, then I will rescue your sisters before I touch a hair of his head.”

“Are you going to kill him, sir?”

Well. “Yes, I am,” Tom said gently. “He was always on my target list, between the monetary support he gives Malfoy and the harvesting I’ve suspected him of taking part in. But this accelerates him to the top.”

Mr. Nott brought his head up, as if listening to some distant sound Tom couldn’t hear. Tom waited. He was confident of his ability to cast a Memory Charm before Mr. Nott called for help, if it came down to that.

“Good.”

An interesting reaction. Perhaps a useful one. “Oh?”

“Yes.” Mr. Nott’s teeth were coated with blood from his lip, abruptly. Tom hadn’t realized he was biting it so hard. “I found out that he was—he was feeding from me. And I don’t know what he’s doing to Sophia and Constance right now. I was just something he could consume to him. I don’t care if you kill him.”

“You may feel that way right now. But when your anger has had a chance to subside—”

“It won’t, until he’s dead,” Mr. Nott interrupted. Tom heard Severus’s breath catch, but Tom ignored what Severus probably thought was Mr. Nott’s temerity. “The minute I found this out, I stopped loving him.”

“Really.”

Mr. Nott gave a brittle laugh. “He taught me emotional control, Professor Riddle. He cast the Mind Lens Curse on me at a young age.”

Severus shifted. Tom knew that it meant he had no idea what the curse did. For the moment, he did not have the time to explain. He leaned a little forwards. “The Ministry classified the Mind Lens Curse as child abuse, Mr. Nott.”

Another laugh. “My father is part of the Ministry, sir. He always thinks that he can do whatever he wants.”

Tom nodded. That was true enough. “And you have focused enough analysis on your reactions that you do not feel as if you would strike to kill me should you discover at a later date that I am the one responsible for your father’s death?”

“I had to learn to get used to living with the curse in my mind, and what it did to me.” Mr. Nott’s eyes were lightless. “No, sir, I’m never going to change my mind about this.”

Tom watched him for some moments more, but Mr. Nott didn’t flinch or bite his lip again, or show much signs of outwards reaction at all. All behavior consistent with the Mind Lens Curse, and if he had been lying about having it cast on him at all, Tom’s Legilimency would have warned him about that. Tom nodded. “Very well, Mr. Nott. Then I will break through the wards and into your home soon.” He let his mind wander down a few more paths. “Do you know if he’s cast the Mind Lens Curse on your sisters?”

“He has on Sophia. Constance is too young.”

“All right. And how do you feel about this becoming public knowledge?”

Severus made a noise that might have signified distress. Mr. Nott looked at him once, then at Tom when Severus said nothing. “I’d be worried about how it would paint me and Sophia as victims, sir. We couldn’t stand up and do anything against him. Some people will think that means they can mistreat us in the future.”

Tom nodded, not arguing that no one who was rational would think anything like that. Their world was not ruled by rational people. “I would share your concerns, Mr. Nott, but I didn’t actually mean publicizing the information about the Mind Lens Curse. I was talking about publicizing the information that he had leeched you.”

“Wouldn’t that have the same effect but doubled, sir?”

“I think you will find that being underestimated is often a desirable state,” Tom said softly. “And if people think you weak from the leeching, and your sisters as well, they are unlikely to protest your being removed to Fortius Academy. There will be those who are relieved to put it out of their minds, and those who will think you too weak for Hogwarts, and those who might protest except for the fact that you have no other family around who could take you and your sisters, unless I am mistaken?”

Mr. Nott shook his head. “He had two sisters. They both died young.”

And I think I know how.

“In Fortius, you can be taught to harness your magic, to stabilize it, and to cast the kinds of spells and finds the kinds of talents that you will not find here.” Tom glanced sideways, but it seemed that Severus was not in the mood to protest. “And you will become part of my wider political goals. This is a bargain, Mr. Nott, make no mistake. I am not doing this out of the kindness of my heart. Your safety for help in bringing down our mutual enemies.”

“I think you’re wrong, sir.”

“That we can make a bargain?”

“That you’re not doing it out of any kindness.”

Tom gave a light shrug. He had thought it likely that Mr. Nott would need the opposite approach from someone like Harry or Miss Granger, kindness reduced in favor of a brisk approach, but he might have been wrong. “Well, I will admit that actions like your father’s make me furious, yes. I frequently hunt those who harvest children for sport. Do you have any objection to that?”

Mr. Nott’s eyes were wide. He looked at Severus, perhaps for reassurance, and then turned back to Tom.

“I have no objections, sir,” he said. “You’re going to bring down my father?”

“Yes. I cannot justify removing you or your sisters from his custody until then, unfortunately.”

“That’s all right.” Mr. Nott closed his eyes and nodded. “I’ll take what I can get. Thank you, sir.”

*

“What is the Mind Lens Curse?”

Severus thought enough time had passed since they’d sent Mr. Nott back to class to ask the question, but Riddle’s gaze still returned to him as though Severus had interrupted some deep pondering. Severus shivered, but didn’t look down.

Riddle didn’t seem to mind it after all, because he shrugged. “It’s a curse that slows down emotional reactions. Every emotion someone feels is placed as if under a lens, and the person feeling it is forced to analyze it ruthlessly. The emotions are also placed under the control of the witch or wizard. They can stop them, turn them off, heighten them, or start them, as they please. Mr. Nott let his own sadness and anger earlier through, from your description. In his conversation with me, he was controlling them.”

“That sounds more like a blessing than a curse.”

“Imagine what it is like when it is cast on a child. A young child, who would never normally be expected to control their emotions at that point in their development.”

Severus swallowed. He had noticed over the past few months, with Mr. Nott in Slytherin, that he seemed distinctly withdrawn and less prone to anger or arrogance than the other children Severus regularly interacted with, but he also hadn’t thought those traits were anything but praiseworthy. “Why would a parent cast it on his or her child, then?”

“To force the baby to stop crying. To give them maturity too young. To slow down anger or sorrow that are perfectly age-appropriate.” Riddle shrugged, his eyes dark now. “For several reasons.”

“And you suspected that Mr. Nott had been the victim of this curse simply because he described that he had stopped loving his father?”

“It sounded more literal than otherwise.”

Severus considered that, and ended up nodding. Yes, he had spent years teaching children and observing children and being the Head of Slytherin House, but Riddle ran a school and had far more experience teaching than he did. “All right. How soon will you move to take down Nott? Do you need help?”

“Why would you want to?”

Severus straightened his shoulders under Riddle’s stare. “Mr. Nott is one of my snakes, and I find myself disgusted with what Theodosius did. Plus—this would be a chance to test one of my more experimental potions.”

“Would it? What kind?”

“A kind that locks onto thought patterns.”

There was a long moment when Riddle stared at him like a snake with no reaction, and Severus had time to wonder, fearfully, if there was an abyss opening at his feet, if researching potions that locked onto thought patterns was some line Riddle didn’t want his people to cross—

Then Riddle laughed joyously, and the wings of his power beat briefly at Severus’s mind. Severus caught his breath and held it until the weight retreated.

“I think, in that case,” Riddle said, his eyes brilliant and his smile unrestrained even if his magic now was, “that we need not wait for Nott to miss his son over winter solstice.”

Chapter Text

“So you’re not angry about me being Sorted into Slytherin?”

Ron had managed to wait until he was off the train for the Christmas holidays to ask that. Dad, who had hugged him hard and ruffled his hair after he and Percy and the twins got off the train, turned around in surprise.

“Of course not, Ron. Did we sound angry when we wrote to you?”

“No,” Ron mumbled. His parents hadn’t really written to him very often about anything, though, had they? They mostly wrote about Evangeline and how she was recovering, and then about how Ginny was doing with her tutors, and some of the political maneuvers taking place in the Ministry. Dad had made it perfectly clear that he supported Minister Malfoy.

Well, Ron did, too. After all, their families had known each other for a long time, and he was friends with Draco at school. But this sounded like something that went deeper than just the kinds of political support he knew Minister Malfoy and his Dad had exchanged before.

“Well, then.” Dad put a hand on his shoulder, and then turned around and scanned the platform with a scowl. “Fred, George, where did you go?”

Ron sighed a little as he listened to his brothers’ laughter. Fred and George were both Gryffindors, of course, like all the Weasleys before them. Before he’d gone to Hogwarts, Ron had thought they were popular and funny and smart. That was certainly the impression he got from the twins themselves.

Now that he’d been at Hogwarts, he’d seen how many people disliked them, both Slytherins and other people who weren’t but were highly-placed in the school hierarchy, like Headmistress Carrow. Ron thought that his brothers might not survive until the end of their seventh year.

And he hated the thought, but he was also working hard to distance himself from them, so he didn’t die with them.

“Right here, Dad!” one of the twins said, and flung off what looked like a transparent cape. Ron blinked and looked again as the other twin emerged from underneath it.

“Where did you get an Invisibility Cloak?” he shouted.

“We enchanted a regular cloak to behave like one, little brother.” The nearest twin winked at him. Ron honestly only got them right about half the time, and even then, they could be lying about who was who. He was even more out of practice after months in Slytherin. “It’s pretty brilliant, huh?”

“It is not brilliant,” Dad said, his voice frosty. “You know that enchantments that mimic Invisibility Cloaks are banned by the Ministry.”

“We never said—”

“We used the spells that the Ministry banned, Dad.”

Dad’s brow furrowed. Ron shook his head a little. It was probably true that the twins could do that without using illegal spells, but it was just like them to do it when they were still in public and some people were lingering on the platform and staring at them. Ron was beginning to understand why so many purebloods had thought his family were blood traitors in the past. It wasn’t just that his parents had followed Dumbledore, once.

“What did you use, then?”

“That’s a secret!” the twins chorused, and ran for the barrier that would take them back into King’s Cross Station, laughing.

Ron glared after them. How was he supposed to win a place in Slytherin, when they did things like that? How was Dad supposed to get a better-paying job in the Ministry, which he had said would be necessary to pay for some of the special spells he wanted to get cast on Evangeline this summer?

“They are ridiculous children,” said Percy, stalking after the twins and pulling his trunk behind him. For once, Ron agreed with his brother.

“Ron?”

Ron turned around slowly. Victoria was getting off the train, and she was clutching her trunk with one hand and her stomach with the other. Ron sighed and went to help her, leaning his shoulder against hers so that she could take some of her weight off her feet.

“Thanks,” Victoria whispered, and gulped. Ron hoped that she didn’t vomit on him. There were rumors swirling around about how she did a lot of that in Gryffindor Tower, mostly after breakfast.

It was hard for Ron to remember that before they’d gone to Hogwarts, he’d felt incredibly close to his twin sister. They’d drifted apart, and not just because she was in Gryffindor and he was in Slytherin. She was sick all the time, and complained about the food when they talked, and wouldn’t try out for Quidditch even though she had been good on a broom when they were younger and purebloods, of course, could get on the team their first year. Ron sometimes wondered if it was the same sickness that had hurt Evangeline. But when he wrote home, Mum and Dad were quick to reassure him that Victoria didn’t have the same symptoms.

Now, it was sort of like having a stranger walking next to him. Victoria kept her eyes closed as much as she could and didn’t talk. Ron kept frowning at her as they exited through the barrier.

This was yet another impediment to him getting ahead in Slytherin and the pureblood world. He hoped that no one who saw him helping his sick sister would take it the wrong way. Hopefully, he’d just look compassionate.

*

“This was a golden country, once.”

Professor Riddle’s voice was soft. He stood at the front of the dining hall, which normally had all kinds of tables in in—longer ones, smaller ones, rounder ones, squarer ones—and chairs and benches for them. Right now, it was empty. The dining hall was filled with floating candles that cast endless puddles of light and shadow, and the students of Fortius, and nothing else.

Harry watched solemnly, along with everyone else, while Professor Riddle paced back and forth in front of them. His hands were clasped behind his back, and he kept his head down. His breathing was short and harsh.

Then he spun towards them and gestured with his wand. Harry gasped, and so did most other people, as the air above them spun, sparkled, and released a bright and shining image. It looked as if they were staring through a window out onto a green field with rolling hills at the end of it, which also had trees scattered here and there. A golden light shone from everywhere, as if someone was hiding the sun underneath the edge of the grass.

“This is the way that people would say this country was sixty years ago,” Professor Riddle murmured. “Calm, and bright, and lit with a golden radiance that always seemed to come from something just out of sight.”

Harry cocked his head. He hoped he wasn’t the only one who could hear the bitterness in Professor Riddle’s voice, and how it would probably change in a moment.

From the way Hermione shifted next to him, he wasn’t. Professor Riddle flicked his wand hard, and the golden-green vision thinned and turned transparent. Several people gasped, and one screamed. The image now showed chains and skeletons bound together underneath the surface, sometimes ending in an explosion of blood or bone at a place near the surface.

Professor Riddle turned to face them again. “This was always there,” he said, and jerked his head at the new image. “The dark and rotten foundations the golden image was built on.

“Purebloods bragged that they had wealth and that made them worthy of power, but where did their wealth come from? Selling house-elves. Reaping and slaughtering magical creatures. Tricking and Confounding Muggles, often. Investments in Muggle businesses and tricking them into giving up their money are easy with magic.”

Hermione raised her hand. Professor Riddle glanced towards her and nodded. “Miss Granger.”

“I thought—I thought the Statute of Secrecy forbade that,” Hermione whispered hoarsely. “That’s what Professor Johnson said. That families like the Malfoys were angry because the Statute of Secrecy forbade them from doing business in the Muggle world.”

Harry blinked. That question wouldn’t have occurred to him to ask, but it was a good question. He turned back to Professor Riddle.

“Yes, that is the law. And there have been other laws passed since that are meant to reinforce the Statute.” Professor Riddle shook his head. “But they mean little when people in power don’t want them to mean anything.

“And families like the Malfoys have been in power for the last several decades. It was easy for them to write loopholes into the laws for themselves and those like them, while concentrating on those who broke the law in minor ways, Muggleborns who enchanted wheelchairs and the like, to convince the people who watched them that they were doing all they could. When it could be tied back to blood…”

Professor Riddle nodded to the image. “Muggleborns are part of the underclass now in ways they were not a few decades ago. But even then, they were looked down upon, derided, hated, feared.”

He turned back to the students and waited, apparently for someone to ask another question. But the room was full of silence. Harry didn’t know how someone would even get the courage to raise a hand.

Professor Riddle gave a small, bitter smile. “When I went to Hogwarts, I was believed to be a Muggleborn because of my last name. I endured bullying and torment. I thought that surely, when I discovered the pureblood heritage I was certain I had, my Slytherin peers would change their minds and accept me.

“They did not. I spoke Parseltongue to them. I had proof that I had descended from one of the families they always claimed was noblest, Slytherin’s itself.

“And they laughed and nearly broke my legs.”

Harry watched as some of the candles dimmed, and then gasped aloud as Professor Riddle fully dropped the shields on his power. Magic filled the dining hall like great, beating dragon wings. Harry wished he could release his own magic to join it, so that everyone could see how committed he was to the cause of freedom for Muggleborns and others that Professor Riddle talked about.

But the checks in his mind were there for a reason, Harry reminded himself sternly. Professor Riddle had given him private lessons in offensive and defensive magic and had told Harry about the fate of the war wizards who died young because their magic literally consumed them from the inside out. It was for the best that, right now, Harry couldn’t accidentally blow up the dining hall or something.

“I realized then that nothing would change unless someone made it change.” Professor Riddle’s voice was low and savage. “And that blood purity was built on a lie, as so much about the pureblood world is. It isn’t blood that sets someone apart in their eyes, or magical power, or special talents like Parseltongue. It’s people exactly like them, the people they’ve always known, who have a certain reputation.”

“But not every pureblood can be evil,” Hermione said, a little insistently. “The ones who have children with Muggles or Muggleborns can’t be, sir, or there would be no half-bloods.”

Professor Riddle nodded. “I do not think every pureblood as actively evil as Lucius Malfoy, Miss Granger. And even he convinces his followers, and very likely himself, that he is acting in the service of a higher good.”

He waved his wand again, and the image altered and flowed. This time, it showed a shadow of that same green-gold picture Harry had seen at first, but a bunch of men and women knelt before a tall figure in robes standing with its back to them.

“But there are many who do not act,” Professor Riddle said. “It is not active evil that need always worry us as much as complacency and indifference. If those who follow the active evil are content to go along with things the way they are, content to shut their eyes and turn their heads away and believe what is convenient to believe, they don’t have to be evil to have an outsize impact on the world.”

Hermione closed her eyes. Harry watched her and wondered if she was thinking about some times in Muggle history when things like that had happened.

“Now,” said Professor Riddle, and made the candles brighten again as he tucked his magic back behind its shields, “let us welcome distinguished guests whom some of my students will have met before, but not the new first-years or others who are here for the first time.”

Harry turned to face the doors of the dining hall as they floated open, curious despite himself. People had whispered about special visitors and a ceremony of some sort, but the older Gryphons had looked smug and mysterious when Harry asked questions.

Marching lines of small figures appeared at the doors, and headed into the hall three abreast. Harry gasped when the light of the candles fell on them. Those were goblins!

“I thought goblins almost never left Gringotts,” Justin whispered next to Harry.

“I suppose they do sometimes,” Harry said, and leaned forwards, eyes squinted, trying to see whether he could make out the flash of armor on the goblins’ chests. Yes, they appeared to be wearing it. And they were carrying swords!

Harry wouldn’t learn to fight with blades, probably, Professor Riddle had told him, because his magic was the weapon he would have to concentrate on wielding and honing. But after their private lessons in offensive and defensive magic, Harry was interested in weapons of all sorts.

*

Tom inclined his head to the goblins as they crashed to a halt before him. They didn’t bow. Tom hadn’t expected them to. They had spent too long bowing to wizards and witches. They were here as honored allies, and that was enough.

The lead goblin, a woman tall for her kind with flowing grey hair who named herself Arkazak, stepped forwards. “Riddle,” she said.

“Warrior,” Tom said, which was her preferred form of address. “You have come to secure our alliance on the longest night?”

“I have,” Arkazak said, and drew her sword. It gleamed with a razor edge that made sense, given that it was of polished obsidian. “You will give us the power necessary to secure our alliance on the longest night?”

“Gladly,” Tom said, and stepped forwards.

He could see his students’ eyes fixed on him, and smiled grimly. This would be shocking for the newcomers. But it was one of the reasons the goblins had agreed to consider an alliance with Tom when they had rejected every other overture a wizard or witch had ever made to them.

Tom knelt in front of Arkazak. She stepped back, considered the angle, and nodded a bit.

Then she drove her sword between his ribs.

Tom gritted his teeth and clung to consciousness as screams of shock broke out around him. He channeled his magic to the site of the wound, forcing it down and in and around, until it sealed around the sword.

Arkazak chuckled and stepped back, lifting her blade high. A sharp silvery-blue glow clung to the obsidian edge, which she turned back and forth so that everyone could see that the sword radiated that light.

And bore no blood.

There were sharp gasps and murmurs from the first-years, and perhaps some of the older students. Tom didn’t really look around to see which ones were saying what. His attention remained on Arkazak, who slid the blade into a special sheath on her back that would protect the magic on it during transport back to Gringotts.

Tom laid a hand on his wound. As always, it felt like a clean slice, but then again, obsidian was sharp enough to part skin and flesh without mess. There was still no blood, no pain, although he knew very well his magic was keeping him from feeling that and he would feel it later.

He rose and bowed his head again. “My thanks, Warrior.”

“My thanks, Riddle,” Arkazak said. She and the other goblins turned and marched out the open doors, trailed by mutters and stares.

Tom turned back to the crowd, and caught Harry’s glance. Harry was very pale, his eyes seeming to stand out even more than they usually did. Tom winked at him, and Harry tried to smile back, but it was a valiant attempt rather than a real smile.

“That is part of our alliance with the goblins,” Tom said calmly to the people who were staring at him. “As you know, goblins have been treated badly by purebloods for several centuries, and it has only grown worse in the last few decades as wizards and witches of the right families decided they were superior to any nonhuman magical creature. Warrior Arkazak and her people made the decision to trust no wizard or witch unless they offered magic as a sacrifice and made themselves vulnerable to goblin blades. Few therefore qualified.

“My magic is strong enough to prevent me from bleeding out from a blow like that, which is what Warrior Arkazak was looking for. That means the magic is also strong enough to be built into warded protections along the bank that will keep the goblins safe in the event of a pureblood massacre attempt.”

“Doesn’t that also keep you from attacking them, sir?” Harry asked, proving that he had indeed paid attention at the last few lessons Tom had given him.

Tom nodded to him. “Yes.”

“And that’s another layer of safeguards and persuasions that can make the goblins trust you,” said Adelaide Finch-Fletchley, the student who had come to them from Hogwarts this year, staring at Tom with wide eyes that seemed to have seen past the surface her words created.

“Exactly. But one word of advice, Miss Finch-Fletchley. I would not refer to it as making a goblin do anything.”

“Of course, sir.”

Tom turned back to the gathering. “I have one more announcement,” he said. “For several years now, we have had Squib students who took our Potions, History of Magic, Arithmancy, Astronomy, and Herbology classes, as well as the ones in writing and languages, but were, unfortunately, not fully-integrated into Fortius. I am pleased to say that we have both hired some professors who can teach more non-magical subjects and developed spells that can track down adult Squibs in the Muggle world who will be invited to come to Fortius for classes.”

A wave of gasps traveled through every student this time. Tom smiled a little. The Squib students weren’t separated from the others in class, and since they could indeed be Sorted into Houses and individual students’ schedules often diversified anyway after the first few months, not everyone had known those students could attend.

Miss Granger’s hand was in the air right away. “How can Squib students even see the school, sir?” she asked when Tom nodded at her. “How can they attend classes? I would have thought the protections that kept us safe from Muggles would also keep them out.”

“Squib students have small amounts of magic, not non-existent ones,” Tom said calmly. “This wasn’t recognized for several generations because the test of magic was large outbursts of accidental power from children or the ability to use a wand, and Squibs do not have those. But modern magical theory in other countries has acknowledged the difference in Muggles’ and Squibs’ abilities for the last few decades, and devised courses of study that will benefit them. I have now acquired the money to ensure that we can import those courses and people to teach them to Fortius.”

“How, sir?”

Tom smiled a little. He wasn’t about to tell Miss Granger, at eleven years old, how easy it had been to siphon money from the Yaxley accounts in the chaos surrounding the deaths of most of the family, or how his Imperiused servants, like Narcissa Malfoy, also often gave “gifts” to the school through untraceable methods. “A new windfall, Miss Granger.”

She looked dissatisfied, but Tom turned away and paid more attention to the reactions of his Squib students in attendance tonight. Randall Filch’s eyes were so bright they could have challenged the candles. Justine Figg was twisting her hair around her finger and smiling hard enough to break another person’s face.

And Lilian Yaxley, a half-blood rejected by her family both for being illegitimate and being a Squib, stood tall, as if she was waiting for Tom to catch her eye, and then nodded to him.

Good, Tom thought, savage satisfaction burning in him. This is another step on the path to mending matters.

*

“Are you all right, Father?”

A year ago, Draco never would have dared ask that question of Lucius Malfoy. Father was busy being Minister, as Mother had explained many times, and didn’t have time to answer the questions of a child.

But Draco was in his first year of Hogwarts now, and had managed to build up both an unexpected friendship with Ron Weasley and some prestige in Slytherin House. Certainly all his yearmates listened to him, and Professor Snape praised him frequently as the best student in Potions. Draco thought he could at least offer to help his father bear problems and not be immediately rejected.

Nor did Father do that. He studied Draco for a long moment that made him feel like an insect squirming on the end of a pin, and then nodded and stood. “Yes. My study, Draco.”

Draco followed him into the dark-walled, magnificent room that Draco himself had only entered a few times in his life and looked around with awe. The bookshelves were humming with subtle Preservation Charms, since they held tomes and scrolls old enough to have come from ancient Greece. The crystal dragon guardian that coiled, motionless right now, atop several of those shelves made Draco shiver as he looked at the edges of its claws. And the large dark chairs in front of the fireplace were for serious matters.

Father gestured for Draco to sit down in one of them. Draco did his best to keep his expression from bursting with pride, and sat down, and folded serious hands in his lap, nodding to Father.

“You have heard about the slaughter of the Yaxley family, of course.”

“Of course, Father. The Yaxley students in the school discussed it with me.”

Father’s eyebrows went up a little, and Draco concealed a smug little smile. Yes, it was impressive that they would feel Draco’s questions had to be answered when it was about such a sensitive and tragic thing. But Draco had won that level of respect from them.

“Good,” Father said a moment later. “Then you know that no one knows exactly how it was done, or why the attacker spared some of the Yaxleys and not others.”

“I thought a suspect was in custody, Father?”

“Custody, yes. But there was no reason for him to turn on his family the way he did. Respected purebloods do not simply go insane.”

“Of course not,” Draco murmured, feeling he should have seen that for himself.

“But with the evidence of memories and Veritaserum, I have little choice but to sentence him to Azkaban,” Father went on in a musing tone. “The public would be too outraged if it were not so. I have begun to feel, Draco, as if we have an enemy moving in the shadows, a powerful enemy, a pureblood so clever and subtle that I have not caught wind of them until now.”

Draco gripped the edges of his chair. “A pureblood who would disobey you, Father?”

“Not all purebloods do obey me,” Father said, with a faint smile for him. Draco flushed a little. Father seemed to be saying he was still a child with that smile. “Not all purebloods are of one mind, of course.”

Draco nodded. “But still, you’re sure that it’s not a half-blood or Mudblood, sir?”

“I have felt this individual’s power. No one who is not pureblood could match up to him.”

That was simple, of course, and Draco relaxed a little, knowing there were some things he understood right away. “Do you have any clue as to bloodline, sir?” The Ministry had developed some tracking spells that depended on people’s family lineage, or at least Draco had heard that.

“No. Unfortunately, I saw the explosion of this enemy’s power as the result of a Retrocognition Charm, and that means the only traces left are too old to track them down that way. But I see his or her hand behind the Yaxley slaughter. As I said, it was simply too strange and strategic to really be the fault of Oliver Yaxley as was claimed.”

Draco sat up and wished he could be as smart as Father someday. He hadn’t had a doubt that this Yaxley was behind it when he first read about the attack in the papers. “Do you know how they got through the wards, Father?”

Father frowned. “I’m afraid not. There were several theories I have investigated, but none of them fit all the available evidence.” He reached out and gently touched Draco’s knee. “But it’s also possible that the Yaxleys were simply deficient in their defenses. Don’t worry about an attack on us, Draco. Our wards are much stronger than theirs.”

Draco nodded. He hadn’t worried about an attack on Malfoy Manor much, but his family did have enemies. “What’s your next step going to be, then, Father?”

“I think it will have to be an investigation of relative power levels tested at Hogwarts in the past few decades, and attempting to learn who our enemy is from that.” Father frowned slightly. “Of course, if it’s someone who attacked the Yaxleys because of a personal grudge and whose power has grown since they attended Hogwarts because of harvesting, it will be difficult to find them.”

Draco nodded again. He was learning more about the subtleties of politics and why people who clamored for the Minister’s job to be taken away from his father were fools. “But you think it’s more likely to be a widespread problem than just a personal grudge, Father?”

“Yes. The kind of power I sensed in the Retrocognition Charm was not…” Father shook his head. “I cannot contemplate the sort of person who would attain that kind of magic and then waste it on personal grudges alone.”

Draco shivered a little, and Father must have noticed, because he turned the conversation to lighter but still important topics. Draco sat up straighter and basked in the attention.

He felt a distant pity for Ron Weasley, who would never have something like this simply because his father wasn’t important enough to have things like this to tell him.

Well, Draco could shed a little of his own reflected light on Ron. He hoped that that might someday haul his friend up to his level. He wasn’t as committed as his father was to the idea that one’s allies should always be lesser.

If we’re going to associate with the Weasleys, they should be worthy of us.

*

Tom chuckled a little as he read over the letter that Mrs. Malfoy had sent him, based on the information she had overheard in the conversation between her husband and her son. Lucius’s assumptions blinded him at every turn—which, of course, was a valuable quality to have in one’s enemies.

But also an amusing one.

The small stone ring he had given the counterpart of to Severus heated up in his pocket, and Tom stood. He was due for a discussion at Hogwarts with Severus and Mr. Nott, who had written to his father on Severus’s instructions and asked to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas Day, promising to return home immediately afterwards.

But either on that day or the day after, Severus and Tom would strike.

Tom was definitely looking forward to it.

Chapter Text

“Should you be going in there, Minerva?”

Minerva paused for one moment to turn a withering glance on Irma. Irma cleared her throat and shuffled her feet. She was one of the people who had taken well to Headmistress Carrow’s reign, if only because she cared so little about people in comparison to books that she wouldn’t notice a dozen restrictive new laws as long as they didn’t close libraries.

“Ah. Yes, of course. You’re a professor. Do carry on, Minerva.”

Minerva gave Irma a curt nod back and continued walking into the Restricted Section.

The smell of the books around her was abruptly dustier and thicker than it had been before, and Minerva didn’t think it was her imagination that some of the tomes leaned off the shelves, looming over her like vultures. Minerva ignored them and continued walking. So many pureblood upper-years came here that there was no dust on the floor the way there had been when she was a student.

She rounded a corner and stood before the section she had come seeking. Minerva took a slow, difficult breath. She remembered reading something about children like Victoria Weasley before, but not exactly where, so it would take a lot of searching.

Well, it was the Christmas holiday, so she had time.

Minerva pulled the first book, A History of Dark Transfiguration, from the shelf, and began to read.

*

“Minerva?”

Severus knocked on the door to his colleague’s office, and then again, more firmly, when she didn’t respond. He hadn’t thought she would back out from their bargain this soon. Indeed, the main problem so far had been making sure that she didn’t show too much of how their alliance had renewed their spirit. Carrow had noticed the extra spring in Minerva’s step and how her eyes shone as she went about her days, Severus was sure.

“Come in.”

Severus exhaled his relief at her voice, despite how broken and despairing it sounded. He creaked open her door and stepped into her office, glancing around. Minerva was slumped over what looked a large book on her desk.

Has she been drinking? Severus sniffed subtly for the smell of Firewhisky, but the suspicion vanished when Minerva lifted her head and shook it silently at him.

“I am sober, Severus. I have merely discovered…” Her voice trailed off. “Will you sit?”

Severus nodded, while trying to get a look at the tome under Minerva’s hand. Something from the Restricted Section? The gleam of a small red symbol on the spine, which usually triggered the book to scream if someone unauthorized opened it, said so. Severus wondered why she had needed to access it, and what she had found there.

“What did you find?” he asked, when Minerva seemed disinclined to go on.

“Read, please.” Minerva turned the book on her desk towards him, and Severus bent over the ancient, wrinkled pages, smoothing the nearest one down a little in hopes that would help him better read the cramped handwriting.

There is one aspect of the art of Dark Transfiguration that is not practiced on humans, by international agreement, although it happens often with animals. This is the sort that Transfigures a fetus in the womb so as to bring it forth with the traits desired by the caster. This may be a sheep with sturdier wool, a cat with desired colors or sharper claws, or a Crup without the forked tail that would reveal them to Muggles. The art is still considered Dark because of the extent of fetal manipulation required, the overriding of nature and will—so far as animals have it—required by the spell, and because of the possible consequences for the mother.

Severus was about to ask what that had to do with anything, and then he choked as he remembered the potion that Lucius Malfoy had distributed to the Weasleys and others that allowed them to have more children than should be possible.

“Yes.” Minerva’s eyes were glittering savagely when Severus turned back to her. “In this case, Transfiguration has been combined with a potion, I’m sure, or otherwise it wouldn’t work. But…”

Severus slowly inclined his head. “It is—what are the consequences that you fear?” He knew Minerva had a stronger stomach than merely to be upset that Transfiguration had created the children she was talking about, especially if the mothers had taken the potion willingly, which they had in all the cases Severus was aware of.

Minerva flipped a few more pages, some of them past illustrations that Severus was glad she wasn’t requiring him to look at in more detail, and then shoved the book at him again.

There is a reason that this type of Dark Transfiguration is not more practiced, useful as it would seem to be in creating guardian beasts and animals that could be sold at a handsome profit or easily manipulated to the caster’s whim. These animals revert to their basic components in time, and have shorter lives than many of their kind. Assuming that the caster is skilled and at times looks in on their creations to renew their shapes or feed them magic, this may not be enough of a drawback to mandate dropping the practice. A cat that lives ten years instead of twelve or fifteen is not necessarily a burden to its owner. But when it comes to longer-lived animals like horses, the practice of Dark Transfiguration has fallen under disfavor, as the same caster may not be available to prevent the creature from reverting to its basic components.

Severus gagged. Reverting to its basic components…

“The children…” he whispered.

“Yes.” Minerva shut the book with a snap and stared at Severus with haunted eyes. “And did you notice that bit about how the caster must renew the spells? And feed the creations magic?”

Severus’s hands clenched under the table. Harvested children. The bodies of Transfigured creations like the Weasleys’ daughters are being renewed with the magic of harvested children. And they must know. That must be the cure for the illnesses that plague the children like the one that was keeping the Weasleys’ youngest daughter in hospital…

“This is evil,” he whispered.

“Yes. I would call very few things evil, but this.” Minerva didn’t finish the sentence. She clenched her hand on the side of the book, and then visibly made herself lay it aside. “What are we going to do, Severus?”

“I do not know what we can do,” Severus said, blankly. His mind was whirling, wondering who among his students had been created using this kind of magic and what would happen when their shapes hit the limit of what could sustain them and they reverted. He stared at Minerva.

She managed to sense what he wanted to ask without his voicing it. Her throat moved as she swallowed, the expression on her face compound of distaste and despair. “Blood, most likely. Dissipating Transfiguration magic that would be hard to detect. Perhaps some ingredients of the potion.” She hesitated. “A fetus, often.”

Yes, Severus wanted to be sick, but that would help nothing. He leaned slowly back in his chair, one fist tucked beneath his chin. “I will—think about this. And perhaps it will come clearer at the end.”

Minerva nodded. They were speaking more openly in her office, which Minerva swept daily for listening and eavesdropping charms, than they would elsewhere, but it was still a good idea to use code some of the time. Any reference to clearness or transparency meant Severus was going to communicate with Riddle, a reference to the crystal orbs that the man liked to use in his magic.

“Very well.” Minerva closed her eyes. “I thought I would learn some of what I was looking for, not so much. I only retained a vague memory of reading something like this once. Not the actual explanation.”

“We must live in this world as it is,” Severus murmured. “We will continue forwards, no matter what is necessary.”

After a moment, Minerva nodded.

*

Lucius sighed as he looked over the letter he had received from Arthur. The man had written politely, but his nervousness was clear in every scratch and line. His first daughter was suffering from the same sickness that had plagued his third, although with different symptoms and not severe enough to put her in hospital. He was wondering when Lucius could get the cure to him, and asking for it as soon as possible.

Lucius paused. Of course. He had been wondering what to do about some of the politically inconvenient Yaxleys, the ones who had survived the slaughter and were distancing themselves from him because of an absurd belief that Lucius should have protected them better. They might as well serve for this purpose as anything else. And Lucius could harvest enough magic to keep the cure for other allies whose children might begin suffering, and to make himself stronger.

Lucius smiled, and went to begin preparing for the Hunt.

*

The blast of uncoordinated fear tore through Tom’s mind as he was marking the private essay he had set Harry on the history of war wizards.

Tom was on his feet in seconds, pacing over to one of the crystals in the corner of his room that connected him to the Yaxleys who had been affected by the mist Black had released. He turned the crystal over, closed his hand around it, and shut his eyes.

He was instantly inside the mind of the Yaxley whose fear he had felt, a young woman named Miranda, as she ran. She was running through the vast forest that surrounded the Yaxley estates, and she knew what pursued her.

Tom began to smile, and couldn’t stop himself.

He had rarely had the opportunity to stop a Hunt in progress, and then, most of the time, it had been with something like the Hounds that had pursued Black or because he had happened to be in the area. But this time…

It was time for one of his plans that had long lain dreaming in the back of his mind to become reality.

Tom kept the crystal in hand, so as to maintain the connection with Miranda Yaxley, and reached for a potion that he had kept under a stasis charm for almost a decade.

*

Lucius smiled as he drew closer and closer to the inconveniently loud Yaxley he had chosen as his target. He rode a Granian, the slender grey winged horse darting above the trees like a hawk and heading straight for Miranda Yaxley. Lucius could have taken her down at least a mile back, but he enjoyed the Hunt, and the ceremony would prime her magic like nothing else.

Now, though, he was growing a little bored, and Miranda was stumbling and panting in a way that made him sure she couldn’t muster the sort of desperate strength that sometimes made a witch or wizard capable of wandless magic. Lucius set his hand on the Granian’s neck and swooped to the earth.

Miranda staggered around to face him at the far end of a clearing. Her dark eyes were wide and glossy, her blonde hair flying loose. Lucius curled his lip a little at the undignified display.

“St-stay away from me,” she panted, one arm clamped over what had to be the stitch in her side.

“I will be away from you shortly,” Lucius murmured, and drew his wand. “Believe me, the contact between us is no more pleasant for me than for you.”

Miranda shrank back further. Her eyes were wide and glistening with panic. Lucius closed his eyes and reached out for his magic. If he simply slit her throat the way some of the participants in the Hunts liked to do, her magic would drain away and dissipate like most witches’ and wizards’ did upon death. He had to make sure that the ritual was exactly right—

A sharp cry cut through the silence.

Lucius wheeled around, and stared when he saw that his Granian was down, pawing uselessly at the air with its hooves and crying out. Over it crouched a small swarm of bright green serpents with even brighter silvery wings. As he watched, one of the snakes lifted its head and eyed him, tongue darting out.

“What?” Lucius whispered. He had never heard that that kind of creature haunted the Yaxley woods, or Britain for that matter. He didn’t recognize these snakes. Certainly they weren’t Occamies.

“If you could see yourself, Malfoy.”

Lucius jumped again, but turned to face the figure that was stepping out from behind a tree. At least that made sense of the swarm of serpents, he thought. Someone conjuring them explained their presence.

Of course, the kind of enemy who could do such a thing was no one Lucius had expected to face, either. The Yaxleys would have been better able to defend themselves from the attack of their insane relative if that was so.

“I have claimed this Hunt,” Lucius replied softly, while his eyes scanned this new enemy. “That means that you should be able to depart, unless you intend to challenge me for her.”

The figure was tall, although draped in billowing green robes and with a hood over his face that meant Lucius couldn’t tell much about him. The voice was male, however, and the face became visible a moment later as the man pushed his hood back. He was older, with entirely silver hair, but his eyes were a brilliant, piercing green that seemed to shine like light through the darkness. His skin was pale and seamed with silver scars.

“I do not intend to claim it at all,” the man said mildly. “I intend to stop you from harvesting this unfortunate woman.”

Lucius nearly choked on laughter. The man sounded British, but he couldn’t be, not if he didn’t grasp how they did things here. “That is not possible. Do you know who I am? The Minister for—”

The man gestured with one hand. One of the winged serpents glided to within a meter of Lucius and hovered there, eyeing him. Lucius stared back, fascinated despite himself with the gleam of venom, clear as Veritaserum, on its fangs.

“I know exactly who you are,” the man murmured. “And that is why I am here to prevent you from harvesting her. I challenge you to a duel.”

Lucius narrowed his eyes. It wouldn’t be honorable to try and get out of that if the stranger was a pureblood, but Lucius had no way of telling that. ‘And your name?”

“Roland Peverell.”

Lucius choked. That name—there had been no one of that name in Britain in a very long time. But that didn’t mean it couldn’t have survived. Lucius had heard the story of the Deathly Hallows, like probably every child of his generation, but there had also been rumors that a family who had kept the name had emigrated to France centuries ago.

“How can I know that you speak the truth?”

For a moment, Peverell stood there as if thinking about how to respond. Then he sighed and gestured with his wand in a silent spell Lucius had never seen the movement for.

The air around them tightened and shone. And then the magic that Lucius had felt when he’d Apparated to the clearing where the Hounds had failed to kill Sirius Black roared into the night, and Lucius nearly fell to his knees much as he had then.

He controlled it, barely. He stared at the man, who stared back with small crinkles around the corners of his unnaturally bright green eyes. Lucius shuddered with something that he hoped was not fear.

Yes, the man had to be a pureblood. Only purebloods were that powerful. And whether his name really was Peverell or whether he had reached back into a maternal lineage or the like to find it, Lucius had to accept his challenge.

Lucius straightened and flicked his wand to show that he was ready to fight. Peverell nodded slowly to him, one hand moving back and forth as if caressing the magic that thickened the air around him.

I am going to lose this battle.

Lucius pressed back against that conviction, and ignored the fact that Miranda Yaxley had apparently bolted from the clearing, if the lack of panting sounds was any indication. It didn’t matter. Just because Peverell was powerful didn’t mean that he was good at dueling in the way Lucius was, in the way he’d had to be to claim a prominent place in the chaotic magical world of two decades ago.

But you haven’t fought often since then, either, have you?

Lucius wondered for a moment if Peverell had hexed him, something that would arm Lucius’s own thoughts against him.

And then the duel started, and he had no more time to think.

The winged serpents dived straight at Lucius. Lucius created a shield that surrounded him in a shimmering half-arc, and the serpents slammed into it and fell to the earth with sizzles. But it didn’t matter much, because Peverell was already conjuring or summoning others, and a bright swarm of them backed Peverell like a corona.

Lucius narrowed his eyes. It seemed that Peverell was reluctant to close wand to wand. That could easily be a weakness that he could exploit.

When the next wave of winged serpents pressed forwards, Lucius dropped his shield and surged towards Peverell. He was using magic to strengthen his muscles and increase his speed, and he closed so fast that he thought he saw a look of surprise pass across Peverell’s face.

But if that was so, it again didn’t matter much, because Peverell gave Lucius a cold smile and lifted his wand.

The spell that hit Lucius was one that he had never seen before, and because Peverell cast silently and held his wand in place, Lucius had no chance to recognize it by gesture or incantation, either. He found himself on his back, ears ringing, as if someone had slammed a rock wall into him. Lucius gasped and tilted his head to the side, convinced he would see Peverell looming over him with either wand or blade. Perhaps with other people behind him, to harvest Lucius’s magic.

Instead, Peverell simply looked down at Lucius, his expression thoughtful.

“I was considering killing you,” he murmured. His voice seemed to drift and ripple in and out of Lucius’s ears in odd ways, perhaps because of the dizzying spell Lucius had been hit with. “But while that would solve some problems, it would create new ones. I don’t know how much blackmail material you have that would be released, for one thing.”

Lucius tried to bare his teeth, but his lips were numb and felt broken.

“But I can do something that will be better for other people, certainly,” Peverell said, and began to pass his wand over Lucius’s body in a crisscross pattern, chanting under his breath. Lucius’s ears were still ringing to the point that he couldn’t hear if it was Latin or some other language.

Peverell’s magic manifested as a glowing cloud of apricot-colored light that settled over Lucius and made him feel as if he was wrapped in a warm blanket. Lucius tried to laugh. Was Peverell intending to change his personality? Such spells never held in the long run and were far easier to resist than the Imperius Curse.

“Of course you would laugh,” Peverell murmured with a small smile. “You don’t recognize it.”

Lucius opened his mouth to ask what was supposed to be recognizable or scary about a personality-altering spell—

And screamed.

If he had thought the spell that had inflicted the invisible blow on him was painful, that was nothing compared to this. The tendrils of the spell sank into him, reaching for something, winding around invisible things Lucius couldn’t identify. Then the spell began to move backwards, ripping those things out of him, whatever they were.

Lucius screamed again, this time less from pain and more from a sense of loss, as the spell slid free and crouched next to him, offering something stretched and blue-black to its master. Lucius gave a harsh sob and began to extend his senses inside himself, terrified that Peverell might have turned him into a Squib.

But no, no. Lucius could still feel the warmth in the center of his chest that he associated with being able to cast a spell. He sobbed in relief this time.

Peverell stood looking down at him with a twisted smile. Lucius rolled his head towards his opponent and spat. It came nowhere near even the hem of Peverell’s robes, and he didn’t react.

“You—should have made me a Squib when you had the chance,” Lucius said thickly.

“I don’t use the same disgusting tactics that you do,” Peverell said simply. “And I don’t need to, when I can do something more.” His smile widened.

“What—what did you take from me?”

“Your ability to harvest others’ magic.”

Lucius didn’t know if he snarled or screamed then, but he knew that he tried to force himself to his knees to go after Peverell. His body was trembling with pain, but it didn’t matter, not when he needed, he needed, to kill Peverell.

Peverell smiled at him and shook his head, and the winged serpents that remained clustered around him. “Do try to remember what you were like before you started this harvesting program, Lucius,” he called lightly. “It will make you a more interesting enemy.”

The serpents swirled in close around the man, their wings covering him, and when they faded away, Peverell was gone, too. Lucius had heard no crack of Apparition.

He searched and found his wand on the ground a short distance away. A tremble of fury struck him. Peverell had not considered him interesting enough to merit having his wand snapped, apparently.

Lucius would need to rest before he could walk back to the edge of the forest and Apparate, he knew. He sat down near the shattered, half-chewed remains of his Granian and tried to plan for the future, for the magic that he knew must be harvested, for the enemy he would have to face…

All he could feel was fear.

*

Tom laughed exultantly as he stepped into his office and shed the Peverell disguise that the potion had given him with a twist of his wand and a shake of his shoulders. He flicked his fingers lightly, and the glowing blue-black ball of magic that represented Lucius’s ability to harvest the power of others flew through the air and into a waiting crystal paperweight.

He had had to leave Lucius Malfoy alive, much though he regretted it. But Tom had too many political plans at the moment that hinged on Lucius’s predictable reactions, or could be tweaked easily to follow the rising paranoia that Lucius would feel now that he had confronted his “true enemy.” If Tom had killed Lucius, pureblood Britain would have exploded into chaos, and Tom had neither the numbers necessary to take advantage of that nor the ability to maneuver his own chosen leader into the void that the Minister for Magic dying would have left.

Yet.

With Lucius distracted running about after a Peverell that did not exist, Tom thought he could see about beginning to fill that void.

Tom was sitting down, pleased, when a silvery shape abruptly manifested in front of him. Tom snatched his wand. It was obviously a Patronus, and the sprightly doe didn’t look threatening, but he also didn’t know whose it was, and he disliked strangers finding their way inside Fortius.

“Mr. Nott is being called home by his father,” said the doe briefly in Severus’s voice. “I need you now.”

Tom sprang to his feet with a curse and ran for the bag of weapons he had prepared for this moment. He had not expected to have to move so fast, nor to do it on an evening when he had already fought one duel.

Then again, it wasn’t as if he planned to duel Theodosius Nott. He and Severus would be bringing down the wards, and rescuing the boy’s sisters, and killing Theodosius, but it didn’t have to be in a mockery of an honorable duel like the one Lucius had obviously believed he was fighting.

Tom chuckled again at the thought of the shadows he had set Lucius to chasing, and then bent his thoughts to business.

*

“You won’t let him take me with him?”

“No.” Riddle briefly gripped Mr. Nott’s shoulder, making Severus stare a little. But the boy leaned into Riddle’s hold as if the man was comforting, and Severus supposed that someone with terrifying magical power might be, as long as you knew that power was on your side. “Severus’s pretense that he couldn’t find you right away was a good one. Your father knows how big Hogwarts is, since he attended school here himself. It should not be enough to make him suspicious.”

“He’s suspicious all the time,” Theodore whispered. “Even when he has no cause to be.” One hand went to his shoulder. Severus was sure that he would find either a scar or an old break there, if he had the chance to ask all the questions he wanted to.

“After tonight, he will be dead.”

Severus let himself believe the iron truth in Riddle’s words. Certainly Riddle would have no reason to spare Theodore’s father, and he would know how dangerous an opponent Theodosius Nott could be if they left him alive.

Theodore nodded slowly. Then he sat back down and watched them quietly as they prepared, or rather as Severus did, gathering up the potions that he thought might be of use to them once they entered the house. There was a draught whose fumes would put house-elves to sleep, and one that would turn the pieces of the shattered glass vial itself into weapons, and several others.

“And if you don’t come back?”

Severus knelt down in front of Theodore and pressed the flat black stone Riddle had brought with him into the boy’s hand. “Then you will take this Portkey to Fortius. Say the name of the school, and it will take you there.”

“Sophia and Constance…”

“If we cannot come back, they will not be able to, either.”

Theodore’s eyes closed, and he took a deep breath. But he had survived this long for a reason, in Severus’s eyes. He simply nodded.

Severus touched the boy’s shoulder where Theodore’s own hand had fallen for a moment, and then turned to follow Riddle through the Floo.

*

Tom came to a stop outside the Nott wards, eyeing them carefully. It was hard to see them; only the knowledge Theodore had armed them with and his own familiarity with warding theory let him see the shifting, crackling lines of silver and darkness that traced through the night. But the patterns were as Theodore had said they were, which meant no surprises waited for them.

He glanced at Severus, who nodded. He would keep watch and alert Tom if there was a problem that Tom might not be able to sense for himself once he was in the midst of destroying the wards. Tom drew his wand.

It was a dance, nearly, patterning his mind after the wards, reaching out and snagging them with those thoughts, and then bending his thoughts down towards images of destruction, of dissolution, of fading. But at the same time, he had to trace his wand in counter-patterns, threading his magic through his body and brain so that neither he nor Severus were sensed by the wards or destroyed by the forces about to be unleashed.

It was delicate work, and one reason that Lupin and Black hadn’t bothered with it when they went after the Yaxley wards, quite apart from the fact that Lupin could pass through them. Lupin and Black preferred the sledgehammer kind of work, Tom thought, lips thinning in amusement as he worked.

In time, the wards nearest them wore away. Tom sighed and lowered his wand to his side. The cracks would spread further away from them, but slowly, not alerting Theodosius until it was too late—

“Riddle.”

Severus’s voice made Tom look up. Severus was staring towards the house, and Tom looked, too, wondering for a moment if they had been betrayed and a weapon of some kind was coming for them.

Tom saw nothing. But a second later, he felt it.

Lazy, invisible wings of Dark power were unfolding from the center of Theodosius’s house, stretching as wide as the wings of a dragon, of some great, devouring beast.

Tom stared, as three thoughts passed through his head in succession.

First, that of course he was not the only wizard in Britain who might have hidden the true extent of his power.

Second, that a wizard who had leeched the magic of as many others as Theodosius had might have kept much of that magic for himself, rather than giving it to others as Lucius Malfoy typically did.

Third, that it would have been wiser, indeed, not to have already worked the powerful spell on Malfoy and the stronger one on the wards on the same day that he was to face Theodosius Nott in battle.

Chapter Text

The press of magic against Tom’s face and skin felt like sticky spiderwebs. He fell back, coughing and choking. Then he braced himself and refused to retreat further. Theodosius’s magic would only entwine him immovably if he tried to run.

No, instead he wrapped his own power around his body, forming a shield layer that prevented the incoming magic from actually touching his skin.

There was a long pause. Tom watched the cracks spreading in the wards and wondered why Theodosius hadn’t expected even this much resistance from someone who could bring down his defenses.

Then the wards abruptly flickered and—vanished.

“Riddle!” Severus said sharply. He had been standing at the right angle to see something Tom hadn’t noticed, apparently. He pointed, and Tom sighted along his arm and saw the black-and-silver light of the wards vanishing like water down a straw in the direction of the house.

“He’s absorbed their magic,” Severus said, voice tight with fear.

“And left his house defenseless,” Tom said, ignoring his own concern over how much more powerful Theodosius might have become by absorbing those wards. “Come, Severus. We must move quickly.”

He could hear Severus swallow as they made their way forwards, but what else could they do? They had come this far. They must pursue the mission and defeat Theodosius, for the sake of Theodore and his sisters and the future of Fortius.

And because Tom dared not leave an enemy like Theodosius Nott alive, not now that they knew of each other.

I will kill him.

*

Severus kept one hand on the pouch that held his potions as they proceeded cautiously into the house. Part of him could not believe that he was still following instead of fleeing and doing his best to survive.

But he still had Theodore waiting at the school, to whom he would have to answer if this didn’t work. And Riddle might be overmatched by Theodosius—it had not escaped Severus’s notice how no answering blast of power had rolled out of Riddle when those invisible wings had unfolded from the direction of the manor—but he still had enough magic to kill someone he would view as a traitor before Severus could Apparate.

Severus closed one hand hard around the neck of a vial in the pouch as they came into an ebony-paneled entrance hall. The floor was glittering black marble, veined here and there with colors so dark that Severus wasn’t sure if they were more black or green or blue. Riddle paused and flicked his eyes around the empty room, and then waved his wand and cast a silent spell Severus had never seen. Transparent tendrils slunk away from him, aimed at the four corners of the room.

“What is that?” Severus asked, barely moving his lips.

The tendrils retracted into Riddle with a sharp snap. “It tells me if any passive magic is waiting, of the kind that might be left in a trap to trigger as someone passes it,” Riddle said, equally quietly. “There is none. In addition, no one and nothing sentient has been in this room for over a week.”

Severus wondered if that mattered, and what the limitations of the spell were. Perhaps Theodosius could stand just outside the room and use his wand to lay a detection spell or activate a trap.

But in the end, it didn’t matter. They made it across the marble-floored hall without incident, and into a sprawling corridor that appeared to twist and turn even before it went out of sight between the door-lined walls in front of them. Every door in sight was made of some pale wood, perhaps birch, while the walls remained that slick and gleaming ebony that had framed the entrance hall.

Riddle paused and tilted his head. Severus stared. He didn’t think it was his imagination that in the darkness, Riddle’s eyes were igniting like rubies.

“This way,” Riddle said, and set off towards what looked like a short corridor that dived between two of the doors on the right-hand side.

Severus followed, light on his feet, wand in his right hand and potion in his left. Nothing attacked them, though, or at least not visibly, all the way to the turn Riddle had identified. Severus also couldn’t sense any trace of the sticky magic that had brushed them like webs or the wings that had unfolded from further in the house. The only sound was that of their feet pressing against a deep, plush carpet.

They turned down the corridor Riddle had identified, and magic overpowered them in a silent rush.

Severus found himself on his knees, choking desperately as pure power constricted his windpipe. He forced down his panic with glassy walls of Occlumency, and forced himself to grope for one of the potions tucked near the bottom of the pouch.

When he grabbed it, he smashed it against the wall for lack of a finer solution and ignored the way that the glass shards cut into his hand. The silvery mist that poured out curled around his arm and his throat, and abruptly he could breathe again.

Severus turned and hastily splashed some of the silver potion onto Riddle, who was struggling silently with the same spell or effect and looked like he was losing. Severus tried not to think about that.

In any case, the potion did its work. Riddle drew a deep, rattling breath and opened his eyes. “What was that potion?” he breathed, glancing at Severus.

“It ensures complete liberty for someone to do whatever they want in a small space,” Severus said, floating the shattered pieces of the vial into the air and Vanishing them wordlessly. He didn’t want any evidence of the potion remaining that Theodosius could use to reverse-create it.

I am thinking as if I am going to die, Severus realized, and shook his head sharply.

“Ingenious.” Riddle didn’t seem to have Severus’s concern about remaining quiet, from the volume of his voice. Then again, they had proven conclusively that Theodosius knew they were coming. Riddle stood and looked around the corridor for a moment, then tilted his head again. His nostrils flared. “This way.”

Is he smelling the magic? Severus thought, but either way, he didn’t see how the answer could benefit him. He followed Riddle around another corner, and found that the man had halted at the top of a flight of stone stairs, all of them slightly dished in the middle as if worn by generations of footsteps.

Severus craned his neck. It didn’t seem as if the staircase should be so long that Severus couldn’t glimpse the bottom, but the steps descended into darkness.

“Ah,” Riddle said, and smiled a little. He started down the stairs.

Severus followed him, frowning. “Have you sensed something other than the magic?” he asked. The pulse of power through the house was so deep that even though he had trained his senses of smell and hearing to a fever pitch through years of intense brewing, he couldn’t get beyond the muffling effect of the magic.

“No,” Riddle said. “But I can tell that the bottom of the house has been extended with wizard space. It is interesting that Theodosius has taken refuge here, or perhaps that he prefers to wait for us here.”

Severus shuddered. So we are walking into the spider’s web.

But there was nothing he could do about that, for the reasons he had already decided. So Severus continued to follow Riddle, and tried to ignore the way that the other man was almost certainly taking the stairs more slowly than he would have normally.

*

Tom could sense more than the use of wizard space at the bottom of the stairs, but he saw no reason to share that with Severus. The man had shown quick thinking when Theodosius had tried to choke them with his magic, but he was on the edge of panic. Tom could hear his rapid breathing and see, out of the corner of his eye, Severus’s hands shaking.

And he had reason. Theodosius had made the bottom of this house a refuge for a long time, Tom thought. He would not be surprised if it was where the man did his leeching rituals, although Theodore’s memory had been blurred enough that there was no way to be sure.

The silent thunder of power was everywhere around them. Theodosius was watching them, Tom knew, perhaps through a ward, perhaps simply through the threads of his magic that wound around them in intangible coils.

Tom touched one of the heavy crystals in his robe pockets and wished for a moment that he had thought to test the thing before he brought it into a battle situation. But he was not a Seer, and they would have to make do with what they had.

“What is that?”

Tom tilted his head back. He had been keeping his eyes on the stairs, anticipating the threat to strike from beneath, but Severus had been watching above. Tom could make out the lazily circling shape now, too, a dark purple, or so it seemed in the faint light from their wands that was all they had to see by. They had descended deeply enough that they might as well have been out under the open sky for the distance that separated them from the creature.

Tom studied the leathery wings and was about to voice his opinion that it was a bat. Then he saw the curled tail, held high over the back, and smiled grimly.

“Wyvern,” he said softly, in the seconds before another one peeled away from the wall and the pair dived at him and Severus.

Severus ducked, already reaching for a potion. Tom drew one of the crystals from his pocket. They would have to take the chance on his untested weapon. They didn’t dare allow the wyverns to close, where they would have to battle them and worry about falling off the stairs at the same time.

Tom chucked the crystal as hard and as high as he could, to the point where it seemed to hang like a star in the air between the two diving wyverns. He held his breath as nothing happened for long moments.

Nothing continued to happen as the creatures began their stoop towards Tom and Severus, wings beating steadily, scorpion tails poised for a strike.

And then the crystal spun and hatched into a cloud of snarling creatures on bat-wings of their own, sleek black cats that raked their claws down the sides of the wyverns and latched onto their throats.

Tom breathed out slowly. It had worked.

He watched his creatures wreak havoc on the wyverns, while the rest of him calculated the crystals in his pockets and the odds they were facing and presented him with an equation that was much clearer than most of the Arithmantic ones he had ever tried to work. They were facing almost-certain doom.

“What are those?” Severus asked in a hushed voice, and brought Tom’s attention back to the battle above them. Scales and bits of bat-leather were drifting down from the wyverns. One was fighting, but the other looked dead, only still aloft because of the furious pressure of the cats beneath it.

“Small nundus.”

Severus made a choking sound. Tom gave him a fleeting smile. Most of the time, he would have enjoyed seeing his genius admired, but they had more important things to consider right now.

“You must tell me how you did that,” Severus said, and then his voice stopped and his expression closed as if it had been a stone door. Tom assumed that he had remembered how they might die, but also that it was not a good idea to order a stronger wizard around.

Tom let it go, simply shrugging with one shoulder and turning to lead the way down the stairs towards the congealed pulsing he could feel there. “If we survive.”

Severus didn’t say a single word for the rest of the journey down.

*

The bottom of the steps gave out into what seemed to be a polished cavern of black stone, gleaming with jagged crystals embedded in the walls here and there. There was a faint but steady light ahead of them which Severus had finally begun to see about ten stairs from the bottom. There was no reason he should not have seen it earlier; they were close enough long before then, and the staircase did not bend. Which meant that Theodosius Nott had enough spare magic to waste hiding the light and revealing it as a cheap dramatic gesture now.

Severus’s mind had long since settled on the image of his body lying here, unclaimed, while Minerva tried in vain to find out what had happened to him. He comforted himself—as best as he could—with the image of Theodore holding the Portkey to Fortius, and the conviction that he could fight hard enough to force Theodosius to kill him instead of harvesting his magic.

He had no intention of discovering what it was like to be the victim of a harvesting.

The light led them through the cavern, past rising and falling swells of stone in the walls, until they arrived at a place where the floor was cut off as neatly as if a huge blade had sliced it. Severus stared at the man lounging on a throne-like chair beyond the small drop, smiling up at them. The light came from small, bare flames that floated in the air and circled his head like bees around a flower.

It had been years since Severus had last seen Theodosius Nott, and then, he hadn’t stood out to Severus in particular. He was just one of Lucius’s adoring courtiers, and one of the most fervent supporters of pureblood supremacy. He remained pale, as he had always been, and his dark hair and eyes were the same as far as Severus could tell.

But his skin was flushed, plump, straining with magic, as if he was a frog stuffed with flies. Or a spider, Severus thought, and decided that was the more apt comparison, given the webbing that had hit them when they were still outside the house.

And the power that he could feel spreading around them now, eager, waiting, trembling with something like love as it strained towards them.

“I should have known that your school made a convenient place for children to disappear to so you could harvest them in private,” Theodosius said casually to Riddle. “That is the only explanation for how a half-blood like you ended up so powerful.”

This time, when Severus glanced at Riddle, he was sure that he wasn’t mistaken about the red glow in his eyes. But he remained still, staring at Theodosius, gaze flickering to take in the flames around him and the edge of the stone drop and the throne. Looking at everything, Severus supposed, studying, looking for a weakness.

There would be none.

“Nothing to say?” Theodosius rose slowly to his feet. The magic coiled around him; Severus could sense it even though he couldn’t see it, the spirals of it spreading out through the air. “Well, you can go silent to your death. I would prefer to keep and leech you, but I think it would be too chancy.”

That was one thing that had always made this man dangerous, Severus thought grimly. He was more intelligent than Lucius, in everything from how he expressed himself to preferring to let someone else assume the public position of power.

Theodosius raised one hand. The magic formed around his fingers for a second, and became the illusion of reaching claws. Severus shuddered as the man turned and swept his hand at them. He conjured a shield, expecting invisible claws to sweep through him any second, despite the shield.

“Legilimens!”

Severus heard the spell, but didn’t understand it for a long moment, not until he heard Theodosius shriek, and opened his eyes to see Riddle leaning forwards, straining, holding Theodosius’s mind inside his, and involved in a battle that Severus understood instinctively wouldn’t end until one of them died.

Severus reached for one of his potions.

*

Wrestling Theodosius Nott was the most exhausting thing Tom had ever done.

The man’s mind bucked and squirmed beneath his, and Tom felt as if he were trying to ride a dragon. He clung, however, because there was nothing else he could do. And he drove straight down, raking with his thought as with claws, making none of his usual efforts to leave his victim’s mind intact.

There must be weaknesses somewhere, even in as formidable a defense as Theodosius had mounted. There must be some way to drag him down to death and still leave Tom and Severus alive.

There had to be a way to escape. Tom did not intend for his revolution or Fortius or anything else to suffer because he had underestimated Theodosius.

For long moments, he carved a black ravine into Theodosius’s mind, and Theodosius snarled and fought, and there was nothing except crushing pressure and pain and his attempts to inflict it back on its originator. Then Tom seemed to reach some kind of bottom, and he caught a glimpse of Theodosius’s magic, at least as the man conceptualized it to himself.

Coursing black streams of silent water fed him from all directions. Some of them came from inside his own house, where Tom presumed the bastard had his daughters hidden. One stretched away into the distance, pointing to what was probably Hogwarts and Theodore. Two others had gone entirely still, dry riverbeds, which Tom thought meant the man had indeed drained his sisters to death at some point.

Theodosius’s mind screamed. Only because Tom was practiced at enduring pain and was a skilled Legilimens—and because Theodosius must not have devoted so much study to the Mind Arts—had he come this far.

Tom grasped for another answer, as to why the man had leeched instead of harvested, and thoughts whirled around him.

Safety—not noticing—not looking—not needing to explain the death—using—making it part of myself—

The last thought was blazing bright but buried beneath crushing darkness a second later, which Tom knew meant it was important, perhaps the weakness he had been looking for. He scrambled after it, while Theodosius swung and bore down on him like a dragon finally pouncing on prey that had been moving too fast for it.

The weight on him was terrible. Tom felt his memories breaking like bones underneath it, parting and whirling away, flakes of time and knowledge lost on the wind.

But he would win, he would live, and he grabbed and grasped after the answer he was seeking until it finally slammed into him.

Harvesting gave a wizard or witch a greater boost of power, but it required a ritual, some risk because someone might notice the victim missing or they might escape or someone might come to avenge them, and accepting the chance, small though it was, that the alien magic one was absorbing could clash with and even overpower the harvester’s native magic. Theodosius, always cautious, preferred to do the leeching, which left the victim alive and allowed him to use a variant ritual that drew on the magic of the solstice or equinox and ensured the power passed smoothly into him.

Leeching, however, was more risky than harvesting without that ritual. The leeched magic would remain connected to the mage it had come from because they were still alive and would require days of cautious use and wary meditation to settle into place in its new host.

Tom remembered the magic that Theodosius had siphoned from the wards, pulled in all at once. Of course, that didn’t matter because it was his own magic and didn’t require Theodosius to take it from another person or use a ritual to make it smoother.

Except…

Except that Tom had cracked the wards right before Theodosius absorbed them, and Tom’s magic had ridden with that absorbed power like the seed of a cancer.

Tom grinned like a nundu, and reached out, and found the trailing threads of the cracks in the wards that he had created, hidden beneath the immense weight of all of Theodosius’s other magic—the way Tom was—and pulled.

Theodosius screamed.

Tom had never heard a sound that he loved more. He pulled again, and grasped his magic, and called it back to him, forcing it back behind the shield that he had used for so many years to keep the purebloods from realizing how powerful he was.

The magic rushed to him, out from under the immense weight of Theodosius’s power, and Tom exploded out of his opponent’s mind and into the physical world again, still calling to his magic, still draining, still forcing it down to wrap around him—

There came the sound of a tortured squeal.

Tom turned and flung himself to the floor a moment before the noise of the explosion shook the room.

*

Severus had ensured that he had the potion whose fumes would stop its brewer’s heart clutched in one hand and was prepared to cast the vial to the floor the moment it seemed as though Theodosius’s attention was turning to him. When the blast came, he started and nearly dropped the vial without meaning to.

It was a muffled thump, but a shower of flesh and blood and broken bones. Severus stared as he watched all of them sprawl across the floor as if shredded from the body by a whole flock of Riddle’s flying nundus.

Riddle had rolled to the floor, and only had a little blood splattered on his boots, along with something that might have been a tooth caught in his hair. He lay there, breathing harshly, for some moments. Severus walked over and knelt next to him, unsure if he should offer help to rise or if Riddle would reject that indignantly as a sign of weakness.

“What happened?” Severus finally whispered, when he believed he could not go another minute without the answer to that question.

“He took in my magic when he siphoned the power of the wards,” Riddle said quietly. His voice was normal, at least, without the exhausted gasping that Severus had worried he might hear. He felt something inside him relax now that Riddle was back to sounding invincible. “Normally, that’s something he was careful not to do. You can leech magic from someone and leave them alive, but only with a ritual. If you don’t use that ritual…”

“It reacts rather like transfused blood of the wrong kind?”

“Ha. In a sense, yes.” Riddle rolled a bit to the side and brushed the tooth out of his hair. “But in this case, I called my magic back to me and under the shield I constructed to hide from purebloods. It tore itself free from him and shredded his magic on the way. And you saw how he looked when we came in here.”

Severus shuddered to remember. “As if his skin was straining.”

“Yes. Theodosius knew what he was doing when he took all the precautions around the leching rituals. He had so much magic by then that a new absorption from his children could have proven fatal to him without those precautions. This time, of course, he thought he was merely absorbing his own power.”

Severus shook his head in admiration. “And you saw that while you were using Legilimency on him?”

“I went specifically looking for a weakness, and forced him to divulge some of his thoughts to me. I did not know until I tried to call on some of my magic exactly what would defeat him.” Riddle sat up at last, and then turned his head and frowned down at his left arm.

Severus coughed. “I am afraid it is broken.” It took an effort not to add “my lord” at the end of the sentence, but he needed Riddle to stay focused on what they had come here for instead of fighting a battle over terminology.

“The physical expression of Theodosius’s magic pressing down on me,” Riddle murmured, and did not look other than annoyed. “Well.” He turned and nodded to Severus. “If you would conjure a sling for it?”

“I have a Painkilling Draught here as well,” Severus said, as he spun his wand to cast the requested spell.

“It would make my head fuzzy.”

Severus bowed his head at the trust the admission implied. “Will you permit me to cast a Numbing Charm on your arm, then?”

He looked up to find those red eyes examining him, and then the red glow dimmed and Riddle nodded. “Yes. You may.”

Riddle still watched closely as Severus cast the Numbing Charm, and hissed a little as the spike of cold went through his arm. But he relaxed after that and turned back to the stairs. “I am afraid we will have to walk up them again. I am too weary at the moment to Apparate, even if the wards preventing it are all gone.”

“I am not,” Severus said quietly, and offered his arm.

Riddle stared at him again. Severus waited. He knew that Riddle perhaps thought that his weakened state would bring forth an automatic assault, verbal if not physical, but he had come this far into the house with Severus behind him. They both deserved the confirmation that they were on the same side.

Then Riddle nodded, and grasped Severus’s arm, and allowed Severus to Apparate him back to the corridor above.

*

They found Sophia and Constance Nott huddled together in what looked like a bedroom outfitted as a dungeon cell on the first floor.

Tom stared in silence at the bare stone walls, the floor that was covered with a single solitary rug, the large bed that had threadbare sheets, and the trays stacked in the corner with the remains of old meals. Theodosius could easily have made it more comfortable for his children.

He had chosen not to.

It reminded Tom of Wool’s in a way that stole his breath.

Sophia shrank back when she saw them, and Tom wondered what she had thought of the wards disintegrating and the sound of her father dying—assuming that she would have been able to hear it up here, which wasn’t a guarantee. Tom halted, and stopped Severus with a hand on his arm, and nodded to her and to her younger sister, peering around her. Both of them had their brother’s brown hair, although Constance’s eyes were a piercing blue that might have come from her mother.

“Your father is dead,” Tom murmured. “Your brother told us of your existence and asked us to rescue you. I run a school called Fortius for students who have magic. Would you like to come with us?”

He felt Severus shift behind him, but ignored it. Presumably Severus had his own ideas about what was good for the girls to hear, but Tom was accustomed to dealing with children. And he judged that it would bring them some relief to hear that Theodosius was gone.

Sophia’s eyes closed, and she trembled for a long moment. Then she nodded. Constance gave a sound that might have been a sob, but Sophia gathered her close, and any other noise she might have made was muffled against her sister’s robes.

Tom relaxed with a long sigh. He had come closer to dying than he liked, and his arm and his magic would both take at least a few days to mend, but he had survived. And so had Severus.

And so had these children.

And so would Fortius.

Chapter Text

Lucius took the package from the barn owl with a slight frown. Anything dangerous would have set off so many wards around the Manor that most people knew not to bother sending him something like that, but he hadn’t been expecting a package, either.

He unwrapped the small thing and tipped the contents into his head, aware of the owl sitting placidly on the windowsill and awaiting a response.

He swore when he saw what it was, and tossed the contents into the air. The owl hooted in displeasure and took flight, swooping across the room to land on top of his bookshelf and glare down at him.

Lucius stared, sick, at the bit of earlobe now on the floor, and the fingernail lying next to it. With hands nearly numb, except that they shook with dread, he tore open the envelope that had accompanied the package.

Theodosius Nott defied me. I destroyed him and took his wealth and killed his child. Perhaps you should be wary of crossing me.

There was no signature, but at the bottom, in lines that glowed as if they had been burned into the paper with a wand, was a circle surrounding a triangle bisected by a line. Lucius stared at it until some old memory snapped to life in his head.

The symbol of the Deathly Hallows, and by extension, the Peverell family who had first owned them.

Lucius dropped the parchment onto the windowsill and paced in a slow circle, his head bowed. The owl hooted at him, and Lucius stopped and stared up at it, wondering if he could fasten a tracking spell to it that would allow him to find where this Peverell laired, at the very least.

But when he drew his wand and tried, the spell splashed smoothly off, as if some kind of transparent, untouchable shield existed around the owl. It just made the bird puff up at him and hoot more angrily than ever.

“Shut up!” Lucius snapped, and then shook his head roughly. He was not going to let Peverell make him irrational and stand here arguing with birds.

The rational thing to do here would be—

To verify what Peverell had said in his letter, of course. Lucius crossed over to the fireplace and tossed Floo powder in, calling, “Nott’s Might!” It was the private name for Theodosius’s Floo that he gave only to trusted allies. Most everyone else knew it as Nott House or Nott Manor.

The fire turned green for a second, and then dark. In seconds, it spat the Floo powder back onto the carpet and then sat there, silent.

Lucius stared, his heart pounding so fast that he felt sick. The only time that happened was when the place that the Floo connection normally led to had ceased to exist. Not just had its name changed, which might have happened if Peverell had claimed the house. Ceased to exist.

Lucius would have to bring in help on this. This time, he cast the Floo powder and yelled for the Ministry.

*

“Are all you right, Professor Riddle?”

It seemed to Harry that Professor Riddle was both tired and injured in some way that had nothing to do with a wound. He didn’t limp as he led Harry to the patch of grass they used for their private offensive magic lessons, but he looked as if he wanted to. And his face had strained lines on it when he turned around.

Professor Riddle took a deep breath and then shook his head briskly. “I’m fine, Harry.”

“Are you sure? You don’t have to—”

“We are going to,” said Professor Riddle, and okay, yeah, that made him look more like the man Harry knew. His wand snapped into his hand. “I know that you have the barriers in your mind right now, but I would like you to have full command of your war wizard powers someday, and I am sure that you are eager for that day.”

Harry nodded determinedly. Professor Riddle sketched a circle in the air with his wand, a spell Harry didn’t know, and fire trailed the motion. Harry found himself gaping in awe as a circle of fire just opened and spun there, filling a second later with spokes like a wheel.

“This wheel is a spell used by war wizards,” Professor Riddle said. His voice sounded strained, the way his face had looked, and Harry turned to him in concern. Small trickles of sweat were making their way down his cheeks.

Normally, Harry knew, holding a spell like this wouldn’t have been a strain for Professor Riddle at all. He began to feel worried.

“Concentrate on the spell, Harry, not on me.”

That was pretty clear instructions, at least. Harry jerked his eyes back to the wheel of fire.

“It is used to contain and hold several spells at once, so they might be released in a barrage in battle,” Professor Riddle went on. He gestured with his wand, and the wheel spun nearer Harry. Now he could see that some of the spokes were fuzzy, covered with what might be growling mold—or a lot more likely, just magic. “It costs a lot of power to cast the spell at first, but after that, you can hold it without effort, and it will release the other spells in whatever order you tell it to.”

“Do you have to cast the spells before you cast the wheel?”

“Very good, Harry. Yes. You must cast them in private, without giving them anyone or anything to fasten on, and with your intention firmly in mind. That limits the spells the wheel can contain to a certain number of offensive ones, of course. A spell that would affect you or that would be, say, a shield which would take effect even if an enemy wasn’t there with you would be useless in this case.”

“Can I try?” Harry was almost bouncing as he watched the wheel turn and saw the fuzz all along the spokes.

“Of course, Harry. But remember that you likely won’t get it the first time—”

“I know.” Harry smiled at Professor Riddle, who looked back at him with a slight frown. “But I still want to try. Can I?”

“Yes, I have said so,” Professor Riddle muttered, and then showed him the wand movement and the incantation. The wand movement was a big, swirling circle, the one he had already seen Professor Riddle perform, and the incantation was Rota belli.

Harry calmed his breathing with an effort and then stabbed his wand forwards, completing the circle, making it as big as he could. “Rota belli!”

The air seemed to bulge and ripple, and Harry had the oddest sensation of power flowing out of the center of his chest. But then fire trailed his motion, the way that it had for Professor Riddle, and the spell snapped into view, growing spokes almost instantly.

Harry laughed in delight. There was no fuzz on the spokes of his wheel, he saw, when he stepped forwards to examine it. But that was all right. He hadn’t cast any spells before he cast this one, so he could hardly be upset about that.

He looked up and saw Professor Riddle staring at him. “Sir? Are you all right?”

Professor Riddle gave his head a sharp shake, and then a smile that looked like a goblin’s crept over his face. “Fine, Harry. It simply appears that I have misunderstood something about the nature of war wizards.”

“What’s that, sir?”

“Your magic is adapted to casting this kind of spell.” Professor Riddle nodded to the flaming wheel still hovering quietly in front of them. “I thought you would have difficulty the first time because I did, and we are of similar power levels. But I never had the potential to become a war wizard. You do, and so you master the spell more easily than others would.” He paused. “I wonder…”

“Yes, sir?”

“I have a book in my possession that belonged to one of the last war wizards, who called herself Disaster,” Professor Riddle said, his gaze heavy on Harry. “I acquired it out of interest as well as to keep it away from purebloods like Lucius Malfoy, but it’s merely a rather dull accounting of her day-to-day activities. I wonder if you would see something different in it.”

*

Harry definitely did. Tom heard his delighted gasp as he took the tome, with its somewhat cracked, brilliant red-and-gold binding, in his hands, and the pages began to glow. When he opened it, Harry looked up with wide eyes. “The writing is moving!”

Tom leaned over to see, and a sharp glow from the book cut into his eyes. Tom cursed and covered them with one hand.

“Professor Riddle? Are you all right?”

Tom waved Harry off while blinking hard to remove the spots from his vision. It was objectively harder to do than it should have been when he had only looked into that light for a moment. He shook his head. “Yes, fine. You said the writing is moving? Is it changing?”

“Yes. It’s becoming sharper, and now she says…oh! She’s talking about how she cast her first spell when she was seven years old! Do you think it’s a bad thing that I was older than that when I cast my first one, Professor Riddle?”

Tom shook his head and took a seat next to Harry at the table in his private library, which was at the top of a tower on the main library. Many of these books did eventually make their way out to other people, but only to students and professors he could trust not to mistreat them or take offense at the content. “You didn’t know magic existed, Harry. I’m sure she was raised in a magical family.”

“Yes, she says she’s a half-blood, and her mother was Muggleborn. Just like me!”

From the shining look in the boy’s eyes, Tom wouldn’t have to give his usual lecture about making sure that Harry treated the book correctly. He leaned back with a small smile and watched as Harry all but clasped the book to his chest. “Then I’m sure that you’ll be able to cast the same spells she did, and learn from her.”

“I can borrow this book, sir? Really?”

“Yes, of course.” Tom smiled at Harry. “It’s not doing me much good sitting on a shelf in my library and not permitting me to read it, anyway.”

“Okay! Thanks, sir!”

Harry bounced up from the seat and ran for the stairs that led down to the main library. Tom listened to the sound of his clattering footsteps fading and shook his head in amusement. It was good to know that Harry was not only adapted to the career of a war wizard, but enthusiastic about pursuing that career. Tom would have hated to try and push him down that path if he hadn’t wanted to go down it.

He stood up and felt his head swim. Scowling, he cast an Anti-Vertigo Charm on himself. His magical weakness even several days after his defeat of Theodosius Nott was concerning.

Then again, not only had he essentially been leeched and fought a Legilimency battle with a powerful wizard, he had burned the Nott house to the ground afterwards with Fiendfyre. It was better for no one to know exactly whose magic had been expanded there, or what had happened to Theodosius’s body or the Nott daughters.

Lucius Malfoy, of course, might recognize the magical signature. But Tom had already primed him to think it was Roland Peverell who had done it, which served his purpose of keeping the Minister distracted and off-balance.

Stretching and willing his legs to bear him as strongly as they always had, Tom went to see how the Nott children were settling in.

*

“Who are you?”

Hermione had got used to not knowing the names of all the older students at Fortius, although she thought she knew all the professors by now. And the older students would usually introduce themselves if she asked.

But this boy looked like he was her age. And he was sitting down at a table in the library that Hermione had come to consider her private territory with a book as large as his head, which he covered with one hand when he turned to stare at her.

The boy was pale and weedy, with brown eyes that studied Hermione as if she was an insect. Hermione puffed herself up, and had to stop herself from drawing her wand. He had to be a student here, or maybe a guest of one of the professors, and she would probably be in trouble if she attacked him.

On the other hand, he would most definitely be in trouble if he didn’t stop staring at her like that.

“My name is Theodore Nott,” the boy finally said, when Hermione had been about to pull her wand and damn the consequences. “I came here with my sisters last week.” He turned back to his book as if he’d said all that needed to be said.

Hermione gasped. “But your father is a pureblood.”

“My mother too, as a matter of fact.” Nott kept reading his book.

Hermione backed up a step until her head almost hit a shelf. What was a pureblood boy doing here? Had Professor Riddle kidnapped him the way he’d kidnapped Harry? But from what Harry had said, no one was going to miss him. She knew that Mr. Nott was a crony of Lucius Malfoy’s and would probably miss his son a lot.

“What are you doing here?”

The boy sighed loudly and turned towards her. “I’m here because my father was an insane idiot, and now he’s dead,” he muttered. “Professor Riddle invited me. Are you going to go over and gasp at every single pureblood student who comes to Fortius?”

“I didn’t know we had any pureblood students who weren’t Squibs.”

Nott’s eyes widened. “There are Squibs here?”

“Yes.” Hermione glared triumphantly at him. She was sure that she had found the means to drive him off, or at least make him go and complain to Professor Riddle, who would then escort Nott out of here. “And I’m Muggleborn, myself. Do you want to go and complain now to whoever brought you here?”

“That would be me, Miss Granger.”

Professor Riddle was walking around the corner. Hermione turned to frown at him. “Why is he here, though, Professor? Isn’t he a—a walking security risk?”

“She said that there are Squibs here,” Nott blurted.

“Yes,” Professor Riddle said, stopping and looking at him. “And Muggleborns, and half-bloods, and students who were cast out of Hogwarts, and professors who had an education on the Continent, and people like me who were considered of no account. Do you have a problem with that, Mr. Nott?”

Nott looked down so abruptly that Hermione felt sorry for him. She hadn’t wanted him to get in trouble, really, just stop acting stupid. “No, Professor,” he whispered. “I’m still grateful for what you did in offering me a place here.” His eyes darted towards Hermione as he spoke, as if there was something else he would have said except for her presence. Hermione wondered indignantly if he thought she was a security risk.

“Good,” Professor Riddle said, and faced Hermione. “Miss Granger, aren’t you supposed to be in an Aerial Battle class right now?”

Hermione could feel herself flush. At least it wouldn’t be that visible. She drew herself up. “I’m not good at fighting on brooms, Professor Riddle,” she said. “I don’t think I’m ever going to be good at fighting on brooms.”

“All the more reason you should try to become better,” said Professor Riddle, with extremely deceptive cheerfulness, and kept one hand on her shoulder as he guided her out of the library nook. Hermione craned her neck to look back over her shoulder. At least Nott wasn’t staring smugly after her. He was staring at the book he had pulled out instead, his ears red.

“Are you sure that he’s not a walking security risk, Professor?” Hermione asked once they were out of earshot.

“Why would he be, Miss Granger?”

At least he sounded as if he was taking her concerns seriously, so Hermione didn’t feel condescended to. She frowned at Professor Riddle, though. “Because of the way he reacted to the idea of Squibs being students here. And the way he was raised. Isn’t he going to turn on the rest of us sooner or later because he’s so convinced that purebloods are superior to everyone else?”

“Children can never change their minds about what their parents taught them, then?”

“You were saying almost the same thing in the Defense lesson you gave us last week about why you expect Fortius students to win duels with Hogwarts students, sir. That we’re more capable of creative and flexible thinking.”

Professor Riddle watched her with the blank mask that Hermione hated, because it meant that she didn’t know when she’d gone too far and he might get angry. Then again, he’d never got angry in a true sense yet, only expressed some disappointment when he obviously thought she ought to be more broad-minded.

“That’s true enough, Miss Granger. But you should note that I spoke of the school systems at that point, and not individual students’ families. I have had pureblood students and professors who have been brilliant strategists, and Muggleborn students and professors who refused to change their minds about simple and obvious things. Don’t fall into making the blood purity mistake from the other side.”

Hermione nodded slowly. And then she did allow Professor Riddle to usher her outside to her Aerial Battle class.

Normally, she never would have dreamed of skiving off a class. But she was so fascinated with some of the history reading she was doing that she had had to go back to the library, and she had rationalized it as Professor Galllin being too nice to try and make someone stay in the Aerial Battle class who so obviously had a distaste for it.

It seemed the joke was on her, as Professor Gallin frowned sternly in her direction when Professor Riddle delivered her to him. Hermione sighed, murmured an apology, and went back to learning something that wasn’t nearly as fascinating as history.

*

“You want me to take care of them? Why?”

Riddle grinned at Sirius. Sirius folded his arms and tried not to scowl. Yes, he could probably have sounded more gracious. However, it wasn’t every day that someone simply marched up to him and demanded that he take care of Theodosius’s Nott’s children—the son Sirius had known about, the secret daughters he hadn’t.

“You wouldn’t be solely responsible for their care, don’t be ridiculous,” Riddle said in a bored tone a second later, though the way his eyes glinted told Sirius he had deliberately phrased it the way he had to get a rise out of Sirius. “Theodore will become a student here with the other first-years, and he’ll spend most of his time with them. Sophia and Constance, however, will need a more delicate touch.”

“I know nothing about taking care of kids, Riddle! I spent ten years locked away in one house, for Merlin’s sake!”

“So did these children.”

Sirius blinked. He had heard the story that Riddle had told him about the Nott kids, of course he had, but he hadn’t really absorbed—

“Well, almost,” Riddle corrected then, and leaned back in the chair near the wall of the small room Sirius had taken for his own. It was in a block that Riddle had said was usually used as professors’ quarters before they moved to something more permanent. “Constance Nott is too young to have spent that length of time in there, but for Sophia Nott, it was almost a decade.”

Sirius nodded slowly. And from the way Riddle told the story, Sirius had had more room to move around freely than did the Nott children.

“I know that you grew up in nearly the same environment,” Riddle went on, his voice deepening and turning to something like a growl. Sirius had the odd feeling, then, that Riddle would have rescued him from his parents if he could have. “And you are a pureblood. They will feel more comfortable with you.”

“So long as I’m not completely responsible for them.”

“Of course not. We will have them seeing a Mind-Healer, just as you do. And I am hoping that Lupin will consent to spend some time with them.”

“He’s a werewolf. Won’t they be terrified?”

“I have a specific way to introduce myself,” Remus said, leaning his head in from the door that connected his set of rooms to Sirius’s.

Sirius turned towards him and gestured for him to go on. Remus came in and sprawled across the bottom of Sirius’s bed, and Sirius was struck again by how different he looked from the time before all this shit had happened, before he’d embraced the wolf. “I’m going to introduce myself as the monster who guards against monsters.”

Sirius blinked, and then began to smile. “Like monsters in nightmares,” he said. “Or fathers they might fear are coming back from the dead.”

Remus flashed him a smile that seemed more full of canine teeth than it could possibly have been in his human form. “Exactly.”

“And it is fitting that all the children in the school unlearn the prejudice against werewolves, the ones who were raised with it,” Riddle said, because he evidently wanted to make sure that they didn’t forget he was on hand to ruin any moment. “I have already asked Lupin to teach a class on werewolf history, for the older years. The younger ones can get used to the thought of him as a professor and start seeing him more regularly at the dining hall.”

Remus paused at that, although Sirius didn’t know why until he spoke again. “You forget how raw I take my meat.”

“I forget nothing,” Riddle said. “The house-elves can make your meat as raw as you please. You can eat it as raw as you please. But it’s time that the children who do still have the fear of werewolves start learning that some of you are our allies.”

“Why?” Remus rolled over and into a position that Sirius recognized as a pouncing one that could put him right into Riddle’s face if it had to. “Yes, all right, you want them to respect me, and you need to do something with me other than send me on bloody missions now and again. But why are you so determined to overturn this prejudice against all members of my kind? Some of us have done terrible things.”

“What did I tell you was my ultimate goal?”

“Making the purebloods pay.”

Riddle rolled his eyes, a gesture Sirius wished he wouldn’t use, because it made the bastard seem too human. “Yes, and that will be coming. In some ways, you have already begun to make them do so. But I also want to make sure that the revolution does not simply turn into revenge, or end with a few of the worst people dead and our society as stratified as always. That means getting rid of stupid, blind beliefs like the one that werewolves are mindless monsters who cannot be trusted.”

“Some of us can’t.” Remus was still tense.

“And some purebloods can’t be trusted, some half-bloods, some Muggleborns, some Squibs, some goblins, some house-elves, some centaurs.” Riddle rolled his eyes again, impatiently. “That doesn’t mean that the belief should endure about werewolves and make all of you seem like monsters. So, yes, I’ll thank you to eat in the dining hall, Professor Lupin. And to direct children who shriek or ask questions about it to me. Unless the questions are polite enough that you want to answer them yourself.”

Sirius stared at Riddle. “Why did you decide on this?” he burst out. “Why did you decide that you should include—everybody, not just half-bloods or Muggleborns?” It had still been a shock to him to find out that the school had Squib students, although looking back on it, he supposed that no one had ever said Fortius didn’t.

“Not overnight,” Riddle said, standing. “Once, I only cared about their hatred of me. But then I started to investigate all the words, all the rumors, all the bigotry, all the beliefs. And once you start listening to one kind of music for long enough, you learn to recognize the tune despite the different words set to it.” He gave Sirius a thin smile and walked out the door.

Sirius and Remus stared at each other. Remus twitched his head a little, nostrils flaring, and then nodded. Riddle had kept walking, and wasn’t lingering to listen to them.

“Why in the world is he like this?” Sirius asked at last, softly, not really expecting Remus to answer him.

“I have no idea.” Remus stretched and lay down with his chin on his folded hands in a way that made him look like a wolf resting his head on his paws. “But I think that we’re going to be glad we chose to come here.”

*

“You called us here for a reason, Minister.”

Lucius gave a tight nod in the direction of Amelia Bones. She was a pureblood of what had once been the wrong sort, the kind who had protested when Lucius had passed some of his laws about Muggles and Muggleborns. But she had learned what was good for her quickly enough, especially since she had a number of half-blood nieces and nephews who might not have been allowed to attend Hogwarts otherwise.

“Yes, Auror Bones.” Lucius glanced around the room that stood in nearly the heart of the Ministry, surrounded on all sides by thick stone walls. It had once been the old Minister’s office until Lucius had decided that he needed a grander place to govern from. “Is this room secure?”

“Do you wish me to test the protocols, Minister?”

“Yes.”

Auror Bones’s eyes widened, but she drew her wand and stood to run it along the air in a pattern of tracery reminiscent of a spider’s web. Lucius watched closely, not seeing any motions that she shouldn’t be making. He relaxed slightly.

Auror Bones nodded and sat down again, glancing around the room as if wondering what this fairly motley collection was doing in the most secure place in the Ministry. “The protocols are intact, sir.”

Lucius sat back and looked around himself, letting his eyes touch face after face. Arthur Weasley. Augusta Longbottom. His own sister-in-law, Andromeda Black, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. Horace Slughorn, who cleared his throat when Lucius glanced at him.

“I appreciate your wanting to call on me, Minister Malfoy, but I’m not sure what I can do to help with any project like the one that you described. Perhaps if you’d allow me to call on one of my contacts—”

“You are here because you know a lot of obscure magical lore, Horace,” Lucius said, in no mood to listen to the old coward’s plaints. “Auror Bones, because you are unfailingly loyal to the Ministry and cannot be corrupted. Arthur, because you are my friend and ally. Andromeda, because you have research skills Narcissa has praised to me more than once. Mrs. Longbottom, because you have a NEWT in History, a rare accomplishment in the era in which you attended Hogwarts.”

That led to an exchange of glances. Lucius watched, confident that they wouldn’t put together the real reason he had called them here.

All of them were purebloods, but none who held especially prominent positions in the new regime, and some (like Auror Bones, with her half-blood relatives) who had definite disadvantages. Lucius could not risk informing other purebloods of strength and power about Roland Peverell. They would seek to ally with him, perhaps, or find out whether he truly had the strength of the Deathly Hallows and take his secrets for themselves.

Lucius intended to retain his position despite Peverell’s challenge.

“You will have heard now about the death of Theodosius Nott, the disappearance of his son, Theodore, and the burning down of Nott House,” Lucius said, folding his hands on the desk. “I have called you here to try and investigate this—”

“You wish me to open an investigation, sir?”

“No, Auror Bones. I know who did it. But we will need research of a specialized kind to capture and defeat him. You see, he goes by Roland Peverell.”

That made more than one person gasp, although Andromeda simply narrowed her eyes. She was the one who spoke up first. “And you believe that he might have the Deathly Hallows with him? Believing in children’s stories now, Minister Malfoy?”

Lucius stared back at her until she dropped her eyes and remembered who she owed her survival to, after the slaughter of her unworthy piece of filth husband and half-blood daughter. She had been offered the choice of harvesting her daughter or slitting her throat, and had chosen the knife. “I do not know,” he said. “I know that I have felt Peverell’s magic, and that he is powerful. So powerful that I do not know how he achieved it. The Hallows would be one explanation.” He paused. “I must insist on a secrecy oath before we go further.”

They swore it, all of them, and even Andromeda looked curious as she put her wand away. Lucius said, “I met Peverell during a Hunt. He took away my ability to harvest magic.”

Arthur made a choked sound. Of course, the news would affect him the most. Lucius had heard the news that his eldest daughter was sickening new, which was most annoying.

“I didn’t know that was possible,” Auror Bones whispered, sounding shaken.

Lucius shook his head. “Neither did I. And you see why we must stop him before he does it to others, or simply kills them the way he did Theodosius. I believe he may be behind the Yaxley slaughter as well. This man is seeking to become the sole power in our world, the only possible harvester. We must stop him,” he repeated.

He glanced around the little circle, not the most satisfactory allies, but the ones he had. Andromeda’s eyes were shining with curiosity, and so were Horace’s. Auror Bones had raised her chin. She might be too stern and hidebound, but she believed in the rule of law, and as harvesting was legal but murder was not, she would find the one who had violated the laws. Arthur could be counted on. Augusta knew that she had been spared, along with her family, from harvesting, and it was best for them to support the regime that had honored their purity of blood and placed them on the safe list.

“This is where we will begin,” Lucius said.

*

Andromeda could feel the burning in her heart as she stepped out of the old Minister’s office. Augusta might have tried to catch up and walk with her to the lifts, but Andromeda hurried on ahead so she could be alone.

For the longest time, she had stewed in her hatred and her need for vengeance, unsure how she could express the former or get the latter. Any open rebellion against the regime would see her harvested, or killed, or shut up the way Sirius had been. And no one had trusted her with secrets of any kind (the private hair-styling spells Narcissa used didn’t count).

But now, now she had access to important knowledge, and once she figured out a way around the secrecy oath, she meant to find and make an ally of this Roland Peverell.

And then…

Vengeance. Vengeance for Ted, for Dora. At last. At last.

Chapter Text

Tom opened the door of the small tower chamber that he had set up to receive owls addressed to Roland Peverell, and paused, curious, when he felt the magic radiating from the center of the room. So someone had sent him a letter already, had they?

Of course, it was probably only Lucius Malfoy’s response to the taunting letter Tom had sent him with Theodosius’s remains. Or so Tom thought until he reached the perch where the bird waited. It gave him a long, critical stare, and then extended its leg.

Tom detached the letter and fed the owl a treat from his pocket, noting with interest that there was nothing on the outside of the letter except a dark wax seal showing a skull crowned with silver stars. Tom knew he had seen that seal before, but it took him a long moment to remember it.

Of course. It had sealed some of the Black family correspondence that Orion had received while in school.

Tom slit the letter open, wondering if he was about to get a missive from Narcissa Malfoy telling him off for threatening her husband.

But the writing, while curling and delicate in the way that many pureblood women were taught to write, was not from Narcissa. Tom had seen enough samples of her letters when she sent him a spy report—not that she would remember doing so—to know that.

Dear Roland Peverell,

My name is Andromeda Black. I was once Andromeda Tonks, and I had a husband and a daughter I loved very much. My husband was Muggleborn, my daughter a half-blood. I tell you this from the beginning so that there can be no mistake as to who I am, and if you are a blood purist, there is no more to be said.

But I am taking the chance that you might want to punish the arrogant purebloods as much as I do, given what Lucius Malfoy told me you did to him. I wish to propose an alliance. I do not know how many allies you have, how much money, or what kind of hidden base. I can, however, offer something unique: I can be an eye looking into Minister Malfoy’s secret councils.

He is researching your background, trying to determine what makes you so powerful. He thinks it might be the Deathly Hallows. Besides me, the other people he called in were Amelia Bones, Augusta Longbottom, Arthur Weasley, and Horace Slughorn.

Please write back to me. I have already given you valuable information, and I am burning with hatred. They made me slit Nymphadora’s throat. I will do anything to hurt them, anything, and you are the best chance that I have seen to hurt Minister Malfoy’s position in many a long year.

Andromeda Black Tonks.

Tom lowered the letter slowly, and stared at the owl. “Did she ask you to bring back a reply?”

The owl hooted at him and wiggled its tail emphatically.

Tom stood a few moments in thought, tapping the fingers of his free hand against the wrist and ignoring the lingering ache in his muscles from fighting Theodosius. Part of him was tempted to bring Andromeda into the secret of Roland Peverell’s true identity right away. Sirius’s alliance with him should ease the way, and it sounded as though she would embrace his cause.

But on the other hand, he had no idea how much she would embrace the cause of revolution specifically. She wanted revenge on the purebloods who had made her kill her child. She might think that he wasn’t moving fast enough and use the knowledge he gave her to cripple his progress by striking too soon.

Tom nodded slowly. Better to wait for right now, to make sure that Andromeda Black could be handled and held back. But he would give her a glimpse of “Roland Peverell” so that she wouldn’t think she had reached out to no avail.

Smiling, Tom left the owlery to compose his answer, motioning Andromeda’s owl towards the bowls of food and water on a perch along the wall.

*

Sirius stared at the Nott girls. They stared back at him. The younger one, Constance, hadn’t stopped hiding behind her sister, Sophia, even though this was Sirius’s fifth visit to the room they shared.

Sirius cleared his throat. “Um, did you enjoy the chess pieces I left last time?”

The girls exchanged glances. Then Sophia said, “We didn’t touch them.”

“Um. Why not?”

“We thought there might be enchantments on them that would hurt us if we touched them. It was the sort of trick Father would play.”

Sirius coughed and sat down on the chair near the door. The room was bright and cheerful, in one of the residences not far from Sirius’s rooms, with blue walls and two beds that were covered in gaudy, multicolored blankets that seemed to blend perhaps sixteen hues. Their brother’s bedroom was right next door, from what Sirius knew, although he hadn’t met Theodore Nott so far beyond a single, hostile staring encounter. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—I didn’t know you would think that way.”

“You didn’t enchant the chess set to bite us?”

That was the first time Constance had spoken. Sirius sat up. Sophia turned her head a little to the side, as if she didn’t want to watch if Sirius was going to attack Constance.

“No, I didn’t enchant it to bite,” Sirius said quietly. He thought about offering to touch the chess pieces himself and show them, but there were spells that could keep the caster safe from any consequence of touching enchanted objects, and their bastard of a father had probably used them. “Do you want to play a game?”

Constance clenched her fists and inched out from behind her sister’s back. She was a thin, whipcord girl, with eyes that she kept mostly trained on the floor as she scampered over to the side table and retrieved the cloth bag that held the pieces.

“Constance,” Sophia whispered.

“We have to know,” Constance said, and then she faced Sirius and brought the bag over, holding them at eye height for her. Sirius still had to bend down a little to take the bag from her, being careful to make sure that he didn’t accidentally touch her fingers and freak her out.

When he opened the bag and tipped the silver chessmen out into his palm, Constance took in a deep breath and skipped back. Sirius let her, studying the silver pieces. He had owned them when he was a kid, at Hogwarts, and he had kept them and carried them with him because they were one of the very few gifts his father had ever given him. When he’d been caged in Grimmauld Place, he’d found them again, and Riddle had slipped back to retrieve them when Sirius had asked him to.

Or asked one of his terrifying, efficient people to do it. Honestly, Sirius wasn’t sure he wanted to know half of Riddle’s secrets.

“You’re touching them. And they’re not burning you.”

“That doesn’t mean anything, Constance!” When Sirius glanced up, Sophia looked as if she was about to launch herself across the room and grab her sister.

“I’d like to think it does,” Sirius said quietly. “These are the chessmen that my father gave me, and he was a bastard. Nothing like yours, nothing like as bad, but not good.” He twisted the queen between his fingers. “But I told myself that I was going to make my own memories with these pieces. And I did.”

“What memories?”

Constance had spoken in a quiet mumble, but Sirius had still heard her. He kept his eyes on the pieces and showed nothing of the warmth that was bubbling through him like a successful potion. He smiled instead, thinking of James and Lily.

“These are the pieces that my best mate used to play with the love of his life,” Sirius whispered, throat swelling a little as he remembered James laughing over the board with Lily. “She liked the look of them, and I let James pretend they were his before she caught on and realized they were mine. But it was all right in the end. By the time she realized, she was in love with him, and she forgave him the deception.”

“Who was your best mate?” Sophia asked. Sirius looked up a little and found she’d climbed out of the chair, but she climbed right back in the moment she noticed Sirius looking at her.

Sirius only nodded. He could hardly blame her for that.

“His name was James Potter. And his lady love was Lily. And they were both Hunted and harvested.” Sirius realized that maybe he shouldn’t have said that when Constance and Sophia flinched, but he didn’t know that hiding behind a diplomatic truth would work well, either. “You’ll meet their son, Harry, eventually. My godson. He’s here as a student at Fortius.”

“What happened to the people who harvested them?”

“I killed them. With my friend, Remus.”

Sirius heard his voice go harsh again, and winced. Why in the world had Riddle thought he was the right person to comfort two traumatized children? He was going to apologize when Constance spoke up again.

“Would you do that if someone tried to harvest us?”

Sirius gazed at her, and let out his breath, and said, “Yes, I would.”

Constance grabbed the chess bag and took it back. Sirius watched her study the silver chess pieces that were lying scattered across Sirius’s hand and the floor, and then peer into the bag for the ones that were still there.

Then she took one out.

“Constance!”

Sophia’s voice rang like a blade, but Constance said, “It’s all right. He would kill people who tried to harvest us,” and sat down on the floor to begin arranging the chessmen in different patterns. Sirius thought about conjuring a board for her, but only faintly. He was too busy sitting there with wide eyes, watching the girl who had been too scared to touch the silver pieces only a few minutes before play with them.

After a few minutes, Sophia got off her chair and came to sit next to her sister, giving Sirius suspicious looks all the while. Sirius took the hint and remained still.

Meanwhile, his mind reeled.

Maybe Riddle had known what he was doing, asking Sirius to care for a pair of traumatized children. Or at least ones that were traumatized in this particular way.

*

“Can I cast one of the spells that was in Disaster’s book, sir?”

They had been working at Harry’s private lessons in offensive magic for about ten minutes, outside the huge dome that housed the basilisk. Professor Riddle raised an eyebrow and turned towards Harry, his eyes as still as the cloudy sky. “You haven’t yet mastered the Shield-Breaker Curse that I’m trying to show you, Mr. Potter.”

Harry felt himself flush. “I know,” he mumbled, and didn’t cast down his eyes despite the temptation. Disaster had been a proud person from the time she was a child, and she had said in her book that all war wizards needed to be the same, to avoid people trying to use them for their power. “But I think this one fits my power better.”

Everything about Disaster’s book seemed to fit his power better, he thought. Even just holding the book and touching the pages was comforting, in a way that holding other magical books wasn’t.

“Hmmm.” That was all Professor Riddle said for a moment, but at least he seemed to be thinking about it. Harry wanted to hold his breath until he said yes, but it took so long that he had to breathe again before Professor Riddle said, “All right. Five tries on this new spell, no more, and after that, we’re going back to the Shield-Breaker Curse whether you’re successful or not, Harry.”

Harry beamed. “Yes, sir! Thank you!”

Professor Riddle stepped back and out of the way. Harry thought that was a good move even though Harry hadn’t told him what the spell was yet. It was still a war wizard spell that could probably be deadly. “All right. Show me what it is.”

Harry shook out his wand arm and tried to keep his hand flexible but ready, the way that Disaster had said in her book. He fixed his eyes on the horizon, because that was also what the book had said he should do. Then he very gently whispered the spell and gestured with his wand in a single sharp line.

“Destruo.”

The air in front of him wavered and turned dark. Then the darkness formed into a single black bubble that bobbed back and forth for a second as if it was thinking. And then it turned and darted straight at some low scrubby bushes that were off to the side.

Harry heard a faint thump as the bubble landed. A second later, the bushes were gone.

Harry didn’t see them disintegrate or burn or anything like that. One second, they were there, and then they weren’t. The stems that had held them were chopped off clean, as if they had always ended in that place. And the bubble of darkness was gone.

There was silence next to him. Harry, panting a little, because the spell had yanked on his magic to the point that it felt as if chains were rattling around inside him, turned to see what Professor Riddle thought.

Professor Riddle’s mouth was hanging open a little. Harry beamed at him. He knew he’d got the spell right because that was the effect the book had talked about. And he also knew it wasn’t that impressive because there must be other spells, like some of the hotter fire ones Professor Riddle had talked about, that could destroy things completely, too.

But it was still pretty satisfying.

“What do you think, sir?” Harry added, when a few minutes had passed and Professor Riddle had stood there, silently examining the bushes, and not saying anything.

*

I am thinking it is a good thing that you had the Legilimency blocks in your mind before I decided to give you that book.

As it was, Tom summoned a smile. He could not blame Harry for the power he had been born with, particularly when Tom intended to use that power in his own revolution.

He would simply have to watch closely to make sure that Harry could not destroy the grounds of Fortius on a whim.

“It is impressive,” he said, and nodded to Harry, who looked so proud and happy that Tom was abruptly reminded of how the boy had grown up. My praise is important to him. I don’t have to chain him and probably don’t need to put more blocks on his magic, as long as I remember that. “But you must, of course, be careful where you aim your wand. How big is the spell’s area of effect?”

“Disaster’s book said it could be a mile!”

A mile. With an effort, Tom kept his face gently inquiring. “Oh? And do you think you should cast it within the grounds of Fortius?”

Harry paused for a moment. “Oh. Er.” He looked at where the bushes had been. “But I didn’t destroy anything I wasn’t trying to destroy!”

Well, there’s a relief, and This time both warred as words in Tom’s throat that he wanted to speak. He managed to incline his head and not say them. “Do you think that you should cast the spell within the bounds of Fortius at all?”

“But how am I going to get better at that kind of spell if I can’t train at Fortius?”

“I own a small property deep in the country,” Tom murmured. “Muggle country,” he added, when Harry started to open his mouth. “Behind the kind of wards that will only allow me to feel what goes on inside them. Most wizards and witches will not even know that the wards exist. We’ll go there this weekend, and you can show me what you’ve learned.”

“Okay!”

Tom half-shook his head as he watched Harry go back to practicing the Shield-Breaker that Tom had been trying to introduce him to. By all rights, a child shouldn’t have been able to cast that powerful a war wizard spell on his very first try. It seemed that both Harry and Tom had been right, and Harry’s magic was attuned to the spells in the book in a way that it wasn’t to more ordinary magic.

It exhilarated Tom. It meant they might be able to take the war to the purebloods far sooner than he’d envisioned.

And it worried him. Even when his magic was partially bound, even when he wasn’t trying, Harry was acting like a weapon of ultimate destruction.

Tom hoped that the wards and protections on his country property would be enough to contain Harry. He feared what he might have to do otherwise.

*

“And it’s true that Theo died ?” Draco whispered, sitting across from Professor Snape’s desk. Professor Snape had been the one to tell him, although Draco realized now that his father must have known. Draco’s mind was numb with shock.

He knew—

Of course, he knew that people died. Father had shared some of the history of the struggle to establish pureblood power with him, the private history, and Draco knew that some Mudbloods and Muggles had to die to make sure that the right people got the magic they should be blessed with.

But Theo was a pureblood. He was in Slytherin House with Draco and Ron. Sure. he was quiet, but it didn’t matter much. He still smiled and made jokes and did well in his classes and cast spells. Draco had thought vaguely about a future where he and Theo would both be older and their children would be in Slytherin House together.

And now he was gone.

Professor Snape was nodding, his eyes dark. “Yes. I’m afraid that he had gone home to visit his father for the holidays. He had planned to stay at Hogwarts,” he added, a moment before Draco opened his mouth to say the same thing. “But his father owled him and requested that he come home. I saw him through the Floo myself. I would not have if—” Professor Snape closed his eyes.

Draco stared at his hands. He had known that he would probably see and hear about more people dying now that he was at Hogwarts. Some of the children here, the Mudbloods or half-bloods permitted to attend, might be harvested.

But a pureblood?

“Do you know how he died?” Draco whispered through a dry throat. “How much pain he was in?”

“Draco, it will not help you to imagine—”

“I want to know!” Draco snapped his head up. “I want to—” He couldn’t even voice the thoughts to himself. He wanted to somehow share in the pain? He wanted to think about Theo’s last moments and imagine them? He didn’t know.

Professor Snape considered him carefully for another few moments. Draco bit his lips so that he wouldn’t blurt something out. He knew that his father probably wouldn’t want him to know the details, so he appreciated that Professor Snape had to consider whether treating Draco like an adult would be worth the Minister’s displeasure.

“He burned to death in Fiendfyre,” Professor Snape said softly, at last. “I am told that it is a quick death.”

Draco buried his head in his hands. His shoulders trembled, but he forced himself to sit up a second later, before Professor Snape could get up from his chair behind his desk. The professor leaned back and looked at him.

“Thank you for telling me,” Draco said, and ignored the fact that his voice was a croak, hoping that Professor Snape would, too. “I need—I need to know what our enemies are like.”

Professor Snape blinked and looked a little taken aback. But then again, he was a half-blood, and Draco knew that meant his sensibilities were a bit dimmer.

Draco stood up and walked out of his Head of House’s office without waiting to be dismissed. His back prickled for a moment, wondering if Professor Snape would curse or hex him for that. But once again, a half-blood’s limited sensibilities won out. He might be suffering from an excess of sympathy right now.

Draco walked down the corridor towards the Slytherin common room, his head bowed. He wasn’t really surprised when Ron came to the door to find him. He would have known that Draco was due back from the professor’s office by now.

“Draco?”

Ron’s voice was soft and hopeful, but worried. Draco looked up and stared at him, and wondered for a second if he should share the news of Theo’s death. It had hit him hard enough, and Ron still had some bleeding-heart tendencies left over from his upbringing. He would have Sorted Gryffindor if Draco hadn’t rescued him, Draco was sure.

But no, Ron was on their side of the war with this mysterious enemy. The right side. The winning side. And Draco needed to let him know how dangerous this was.

“Theo’s dead,” he whispered, leaning a little towards Ron and steering him away from the common room door. There were people who would gossip about this in Slytherin. Draco wasn’t ready to expose the truth to them yet. And since Slytherin was the largest House in the school ever since Hogwarts had begun following a sterner course, Draco couldn’t be sure that everyone in the House was equally devoted to pureblood ways. There were some half-bloods.

“What?”

Draco nodded, glad that Ron’s eyes were wide and his voice was shaking. Ron hadn’t truly been close to Theo, but he had seen him around and they’d eaten breakfast and sat in class together for months. Of course that would make an impression.

“Yes, I know.” Draco hesitated and cast another glance over his shoulder, but no one was coming. “Professor Snape said he burned to death in Fiendfyre when someone killed his father and destroyed Nott House.”

Ron’s mouth was hanging slightly open. He snapped it shut and swallowed. “And your dad still can’t figure out who it was?”

Draco drew himself up a little. “Are you criticizing my feather, Weasley?”

Ron took a satisfying step backwards. “Of course not, Draco! I just—I just wondered where he—I mean, what progress—”

Draco didn’t really want to listen to Ron babble, so he interrupted. “You’re forgiven. But he’s only dropped a few hints my way. We haven’t discussed it in much detail because I think he didn’t want to tell me how Theo died.”

Draco shut his eyes again for a moment. It was still hard to believe that someone who had been there, who had made a bed rumpled with sleeping in it and helped Draco with Charms and spoken to him and eaten meals next to him, was so utterly gone.

“As long as Minister Malfoy’s working on it, I know we’ll catch them.”

Draco opened his eyes and looked carefully at Ron to see if he was lying or hiding nervousness behind bravery. But Ron just looked back at him with bright, steady eyes, and Draco sighed out slowly.

If people who weren’t even related to his father could have so much confidence in Lucius Malfoy, how could Draco help but do the same?

“Okay,” Draco said, and together they walked into the Slytherin common room. Draco made sure to keep his head high and show no trace of what he had been feeling or saying just a few moments before on his face.

Purebloods did have certain standards.

*

Andromeda stared at the letter that had landed in her hand with her owl that morning. It was sealed with the symbol of the Deathly Hallows, and she had wondered, when she first received it, if she was dreaming.

But she was nearly convinced, now, that she was not, that vengeance for Dora and Ted was finally within her reach.

She took a deep breath, and tore the heavy wax seal on the letter, an emerald-green color except for the bold black lines of the Hallows, open.

Dear Andromeda Tonks,

I must admit that your offer of aid surprised me. I had thought that you were a “true” pureblood, one who cared for nothing but the reputation of her family and what she could gain from Minister Malfoy’s regime. I had no idea of the true story about what happened to your family. My deepest condolences.

I will be more than happy to welcome you to my side, but for obvious reasons, I reveal to no one where I reside at the moment. I will therefore invite you to a safehouse behind wards that no one else can detect—once we know a little more about each other, and are both certain that we want to work together.

I have two questions for you now, however. Why did you never try to assist your cousin, Sirius Black, in his house arrest, if you hate and despise Lucius Malfoy and his pureblood regime? And will you allow me to question you under Veritaserum if you meet?

On the right answer to these questions does our alliance depend.

Roland Peverell.

Andromeda opened and closed her free hand slowly, staring at that signature. There was no familiarity in it, the way she had thought there might be if this Roland Peverell was really someone she knew hiding behind a different name. Not that she had really expected there to be. It was just—

She was so close to revenge that the thought there might be something she didn’t know about this Peverell and that could be damning made her want to claw her way out of her skin. And she had to know the right answers to his questions. The second one was obvious. The first one, not so much so.

The true answer was grief. Grief for Ted and Dora had consumed Andromeda to the point that she simply hadn’t been able to think about Sirius.

And there was also fear. She didn’t want to try to free Sirius, or even hint to Narcissa that Sirius’s crimes weren’t that great, when it might mean she would also end up dead, and in a way that meant she couldn’t destroy even one of her enemies.

She would find some way to tell the truth and still make her answers acceptable to Peverell. She would.

Because Andromeda would sacrifice anything for the chance to make the fire burning inside her, hollowing her out, sweep out from her and consume Lucius Malfoy and all the others who had been part of forcing her to slit her own daughter’s throat in the inferno.

Chapter Text

“Welcome to my country home, Harry.”

Harry looked around, mouth open wider than he thought was probably a good idea when Professor Riddle was so concerned about his manners all the time, but he couldn’t help it. The grounds of the “country home” were big, and beautiful, and bright. There were magical plants drooping in every direction and overrunning the fences that surrounded them. Huge red and blue flowers nodded from their stems in flowerbeds that glowed as green as spilled water. Harry reached out and put a trembling hand on one of the flowers, and silky petals answered him.

“You haven’t even noticed the house, have you, Harry?”

Professor Riddle’s voice was amused, Harry thought with relief. He turned around, shaking his head. “No, sir, not really.”

“Well, there it is.” Professor Riddle flicked his hand at the walls of bright grey stone that were rising in the distance over the gardens. “I call it Riddle House, although of course that isn’t its original name.”

“It’s not?” Harry glanced sideways at Professor Riddle. He had assumed that the man must have inherited the place. If he was a half-blood, that probably meant he had pureblood ancestors.

“No,” Professor Riddle said. He smiled a little. “I removed this house from the possession and the memory of an enemy who thought he could taunt me into killing him when he realized I was stronger. I preferred a much fairer and more fruitful victory.” He tilted his head back to gaze at the house.

“So it’s not where your parents lived.”

Harry could see Professor Riddle’s shoulders tense, although his voice and face were still mild as he glanced over his shoulder. “No,” he agreed. “My father was a Muggle, and didn’t live here. My mother was a Gaunt, and…” Professor Riddle shook his head. “They were worse than the Malfoys for believing in the nonsense of purity and breeding.”

“Wow,” Harry said, a little impressed. From what Professor Riddle had told him and they had studied in history class, it was hard to imagine someone worse than the Malfoys. “How?”

Professor Riddle studied him for a moment, eyes flickering over his face as if looking for something beneath the surface. Harry wondered what that could be, when the professor had already been in his mind and knew all about things Harry didn’t even think about himself.

“They married each other,” Professor Riddle said finally.

Harry took a step back, and then tensed his shoulders and settled himself. Professor Riddle was staring at him with a twisted smile, as if he knew exactly why Harry had reacted that way, and found it amusing.

“They—why?”

“That’s what happens when you become obsessed with pure blood to the point of detriment,” Professor Riddle said, and then turned around and began walking towards the house. Harry followed, a little subdued. “It is one reason why I swore myself to the protection and promotion of ability, once I found out the truth. Someone cannot choose his or her parents. They cannot choose their family heritage. I likely have the power I do only because my mother married a Muggle. But they can choose what they do with that power. You see?”

Harry did. He nodded silently, and didn’t speak another word until they were inside the cool, welcoming embrace of the house.

*

Tom looked around what had once been Lestrange’s Retreat, and let a small smile cross his face. Remembering his past victories wasn’t something he indulged in often; he had no desire to be the sort of wizard whose enemies won because he had rested on his laurels. But a moment now and then of the past was all right.

Particularly the frantic fear in Justin Lestrange’s eyes when he realized that Tom was stronger than he could ever dream.

“Sir?”

Tom turned around, and found Harry standing with his head tilted back, his eyes closed, almost vibrating. Tom tilted his head to the side, curious. He hadn’t anticipated this reaction, but then again, he had never invited a war wizard inside the wards of Riddle House.

“What are—the wards feel as if you cast them with blood,” Harry whispered, and licked his lips, and took a deep breath.

Tom blinked. That was something he hadn’t anticipated, either. The books he had read had simply said that war wizards were “sensitive” to blood magic, which Tom had always assumed meant it worked particularly well for them, and perhaps couldn’t be turned against them. It was odd to realize that, in fact, Harry could apparently sense wards that had been laid down in blood decades before he was born.

“Yes,” Tom said, and waited until Harry’s eyes opened and he stopped shuddering a little. “Does that bother you, Harry? That I would use blood magic in pursuit of my goals?”

Harry stared at him, panting, and then threw back his head and laughed. “I think I would have been bothered by other things before now, Professor Riddle. I mean, if they bothered me at all.”

Tom slowly nodded. “There are some wizards and witches who find blood magic a step too far, however, even if they’re fine with other kinds of Dark Arts.”

“Blood is what you need to protect this place.” Harry looked around eagerly. “I think you must have had someone come through at some point and spill their own blood, right? From what I can sense, the wards aren’t all anchored in yours. And I can’t imagine that you have relatives who would have spilled it for you, given what you’ve said about your family.”

Tom caught himself as his shoulders tried to stiffen. It had been his own choice to tell Harry about his Muggle father and the Gaunts. And honestly, Harry just sounded like he appreciated the craft involved, not as though he was judging Tom for being an orphan with terrible relatives.

Remember what he had for a family himself, Tom.

“That’s correct,” Tom said, leaning back against the banister of the great staircase that came down to the entrance hall and watching Harry turn his head back and forth and close his eyes as if appreciating the sensation of cool water against his skin. “I’m surprised that you can pick up on distinctions as fine as that.”

“It’s—it’s hard to explain, but I know they’re there.” Harry’s voice was distracted. He opened his eyes again and turned back to face Tom.

Tom gripped the banister hard so that he didn’t react beyond that. Harry’s eyes were lit from within.

He supposed he had solved another minor mystery: why war wizards were often described with their eyes flashing or on fire, even by writers whom Tom thought would not ordinarily be that poetic.

“Your eyes look unusual,” Tom settled for saying, as diplomatically as possible.

“Oh?” Harry blinked and reached up as though to touch his own eyes. They stopped glowing before his hand reached them. Harry turned his head back and forth again, and repeated, “Oh. I think—I think I was seeing the lines of the blood wards in the air. Now I’m not seeing anything, though.”

“Do you know what triggered that?” Tom asked, fascinated.

“I think just being here and being able to sense them.”

Tom nodded, thinking. Fortius’s defenses were of a different order, much more based in the magic of those who lived there or the dead who had contributed their power or their souls to the walls and wards. Tom had begun the school dependent on the goodwill of allies who might have objected to blood magic, and then he’d never bothered to add it in when he grew powerful enough to stand on his own, because what they had worked well enough.

And it wasn’t as though he knew any other place with blood wards on it where they might be able to test Harry…

Well, he did. Malfoy Manor. But since enemies lived there, he didn’t know how to bring Harry there for a safe test. Perhaps he would have Narcissa entice her husband away for a few hours and then go to the house with Harry. It ought to be manageable as long as they were careful to leave no trace of their magical signatures.

“Professor Riddle?”

Tom started and came back to himself, shaking his head a little. “Sorry, Harry. Of course it’s fascinating that you can sense blood wards, but I brought you here to practice your magic and make sure that it wouldn’t hurt anyone else. Can you sense if your power would be able to escape those wards?”

Harry tilted his head and closed his eyes again. Tom watched him, enthralled. He wondered what in the world it was like to be inside Harry’s head right now, and wondered if he could persuade Harry to let him examine a memory with Legilimency or a Pensieve later.

“Yes,” Harry said after a long moment. “I think the wards will hold.”

Tom nodded in satisfaction. “Good. Now let me show you the dueling room.”

*

Harry stepped into the dueling room on the first floor of Riddle House and felt as if he had come home.

Not even Fortius had felt like this, so suddenly and intuitively welcoming. There were all kinds of magic at Fortius, and Harry realized now that he had been sensing some of them without realizing what he was feeling. Charms that nibbled at him, defensive magic that looked at him benevolently, other people’s magic that sparked and dashed through their wands.

But the magic practiced here had almost exclusively been offensive. Harry didn’t think people had even practiced here with cursebreaking or shields very much, although they did in Professor Riddle’s Defense classroom at Fortius. These people had probably conjured targets or something to fling their spells at.

There were dents in the wall and cracks and scorch marks on the floor. The dueling room was big enough to contain a dragon, and Harry thought that one might have caused the long streak of ash down one wall that probably wouldn’t be scrubbed away. The ceiling rose to a graceful stone point high above, ornamented with runes that stared at Harry with predatory interest.

He wanted to know all about the spells that had been cast here. He wanted to cast them himself. His hand twitched towards his wand.

“Harry?”

This time, Professor Riddle was the one calling Harry back from a daze caused by the presence of magic. Harry smiled at him a little sheepishly and stepped forwards. “Did you build this, sir?”

Professor Riddle chuckled. “No. At the time I won the house, I couldn’t have afforded to. The people who owned it previously did. But I warded it. And I made sure that the room itself protects the people practicing in it from permanent damage, as well as protects itself.”

“How does it do that?” Harry asked, although it made sense now that he thought about it. He could feel the room’s readiness and watchfulness when he reached out with his—well, it was a set of senses that he supposed were his war wizard’s senses. It was like being in a room with a wolf that had opened one eye.

“It strengthens its walls depending on the strength of the first spell to hit them,” Professor Riddle said. He pointed to the knot of runes at the point of the ceiling above Harry. “And the runes clamp an extra layer of invisible protective shielding around the most vulnerable parts. The room extrudes targets from itself and absorbs the remains when the duel is done.”

“Can I learn how to do that?”

“Use runes and shields? Of course. I think the practice of runes is beyond most first-years, but—”

“No, not that. I meant absorb the remains of my enemies to make myself stronger.”

Professor Riddle stared at him. Then he sat down abruptly on a small ledge that ran along part of one wall. “Please explain this to me, Harry.”

Harry licked his lips. He didn’t actually know why he’d said that. It had just been a thought that had popped into his head when he was thinking about the commonalities between him and the dueling room, and now—

But he had to do something about it now, with Professor Riddle staring at him as if Harry had said something either wonderful or painfully stupid. So Harry took a deep breath and tried to explain. “I mean, I know that harvesting and Hunting people is wrong. I wouldn’t try to take their magic. But if they were dead and the last burst was leaving them—”

“How do you know about the last burst?” Professor Riddle asked, his eyes narrowed.

“Disaster mentioned it in her book.”

Professor Riddle grunted and rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, as though asking someone to listen in on how persecuted he was. Harry had to stifle a giggle. He had seen Aunt Petunia do that sometimes, but he thought Professor Riddle had a better reason.

“So, then. Define the last burst for me.”

“The last burst of an escaping wizard or witch’s magic, when they’ve been pushed to their limits and their magic can no longer keep their hearts beating,” Harry recited promptly. That had been the way Disaster put it. Honestly, he hadn’t known how interesting reading was until he started on that book. It was so easy to memorize, too. Every word was etched on his mind after he read it.

“That—is not the way it is usually defined.”

“What’s the usual definition, sir?”

Professor Riddle eyed Harry thoughtfully. “It is the last burst of an escaping witch or wizard’s magic, used when they are reaching out towards the afterlife with all their magical soul.”

“Oh.” Harry thought about that. No one had talked very much about the afterlife around him. He knew that his parents’ spirits had joined the wards of Fortius, and he thought that was nice, but no one had actually spoken to him about where they might have been before that. And the Dursleys always acted as if they never knew anyone who had died. “Do you believe that, sir?”

Professor Riddle’s eyebrows went up, and he peered at Harry for a second as if trying to decide on his reason for asking the question. But honestly, Harry just thought it was interesting, and wanted to know why Professor Riddle had a different answer than Disaster’s book did.

“Not exactly,” Professor Riddle said finally. “But it is getting late in the day, Harry, and I do want to see if your magic can affect the wards of the house at all before we have to go back to Fortius.”

Harry nodded agreeably and stepped back towards one of the scorched walls. Spells from Disaster’s book were running through his head. He hadn’t cast any others at Fortius, mindful of what Professor Riddle had said, but he had practiced the wand movements. And the incantations were always in his head. They seemed to stand up and leap to his lips the minute he even thought about them.

“What do you want me to try first, sir?”

*

Something that won’t damage my wards or my dueling room.

But there was no way to be sure of that without having Harry cast something, and it would be basest folly to ask the boy to estimate something Tom himself couldn’t make an educated guess about. Therefore, he stepped back a little from Harry and waved his hand. “Go ahead and cast the spell that you think you would be best at.”

Harry took a long moment to think about that. Then he nodded and raised his wand. “Okay, sir.”

The runes on the ceiling of the dueling room sparkled as the magic sensed that someone in it was about to cast a powerful spell, and runes raced down the walls. Tom watched in fascination as they gathered in thicker knots than he had ever seen before, clumps that forced a thick, unwieldy-looking stone out as a target.

Really, the Lestrange dueling runes were a work of art. Tom had always meant to study and duplicate them, but other projects had of necessity consumed his attention.

Harry took a deep breath and aimed his wand straight at the stone. Tom squinted, and made out the small circle the wand was drawing, one that wavered back and forth and ended with a jagged line to the heart of the circle.

“Cedere!”

Harry’s voice rang out confidently. The incantation wasn’t one Tom knew, although he recognized the Latin. He turned and looked curiously at the stone, wondering what would happen when the spell struck.

For a long moment, he thought it had failed. The stone was still sitting there with no visible effect to it. But then he remembered that Harry had used nuclear fission on a similar-looking boulder, and he resolved himself to wait. Surely this particular rock would not be beyond Harry’s abilities.

The rock trembled.

Then it abruptly collapsed into a puddle of sticky grey liquid.

Tom realized that his mouth was hanging open—something Harry did to him on an infuriatingly regular basis—and shut it hastily. He glanced at Harry, who was laughing in delight. As he watched, Harry pointed his wand at the rock and lifted the wand, waggling it back and forth.

Tom turned around in time to see the grey liquid rise and dance, exactly following the movements of the wand.

“How did you do that?” Tom breathed.

“Magic, sir.”

Tom narrowed his eyes. Harry smiled innocently at him, and then whipped his wand into another loop. The liquefied rock rose up and danced along with him, and Tom thought he could hear a faint edge of a humming song.

“The spell makes whatever I’m enchanting do just what I want,” Harry explained after a minute when he had seemed too busy with the rock to sense that Tom was still waiting for an explanation. “I can’t use it on a living being, but it can make a rock become liquid, or a window turn opaque, or a tree trunk melt instead of catch fire, or—anything.”

Tom smiled thinly. This was the kind of weapon he could appreciate, less insanely dangerous than the other war wizard magic Harry had cast, although he was still glad that they had not tested it on the grounds of Fortius. With their luck, Harry would manage to liquefy the dome of Belasha’s retreat.

“Can you make it resume its original shape?” Tom asked, after a few minutes of letting Harry have his fun.

“Um—I think so.” Harry turned his wand in another small circle, and then began to jab it back and forth. The rock rose and flowed back into a rock, although Tom could see that it was rather different than the stone that the dueling room had first extruded from the wall, more jagged.

“Sorry,” Harry said, looking up at him sheepishly. “I reckon that I didn’t memorize the shape of the rock good enough.”

“It’s all right,” Tom said, resisting the urge to correct Harry’s words to “well enough.” “That isn’t a skill you knew you would have to have, but I will ask you to practice it in the future. This spell would not be much use for entering an enemy’s home if it left a trail of visible changes behind it.”

Harry nodded, eyes shining. “Of course, sir!”

And that is all to the good, that he sees no reason to question such a goal.

Tom allowed himself another thin smile, and stepped back. “Why don’t you show me what else you can do, Mr. Potter?”

*

Remus took a deep breath and made himself walk into Fortius’s dining hall.

A few people glanced at him and then away. The children didn’t even look up, for the most part. They were too busy arguing heatedly over Quidditch, robe cuts, Gobstones, bets, the quality of the food, and what sounded like some of the classes they must have attended.

His senses on high alert, Remus moved to the small table along one wall that smelled so strongly of magic that his nose twitched. The magic leaped up and formed a pair of silvery eyes peering at him as he came closer.

Remus paused, startled. Sirius had eaten here before, and he hadn’t said anything about that. Then again, Sirius tended not to be the most grounded person after his long house arrest. He might have forgotten, in his concentration on Harry and the Nott girls.

Remus leaned down a little and growled softly, “Hello.”

The silver eyes focused on him and blinked several times. Then they dissolved into sparks, which spiraled into the table. Remus had just begun to wonder if it was some kind of alert system for house-elves to bring food when a steel plate formed on the table, beside cutlery that looked like pure silver but which Remus was sure wasn’t. Sirius wouldn’t have missed something like that.

And on the steel plate was a slab of raw meat. Venison, from the scent.

Remus had to bite his lips closed to avoid drooling at the scent. It was fresh and wonderful, and he scooped up the plate and the cutlery and took them to one of the long tables near the high, bright windows where several of the professors were sitting, along with people he hadn’t seen teaching but reckoned were also employed here. They were all adults, anyway.

Remus sat down with a stiffness to his spine that he hoped they didn’t notice. This was a challenge, of sorts. Riddle might think the children would accept him, but could the adults, some of whom would certainly have been raised with prejudice against werewolves?

A few people glanced at him, nodded, and went back to eating. Nora Johnson, the History professor, leaned forwards with a bright smile.

“I wanted to ask if you knew anything about the history of werewolves,” she said without preamble.

Remus choked a little, and then managed to swallow and get the hunk of meat in his mouth down. He wished that he’d got something to drink, but before he could turn around and go back to the little table, Johnson filled a glass with water and pushed it towards him.

Remus nodded his thanks and gulped some of the water before he tried to answer her question. “You’re interested in the history of werewolves?”

“Yes? Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Most people aren’t. They see our history as—as not really intersecting with theirs or mattering.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Johnson snapped, and tossed her braid over her shoulder. “Your history is our history—”

“That’s ridiculous,” Remus snapped right back. He bared his teeth, instinctively, but Johnson just looked at him. Remus leaned a little back in his chair and managed to cut the venison into smaller pieces instead of just clamp it and chew on it. “We’re not human, and our history isn’t the same as yours.”

“We’re magical. That’s the bond. And how are we to understand werewolves and offer them a place in the world we’re building if we don’t know what concerns this group of us, what’s happened to you, what you want?”

Remus stared at her, utterly baffled. Johnson leaned one medium-brown elbow on the table and raised an eyebrow at him. Remus looked down at his plate and cut and swallowed some more meat, his thoughts stirring and bubbling like the soup he could see in one of the bowls down the table.

“All right,” he said finally. “But answer one question for me.”

“Of course.” Johnson looked ready to answer a thousand.

“Why aren’t you afraid of me? I mean, I know that you might be Muggleborn, but you’re old enough that you could have gone to Hogwarts, and they would have worked pretty hard to indoctrinate you with the prejudice.”

“I know that you can control yourself no matter the state of the moon,” Johnson said, with a shrug. “And I haven’t done anything to make you upset or afraid of me, and I don’t intend to, either. So I don’t think I have anything to fear from you.”

“But—weren’t you indoctrinated?” Remus found that he did want to know the answer to that question.

Johnson snorted. “They tried. But when you think about it, it’s hard to believe those words about werewolves when at the same time they were disdaining me for being Muggleborn.”

“Oh,” Remus said softly, and went back to eating. His mind was returning to his own days at Hogwarts, when things had been bad but nowhere near the height of prejudice they had reached now, and Muggleborns had screamed at the mere mention of werewolves or vampires or goblins.

“So, what can you tell me about werewolf history?”

“Not much,” Remus found himself admitting more easily than he would have an hour ago. “I’m not much of a pack wolf, and they’re the ones who have the Singers and the Lore-Keepers. I was bitten as a child by Fenrir Greyback in retaliation for something my father said about werewolves, and I’ve never joined a pack.”

“But you have the wizard education and the control to shift your shape any time you want. Don’t any of them look up to you?”

Remus felt his face flush hot, remembering the few younger werewolves who had come up to him when he rested in a forest in France a month before he’d returned to Britain. They’d looked ready to worship him, and Remus had had to disabuse him of the notion. It might have helped that two of them had been Muggles before they’d been bitten.

“I suppose I could spend time with a pack and convince them to accept me,” he admitted. “I spent years abroad trying to forget my own history and my bitterness, though, so I’ve never tried.”

“If you’re willing to, then I’d love to hear whatever werewolf history you collect.”

Remus gave Johnson a tentative smile. It seemed that her interest in werewolf history was real, and at least she wasn’t screaming and running in the other direction, or making an excuse to leave the dining hall.

He realized, though, as he ate and explained what little he knew to Johnson—who soon told him to call her Nora—that Riddle had been wrong about one thing. He’d thought that the children and professors wouldn’t be upset to see Remus eating with them because he was the monster who could protect them.

In reality, Remus discovered, he was just someone who wasn’t very interesting unless he actually made a mess or laughed loudly at one of Nora’s jokes. That was the only thing that caused a few people to glance at him.

Here, he didn’t have to be a monster. He could just be a person.

And if that wasn’t enough to bind him to Riddle’s side, nothing could be.

Chapter Text

“Thank you for meeting with me, sir.”

Andromeda seemed to have chosen that title as the most possible respectful one. Tom approved. “Mr. Peverell” might have made this conversation seem too informal, “my lord” wasn’t something he was ready to have Andromeda use with him or hear her use, and if she thought he was the Master of Death, it still wouldn’t be the most diplomatic to bring it up right now.

“One thing that I must do before we begin speaking, Mrs. Tonks,” Tom said, drawing his wand. “While your blood relation is not your fault, I must check you for tracking and monitoring charms cast by the Malfoys before we begin speaking.”

Andromeda jerked her chin up a little, eyes narrowed, but she nodded. “I would have been worried about the state of your paranoia if you hadn’t,” she said, although her eyes were narrow as she watched Tom begin to move his wand through the patterns of the charm.

Tom made what he was doing big and obvious. In truth, his wards had stripped any magic except the Warming Charms on her cloak and boots from her the minute Andromeda had walked through them. It had taken time to set up those wards around this safehouse, but not as much as to set up the illusions that would make it look like a stately, well-lived-in place. Tom had no intention of showing Andromeda Riddle House until he knew he could trust her.

The magic drifted across Andromeda, and she relaxed a little as nothing appeared except a slight white glow that told Tom about the Warming Charms. Tom smiled and tucked his wand away. “I am glad you understand the necessity,” he said, and sat down across from Andromeda at the small oak table, which was real. “And now, I’d like to know your feelings towards your sister, Narcissa Malfoy.”

Andromeda had been opening her mouth. She closed it now and blinked. “Not towards my brother-in-law?”

“I know your feelings towards him, from the letters you wrote me,” Tom said dryly, and ignored the way that Andromeda flinched. “No, I want to know more about how you feel about your sister.”

Andromeda twisted her hands in her lap for a moment, her gaze drifting off towards the walls decorated in heavy green tapestries, or at least apparently decorated that way. “I hate her for marrying him,” she whispered. “Narcissa was selfish and vain when we were growing up; Mother and Father named her well. But she wasn’t a fanatic for blood purity until she married Malfoy. She would have just gone on being an ordinary selfish, vain person if not for that.”

“What would you do if we get involved in a battle and I have to kill your sister?”

Andromeda stared at him. Tom raised an eyebrow back, something his disguise as Roland Peverell made look like a gesture he did all the time. “Come, come, Mrs. Tonks. Surely you know it’s a possibility if we go to war.”

“I—yes, but I didn’t think Narcissa would fight.” Andromeda spoke slowly, her fingers opening and closing in her lap, and her fierce, open expression had dimmed. “And I didn’t think it was a war. I thought it was revenge.”

Tom gave an elegant half-snort that was nothing like any sound he would have made in his own body. “If you think that we would get cleanly away from pureblood supremacy if we merely killed Lucius Malfoy, I have cause to doubt your intelligence.”

Andromeda sat up at once, her cheeks flushing. “I didn’t think that! I just thought that—that you had some kind of personal grudge against Lucius, since you took his ability to harvest magic away from him.”

“That is a corrupt practice that should never have been allowed to exist,” Tom said. That was his real opinion, but he made sure to keep his voice flat and less enthusiastic than he would have otherwise. He wouldn’t have Andromeda presuming on what she knew, or thought she knew, of his motives to try and manipulate him. “But there are others who will keep on doing it even if Malfoy dies or is replaced as Minister.”

“Yes, fine.” Andromeda folded her arms. “I think Narcissa would fight to defend her child or her life. Or Lucius’s life, if she was pushed into a corner. But her belief in pureblood supremacy is shallow compared to Lucius’s. She would give it up to survive if she had to.”

That matched his perception of Narcissa, and Tom allowed himself to relax a little. His Imperius Curse control over Narcissa was as close to complete as it could be, but he did not want to put her in a position where she had to choose between what she held dearest and obeying him. Andromeda could give him useful information on that.

“Are you planning to kill her?”

“If she tries to harvest magic on her own, or continues opposing me even when it becomes obvious her husband must lose,” Tom murmured. “Why? Do you want to spare her even though she colluded in the actions that cost you your family?”

“She’s not…for years she’s been the only family I have left.”

“Not true. There was your cousin Sirius Black in prison.”

Andromeda’s eyes flashed for a moment before she looked down. “And I told you the reasons that I didn’t decide to help him before now. Are you going to turn on me for those? Were they not sufficient?”

In truth, they had been sufficient for Tom. He nodded. “I merely wanted to make sure that you would not hesitate if you found yourself facing your sister in battle, or reporting on her secrets.”

“I don’t think she has any secrets of her own that aren’t shared with Lucius.”

Tom shrugged. “But Lucius is unlikely to talk to you about them, while he would share them with Narcissa. Tell me. What is the truth of these wards that are supposedly keeping Muggleborns and everyone except purebloods out of some Diagon Alley restaurants? I know there is no literal difference in blood between different magical people, so the wards can’t be functioning based on that, but they must be doing something for so many of the fools to think they work.”

Andromeda settled back in the chair and blinked at him. “I have no knowledge of wards like that. She hasn’t talked to me about them.”

“Ah, well.” Tom had tried to command Narcissa to bring him some explanation of how these wards worked, but it hadn’t helped because she was so convinced that the explanation was based on purity of blood. “In that case, I’ll put you on them as a separate research project. I don’t want our enemies surprising us with something like this.”

“But if there’s no literal difference based on blood, why do they matter?”

“They may have stumbled into something practically new with the wrong theory. I am cautious, Mrs. Tonks. I’d like to keep a watch on all fronts and make sure that our enemies will never see us coming.”

“You’re talking about revolution, then,” Andromeda whispered. “Real war. Not just vengeance for a few private wrongs.”

“Yes.” Tom held her eyes. “Does that bother you?” Andromeda hadn’t seemed bothered by Tom’s goals so far, but she was a pureblood, and that sometimes ended up mattering to people in the strangest of ways. It was one reason that Tom hadn’t reached out to some more purebloods whom he’d thought might be disaffected. He couldn’t take the chance.

Andromeda didn’t seem to be like that, but then again, she might be so devoted to her own personal vengeance that she wouldn’t care about other people suffering under the yoke of the Ministry or the purebloods.

Andromeda exhaled slowly. “I think it’s the best bloody news I’ve heard since Dora and Ted died.”

Tom smiled at her. “Then let’s talk about the research and spying you can do for me, and the oaths you’re going to swear.”

*

Narcissa smiled a little as she entered West of the Moon, the newest restaurant to be built off Diagon Alley. The wards hummed and sang around her, the ones that forbade entrance to Mudbloods and most half-bloods. The owners could tune them to accept half-bloods raised in the magical world if they wished.

Frankly, Narcissa didn’t think they would bother unless they found themselves short of Galleons. It was so comforting to spend at least some time not surrounded by one’s inferiors.

The wards kept singing softly in the back of her mind as she inclined her head to Edwina Greengrass, who had invited her. “You said that the owners have made the wards even more powerful, Edwina?”

“Yes.” Edwina was a tall, graceful woman who knew her place around Narcissa and bowed back more deeply, as befit a pureblood woman in front of the Minister’s wife. “Come and see.” She led Narcissa towards the back of the restaurant.

The windows and tapestries on the walls showed constantly moving images, including ones of waterfalls, oceans, rising and setting moons and suns, and blowing leaves. Narcissa smiled. It would also be pleasant to eat without the gossip of portraits, which could become trying at times.

When they reached the back of the restaurant, the woman waiting for them nearly folded herself in half as she bowed. “Madam Malfoy, we are honored.”

Narcissa smiled. “I’m sure. Please explain to me how the wards work, Madam, ah, Selwyn.” This branch of the family probably weren’t related closely to the real Selwyns, who would never have sunk to become restaurant owners. But considering that they were undoubtedly purebloods and had invented the wards, Narcissa and Lucius were both inclined to let them have some freedom.

Madam Selwyn beamed at Narcissa in a way that said she was grateful for Narcissa’s forbearance, and then raised her wand and quickly moved it in a circle. The wards came into view, glittering lines of silver and red, crisscrossing each other. Narcissa drifted closer, staring in fascination. She had seen wards before, of course, and even ones of the same colors, but none that crossed over each other like this.

“Some of their strength comes from the way that they’re knotted together,” Madam Selwyn explained, twining her fingers together like the wards as she cast a glance at Narcissa from the corner of her eye. “They can bear weights and give alarms that ordinary wards can’t.”

“And the theory behind them? Why have we not invented wards before that that could keep out Mudbloods?”

Madam Selwyn brightened. “We didn’t have the skill to lock in on thought patterns, Madam Malfoy. Now we do. So we focus on the thought patterns that Mudbloods and some half-bloods have about their own inferiority, or their hatred of us pure wizards and witches. The wards can bounce them out.”

Narcissa nodded slowly. “So it can be used to seek out our political enemies as well?”

Edwina and Madam Selwyn blinked at each other. Madam Selwyn cleared her throat delicately and pushed her dark hair away from her face. “Well, perhaps, Madam Malfoy. The problem is that it reacts to all the thought patterns I mentioned. So Mudbloods who do know their place would be forbidden entrance as much as people who hate the Minister and the Ministry.”

Narcissa nodded, a little sadly. She should have known her first thought was too good to be true. But it was a nice fantasy to dream of weeding out the Mudbloods and separating them into two tiers, one that would need to be eliminated immediately and one that could be left in place until it was time to harvest them.

“Most impressive, Madam Selwyn,” she said. “Would you mind drawing the patterns for me? I need to take them with me. It’s important.”

Very, very important. Narcissa didn’t know for sure where the certainty welling up inside her came from, but she knew it was true.

*

Lucius stared down at the golden key in his hand for a long moment. The Unspeakables had promised him it would work the way he had wanted, and he had the Unspeakables under complete control, he knew that, but…

Lucius shook his head and set off down the corridor that stretched in front of him.

It had been an ordinary corridor in the Ministry, but the magic of the key was already transforming it, as he had been promised. The Unspeakable who had given him the thing had explained that Lucius had to set off on a quest, of sorts, to reach the right door. The magic would generate the path and the door. He wouldn’t know which one the key would fit until he got there.

But when he reached the door, he would have the power to defeat Peverell.

Lucius set his shoulders back and walked the corridor with quiet confidence, ignoring the way that it seemed to warp and stretch longer and longer, and the way the black stone on the walls was steadily turning a midnight blue. Yes, this wasn’t ideal, especially not knowing what he would find at the end of his walk. But it was bearable. Far more bearable than seeing Peverell destroy all Lucius and his kind had built.

The midnight blue slid down into densest black again. For a moment, Lucius let his shoulders relax.

Then he heard the rumbling roar from up ahead.

Lucius managed not to freeze, even though he wanted to. That had been the sound of a dragon. But if he quit walking at any time during the quest, the Unspeakables had told him gravely, the key wouldn’t fit the door, or the stones would snap back to normal. Either way would mean he’d lose this chance and the Unspeakables might have to work for another year to construct a key that would get him what and where he wanted.

Enormous golden eyes opened in the darkness ahead of him.

Lucius took a deep breath and kept walking. He would not flinch away or back down. He was a pureblood wizard, in any case, and that made him the superior of any dragon who had ever lived. Magical creatures like dragons produced the hide that lined his boots, the heartstring that rode within his wand. He was their better.

Jaws struck out of the darkness at him. Lucius made himself march into the teeth, not even ducking or flinching aside, just in case that counted as trying to leave the path that the corridor had become.

The teeth brushed over him—and vanished, harmless. Lucius smiled grimly and continued his walk, his shoulders back and loose, his chin lifted as he walked, and walked, and walked.

The corridor next narrowed to a long line of darkness with only a pinprick of light at the end. It occurred to Lucius that he didn’t know how long he had been walking. It felt like only a few minutes, but what was feeling? What if he had been doing it for years? Narcissa could be dead. Draco could be dead.

That feeling grew in seconds to a near-certainty. Lucius gritted his teeth, and remembered what the Unspeakables had told him, and kept walking.

The pinprick of light suddenly doubled in size, and Lucius saw that he was walking towards roaring flames. He would have liked to pause and assess the situation, but he remembered the words of the cloaked figure who had pressed the key into his hand.

When you begin to feel physical sensations, then you are close to your destination.

The words would have stuck in Lucius’s head even without their inadvertent rhyme, but as it was, he couldn’t stop them from rattling around in his skull. He grimaced and hurried towards the heat.

The flames swayed and danced about him, with no sign of fading into nothingness as the dragon’s jaws had done. Lucius gritted his teeth and sprinted down the narrow path he could see forming in the heart of the flames, the one that would lead him to safety, or death.

For a few long minutes, he thought it would be death. Sparks were surrounding him, catching on his robes, on his hair. The heat was close enough that he was flinching from it as if he held a cup of scalding water to his skin. And he had to keep going, and keep going, and he was sure that he would start coughing in a moment from the superheated air that had begun to force itself into his lungs.

And then it was gone.

Lucius blinked and looked around. He stood in a plain room entirely paneled in dark wood, one he was sure he had never seen in the Ministry before. A little unnerved, Lucius paused, then moved forwards to the only thing the room contained, a white wooden door on the far end.

He didn’t look behind him. From what the Unspeakables had said, it would not have been…wise.

Instead, Lucius stepped up to the white door and bent down a little to fit the key into the golden lock, which was located halfway down the door instead of in the usual place. Lucius wondered at the reason and then shook his head impatiently. It wasn’t as if it mattered.

The door opened with a crack that sounded as if it might have echoed through the Ministry. Lucius started at the chill wind that blew his hair back. He was staring at the shore of a vast sea, with blue waves curling in and falling on the marble-like sand. He blinked and shook his head.

“You have called me?”

Lucius barely bit back a yelp as he spun. There was a wizard standing on the beach, nearer to the door than the waves. Lucius could give himself no excuse for missing him.

He straightened up, took a deep breath, and nodded. “Yes, I have. Will you come and help me spare our world from the Mudblood scourge infecting it?”

The wizard’s eyes lit up, and he took a step forwards. He was a handsome man, Lucius thought, probably a little younger than Lucius himself. He had golden hair and bright eyes and a dimple in one cheek when he smiled. His robes were long and white, with a grey symbol traced on the breast, too faint for Lucius to make out.

“You are singing my song,” he said, his voice holding the slight trace of an accent.

“May I have your name?” Lucius asked. The Unspeakables had said that the door would call the needed person with the strength to defend purebloods through time and space, and he wondered if he might be looking at a Malfoy ancestor.

“Of course, how remiss of me.” The wizard swept a long bow, his golden hair almost touching the sand of the beach before he straightened. “My name is Gellert Grindelwald.”

Chapter Text

“You came.”

Tom nodded and said nothing, standing placidly under the circulating cloud of grey magic up above while the goblin sitting in the center of the room scowled at him. They weren’t at Gringotts, but in one of the buildings that the goblins owned off Knockturn Alley, one of that most of the humans around them had no idea the goblins owned. Tom had only been there once before, and then it had looked different, more like an ordinary house except that the large room on the ground floor had been filled with desks and tables.

Now all the desks and tables had been removed, and the grey cloud of magic swirled overhead.

The goblin in front of him stood slowly upright. He was the tallest goblin Tom had ever seen, with long claws that had been polished and tipped with silver. He rasped them slowly against the back of the chair that he had been sitting in, and Tom watched shavings of wood curl off and fall to the floor.

“Do you know why I have summoned you, human?”

I, not we, Tom noted, before he shook his head. “No,” he added, when the goblin narrowed his eyes as if the gesture wasn’t enough.

The goblin glanced up to the ceiling, invisible beneath the dancing murk, and back to Tom. “Hmmm.”

Tom waited. He knew exactly what the murk was, and he didn’t see why it should bother him. But it might bother the goblin if he said something about that, or be taken as bragging, so he stood still.

“You know that every word spoken beneath the Truth-Cloud must be true?” the goblin finally added, turning back to Tom.

“Yes, I know that.”

“Where did you learn of the Truth-Cloud, human?”

“From one of the Dark wizards I dueled a few decades ago.”

The goblin stared at him again, glanced at the cloud as if to check that it was still dancing and not turning black the way it would have had Tom lied, and then frowned and sat down on his chair again. When he rapped his nails on the air, a writing desk appeared, hovering in midair. Tom was careful to keep his face smooth and free of the covetous desire to learn that magic.

“You will give me the name of that wizard and who else you think he may have told,” the goblin said, and braced a wax tablet next to a sparkling silver stylus on the desk.

“Helios Lestrange. And I don’t think he told anyone, but he might have told his wife Athena or his daughter Georgianna.”

There was a long pause. The goblin didn’t write anything down, but only stared steadily at Tom. Tom looked at him in turn, and kept his posture relaxed, his hands clasped behind his back.

“Helios Lestrange committed suicide and murdered his wife and daughter thirty years ago,” the goblin said slowly.

Tom nodded. “Yes, he did.”

“Did you…”

“I didn’t use the Imperius Curse on him,” Tom said, because that was something no goblin liked. There were still legends among their people of how wizards and witches had used the Imperius Curse to force goblins to accept some less-than-ideal outcomes in ancient rebellions. “But I suggested to him that remaining alive, and allowing those who shared his secrets to remain alive, was perhaps less than healthy for him.”

“You frightened him into committing murder and suicide.”

Tom inclined his head.

The goblin again glanced at the Truth-Cloud. Then he wrote down a few lines on the wax tablet after all. Tom didn’t try to see what they were, although he was sure it was considerably longer than just the Lestranges’ names.

“What was the cause of your asking Lestrange about the Truth-Cloud?”

“He invited me over for what I thought was an alliance meeting. When I walked into the room, he had a Truth-Cloud overhead. He asked me questions, and I found myself unable to lie. Since he knew several secrets about me, that meant he had to die. I dueled him to a standstill, asked him what the Truth-Cloud was as well as for several secrets of his own, and left him in the fear that made him kill himself and his family.”

The goblin spent so long glancing between Tom and the Truth-Cloud this time that Tom’s legs began to ache. But he remained standing still. He could do so for much longer than this. Pain was as nothing next to his will, his determination to reach his goals.

The goblin exhaled slowly at last and scratched some more lines into his wax tablet. Then he sat up and stared at Tom. Tom straightened his shoulders a little, confident that now he would answer the questions he had been brought here to answer.

“What did you do on the night of the twelfth of February?”

“I ate dinner in the company of Sirius Black and two children from the school,” Tom said. It was true, and didn’t require him to give Sophia and Constance’s names. Tom did consider them “children from the school,” whether or not they were currently students. “Then I retired to my office and spent some time looking over reports that one of my spies had sent me. Perhaps an hour later, a former student Flooed me and we talked about the political reputation of magical Britain in France and a few other countries of the Continent. After that I drank a glass of Firewhisky and went to bed.”

“Then you know nothing about a powerful summoning that cut through time and space.”

Tom relaxed a little. For answering the summons promptly and providing the truth as well as extra information, they would grant him something he hadn’t known. “No, I do not.” He could see why the goblins had suspected him, though, given that they knew the true extent of his magical strength.

The goblin nodded slowly and scratched a few more lines in the wax tablet, then glanced at the Truth-Cloud again. Apparently satisfied, he faced Tom and said bluntly, “We don’t know what was summoned, but something was. We couldn’t tell the direction of the summoning. Time and space alike, instead of just one or the other, was as much as we could get from the wards that alerted us of the summoning.”

“Thank you,” Tom murmured. “Would you prefer me to watch in a certain direction or through certain wards of my own to try and find the summoning and the summoner?”

The Goblin snorted. “You didn’t even sense the summoning in the first place, human. Your magic isn’t sensitive enough to find it, or them.”

Tom merely nodded in acceptance of the rebuke. He would just have to make sure that he got more sensitive wards, perhaps ones that were based on the thought-pattern-sensing ones Narcissa Malfoy had sent him a report on. “Very well. Are there are any other questions you wanted to ask me?”

“No. You’re free to go, human.”

The goblin’s sneer said that Tom was free to go back to being a member of his pathetic species. Tom just inclined his head a little and turned around, walking out of Gringotts but not totally relaxing until he was back in the middle of the bustling crowd on Diagon Alley.

A summoning. It certainly wasn’t impossible that he had frightened Lucius into calling for help, although what he could have called for was unknown and worrisome. The Department of Mysteries controlled access to the keys and portals and rituals that might allow someone to summon a dangerous magical beast, a strategist from the past, or even one from the future.

It cut across time and space…

Tom walked a little faster. It was time to bring in Narcissa and see what she knew about the situation.

*

Ron came around the corner in the dungeon corridor, and promptly crowded back again. But it was too late. The two older Slytherins standing in front of the twins had seen him.

“Weasley! Slytherin Weasley! Come here!”

Ron took a deep breath, lifted his head, and slowly advanced. He had been sneaking out to practice his own potion-brewing skills in an abandoned corner of the dungeons. Draco helped him all the time, which was great and something a friend should do, but Ron wanted to impress him with what he could learn on his own, too.

Now he was stuck defending his brothers.

Ron walked slowly towards the older Slytherins. One was a tall girl with dark hair whose name Ron knew after a moment of frowning: Francis Selwyn. The other was a seventh-year boy with blond hair who was on the Quidditch team. Ron knew his last name was Bletchley, but had no idea what his first name was.

“Ronniekins!”

Ron cringed and shot his brothers a glare. Fred, or George—who could tell?—grinned at him. Ron tilted his head. It was the first time he had ever been able to see that the grin was barely hiding fear.

“Tell your Housemates—”

“We were just down here for some privacy—”

“Gryffindor Tower is so noisy—”

“But we aren’t nosy—”

“We weren’t prying into Slytherin secrets, honest, we promise—”

“Tell them!”

Ron clenched his fists beneath the sleeves of his robe. This was just like Fred and George. Always showing up to be better than he was, to ruin his chances, because they just had to do something they thought was funny and get caught at it. Sometimes he thought he hated them.

“Weasley,” said Selwyn, looking down her nose as if she could barely see him with the distance between them being so great, “your brothers claimed that they were invited down here by you. We found them near the common room. Is that true?”

“I didn’t invite them!” Ron snapped, appalled. There were Slytherins who would hex him within an inch of his life if they thought that was true. Ron spun around and glared at his brothers. “You berks, that’s not true!”

“Aw, come on, Ronniekins—”

Whoever it was, Fred or George, stopped speaking, because Ron had drawn his wand and was pointing it at them. He was shaking. Neither Selwyn nor Bletchley said anything, just watching with interest.

“Don’t call me that again,” Ron whispered. “It’s a stupid, horrid nickname, and I hate it.”

Fred and George exchanged glances. Ron waited. If they backed down or apologized or changed their story, then he would ask Selwyn and Bletchley to let them go, even though it might make the older Slytherins think he was weak and mock him.

But Fred and George had never known when they were taking a joke too far.

“Ronniekins? But it’s your name,” said one of them, looking all shocked and hurt and disappointed.

“Yeah, Mum just didn’t want to tell you that, so she told you that your name was Ron so you would be—”

Ron didn’t even have to think about it. The spells that Draco had been drilling him in, curses as well as hexes and jinxes, all crowded to the top of his mind, and the only problem was choosing one. “Dolor bracchi.”

The nearest twin, the one who had begun speaking this time, screamed as Ron’s spell slammed into his arm and began to twist it. Ron stood there, panting and shaking again, and watched in sick fascination. That was the first time he had ever got that particular spell right. He hadn’t known for sure that he could.

But he had taken a risk anyway, in front of older Slytherins at that, and it had paid off. No one would ever call him Ronniekins again.

The second twin, Fred or George, was yelling incoherently at Ron to make it stop as George or Fred’s arm grew more and more withered, twisting back on itself as though it was the branch of a tree. Ron finally gestured with his wand, right before the spell would probably have run out of power anyway. The corridor was suddenly silent as the screams died and the twin he’d cursed fainted.

“Go away,” Ron whispered. He didn’t know if his voice sounded right, strong and powerful the way he’d meant it to, but he knew that it made the twin who was still awake scramble backwards. “And maybe now people will have an easier time telling the difference between you.”

He didn’t know why he’d added that last part, except that the words arose in his mind and almost begged him to. It made his brother who was still awake sob, and then he turned and dragged the unconscious one down the corridor. Ron heard the mutter of a spell when they got close to a staircase, and then two sets of pounding feet made their way up the steps.

Ron lowered his wand and blinked, tired from the rush of magic and the rush of power. He wondered absently if the twins would go to the hospital wing, and if his brother’s arm would be fixed or not. On the one hand, they were Gryffindors; on the other hand, they were purebloods and from a family that had a personal friendship with the Minister for Magic.

“That was wonderful, Weasley.”

Bletchley was speaking. Ron turned around and nodded a little. “Thank you.”

“Why did you choose that curse?” Selwyn.

Ron half-smiled. “I wanted to cause them the same amount of pain that they were causing me.”

Only when he saw Selwyn’s nasty smile did Ron realize that he probably shouldn’t have given that much away. But he ignored the queasy feeling in his stomach. Yes, Selwyn might use this against him, and Fred and George might hate him for the rest of their lives.

But he could use curses to defend himself. And even though Draco was the one who had taught him this curse, he hadn’t even been around when Ron had needed to use it.

Ron could stand apart from the rest of his family and protect and provide for himself. He wasn’t just another Weasley.

*

“Again, Miss Granger. I want you to strike as hard as you can.”

Hermione nodded and braced herself against the wall behind her. Professor Elthis had said there was no harm in showing weakness like that when she wasn’t in the middle of a battle situation.

And even though Hermione’s mind ached and she was swaying a little on her feet, she met Professor Elthis’s bright eyes and said fiercely, “Legilimens!”, gesturing just a little with her wand. She was almost on her way to getting this one right wandlessly.

For a moment, the world wavered in front of her, and Hermione felt as if she was diving through a transparent curtain. Then the curtain turned to shining ice walls that bounced her off and once again made her sway in place.

No! I am going to master this!

Hermione pressed fiercely ahead, her eyes watering, the ache in her mind increasing until it felt as if she’d been burned all along the crown of her head. And then she hammered on a thin crack in the shields that Professor Elthis was showing her, and she was through.

Hermione floated in the center of her teacher’s mind, surrounded by a whirl of bright but blurred memories, so surprised at her success that she didn’t think of anything she could do before Professor Elthis forced her out again. Hermione gasped and sat down abruptly on the floor. Her head—her head hurt—

“Drink this, Miss Granger.”

Hermione forced her eyes open and nodded at the sight of the Painkilling Potion that Professor Elthis was holding out to her. With an effort, she focused her eyes, made her hand close around the vial, and brought it to her mouth. It still almost spilled down the side of her face as she had to work on noticing and swallowing it.

“Most impressive.”

Hermione smiled a little as her headache began to recede and she could concentrate on other things. “Thank you, Professor Elthis.”

“A battle Legilimens can do many things.” Professor Elthis leaned a hip against her desk and studied Hermione thoughtfully, through the shafts of sunlight coming in through the windows. “I chose not to pursue that path myself, because my talents lie in teaching. But I did want to talk to you about it before you fully committed yourself.”

Hermione licked her dry lips. That sounded a little ominous. “What do you mean, Professor Elthis?”

“A battle Legilimens can break into people’s minds and leave them reeling,” Professor Elthis said. “Or she can change a person’s mind wandlessly and in a way that is considerably harder to detect than an Imperius Curse. Likewise, she can alter someone’s memories in such a way that someone looking for the Memory Charm will be fooled.”

Professor Elthis paused. Hermione shivered. Those things sounded horrible, but she had already accepted that a lot of people around her would be doing horrible things in the name of war.

“Or you can take the darker path,” Professor Elthis whispered. “I have only trained one student so far who had the potential that you do, and in the end, she chose to turn away from the darkest path of all. While it could help our war, it also—has a cost to the Legilimens who takes it along with the cost to our enemies.”

“Please tell me, Professor Elthis.” Hermione thought she did a fairly good job of keeping her voice soft but eager. She didn’t want to sound like she didn’t respect Professor Elthis’s reservations or the solemn way she was talking.

But at the same time, Hermione really, really wanted to know.

“It is a path that has two parts,” Professor Elthis said, her eyes intent on Hermione. “In the first, you enter the minds of people who have endured something horrible, and absorb the full weight and emotion of their memories. Those might be memories of grief, of pain, of torture, of rape. In the second part, you enter the minds of our enemies, and plant those feelings there like bombs. They might go off at once, disorienting someone who is facing you in battle, or they might be planted and triggered to go off under certain conditions, such as if they start a Sacred Hunt. The memories then explode, and they are inflicted with the experience of the person you absorbed it from as if going through it themselves.”

Hermione gaped at her. Professor Elthis continued to study her, calm and serious. “You—you mean that you’d essentially—you’d make them feel like they had been raped, or tortured,” Hermione whispered.

Professor Elthis nodded, once.

Hermione looked down at her hands. They were trembling. She balled them into fists and tried to think about what Professor Elthis had told her objectively.

It sounded pretty terrible. Hermione wasn’t sure that she would ever want to hurt someone like that. Let alone going through the experience in the first place to get the memory so she could throw it at someone else.

But…

“How much do they help?” she asked, staring up at her professor. “I mean, if you only had one student like that, and they turned away from the path, how do we know how much that kind of battle Legilimens can help our revolution?”

Professor Elthis gave her a small smile. “I never said that we didn’t have anyone trained like that, just that I had only one candidate among my students. We have two who work like that. They have crippled several of our most powerful enemies, ones who had wards around their homes or the kinds of protections that meant we couldn’t reach them any other way. The long-lasting consequences mean that our enemies essentially withdraw from the political stage. As I understand it, having that sort of memory lobbed into your mind or suddenly exploded there does not allow for the kind of natural recovery that a survivor of torture or rape or grief might find on their own. Each moment renews the nature of the memory. It is always as bright and fresh a wound as it was when first inflicted.”

Hermione shivered. “Would I—train with one of those two people, if you think that I have the potential?”

“You have the potential. I think I have confirmed that beyond a doubt.” Professor Elthis’s eyes were locked on her, but Hermione had the distinct impression that something else was looking out of them, maybe the cruel power that Professor Elthis was talking about. “But you must make the choice, Hermione. No one else can.”

Hermione licked her lips again. “But if I can help the war effort—”

“You can also help us in the other ways I’ve spoken to you about. Reading minds, changing them. Arguably, those are people who make the greater impact in the war, since there are more of us.”

Hermione hesitated. Then she said, “Can I think about it for a little while, professor?”

“Of course.” Professor Elthis became brisk, standing up and reaching for a book on the desk next to her. “One of the things I want you to concentrate on is getting control of your headaches, which will make it much harder for you to breach someone else’s Occlumency if you continue to get them…”

*

Harry grinned as he watched the grass and earth in front of him become a liquid stream of flowing mud and water. Then he twisted his wand, and it became solid again. Another twist, and then it became like a thin surface stretched over a deep hole, like the Muggle plastic that Aunt Petunia used to wrap Dudley’s sandwiches in.

Harry could feel the difference between the “real” grass and mud and the hole they were covering perfectly well, but he thought no one else would probably be able to.

He sat back and looked expectantly at Professor Riddle, who was standing near the edge of Riddle House and watching his practice. Or kind of watching it. Even as Professor Riddle smiled and clapped for him now, Harry had the impression that his mind was elsewhere, the way it had been since they’d Apparated here today.

“Professor?”

Professor Riddle nodded. “Yes, Harry? Is there another spell that you want to practice before we go back to Fortius?”

“I just…” Harry twisted his wand between his hands and tried to think of what to say. “I just wanted to know what was bothering you. Because something is.”

He blushed a second later. That was the kind of thing that he never would have dared say to the Dursleys. Not even Dudley would have said that kind of thing to Uncle Vernon if Uncle Vernon had come home angry.

But Harry was fairly sure, by now, that Professor Riddle was as different from Vernon Dursley as it was possible to be.

Professor Riddle studied him in silence. He didn’t say anything, but at least his mind was there, with Harry, and not fastened elsewhere on something. Then he nodded and said, “Perhaps you might be able to help, after all. Come here, Harry.”

Harry scrambled eagerly forwards to stand in front of Professor Riddle. Professor Riddle drew his long, pale wand and spun it in a circle. Something opened up in front of Harry, a long streak of red that tumbled into a shape like a firework but stayed there instead of disappearing.

“The goblins told me that someone summoned something across space and time a week ago,” Professor Riddle murmured. “Something powerful enough that the magic rocked the goblins’ sense of the world, although I sensed nothing. I wanted you to see if you could reach out and feel whatever it was.”

“Why could I do that, sir?”

“I’m afraid that it might be another war wizard.”

Harry nodded. He didn’t know for sure if he could sense another one, but he had sensed Disaster’s book, and spells worked for him that didn’t work for anyone else. “All right, sir. What do you want me to do?”

“Concentrate on the red light here.” Professor Riddle half-bent and traced his wand again above the red light. A blue line appeared. “Then tell me if you see anything when you look into it.”

Harry was aware of the blue line vibrating and little tendrils spreading out from it, but he ignored that, just staring into the red light the way Professor Riddle had told him. The sparks of it broke and danced about him. Harry gasped aloud.

“It’s all right, Harry. Just keep watching.”

Professor Riddle’s voice was lulling and calm. Harry kept staring, and he felt his magic reach out and pour down the red light, reaching for something, reaching for someone, reaching for something that—

That hated him. That shoved him away.

Harry went sprawling with a gasp, and found himself hitting his head on a Cushioning Charm that Professor Riddle must have put there really quickly. Harry blinked and then sat up. “Sorry, sir. But I don’t think it’s another war wizard. I think my magic would have felt that and it would have felt like mine. Not what it did.”

“What did it feel like, Harry?”

“Something that hated me. Not a person. A thing. It really hated me.” Harry frowned as he felt back with his magic along the brief connection that had been lost. “But it was afraid of me, too.”

Professor Riddle blinked and shook his head. “I do not know what that could be,” he murmured. “But you didn’t feel anything that seemed like someone might have summoned a war wizard from some other time or place?”

Harry shook his head. “Sorry, Professor Riddle,” he added, because he could see the way Professor Riddle’s lips were flattening.

“It’s not your fault.” Professor Riddle rose heavily to his feet. “At least we can be fairly sure that the summoned person or thing isn’t a war wizard.” He looked down at Harry for a moment, then smiled and held out a hand to haul him to his feet. “Come on, Harry, back to Fortius.”

Harry smiled as he followed Professor Riddle. He understood why the man called him “Mr. Potter” more often now when they were in class. He didn’t want to make it seem like he favored Harry over his other Defense students. But Harry preferred it when Professor Riddle called him Harry, as he did in their offensive magic lessons.

Someday, Harry only hoped that he could be as strong and confident and ready to defend other people as Professor Riddle was.

*

Tom rose slowly from his chair and paced over to stare out the window of his office at the night-dark grounds of Fortius. He saw the soft, massive movement passing by and smiled faintly. Belasha was patrolling. No matter what Lucius Malfoy had summoned—if it had been him—they wouldn’t find it easy to get past a thousand-year-old basilisk.

But he still didn’t know who, or what, had been summoned.

A thing. It really hated me. But it was afraid of me, too.

Tom wanted to take comfort from that. It meant that whoever, or whatever, had been summoned wasn’t as powerful as a young war wizard. Or at least was cautious, and Tom knew that excessive caution could be a weakness in an enemy as easily as excessive pride or boldness could.

Perhaps he could feel optimistic.

But it still disturbed him that he hadn’t felt the summoning, and that he had no idea who it was, what it was…

Or where it might be now.

Chapter Text

Theo took a deep breath and stared down at the parchment in his hands, before he began to walk, slowly, towards his first class.

Or private lecture, really. Professor Riddle had explained that since they were more than halfway through the first year at Fortius, now, and Theo had joined the others of his age so late, he would have lectures and lessons in private with the professors until he could catch up.

Theo had tried to say that he was sure he couldn’t be that far behind his peers and he had learned enough at Hogwarts. Professor Riddle had just stared at him with an unreadable look in his eyes and then asked Theo to answer a question about history that didn’t concern goblin rebellions.

Theo flushed, now, from the memory as he walked into Professor Johnson’s classroom. Professor Riddle could have chosen more humiliating tests, but not many. At least they had been in private.

“Mr. Nott?”

Theo warily studied the woman in front of him, looking for some sign that she was prejudiced against him for being a pureblood. There was none. Her voice was firm and calm, and she sat at a chair behind a table rather than a desk.

“Please sit.”

Theo sat down on the chair on the other side of the table, facing her. It was throwing him off. He wondered if it was meant to. His father wouldn’t have thought a Muggleborn capable of that level of subtlety, but Theo was not his father.

“Are you all right?”

Theo simply shrugged and sat up. If she was asking if he was all right to continue the lesson, he could answer. If she was asking if he was all right in general, she hadn’t earned the right to that knowledge. “Yes, professor.”

“Good.” Professor Johnson leaned back in her chair. “Tell me your general impression if wizarding history. Not just within the last few decades, or the time of the goblin rebellions, but in general.”

That wasn’t a question Theo had anticipated, either, any more than he had the much more specific example that Professor Riddle had asked him about. He was silent a second, gathering his thoughts, but Professor Johnson sat still and didn’t seem to care about that. Finally, Theo cleared his throat lightly and murmured, “I—I know that a lot of it is a mess.”

“Better than I expected for someone who grew up steeped in propaganda,” said Professor Johnson, and gave him a light little smile. “Yes, that’s accurate, Mr. Nott. Even before the pureblood regime that did things like place restrictions on Muggleborns and start the harvesting process, we had the war with Grindelwald, and the long fight to render Muggle-hunting illegal, and the prejudice against werewolves.”

Theo licked his lips. “Does that mean you’re going to teach me all of history?”

“It means we’ll go a little faster through the introductory lessons that your yearmates have already had. I was worried that I was going to be struggling against any bigotry you’d been taught.”

“I am not my father.”

Professor Johnson nodded, calmly, not as though she thought that Theo had had to drag those words uphill or anything. “I’m seeing that. Now, I’m going to begin with a lesson on what brought us to this present pass, and it goes back to the duel that Albus Dumbledore had with Gellert Grindelwald…”

*

Tom shook his head and set the letter from Narcissa, which she wouldn’t remember sending, aside. If Lucius had done something that had to do with the explosion of magic the goblins had sensed, he hadn’t told Narcissa, and she hadn’t seen anything that struck her as strange.

He stared at the pile of paperwork on his desk, which included some essays he’d set the Defense class, and sighed a little. He was reaching for the first one when someone knocked on his door. “Come in!” he called, more grateful for the distraction than he probably should be.

It opened to show Remus Lupin. Tom blinked. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” Lupin rarely sought him out except to hear about progress reports on Harry.

It was twice a surprise to see Lupin step into the office dragging Hermione Granger behind him. Tom resisted the urge to rub his face. All the first-years engaged in extra study and sometimes tried to master spells they weren’t ready for yet, but none of them did it as often as Granger did. Still, most of the time she managed to keep her experiments within bounds and hadn’t reached the point before of actually being brought to the Headmaster.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of seeing you, Miss Granger?” Lupin seemed to be in the middle of a towering rage, so Tom spoke to the girl, and saw her eyes waver and drop to the floor.

“I didn’t mean to!”

Well, that’s a promising beginning. Tom turned sideways and slung one leg over the other, trying to project exasperated sternness instead of just sternness. “All right, Miss Granger. Sit down and explain to me what happened.” He shot Lupin a glance that invited him to take a seat, but Lupin pretended not to see it.

However, he did offer his own explanation. “I truly believe that Miss Granger didn’t mean to cause me harm, but she used Legilimency on me, and it would have caused permanent, scarring wounds if I wasn’t a werewolf and didn’t have some natural protections that most people don’t.”

Tom turned and looked at Granger. She blanched hard enough for him to see it and drew back into the chair, gripping the back with white-knuckled fingers for a second. “I didn’t mean to,” she whispered, but more uncertainly.

“Tell me why you did it at all, Miss Granger.”

The girl licked her lips and looked slowly up at Tom. He kept his face neutral, and she took a gasping breath and explained, “I thought that it would be good to know how to break through the strongest walls on an enemy’s mind, and I don’t know a lot of students with strong walls, and I’ve already tried several of the professors, so I know what they’re like—”

“I do not think that the enemy has many werewolves working with them, Miss Granger.”

The girl flinched a bit, but also lifted her chin. “I know, sir. I just meant people with strong walls in general, and who I hadn’t tried to read yet.”

Tom sighed and glanced at Lupin. The man watched Granger with golden eyes that weren’t murderous, but hard and unwavering, which might be one reason she preferred to look at Tom instead of him. Tom hoped at least part of the other reason was guilt. They might have a hard time if it was not. “You estimate that she would have scarred your mind, Mr. Lupin?”

“Yes.”

Granger flinched and looked down. She said nothing, maybe understanding there was no excuse for this.

She is young, and she is mistaken, Tom thought. I don’t want to do anything that will make her back off and never pursue her Legilimency gifts again. Lavinia had told him how gifted Granger was, and honestly, they had too few students with her strength to sacrifice any of them.

At the same time, there was a need for punishment so that she never did it again outside the circumstances of training or battle.

“Look at me, Miss Granger.”

She glanced up at Tom, and he dived into her mind.

He did nothing more than a simple, straightforward dive, in and down and touching on a few scattered memories before he pulled back and up and into his own mind, but he had not done it gently. When he looked again, Granger was sitting with her head in her hands, eyes tightly shut. Tom didn’t think she was crying, but her eyelids trembled as if she wanted to.

“That is perhaps a tenth of the pain that you would have inflicted on Mr. Lupin if you had succeeded,” he said quietly.

“I’m sorry,” Granger whispered. Her hands dropped into her lap and formed into fists, which shook. “I didn’t know—I didn’t think—I’m sorry.”

Tom let her suffer for a moment more in silence before he gave in. “That is not to say that you should never use your Legilimency,” he said. “I know very well that Professor Elthis has already invited you to read her several times. It means that you should use it carefully. And when you are invited, until you enter battle situations. Do you understand?”

Granger nodded. “Sir, what would have—what would have happened—”

“Pain and wounds are not enough for you?”

“What would have been the long-term consequences?”

Well, Tom could admire courage. “If Mr. Lupin had not been a werewolf, you might have trampled on some memories to the point that your attack would have mimicked a Memory Charm. He might have found himself suffering migraines every time he drew near remembering something that resembled a memory you had shredded. Resembled it, not was the memory itself. He could have gone into shock, a coma. The pain could have killed him.”

Granger huddled on her seat in response.

Tom let her do that until he grew bored, and nodded at Lupin. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Mr. Lupin. I assume that Miss Granger was on her way to bed for the night, and you can escort her to Phoenix House’s sleeping quarters?”

“Of course.” Lupin let a sympathetic look appear on his face now, although Granger hadn’t turned to see it. He touched Granger’s shoulder, and she leaned a little towards him, for all that he had dragged her here in the first place. “Come, Miss Granger.”

Tom waited until they were out of the room before sighing explosively and turning to write a note for Lavinia. He did not have time to take on the training of a second student outside of the occasional private lesson. He would make sure that she gave Granger a grounding in the etiquette and morals of Legilimency before allowing her to use her gifts at will again.

*

Harry opened his eyes and turned head towards the window, frowning.

There was something moving out there, he thought. But not on the grounds of the school. It was strange. It was distant. He wasn’t sure that he could have felt it if it was any more distant than it was right now.

Still frowning, Harry stood and wrapped the protective magic of Gryphon House close around him. He felt what seemed to be the pressure of claws against his arms, and the butt of a great feathered head against his cheek, and smiled as he walked over to the window.

Staring out revealed nothing except Belasha moving where she should be moving, as far as Harry knew, and a few lights in some of the windows where the professors had their offices. Harry leaned his arms on the windowsill and closed his eyes, trying to shut out the light of moons and stars and the movement of grass as he concentrated on what his magic was telling him.

He knew he could feel it. If he just reached—

He reached in a direction that he didn’t think he had known about before he’d read Disaster’s book, but it was always so hard to remember what it had been like not to know something. That was a thing Harry had noticed since he’d been here. Not so much in the years before that. The Dursleys hadn’t let him have enough books and he hadn’t learned enough in school to really notice it.

Harry fell into a pattern of breathing that he knew would help. And the direction opened in front of him, a beckoning, shining tunnel, as if he was walking beneath waves lit by the moon.

There was no sense of water or anything else about to fall and crush him, however. He was safe.

Harry walked the path, and reached out with his magic, and felt the same sense of what he had before, pulsing and distant. He pushed himself, further on, further. It shouldn’t be that hard to locate it, not when he had found it once before, and when it wasn’t trying to hide from him—

It wasn’t trying to hide from him.

Harry had a momentary realization of how bad that probably was before pain seized him.

Harry tried to cry out, but his breath seemed paralyzed in his lungs. He clenched his fists and fought back, sending out his magic in unformed splashes of power. It didn’t do much, but it kept the strange thing that was holding him from taking complete control of his body, which he knew it very much wanted. It was like, if some of his magic was outside his skin, the thing couldn’t achieve that control.

Harry imagined what it could do with his magic, how it could probably destroy Fortius and hurt Professor Riddle and Hermione and all the rest of them, and pushed harder.

No! You can’t have my magic!

The thing recoiled. Harry had no idea why—maybe it hadn’t been expecting him to speak to it—and he didn’t care. He ripped himself free.

He opened his eyes, panting harshly. He was slumped against the wall beneath the windowsill, and when he reached up and touched his nose, a warm trickle of blood was running from it. Harry shuddered and tucked his bloodstained hands beneath his arms.

“Harry?” Aster Hendricks’s voice was sleepy. “Is something wrong?”

“I—a little. I need to go talk to Professor Riddle.” Harry forced himself slowly back to his feet, although his legs were wavering and it sort of felt like he was trying to stand on stacks of tins. He took a step, then another, and sighed in relief when nothing else grabbed him and he managed to walk normally.

“Kay.” Aster was already falling back asleep.

Harry paused to use his wand to cast a Warming Charm on himself, and then sprinted across the grass towards Professor Riddle’s office, or at least the building where he thought it was.

There was a sudden, sharp movement in front of him, and Harry stumbled to a halt as Belasha loomed up in front of him. She hissed at him, flickering out a tongue that looked the size of his whole body.

“I need to go see Professor Riddle,” Harry said, holding as still as he could and not looking away from the massive snake in front of him. “Please? It’s important. It has something to do with a power out there who could—who could possess me and make me do—terrible things.” He swallowed. “Please don’t stop me. Please come with me.” He wasn’t sure if there were any other protections on the grounds that might try to strike at him if he wasn’t walking with Belasha.

Apparently, the basilisk did understand English. Her tongue snapped back into her mouth, and she lowered her head in a way that made Harry suddenly nervous of her eyes.

But he didn’t turn to stone or die, and he supposed she had to have some way of hiding her gaze, or she wouldn’t make a very good guardian for a school full of children. With what looked to be a lot of effort, she turned her body around and led him towards Professor Riddle’s office.

Harry followed, trying to remember as much as he could of the moments when he had fought the thing for control of his body. He was going to ask Professor Riddle to read his mind. He didn’t think he could describe it well enough.

*

Tom leaned back from his expedition into Harry’s mind and let out an explosive sigh.

“Did you find out what it is, sir?”

“No.” Tom shook his head a little as he watched Harry open his eyes and stare at him. “You don’t need to worry about that. I did absorb enough of its hatred and fear that I’ll be sure to recognize it if I come across it again. And you need a Painkilling Potion,” he added, leaning over and scooping up a vial of the crystalline draught that sat ready and waiting on the edge of his desk.

Harry swallowed the potion, and Tom watched the tight lines at the edges of his eyes disappear. He had tried to be as gentle as he could—nothing like the rough Legilimency probe that he had used on Miss Granger the other day—but he had had to go deep enough that it was inevitable there would be some pain. No damage, though. At least Tom had seen to that.

“Do you think it can possess me? Reach out across the distance between us and do that?”

“No,” Tom said. In truth, he was not as sure as he pretended, but if the creature could honestly do that, then they were all lost anyway, given how strong Harry’s war wizard powers were. And if the thing could do that, Tom didn’t think it would have that much reason to be afraid of Harry. “But I must ask that you wrap your magic close around you, for now, and keep it there. No reaching out and seeking for things you don’t understand. If you feel that creature in the night again, alert me.”

Harry looked disappointed. “Does that mean that I can’t cast any more spells from Disaster’s book, sir?”

“As of yet, I have no proof that this is how that creature, or thing, found you,” Tom said, and had to conceal a smile at the way Harry perked up. “But do remember to come talk to me the moment you feel any hint of something like this creature reaching out to you again.”

“Yes, sir!” Harry said, sitting bolt upright on his stool. And yawned.

Tom walked Harry back to Gryphon House and tucked him in himself. None of the few other children in the room stirred. Tom watched them in silence for a moment, then cast a charm that would cover up the sounds of his footsteps, and quietly retreated.

Something else to worry about, he thought acidly as he walked back to his office. He wished he could be sure that the creature Harry was feeling was the same one Lucius had summoned, and therefore that he already had people working on the project, but he couldn’t assume that. He would have to do some more research, or delegate some people to do it.

Perhaps he could have Narcissa send him some of the books on the war wizards that the Ministry had started restricting and confiscating years ago.

*

Draco watched Ron’s jaw clench as the owl swept towards him. He patted his friend’s shoulder and raised his wand. “Want me to take care of it?” As the Minister’s son, there were particular protections built into the wards of Hogwarts that let him cast spells others couldn’t.

Ron nodded, some light coming back into his eyes. “Please.”

Draco took careful aim at the owl. “Aperio,” he said, and the bright red Howler the owl was carrying abruptly snapped away from its talons and flew towards the open doorway from the Great Hall. The bird looked shocked and wheeled in a circle for a second before it ended up landing on one of the older Slytherins’ chairs, looking extraordinarily foolish.

Ron still winced a little as his mother’s loud voice sounded from the entrance hall, but Draco pointed out, “Everyone is in here, so no one is really listening to it,” and Ron smiled.

Draco shook his head as he returned to his breakfast. Really, if Mrs. Weasley should be getting after anyone, it should be the twins. They had entered Slytherin territory, had told a lie that could have got Ron in trouble, and then wouldn’t go away. Ron had been perfectly in the right to curse them.

Madam Pomfrey had cured it, even. It wasn’t as if Ron had withered one of their legs, or stripped them of their magic.

Ron was watching him, Draco realized abruptly. He went on eating and drinking, though, calmly modeling the kinds of manners that Ron would need to get somewhere in life. If he wanted something, he would have to ask for it.

“Can you teach me some of those Dark Charms you were talking about?” Ron blurted.

Draco blinked. He had thought that Ron was going to ask for more help with Potions, or maybe help telling his parents off about sending Howlers. He turned to Ron with a faint smile. “What are the ones you’re thinking about?”

Ron took a deep breath, and his face turned red. “The kind that make someone ignore your existence. You know, the kind that they’ve worked out with Muggles and that they’re working on fine-tuning to Mudbloods.”

Draco made a considering noise. He didn’t want to admit that he had only mastered two of those particular charms, and both were low-level. One wouldn’t work if someone was specifically looking for you, and the other only lasted half an hour. “Why would you need them? Who do you want to hide from?”

“My family.”

Draco blinked at Ron, and then understood. Summer holidays were still a few months away, but they were coming, and Ron would be expected to go back to that horrid, crowded house with all his siblings. Where he wouldn’t be able to avoid his mother if she yelled at him, or the twins if they cursed him in retaliation.

“There’s a simpler solution,” Draco said, smiling as he thought of it. This way, he wouldn’t have to admit that he only knew those two charms, either. “You can come visit me whenever you feel as though someone is crowding you there.”

Ron’s mouth fell open a little. Draco hissed at him, and Ron flushed and closed it and finished chewing his bacon. “I can?” he whispered when he had swallowed. “But will your mum and dad approve?”

“You know my father is friends with your parents,” Draco said, and waved his hand imperiously. It was one of the few times in his life that he had watched someone’s eyes widen and focus on him, not his father as the Minister, and it was as thrilling as he’d always thought it would be. “And you’re a pureblood and a Slytherin. Why wouldn’t they approve?”

Ron smiled, but then his face fell again. “I’d want to stay, like, weeks, though. I don’t think they’d approve of that.”

“You can stay some of the time,” Draco said. “And we’ll create a room with a Floo connection that only you know about the rest of the time, all right? That way, you can go there when your family’s being unbearable, even if you can’t officially stay over at the Manor for that long.”

Ron stared at him, and then smiled again. Draco basked in the warmth of it. Ron was his first minion, he was sure of it. Although Father said he shouldn’t refer to them as minions. “Allies” was both better for the relationship with them and closer to the truth, Draco thought.

“You’re the best, Draco,” Ron said fervently.

“I do try.” Draco nudged Ron’s leg with his. “Come on, we have to finish eating or we’re going to be late to Potions, and you know what Professor Snape is going to say about that.”

*

“Professor McGonagall! Professor McGonagall!”

Minerva snapped to her feet, ignoring the shocked and intrigued looks of her students. She was currently teaching a fifth-year class preparing for their OWL, and she had been watching them work on Transfiguring water pitchers into gulls, but the almost deranged shriek from the corridor had claimed all of her attention.

“Stay here!” she snapped at the Montague girl, who was standing up to follow her, and ran towards the noise of the scream.

It turned out to be coming from around the corner, and when she rounded it, Minerva saw one of her Muggleborn sixth-year Gryffindors, Ashley Jones, standing with her hands clasped across her mouth and the scream welling out. On the floor in front of her were what appeared to be the ingredients of a spilled potion. Minerva reached out and put a hand on the girl’s shoulder, wondering if she was under a curse that purebloods liked to use which made ordinary things over into horrifying hallucinations.

“Miss Jones, calm—”

Jones turned and flung herself into Minerva’s arms, sobbing. Minerva smoothed down her hair and cast the counter for the curse, frowning at some of the students who were peering out of the Charms classroom and trailing around the corner.

“Just a Potions accident,” she said briskly. “You can—”

“Not a Potions accident! Professor McGonagall!”

Miss Jones was shaking. Minerva stepped back and looked at her, and the student shuddered and shrank back as some of the spilled potion on the floor crept towards her shoe. That made Minerva look more closely at it. Perhaps it was fumes from the potion that were at fault, and not a curse after all.

And this time, when she was not so focused on her student, she made out the scraps of flesh and stains of blood around the edges of the spill, and what looked like strands of red hair near the center, and was abruptly ill.

Minerva closed her eyes. She had thought this might come to pass, and now it had.

“She was walking down the middle of the corridor,” Miss Jones warbled, and some of the other students gasped. “And then she just—she just dissolved, she fell apart, it was the little Weasley girl, the first-year, she’s gone—”

Minerva cast a Cheering Charm on the girl. She didn’t like to do that, but she had to.

Especially because a long shadow coming down the stairs had revealed the approach of Headmistress Carrow.

Miss Jones’s sobs cut off abruptly. Minerva nodded, patted her shoulder again, pushed her gently aside, and turned to face the mess on the floor just as Carrow came down the last of the stairs and narrowed her eyes at everyone present. Suddenly, those of Minerva’s fifth-year students who had left the Transfiguration classroom remembered that she had told them to stay put and turned and ran back.

“What happened?” the Headmistress hissed.

“One of our students,” Minerva said, and met her eyes. She didn’t know how much Carrow might be in on the secret of the students who had been created using Potions and Transfiguration, but it seemed that something of her own gravity had reached the woman, who paled. “There has been an—accident.”

Carrow must have known something after all, because she swung around and unleashed a wide-range Memory Charm against the students in the corridor. They staggered back, including Miss Jones, eyes unfocused, and Carrow said briskly, “You should return to your classes. An unfortunate Potions accident, releasing some dangerous fumes, which you should leave to the professors to clean up…”

They retreated, muttering under their breaths in confusion. Carrow turned back towards Minerva and took a deep breath.

“I require your expertise in Transfiguration, Minerva,” she said. “We will try to save her.”

Minerva kept her stomach down, and simply nodded. She doubted that anything could retrieve Victoria Weasley now, but they would try.

“And I trust that I can count on your discretion, as well?”

Minerva looked into Carrow’s eyes and nodded again. She hid her hatred, her disgust, her mourning, and simply moved forwards to help, the way she had stayed at Hogwarts for so long to try and help her students.

But underneath the placid surface she was projecting, a flame of rebellion leaped and gleamed.

The people that could do things as awful as this had no place in the world.

We must end them.

Chapter Text

“Mr. Weasley, come with me, please.”

Ron stared at Professor McGonagall in astonishment. There was murmuring behind him, too, because she stood in the doorway of the Slytherin common room. Ron hadn’t even known that professors from other Houses knew where to find their common room. He knew vaguely where Gryffindor Tower was, of course, but he couldn’t picture Professor Snape going there.

And if something had happened that he needed to be informed of, Ron would have expected Professor Snape to bring the news.

On the other hand, Draco was poking him in the back, so maybe he thought this was serious. Ron stood up and walked over to Professor McGonagall, trying to tell something from her face. But it was pale and very composed and didn’t tell him anything.

“What is it, professor?” he asked, when he stepped out of the door and the wall slid shut behind him.

Professor McGonagall motioned him after her. “We will need to discuss this in my office, Mr. Weasley.”

Ron wanted to say that they could just talk in the middle of the corridor and nobody would overhear who shouldn’t. He was a pureblood and everyone close to him was a pureblood, it should be fine.

But then he thought about how the twins might be listening around the corner because they’d sneaked into Slytherin territory again, and he grimaced and followed her.

Professor McGonagall led him into her office, and Ron stood up straight when he saw the twins were already there. They glared at him. Ron turned his head away and stared at the professor instead. “Has something happened to Mum or Dad?”

“Not them,” one of the twins said.

“Although I don’t know if you would care about them any more than you would—”

“Mr. Weasley,” Professor McGonagall said sharply, and Ron was at least gratified to see that she didn’t go easier on Gryffindors. She sighed and turned to face Ron. “Your sister has suffered an accident, Mr. Weasley.”

Ron almost asked which one, until he remembered that there was really only one way that Professor McGonagall and the twins would know about it before he did. He swallowed. “What happened to Victoria?”

“She has—been injured very badly,” Professor McGonagall said quietly, and sat down behind her desk. “In fact, she’s already been transferred to St. Mungo’s. The Healers will be doing all they can for her. I don’t know how much your parents will wish to tell you. We have already Flooed them, and they have gone to St. Mungo’s to be with her.”

Ron nodded, feeling curiously empty. He had barely seen Victoria since the hols, and he should—he should feel something, right? Even if it was only the kind of contempt that Draco would say he should feel for Gryffindors.

But he was just hollow.

“You still haven’t told us—”

“What kind of accident, Professor.”

Ron swallowed, his annoyance with the twins chasing away the hollow feeling for a second.

“I have kept quiet out of deference to your parents, as I mentioned.” Professor McGonagall stared at the twins until they stared at the floor. They were still scowling, but Ron didn’t think he should say anything about it. “Suffice it to say that it was an accident with Transfiguration, and there is…not much more than I can tell you.”

“But you’re the Transfiguration professor,” Ron said, spotting a hole that might persuade her to give more information. “If anyone would know, it’s you, right?” He gave her a hopeful smile.

He didn’t think he was mistaken about the way Professor McGonagall flinched. But she took a deep breath and shook her head. “I refer you to your parents, Mr. Weasley. You will, of course, be excused from classes and school for the next week if they wish you to join them at home or in hospital.”

I don’t, Ron found himself thinking. I can’t do anything to help her, and if she’s all right, they don’t need me.

But of course, that wasn’t the kind of thing he could say in front of his brothers or the Head of Gryffindor, so he just nodded and shuffled over to the Floo when Professor McGonagall said she would escort them to St. Mungo’s.

He wasn’t prepared for Fred, or maybe George, to shove him as hard as he could, so that Ron staggered and nearly hit his head on the corner of Professor McGonagall’s desk. “Bet little Ronniekins did something,” that twin snarled. “He always resented Victoria, getting more attention than he did—”

“Bet he cursed her—”

“It wasn’t an accident at all—”

“Mr. Weasley.”

Professor McGonagall’s voice made both twins stop cold. Ron rubbed the side of his head, because it hadn’t hit but it could have, and turned to look at her. Her eyes were narrow and her nostrils pinched and Ron had never seen her look this intimidating, not even when one of their Housemates had been making jokes about Theodore Nott the other day.

“That is enough,” Professor McGonagall hissed. “You will go through the Floo first, and then I will come behind you and watch to make sure you don’t torment your brother when you land! I expected better of you. This is a time for your family to be close.”

Fred, probably, tried to turn an angelic smile on her. “We’re sorry, Professor! We’re just really worried—”

“About Victoria, and we got a little—”

“Too rough with Ronniekins. It won’t happen again.”

Professor McGonagall just shook her head, instead of melting the way Mum always seemed to, and pointed to the fireplace. “Into the Floo, gentlemen.”

Fred, or maybe George, Flooed first, followed immediately by the other twin. Before Ron could pick up the powder, he felt Professor McGonagall wrap her arm around his shoulders. For a second, he leaned against her and let himself feel the comfort that he knew her Gryffindors got a lot of from her.

“It is not your fault, not in any way your fault,” Professor McGonagall said. “And I know that you might feel you have not been close to her in the past few months, but even twins may go different ways if Sorted into different Houses.”

The hollow feeling was back as Ron mumbled his thanks and reached for the Floo powder again. He didn’t think he’d caused Victoria to suffer this accident; that was ridiculous. But he did wonder if he would have noticed something was wrong with her, like the symptoms of her sickness were acting up, if he’d paid more attention.

But coming right after that was the thick, boiling resentment that he’d felt so often when they were younger. Special Victoria, who had everyone ready to run after her, who was the miracle daughter and Dad’s favorite.

I’m not glad something happened to her. I’m not.

But it still made Ron shiver as he stepped through the fireplace.

*

Minerva stepped out of the hearth and readjusted her hat. They had come directly to the Magical Children’s Ward, and luckily, the older Weasley boys had gone ahead instead of staying to torment their brother. Minerva followed Ron Weasley to the room where loud sobbing could be heard.

When Minerva stepped into the room, she saw Arthur nearly crumpling, being supported by Molly. Molly gave her a glance born of desperation, and Minerva sighed and walked briskly towards Arthur, turning him so that he wasn’t looking at the bed.

The bed contained a simulacrum of Victoria Weasley, no more. Headmistress Carrow had contacted someone who had, essentially, constructed a skin that would look like her to hold in the potion and the…other things that had spilled out of her. Minerva knew that the boys would see her as essentially filled with soupy material that sometimes rolled in odd directions and made her skin bulge.

It was not a sight any child should see. But then, Victoria Weasley was the ultimate victim here, someone who should never have existed in the first place and might have reached the limits of her ability to go on existing.

Minerva swallowed heavily against her own thoughts, and turned to comfort Arthur. Whether he had used that potion and Transfiguration to create the girl or believed that she had been born naturally, he was still a parent whose daughter had essentially died.

“Arthur,” she said gently. “Looking at her can do no good.”

“We can—there are ways to revive her,” Arthur said frantically, grasping Minerva’s shoulders with claw-like hands that made her wince. “There have to be. We can find—we can find another child and—”

“And what?” Minerva whispered, instantly changing her mind to the certainty that Arthur had known about the way that Victoria was created, and might have done worse things than that.

Arthur paused, his eyes darting back and forth, and then he shoved himself away, shaking his head. “Nothing,” he whispered. “Nothing can save her,” and he began to weep again.

Minerva sighed, tired, and stepped back so that she could watch the children’s reactions.

The twins looked sick, which was no surprise. The younger boy had his hands clasped over his mouth, and after a moment, he turned away from the bed, sprinting towards the loo. Minerva watched him go in pity. She had come to accept that Ron Weasley truly belonged in Slytherin, but she thought he had overestimated his own toughness this time.

“Minerva.”

Molly was coming up to her, and Minerva stepped over to follow her outside the bedroom. “I didn’t know if I should have brought the boys straight up,” she began, even though that was what Molly and Arthur had told her to do. Maybe they hadn’t thought through how the sight of Victoria would affect their sons.

Molly shook her head a little. “No, they…they had to understand why it would take a miracle to bring her back. Otherwise, they might have some kind of faith that it could happen, and I didn’t want them to hope for the hopeless.”

Minerva blinked, and narrowed her eyes. This wasn’t the reaction she expected of a woman whose daughter had died. “Molly?” she said, softly.

Molly stared at her, and her eyes looked ancient. And far dryer than Arthur’s. Minerva wondered if this was a test from the Ministry of Magic or something equally warped, and let her hand hover near her wand. The Weasleys were close to the Malfoys, after all.

“I knew this day would come,” Molly said softly. “Arthur loved the thought of having more children, and daughters specifically, and he asked me to take the potion that’s guaranteed to produce extra fertility and often twins.”

Minerva felt her eyes widen. She didn’t think a test from Lucius Malfoy was happening after all. Her hand fell back to her side as she watched Molly. She thought she knew what Molly was doing, but the woman was being extremely subtle about it.

“I took the potion,” Molly said. “But with the way that Evangeline’s been sick, and now Victoria, I knew that this day would come.” She shook her head. “The medicine that healed Evangeline probably wouldn’t work on Victoria. She’s too far gone.”

Minerva tried to pick her way through a conversation that felt like it had become a maze of Confundus Charms. “Did—are you worried that something’s going to happen to Ginevra, as well?” she asked, wondering if that would lead her to clearer ground.

“No. Ginny was born without the potion. And the sicknesses do seem connected to the potion, don’t you think?”

She knows. Minerva straightened her spine and concentrated on the best wording that would tell Molly she was an ally. “Does Arthur think that there’s some other kind of medicine that would heal Victoria? Something other than whatever you gave Evangeline?”

Molly’s smile was bitter. “Minister Malfoy procured the medicine for Evangeline himself,” she said, and dabbed non-existent tears away with a handkerchief that also blocked the intense stare she was giving Minerva. “For various reasons, he can’t do that himself anymore. It’s become complicated to harvest the ingredients.”

Minerva kept her reaction as composed as possible, the way she did when she had to deal with crying students. “I am truly sorry for your loss, Molly. Do you think Arthur would go out and try to harvest these ingredients on his own? For a cure that might do for Victoria what the other one couldn’t?”

“He hasn’t the slightest idea where to look for them. And he knows that I wouldn’t help him. Sometimes, you have to let nature take its course.”

She’s prepared to let the girl die.

Minerva could hardly comprehend it. She knew how fiercely both the Weasleys loved their children, having known them for so many years. But then again, she hadn’t known that they evidently knew the truth about these children, or the potion, or that Molly seemed to have taken the potion under duress.

Or that the only “cure” for children born of the potion was the magic harvested from Muggleborn or half-blood children.

She isn’t choosing to let her daughter die, Minerva decided then. She’s choosing not to be responsible for the death of innocents.

Minerva met her gaze and said quietly, “That is indeed a tragedy. But I suppose that you’re trying to prevent further tragedy by not letting Arthur go out to harvest these dangerous ingredients.”

Molly nodded rapidly. Tears lit her eyes now. She sniffed into the handkerchief for real and turned to stare into the room where her daughter lay. “And I would oppose anyone else who wanted to put themselves—or others—in danger just to bring Victoria back. It’s clear as crystal.”

Minerva jumped. Molly had withdrawn one hand from a robe pocket, and clearly showed Minerva a small crystal globe on an iron chain, before she dropped the whole thing back into her pocket and bustled into the other room. Minerva heard her scolding her children and Arthur and probably taking charge the way she had to when the only other adult in the room would be incapacitated by grief.

Minerva stared after her. She’s also—one of us? One of the rebellion, with Severus and me?

It was far more than she had expected. But she was humbled that Molly had taken the risk to put her trust in Minerva. When her daughter was dying, a child she must feel something for, having raised her, no matter the circumstances of her conception…

It was a level of bravery that Minerva could hardly comprehend, but she stood there a moment contemplating it before she went back to be there for her students.

*

Ron sat on the couch in front of the hearth in the Slytherin common room, staring blankly into the fire. His thoughts moved through his head like numb pieces on a vast chessboard.

Victoria hadn’t been part of his life since he got Sorted into Slytherin, really, any more than the twins really had, or Percy. And he had shut her out from seeing the deepest parts of his life even when she could have shared them, because he was afraid that she would disapprove of his growing friendship with Draco and his desire to be more than just another Weasley.

But he hadn’t ever tried. And now she was gone.

Ron still wasn’t entirely sure what had happened. The thing on the bed hadn’t looked anything like his sister. And then the things under her skin had started moving really fast back and forth, and Mum had herded them away from the bed before anything else could happen. Ron had shouted she was his twin and he wanted to say goodbye, and Fred or George had made some crack about how he should have treated her more like his twin earlier.

Ron shook his head, tears creeping around the corners of his eyes. No, he couldn’t think about them. He had to think about Victoria, and how Mum and Dad had come out of the room an hour later, clinging to each other, and told them quietly that Victoria was gone and there was nothing that could bring her back.

Ron didn’t know why. He wanted to punish the people who were responsible for this, but he didn’t know who.

He wanted to know.

“Ron.”

Ron glanced up and blinked dully at Draco. Draco sat down next to him on the couch and looked at him a little anxiously. Ron tried to summon up a smile, but he knew he’d failed when Draco gave him a silently appalled look. Ron turned and stared at the fire again.

“She’s dead, then?” Draco asked quietly, reaching out and gently placing a hand on Ron’s arm.

Ron nodded. “Mum and Dad are planning the funeral,” he said, and knew his voice was as dull as his gaze. Draco’s hand tightened on his arm. “They’ll call us out of school when it’s time for it. And Evangeline is getting better, but the potion or whatever it was that cured her wasn’t available in time for Victoria.” He heard his voice grow bitter and stopped.

He didn’t really want to trade Evangeline for Victoria. He just wanted everybody not to get sick.

“What happened?”

“An accident, but an accident because she was sick.” Ron leaned back and took a deep breath. He didn’t want to cry in front of Draco, but he felt as if he might, any second. “I don’t know why she was sick. But Evangeline had it, too, a little while ago. Mum says Ginny is fine, but I don’t know why. I don’t know why they got sick. I don’t know why she died.”

“I do.”

Ron whipped around, eyes wide. “You what? Did you somehow cause this?”

“Of course not,” Draco said, and looked so hurt that Ron looked down and mumbled an apology. “But I know who did.” He peered earnestly at Ron. Most of their other Housemates had backed off, leaving Ron alone with his grief, so Ron didn’t think there was anyone around to hear them, but Draco lowered his voice anyway. “But my father told me not to tell anyone, so you have to keep it secret, all right?”

Ron nodded at once. He wanted to know who had harmed Victoria, and once he did, he could start plotting revenge on them.

Draco leaned even nearer. “Mudbloods,” he whispered.

“How?” Ron felt sick again, the way he had when he saw Victoria lying on the hospital bed. How could Mudbloods have got at a protected pureblood in the middle of Hogwarts? There were some Mudblood students, of course, but they would have to be suicidal to go after Victoria.

And how did they get to Evangeline, when she was at home with Mum and Dad?

“They’re polluting our magic. By being in our world.” Draco looked solemn. “That’s what Father says. We have to keep track of them, because otherwise they could reveal our existence to the Muggles. And we have to be careful about what we tell them. But that means that we sometimes let them near enough that they can poison purebloods with their polluted magic. That must have been what happened to Victoria.”

“But my little sister Evangeline is sick, too. And she wasn’t at Hogwarts. I don’t think that I ever met a Mudblood in my life until I came to Hogwarts.”

“My father said that the pollution can spread wide enough that it can affect some especially sensitive people who aren’t in direct contact with Mudbloods. Probably if Evangeline was here, she would be a lot sicker.”

Ron shivered. He had to make sure that those people were taken care of before Evangeline came to school, and that was only a few short years away.

“Can we find and arrest the one who got Victoria sick?” He knew that Minister Malfoy would arrest the Mudbloods if his son asked, although Ron didn’t think he would do it just for a Weasley.

“It’s not really one of them,” Draco said, shaking his head. “It’s all of them together. Just like if feces leak into drinking water, it’s not really the fault of the one person who—deposited that load of feces. It’s the fault of everyone who didn’t build the pipes tightly enough, or who didn’t cast the right spells.”

Ron nodded slowly. “So we have to fight all of the Mudbloods? At once?” That sounded daunting. He wanted revenge for Victoria, but he didn’t see how he could get it if that was the case.

“It means that we need to make sure that they know their place,” Draco said viciously. “My father wants the school to be all pureblood by the time that we’re in our fifth year, because he’s worried about their interference with our OWLS. Do you want to join us? Work on making sure that no more Mudbloods get accepted here, or that they leave?”

“Yes,” Ron said fiercely. Victoria probably had got sick because she was at Hogwarts, he told himself. She hadn’t shown signs of that sickness when she was at home. She must not have been as sensitive as Evangeline.

She would have lived, if not for the Mudbloods here.

Ron understood, then, a lot more deeply than he ever had, what Minister Malfoy was fighting against. It wasn’t just that Mudbloods were weak wizards and witches who might bring undesirable attention to the purebloods. It was the destruction of people. The Mudbloods killed people.

Ron had to have some part in stopping them. He might not have been able to save Victoria, but he could save other people.

I reckon I’m part Gryffindor after all, he thought, as he and Draco started discussing the details.

*

“Hmmm. I do wonder why the International Confederation of Wizards has been content to ignore what you’re doing. They weren’t so accepting in my day.”

Lucius blinked. Sometimes it seemed to him as though he went from one waking dream to another when he spoke with Grindelwald. Of course, being in the man’s brilliant presence, the magic he shed around him like a corona, probably had something to do with that. It was true that the moments spent with him were the most intense, while the moments without him were the darkest.

“I—they washed their hands of Britain a long time ago,” Lucius said, a little dazedly. But he knew this, and he wanted to please Grindelwald. The man sitting on the other side of his desk, the Minister’s desk, made sense. It made sense that Lucius was sitting in the chair in front of his desk. He knew it did. “They said that we were backward and they didn’t care unless our wizards or witches intruded on them. The only time we’d have to worry is if we were hunting a criminal Mudblood who escaped our shores.”

Grindelwald nodded briskly. “That would perhaps fit their style. They were only inclined to interfere with me because I crossed so many countries’ borders and there were Muggles being drawn into the war.”

Lucius felt like frowning. Hadn’t he summoned a young Grindelwald, someone who hadn’t gone through the war that had ended in his defeat at Dumbledore’s hands?

But, of course, any fool could read history. Lucius dismissed the squirm of oddness in the bottom of his stomach.

“Have you found out what you needed to about Peverell, my lord?”

“It’s interesting that you call him Peverell, and that he chose to claim that name for himself.” Grindelwald ran his fingers over the edge of the desk and looked at the paperwork that was piling up there without interest. “I can’t find any sign that he has the blood, or that he has the artifacts.”

“The arti—you mean the Deathly Hallows?” For a moment, Lucius felt as though someone had sent a cold wind across his mind, blowing away obscuring clouds. “I thought they were no more than a legend.”

Grindelwald smiled at him, and Lucius’s mind sank back into gentle intensity again. He could see why so many had followed another version of this man, to the point of world war. He was ridiculously compelling.

“They are very much real.” Grindelwald considered for a moment. “Can you keep a secret, Lucius?” For some reason, he chuckled.

Lucius leaned forwards, nodding eagerly, and watched as his lord removed the wand from his holster and laid it across the desk. It appeared to have carvings on it, which Lucius thought odd, but wandmakers in foreign countries would undoubtedly do anything.

“This is the Elder Wand.”

Lucius’s eyes widened and almost fell out of his head, or so it felt like. He edged closer and studied the wand again. It looked plain and ordinary, not like the sort of artifact that wizards would have killed for, that had killed its first master the very night he received it.

But when he was focused on it and nothing else, Lucius realized that for all its quiet appearance, it was releasing a strong and steady thrum of power that he could feel pressing gently on his skin.

“It’s incredible,” he whispered. He knew better than to ask if he could hold the wand, which, after all, only had one master. “Where did you find this wand, my lord?”

“I took it from a wandmaker, as a matter of fact.” Grindelwald smiled and shook his head. “And while that is an entertaining story, it will wait for another time. I have not noticed my wand reacting to this supposed Peverell of yours as it perhaps would have if his blood claim were real.”

“How would the wand react to one of the Peverell bloodline, my lord?”

“Curiosity. Wishing to seek him out. Contrary to some legends, of course, the Hallows do not simply obey the Peverells alone.” Grindelwald grinned and spun the wand in his hand before returning it to his holster. “But it would want to see him. And the fact that it didn’t indicates to me that there is no Roland Peverell, or that his claim to the line is a lie.”

Lucius frowned. “So there is some other powerful pureblood out there who has used the name to fool me?”

“It seems so.” Grindelwald seemed amused, for some reason. Lucius told himself that was good, since it meant that Peverell, or “Peverell,” wasn’t as big a threat as he would have thought. “To throw you off the trail. But I have other means of finding him.”

“May I ask what other means those are, my lord?”

“You may. For right now, I don’t intend to tell you.” Grindelwald stood and flicked a hand at Lucius. “Go back to your meeting, now, and tell them about the course of action I proposed to you this morning. You know the one.”

Lucius rose, bowed deeply, and stepped out of the office, striding into the bowels of the Ministry, towards the Department of Mysteries.

For a moment, it felt as though clouds were descending on his mind again, but he shook off the thought. He did have an important plan to convey to the Unspeakables, one that was sure to be hailed for its brilliance, and he was a little surprised that he had waited this long. That anyone had waited this long.

Mudbloods were dangerous, but more and more of them were in their place, and they needed to keep more being born so that they would have magic to harvest for the sake of purebloods.

The Muggles, though…

It was time to do something about them.

Chapter Text

Andromeda opened her eyes and turned her head, blinking in annoyance. There was something vibrating in the back of her head, and she didn’t know what it was. It didn’t feel like a ward breach, but she didn’t know what else would have tugged her out of a sleep laden with honeyed dreams of vengeance.

The feeling went on tugging, however, so Andromeda sighed, stood, and made her way out of the bedroom to the drawing room.

Her second thought had been one of Peverell’s crystals, but they were all still. She stared when she finally made out what had been pulling on her magic. It was a chart on the wall that she had inherited from her mother, depicting all the constellations and prominent stars used by the Black family for names down the centuries.

Andromeda had nearly forgotten she had the damn thing. She had seized it from her mother’s effects when Druella died mostly because she knew Narcissa would have wanted to have it. She certainly hadn’t known there were—what, alarms or wards, built into it.

She walked a little closer, and saw the midnight-blue parchment rippling towards her, as if stirred by some unfelt wind. Andromeda’s wand was in her hand before she had time for another thought. She flicked off a spell at the chart that should tell her who it was being influenced by and tell her, too, the name of the spell.

The cone of light that extended from the chart was blank of any words. Not a person or a spell, then.

Andromeda turned and strode over to the window next to the star chart, looking out. Perhaps it was reacting to the presence of someone close to her wards, a presence so subtle that the wards themselves hadn’t picked up on it.

Nothing.

“Sirius?” Andromeda called out, although she thought Sirius would have revealed himself by now if he was there, especially if he thought her allegiances lay with Narcissa and Lucius. “Narcissa?”

Silence.

Andromeda frowned and walked back to the chart. It was bulging and rippling now as if something was underneath it. She cast a detection charm, which came back with nothing dangerous, and then reached out and put her hand deliberately flat in the middle of the chart.

She could almost hear Ted laughing at her—dangerous, darling, that’s how you like to roll—and didn’t close her eyes only because she heard his voice so often.

The chart at once calmed, and silvery light illuminated the parchment around Andromeda’s fingers. She pulled her hand back and stared hard at the stars there, the familiar constellations that shouldn’t be causing any disturbance. As far as Andromeda knew, there had never been anything magical about the chart, apart from whatever magic might have been used to translate a clear picture of the night sky onto it or change the color of the parchment.

Nothing was there.

And then, finally, she noted that the constellations were no longer familiar.

Andromeda kept herself from jumping backwards, but only barely. Her fingers snapped into a fist, and she stared down at the constellation that filled the center of the parchment. It was hers, Andromeda of the skies, and next to it was one that she had never seen before. It looked like nothing so much as the outline of a large, starry wand.

Andromeda blinked slowly, sorting through her memories of Astronomy lessons and family history as a child as fast as she could. No, there was nothing like this, not even among the constellations that wizards and witches had given different names to than Muggles had.

A soft twinkle of light drew her attention to the upper left-hand corner of the chart. There was a single star there, glittering, and since it was more familiar to Andromeda on its own than as part of a constellation, it didn’t take her long to identify it as Sirius. Next to it was another unfamiliar constellation, one that she frankly couldn’t make Knuts or Galleons of. It just looked like a circle.

She glanced at the upper right-hand corner of the parchment, and paused. This time, both constellations there were unfamiliar.

The first one looked like a wide-mouthed jug or jar. The second resembled a triangle. As Andromeda watched, the triangle skimmed forwards to envelop the jar and wrapped around it until Andromeda couldn’t see anything of it, then pulled back abruptly and retreated to its former position next to the first constellation. Then it repeated the movement.

Andromeda shook her head slowly. She had no idea what was going on, or why her mother’s star chart, of all things, would have registered it when it had never shown any real magic before. She would, however, write a report about it and send it to Peverell.

Perhaps he would be able to make better sense of it.

*

The crack of Apparition sounded sharper to Tom than usual as he came out of it.

He waited a long moment to see if anyone had noticed anything. The village of Godric’s Hollow had been mixed magical and Muggle for a long time, which meant there might be wards set up around the place to catch any unwanted visitors and report them to the Ministry. But nothing moved or vibrated or screamed, and after ten minutes of waiting, Tom was fairly sure that no Aurors would be Apparating in.

He consulted the map he had brought along, then tucked it away, cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself, and strode up the narrow street that led towards the graveyard.

The houses remained mostly silent around him. Tom looked at the houses that did hum behind wards, and noticed that more than half of them were empty. He smiled grimly. People who had died recently or who had managed to flee Britain and had left behind manned wards to fool their pursuers for as long as they could, then. He wondered idly if Lucius had done any research on how much his ruthless Hunts were stripping down the magical population of the British Isles.

Probably one reason for that intensive research into creating as many pureblood children as possible.

Tom came to the graveyard and turned slowly, looking over the houses that stood close to the low stone wall. There was a hum of old, almost drained wards, ones that were probably sufficient to prevent Muggles from seeing or claiming the property, but not much else. Tom nodded and walked into the garden of the small cottage.

There were broken cobblestones under his foot. It could have been time, nature, or a remnant of the Hunt that had destroyed James and Lily Potter, if it had begun here.

Tom stepped through the wards, ignored the way they sparked at him, and opened the front door of the cottage.

The inside shocked him with its bright cleanliness. Perhaps the wards had more strength than he’d anticipated, then, and that strength had been used here. Tom glanced around and called, “Potter house-elf?”

No response.

Tom nodded and began to search through the rooms.

Careful inspections revealed nothing except some dust in far corners, old food still under Preservation Charms, and a book that might be a diary which Tom collected for Harry. Then he turned to the stairs, and the moment he placed his foot on the bottom step, something snarled and dashed at him.

Tom twisted to the side, crouching so that he could lift his wand more easily. However, the thing had already dissolved against the far wall.

Tom blinked for a moment, and then smiled. It was a ward that would, when fully animated, conjure a protector in much the same way that the Patronus Charm called one forth. The creature would attack whatever unauthorized thing came up the stairs, person or otherwise. But because it was so old and faded now, there was nothing left except the illusion of the creature.

“Bravo, Lily and James,” Tom murmured beneath his breath, and began to climb.

The first floor held the nursery, the master bedroom, a bathroom, and a small library. Tom stepped into the nursery and looked around. There was nothing there except an old cot and a dusty shape on the floor near it. Although it wasn’t what Tom was looking for, he approached the dusty shape and crouched down beside it.

A plush dragon. The wings waved lazily at him, its magic almost gone as well. Tom scooped the thing up and used a charm to strip off the dust as it hovered in front of him.

Harry would want this.

Tom cast several charms of increasing complexity to search the nursery, and then the other rooms, for anything that might conceal a powerful magical artifact. He cast spells that would enhance his eyes to see the least, tiny spark of magic. He even tried Summoning Charms, for all that he thought what he was seeking would be spelled against that.

In the end, he stood near the head of the stairs with the books from the library floating behind him, the plush dragon under his arm, and the diary tucked into a pocket of his robes, and frowned at the walls.

It seemed impossible that the Potter Invisibility Cloak would be missing, and yet, Tom hadn’t heard any rumors of anyone finding it or using it in the years since the Potters’ deaths, either. He had thought he might find it mostly because of the vision in the star chart that Andromeda had reported to him. To him, at least, it clearly showed the Deathly Hallows coming back into play, and the constellation representing a jug or pot was being enveloped by a cloak-like constellation. If that wasn’t the Invisibility Cloak, Tom honestly had idea what it could be.

Then again, he had not the least idea what Sirius Black would be doing with the Resurrection Stone, if that was what it was. And he didn’t know why Andromeda herself would be associated with the Elder Wand. Perhaps he had misunderstood.

But even if he had, he was glad that he had come and would have a few artifacts from his parents for Harry.

Tom strode down the stairs, stepped back outside the decaying wards, and vanished with a crack back to Fortius.

*

“Excellent, Miss Granger.”

Hermione shivered and opened her eyes. She had finally managed to reach into the middle of Professor Elthis’s mind and extract a shining memory like a silver coin. The memory was of Professor Elthis lying on her back in a green meadow, staring up at the sky that was spread out over her. A pale blue spring sky, with a sliver of moon down near the horizon.

Of course, Hermione knew she had found that memory only because Professor Elthis had permitted her through her Occlumency barriers. But it was a start.

Hermione pulled herself back up into the seat. She’d slumped over sometime during the last few minutes when she was impressing that memory into her own, making it her own.

“What have you learned about safely walking through someone’s mind?” Professor Elthis asked, flicking her white braid over her shoulder.

“I’ve learned that I need a much more delicate touch,” Hermione said ruefully. That had been her mistake with Professor Lupin. She’d basically acted like a battering ram, which could have wrecked his mind if he hadn’t been a werewolf.

Professor Elthis nodded. “And yet, at the same time, you need power enough to enter through someone’s Occlumency protections. You see now why I find so few students with the potential to accomplish much on this path?”

“Yes,” Hermione breathed. “It’s almost like you need to be a—a hawk. You have to be able to kill something, but you also have to be light enough to fly.”

For the first time since Professor Elthis had heard what Hermione had almost done to Professor Lupin, she gave a true smile. “Yes. Indeed. Quite well-put. And I wanted to know if you had completed the essay on Legilimency ethics I assigned you.”

“Yes, Professor,” Hermione said, and stood up to get it out of her satchel.

“And you have thought further on whether you want to pursue that darkest path I mentioned to you?”

Hermione took her time removing the essay from the satchel, smoothing it down with her hands and staring at the floor. Professor Elthis waited. She was maddeningly calm and patient, Hermione had found. She just waited, and there was silence within her as well as all around her, which meant she couldn’t be hurried.

“Yes,” Hermione finally whispered.

“And? What did you decide, Miss Granger?”

Hermione turned to face her, sweeping a hand for a moment across her eyes. She wasn’t really crying, but it felt almost as if she was, wetness prickling around her eyelids. Or maybe she thought she should have been.

“I really want to take the darkest path,” she admitted hoarsely. “It sounds like something I’d be good at. But I don’t know if I should. I don’t know if I would be able to hold back from crushing someone’s mind the way I almost did with Professor Lupin. And part of me still says that it’s wrong.”

Professor Elthis nodded, as if she had anticipated this conversation and was willing to have it anyway. “One thing you need to think about, Miss Granger, is whether you believe you cannot learn the discipline to avoid crushing a mind, or are simply afraid of going too far.”

“What’s another thing I need to learn?”

Professor Elthis’s smile was slow. “Whether those morals are yours in truth, or simply something that you think you should think, without actually thinking it.”

Hermione handed over the extra essay she’d been set, and accepted Professor Elthis’s dismissal with relief. It seemed she did have some thinking to do.

*

“I don’t understand what’s wrong.”

“Neither do I.” Professor Johnson squinted at Harry’s wand, and then at him. “You haven’t been casting too many of the kinds of spells that could strain your magic, I hope?”

Harry felt his face burn as he shook his head rapidly. The only kinds of spells he cast that could fit that category were the war wizard ones from Disaster’s book, and he only ever cast those spells under Professor Riddle’s supervision on the grounds of his safehouse. He’d sworn not to do them at Fortius, and he wouldn’t.

“Then it must be something else.” Professor Johnson stepped around her desk and handed his wand back to him. “Try casting the spell again. Take as long as you need to get your mind and magic ready for it.”

Harry nodded and closed his eyes, relaxing both his mind and his body as much as he could. Professor Riddle had begun teaching him meditation. Harry had to admit that he wasn’t that great at it yet, but he could at least shove some of the more confusing emotions, like his anger, away, and concentrate on one thing at a time.

When he was sure he was ready, he raised his wand and aimed it straight at the large history book on Professor Johnson’s desk. He saw her lean forwards slightly from the corner of his eye, but he was really busy concentrating on this charm.

“Moveo librum!”

The book shuddered—and didn’t move. Harry tasted blood and realized he had bitten his tongue in his intense disappointment. The charm to move a book was one of the simplest, one of the first he’d learned, and he’d used it time and time again in the library. And now it seemed that he was losing control of his magic.

Despair gripped him and crushed him in an enormous claw. All he’d wanted to do from the day that Professor Riddle told him about his potential as a war wizard was to study, to become stronger, to become useful to the revolution that Professor Riddle wanted to unleash. And now he was losing control of his magic.

“Mr. Potter. Harry.”

Professor Johnson sounded concerned. Harry blinked back tears—he wasn’t a baby—and turned to look at her as she stood up from behind her desk.

“I have a theory about this,” Professor Johnson said. She tapped her wand on the book, duplicating it, and removed the original from the desk, leaving the copy in its place. “Can you burn the book? Just cast a simple charm, but do it with all the force and power you know.”

Harry had more than enough of those, after his disappointment over the simple charm not working. He swung his wand up and aimed. “Incendio!”

The fire that flashed into being was so brilliant a white that Harry had to shield his eyes, and so hot that he could feel the heat on his skin from where he stood. When he opened his eyes again, not only the book but the desk were crumbling ashes.

“Um. Sorry.”

Professor Johnson laughed and cast a silent spell that lifted the glittering ashes from the floor and spun new wood between them, restoring her desk. “It’s quite all right, Harry. And it did prove diagnostic of the problem.”

“How?” Harry blinked at her.

“I thought that you might have been practicing so much offensive magic that your power had tilted towards that, and away from basic charms and what we might call, hm, not so much defensive as non-offensive magic.” Professor Johnson hooked her fingers together and grinned at him. “The more we practice a certain kind of magic, Mr. Potter, the more prone we become to using that. It doesn’t normally have as pronounced an effect as I see in yours, but then, not many people have the potential to become a war wizard and start casting so many powerful spells so young.”

“So I can get the charms back?”

“Oh, yes. What you will need to do is make sure that you practice them in tandem with, ah, the much stronger spells that it seems your magic prefers at the moment. Otherwise, your magic, as you have seen, will simply align itself with anything that could be considered an offensive spell, even when, as with Incendio, it was designed for something else.”

Harry exhaled with relief. “Okay. Thanks, Professor. I’ll try to do more brewing and more charms casting.”

“And I will be having a word with Professor Riddle.”

Harry looked up, suddenly worried. “You will?”

“Only to remind him that, as anxious as all of us are to have a war wizard in our ranks, your education matters more than that. And it needs to be more well-rounded than just war magic.”

“I didn’t think it did,” Harry said, startled into honesty. “Matter more than having a war wizard, I mean.”

Professor Johnson paused for a long moment. Then she shook her head with enough force that one of her braids lashed her cheek. “No, Harry. I can see how you might have come to believe that, but…no. I promise you. I shall speak to Professor Riddle both about cutting back your drilling in offensive magic and about emphasizing your value beyond being a war wizard.”

Harry shuffled his feet. “You don’t have to, Professor Johnson. I’m not a little kid. I get it, you know.”

“Do you?”

Harry didn’t know what the right answer to her question would be, and ended up looking away under her steady gaze.

“It’s all right,” Professor Johnson said softly. “I’ll do some of the speaking for you, and I can promise you that Professor Riddle will listen to me and not punish you for it.” She waved her fingers. “I think Professor Gallin wanted to see you for extra battle practice on brooms, if I’m not mistaken. Dismissed.”

Harry bobbed his head and trotted off towards his next lesson, overwhelmed both by his relief that he wasn’t going to lose control of his magic and by the fact that someone was willing to speak back to Professor Riddle for him.

It was…unexpected.

*

“What’s this, sir?”

Harry’s voice was odd, strained. Tom cast him a sharp glance as he held out the diary that he had retrieved from the Potters’ cottage at Godric’s Hollow. “A diary that I think might have been kept by one of your parents.”

Harry swallowed, and his eyes got large. But he said, “Why do you have it, sir?”

“I went to the cottage your parents were living in before they were murdered because I wanted to see if perhaps they might have hidden a powerful magical artifact there,” Tom admitted. He didn’t lower his hand that still extended towards Harry, holding the diary. “An Invisibility Cloak that doesn’t fade with the passage of the years. Your father was the last one known to be in possession of it. But I didn’t find it.”

“You found other things?”

Harry’s eyes were definitely locked on the diary, no matter how much he might want to pretend that he didn’t want it. Tom smiled and gave it to him. Harry opened it and stared down at his parents’ handwriting for what might be the first time.

“Yes. The diary, and this.” Tom took out the dragon plush, and renewed the charms on the toy with a thought. The wings flapped faster, and the dragon hissed softly. No words, since Tom would have been very surprised if the person who had created it had been a Parselmouth, but still, it was more realistic than he had expected.

“I’m not a baby,” Harry said softly, but his eyes were locked on the dragon, too, and they were round with yearning.

“No one who’s cast the spells I’ve watched you cast could be referred to as a baby,” Tom said, with a snort. That seemed to relax Harry, and he grabbed the dragon and held it close. “I also found some books that you might want to have.” He got the books from the library out of his satchel and handed them over.

Harry occupied the next few minutes by looking through them. Tom leaned back and stared out the window of his office. The quiet around them was thick and unbroken except by the sound of gently ruffling pages and the hissing from the dragon, and he enjoyed the sounds as he wouldn’t have expected to enjoy anything but solitude.

“Um, Professor Johnson talked to you?”

Tom turned back, nodding. “Yes. My apologies, Harry. I didn’t mean to make you think you should only cast offensive magic, or that your education didn’t matter next to my desire for revolution. I promise you, there are many options available to you, and becoming a war wizard shouldn’t be the only thing you do with your life.”

Harry watched him with wide, shining eyes, and Tom had the impression that he had earned Harry’s loyalty now, if he hadn’t already had it.

And that was important, of course it was, to the forthcoming effort to destroy the pureblood regime. It would be disastrous if the only war wizard Tom knew of decided to turn against them, or even to sit back and stay neutral.

But Tom also had the impression that here was a student he could mentor, and enjoy spending time with.

It was a feeling as heady as discovering that Harry was a war wizard in the first place, and Tom smiled back at him.

*

“It’s nothing, sir.”

Severus resisted the impulse to pinch his nose, or do something else equally foolish or childish. He was, in fact, sure that it was not nothing, that the first Weasley in history to Sort Slytherin needed more from him than a brush-off.

But all of Severus’s attempts to get the boy to speak had backfired. Weasley hadn’t said anything of his own free will about his grief over his sister, or how the sight of her dying in hospital had affected him. He hadn’t asked to spend time with his family. He hadn’t even presumed on his friendship with Draco to go over to the Malfoys’ house, or home for a few days, a week, or more.

So Severus had been reduced to asking the boy to come to his office, and that hadn’t worked, either.

Weasley stared up at Severus with bright eyes and answered all his questions. No, his marks weren’t suffering. Yes, it was difficult to lose his twin sister, but they hadn’t been particularly close since their Sorting into different Houses. Yes, he found his friendship with Draco a source of support. No, his parents hadn’t asked him to come home for the rest of the term, the way they had done with his brothers.

Not once could Severus get to the suffering he was sure was actually underneath, or convince the blasted boy that he could help.

“Very well, Mr. Weasley,” Severus said at last tiredly. “I trust that you will come to me if you need—help of any kind, if your marks start to suffer, or if you want to spend time at home?”

“Of course, sir.” Weasley stood up and then hesitated. “Sir, what is it like being a half-blood?”

Severus blinked once. Then he said, “It is in many ways a limited life, Mr. Weasley. Of course, we know that we shall never achieve as much as your own kind, and we know that our Muggle heritage taints us. But at the same time, we are grateful to have magic at all and to be permitted to live in the magical world.”

Weasley nodded as if that had confirmed something for him, and then left the office quietly. Severus stared after him.

*

Ron closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath once he got outside Professor Snape’s office. This was only the first of many questions he needed to ask, he reminded himself sternly. He couldn’t give up or trust that he was right just because he’d got an answer he expected from Professor Snape.

He was doing research to see if Draco was right and Mudbloods really polluted and poisoned real people. He wasn’t stupid. He knew Draco might not be right, or his father.

But the problem was, Hogwarts only had a few Mudbloods, and Ron didn’t want to get too near them in case they corrupted his magic like Victoria’s. So he was asking half-bloods instead what their lives were like, and listening to their answers.

So far, he was hearing things he expected to hear. Their lives were limited. They really didn’t have the kinds of opportunities that a pureblood did. It might have been a kindness to them if they had never been born, or at least if their pureblood parents hadn’t decided to marry filthy Mudbloods.

Ron shook himself briskly. At this point, he thought he would probably find out that Draco was right. But he wanted to keep investigating. He would go to the library and read some books on pureblood history, and then he would go and ask Professor McGonagall, another half-blood.

If he was going to make sure that Mudbloods were out of Hogwarts entirely by the time he was in his fifth year, he was going to do it right.

Chapter Text

“Are you all right, sir?”

Professor Riddle turned his head towards the class and nodded. “Of course, Mr. Potter. I am merely thinking about some of the lessons that I might need to set up in the future for a class that’s getting this good at avoiding the basic hexes.”

Harry narrowed his eyes. Professor Riddle looked distracted, with even his smile a little strained. And the next second, he turned and stared out the window again.

Harry didn’t like being left out of things, even though he knew perfectly well that there were all sorts of things Professor Riddle didn’t tell him. But those things weren’t ones that he got visibly distracted in class about. Harry went back to practicing an ordinary Rope Charm along with everyone else, but he kept watching Professor Riddle out of the corner of his eye.

A cloud passed across the window, and Professor Riddle swore.

Harry heard Hermione’s gasp. He shot her a quick glance, but she seemed to just be upset, or maybe surprised, by the words that Professor Riddle had muttered under his breath. Harry turned to face his teacher. “Sir?”

“Get back to your Houses,” Professor Riddle said under his breath. “Quickly.”

The rest of the children didn’t seem inclined to question that, and started filing towards the door, but Harry lingered. So did Hermione, and Justin Finch-Fletchley, as he saw after a glance around. Justin wasn’t as good at Defense as Harry, but he was pretty good and he was curious, and maybe he could get something out of Professor Riddle now where Harry or Hermione would just annoy him. He was opening his mouth to ask anyway.

“Are you all right, sir?”

“I am. But you may not be if you don’t get under shelter, Mr. Finch-Fletchley.”

That was enough to intimidate Justin, who took off at a jog towards Phoenix House. Hermione bit her lip and followed him after a moment. Harry folded his arms. “You’re not really all right, sir.”

“Harry. There is nothing you can do to help.”

“Are you sure, sir? I’m a war wizard—”

“Still a child, and untrained as yet,” Professor Riddle snapped, and turned and made a gesture with his wand in the direction of Harry’s head.

Harry braced himself for a jinx to hit him, and then realized that Professor Riddle had actually been gesturing to the magic that surrounded Harry, which manifested as a gryphon. It manifested now and scooped Harry up in its claws, flying straight out the window with him and back towards his House.

Harry struggled and cursed, but he couldn’t reach his wand from this angle, and he wasn’t touching anything he could have braced himself against. By the time they landed in the first-year boys’ bedroom, he was yelling bitterly, but the magic simply let him go above his bed and then curled around him protectively as he landed.

Harry fought his way back to his feet and ran towards the window, determined to see if maybe Professor Riddle was visible from where he was standing—

The window was shuttered.

Harry had never seen the shutters before. The windows were glass and swarming with protective spells, which most of the time was enough. But there were definitely shutters in place this time, made of gleaming steel, and no matter how Harry pulled and then banged on them, they remained in place.

“Harry. Stop.”

That was a thin, pale boy called Allen Dunwiddie, sitting on his bed with his protective magic visible curled up around him. Harry spun around to face him. “Professor Riddle is facing something alone! Something that’s strong enough to worry him! We have to—”

“If he can’t handle it, then we can’t,” Allen interrupted, and rolled over and buried his face in his pillow.

Harry glared at the shutters. He thought he could get through them if he unleashed his magic at them, but then Professor Riddle would have to come back and deal with him as well as trying to face whatever magic was out there.

Slowly, Harry sat back on the bed, and then gave in and flopped back so that his head was resting on the mass of warm magic that manifested as gryphon feathers. His creature grabbed and held him.

Harry drummed one hand on the bedcovers. He might have to accept that there was nothing he could do right now, but he didn’t have to like it.

*

Tom had never felt anything like the swell of magic that was building in the distance now, but he had been able to pinpoint its location.

Right in the heart of London, not far from the visitors’ entrance to the Ministry of Magic.

Tom strode as fast as he could for the edge of Fortius’s Apparition wards. He could feel Belasha sliding along behind him, since all the students and professors had gone to ground in their Houses or residences the minute he sounded the alarm. But he turned and shook his head at her when they were beyond the wards.

“I cannot take you with me.”

Belasha lowered her head until her tongue was flickering out a meter or so from his eyes. “I know you are strong enough to Apparate me.”

“But I have no idea what is waiting for us there, only what I fear is waiting for us. And I could not keep you concealed from the eyes of so many Muggles, if I am right and it is the heart of Muggle London.”

Belasha hissed hard, but lifted her head and coiled back onto the grass. “And you need me to remain here and defend the others.”

“That is also true, beautiful one. If I do not return, you know what to do.”

Belasha coiled her head down, but did nothing else. She would choose someone magically strong, fetch the phoenix tears from Tom’s office, and make sure to bite that person with the tears already nearby. If she so willed it, her venom could grant someone else Parseltongue.

Tom did not know whom she would choose, but he trusted her decision.

“Go, or I will insist on coming with you.”

Tom gave her one more smile and spun on his heel.

*

Lucius looked around with a quiet satisfaction. He was underneath a Disillusionment Charm and in the middle of the small alley that ran towards the visitors’ entrance to the Ministry. It was right, he thought, that his first Muggle-cleansing curse, designed by Grindelwald, would be released here, to reclaim the territory around the Ministry for the magical world.

He opened his hand and stared down at the shimmering, smoky grey orb that rested within it. Although he didn’t consider himself the most magically sensitive person of his acquaintance, he could feel how the orb was pulling on the magic of the world to sustain itself, passing the power back and forth. It was the only reason the curse could assume a contained shape in the first place, from what Grindelwald had said.

And now Lucius had to obey his lord.

The dreamy feeling was thrumming through his veins and his head as he cast the orb into the air. When it fell, it would shatter, and spread the curse that would tear the life from everything and everyone non-magical for a mile around.

A hand caught it, a moment before the sharp crack of Apparition itself reached Lucius’s ears.

He turned around and stared in disbelief. There before him was a hooded figure in the kind of cloak that Unspeakables wore when they wished to conceal their identities. Not that it could be an Unspeakable, with how thoroughly Lucius had them under control, but it did not seem possible for it to be anyone else, either.

“Who are you?” Lucius hissed.

The stranger didn’t answer, instead making a few passes around the orb with a wand mostly concealed within a cloak sleeve so Lucius couldn’t make out its color. Then the person made a noise of disgust, and someone under an obvious concealing charm that made their voice hiss and rasp said, “I did not comprehend that you were so stupid.”

“My lord made that,” Lucius said, too angry to speak loudly himself. He took a step towards the figure, while keeping one eye on the mouth of the alley, where he supposed a Muggle might appear any moment. “Give it here.”

“Your lord?”

Lucius smiled at him, and let his own pride shine in the smile, even as the slightly cloudy feeling filled his head again. He didn’t need to worry about it. “Why, yes. His name is Gellert Grindelwald. And I see that you cannot keep yourself from reacting. Even if you are a Mudblood, you have heard of him.”

“Now, Lucius, if I wanted you to announce me, I would have told you.”

Lucius turned around and fell to his knees. Grindelwald had appeared in the mouth of the alley, no Disillusionment Charm of his own on him. Then again, he didn’t need it when he was the greatest wizard alive. “No, my lord. I’m sorry.”

“But it seems that you may have done as I wished when I gave you the orb,” Grindelwald went on thoughtfully, and pulled the gleaming wand from his holster. “Roland Peverell, I assume?”

*

That is not Grindelwald.

It could not be. Although Tom was aware that the former Dark Lord was alive and in Nurmengard, and he could have been retrieved and healed of any injuries he had suffered while in the prison, no one could have given him back his youth.

Tom took a step backwards, watching the wizard, or the summoned creature, or whatever it was, carefully. At least Lucius seemed convinced it was Grindelwald, which meant that it probably had powerful magic. His wand moved through the motions of the glamour that would make him look like Roland Peverell, and then he ripped the cloak back.

“You assume correctly.” He canceled the charm that kept his voice hissing and rasping and smiled at Grindelwald. It didn’t show any of his caution, because he had better control than that. “Was it really the best idea to send this one to drop a curse like that in the middle of Muggle London?”

“It wouldn’t have done what he thought it would,” Grindelwald said easily, ignoring Lucius’s confused murmuring. He edged closer to Tom, eyes vicious and bright. “I wonder what you feel like?”

Tom didn’t know what he meant, but he didn’t have to wait long to find out. Grindelwald dropped the shields that kept his power contained, and it swept out around him, invisible, dark grey wings. Tom caught his breath. He wouldn’t be at all surprised if it was Grindelwald the goblins had sensed, or the summoning of the creature that called itself Grindelwald. His magic was strong enough for it.

But…

Tom smiled a little.

“Have you come here to laugh at me only, then?” Grindelwald’s voice was still bright, but Tom noticed tightening lines around the corner of his eyes. He added that to the evidence that this might be a human pretending to be Grindelwald after all, not some kind of summoned creature. It didn’t seem like the kind of human gesture that a creature would have bothered learning. “Perhaps I should laugh at you, considering that you haven’t yet shown me—”

Tom dropped his shields.

He could feel his own magic rolling through the alley, invisible smoke, darker and Darker than Grindelwald’s, brushing the air and coiling around Lucius and Grindelwald. And he knew it was more powerful than the other man’s.

Grindelwald had stopped smiling.

“You were saying?” Tom asked.

“You wanted to keep the Muggles from noticing us?” Grindelwald asked softly. “I’m afraid that isn’t going to be possible.”

He raised his wand.

Tom had no idea what he was about to do, and it wasn’t important for him to know. Instead, he bore down with his magic on Grindelwald, gripping his body and nearly crushing it the way Belasha would have if she were here. Grindelwald struggled against it, but the mere fact that Tom was holding onto him made his movements slower and more sluggish than usual, including the movement of his wand.

Tom forcibly Apparated the man to another safehouse of his—in reality, not a house, just a meadow far from any Muggle areas that he could trigger anti-Apparition wards around with a flicker of will. When he landed there himself, he raised them, and then tilted his head to observe Grindelwald, wondering if he would give away some other indication about his true nature.

The man stared back and forth, as if expecting the shaggy grass around them to dissolve into a magical trap. Then he faced Tom and straightened his back.

“You will come to regret that, Roland Peverell,” he said in a voice tinged with deadly promise, and attacked.

Tom whirled aside from the first curse, but he had less room to maneuver than he would in most places, thanks to the wards. It seemed Grindelwald had decided to use his magic as a battering ram, and brought it down again and again and again from overhead. Tom’s shields cracked, and then splintered, and Grindelwald roared in triumph as his spell seeped towards Tom.

But Tom had been holding back most of his magic close to his body, behind the shields, and now it darted out to intercept Grindelwald’s spell, while Tom hissed a curse of his own.

“Maxima auri.”

The spell was one that had been developed to allow Parselmouths to hear as snakes did, through vibrations, but it was utterly disorienting for someone who wasn’t used to it. Grindelwald swore and clutched at his head, then staggered, and then dropped to his back as the vibrations of his own footsteps paralyzed him with pain.

Tom followed him up closely, casting what should have been a simple Disarming Charm. The wand in Grindelwald’s hand vibrated and clung closer to him. Tom narrowed his eyes, and cast a slightly more complex charm that would light up the wand.

Yes, it might be made of elder wood.

Grindelwald managed to end Tom’s spell while he was pondering, and surged to his feet, shouting and roaring in German. Tom leaped out of the way of the first curse, which looked like a lightning strike, and then realized that it hadn’t been aimed at him. It had been meant to crack the wards preventing Apparition, and the minute one of them broke, all of them did.

Serves me right for using interconnected wards like that, Tom thought in fury at himself, and spun around. Grindelwald had already Apparated to the far end of the field.

“You will lose,” Grindelwald whispered. He had lines of pain cutting across his face still, but he had recovered from the spell more quickly than Tom would have thought possible. About the only good thing that spell had revealed, Tom thought, was that Grindelwald wasn’t a Parselmouth. “But perhaps you should look at that curse that you thought Lucius was going to unleash on the Muggles of London.”

And he Apparated, seeming to leave his voice to hang in the air.

Tom closed his eyes and allowed himself one moment of frustration running through his body like electrical current. Then he turned and Apparated back to Fortius.

*

“Is Professor Riddle back? Is he all right?”

Hermione nodded as she sat down at the dinner table with Angelina Johnson, who was becoming a friend. “Yes. I saw him. He didn’t look wounded, but he looked angry.”

She shivered and leaned back against the warm winds of magic behind her as they took the shapes of feathers and wings and hugged her. Since Professor Riddle had put them all behind the shutters in their Houses before he left, the magic had been a lot more present than usual, and was at least half-solid all the time.

Angelina smiled at her. Her own protective magic was visible as a phoenix, about half-size, sitting on her shoulder and looking around alertly. “I wonder what happened.”

Hermione sighed. “They probably won’t tell us about it. I know that we’re going to fight a war someday, but they do seem to keep us awfully sheltered here.” She tried not to pout as she swallowed some of the excellent lentil soup. It was good that the adults were keeping them sheltered from all the things that might happen to them because of the war.

Even though she, personally, would have liked to know a lot more about the kinds of battles they were fighting.

“You’re right there.” Angelina licked her spoon and then abruptly turned her head at the same time as her phoenix did, both of their eyes narrowing. “Hello.”

Hermione spun around on her bench in time to see Professor Riddle lean over and speak to Professor Elthis, who blotted her mouth with her napkin, nodded, and stood up, walking around the table and out of the dining hall. Professor Riddle followed just behind. Hermione watched them go with a little sigh.

“Don’t worry about it,” Angelina advised her, dipping her spoon into the soup again. “With your talents and the amount of attention that Professor Elthis pays you, I’m sure that you’ll be one of the people getting the important questions and the invitations to secret meetings one day.”

Hermione smiled back, and tried not to let her thoughts linger on the darkest path that Professor Elthis had promised her and that she might someday still take. “You said you were becoming advanced with Potions, right?”

“Yes, but also languages.”

Hermione perked up. “You mean Mermish?” She had heard they taught that at Fortius, as well as French, Latin, Gobbledegook, and a few other languages, but she hadn’t taken any of them yet.

“Not exactly.” Angelina was grinning so broadly that Hermione knew it would be special, but she was still startled when Angelina turned to face one of the windows of the dining hall and gave a sharp whistle.

An answering whistle came back from beyond the window, and then a small shape darted in through the door. Hermione watched with her mouth open as the bird—a sparrow—landed on the table in front of Angelina and fluffed its tail out, whistling back at her. Angelina responded with trills and warbles that Hermione never would have guessed could come out of a human throat.

“That’s amazing,” she breathed. “It’s a real language.”

Angelina nodded, even though Hermione hadn’t meant that as a question. “And while owls are important, these little fellows go lots more places and see lots more things,” she said, and caressed the sparrow with one finger. “And they know how to understand impressions from their non-magical kin who can’t communicate so well, and they go and check out things that seem important. I’ve already passed on a few messages to Professor Riddle from Muggle places and the Ministry that he thanked me for.” Her smile was smug.

Hermione felt a new ball of determination grow in her stomach. Angelina was already being useful to the cause, and she was only a few years older than Hermione. That meant Hermione could be useful, too.

She was going to speak to Professor Elthis after dinner, and ask for more lessons.

*

“I’ve never seen anything like this before…”

“But you see why I wanted to bring it to you, Lavinia?”

“Yes.” Lavinia was staring at the orb that contained Grindelwald’s “curse” with wide, piercing blue eyes, and Tom thought he felt her mind brush past him like a darting swift before it dived into the grey orb.

Tom waited a moment to make sure that she wouldn’t immediately surface, and then turned and paced over to stare out the window. His muscles rippled with the desire for violence. He would have liked to go to Belasha and ride on her back as she chased down prey, or duel someone who could give him a real battle, or cast the kind of curses that would set Fortius’s wards to ringing.

Instead, he had to wait for Lavinia to confirm that the orb was no contained curse, as he suspected, but something else, something that he needed his best Legilimens on staff to investigate.

A sharp gasp made him spin around. Lavinia was sagging to her knees, her hands hooked over the iron stand in the middle of his office where he’d put the grey orb. Tom hurried at once to her side.

“What was it?” he whispered.

“A mind, as you suspected.” Lavinia was still gasping, but she had herself back under control a minute later, although sweat beaded on her forehead. “You—were right. The mind of a dead wizard. Muggleborn. They tortured him, took the worst memories from his last moments, and condensed it into that.” She waved her hand at the orb.

Tom nodded grimly. He hadn’t thought it would be quite that bad, but he had known from his brief inspection of the orb in London that it wasn’t a normal curse. “What effect would it have?”

“It would pull anyone who was in the area when the orb broke into the wizard’s last moments. They would suffer his pain and death with him. Not everyone would actually die, but for Muggles without our mental defenses and some other kind of weakness within their minds? The effect would probably be similar to being Kissed by a Dementor.”

Tom nodded again. Not as bad as actually killing a bunch of Muggles, then, but noticeable, and the kind of thing that might expose them. The more he thought about it, the more he was sure that Grindelwald hadn’t meant Lucius to use the orb at all, or there would have been no need for the swell of magic that Tom had sensed right before he’d Apparated to London, which wasn’t a necessary prelude to using the orb. It had been meant to draw him out of hiding, no more.

At least I gave Grindelwald something to think about.

“Do you think you could adapt the orb?” he asked Lavinia. “Use your magic to engineer something similar, but trap something else?”

She stared at him. “I could, perhaps. But I’ll need to know if you plan to torture someone, and see if it would be something I could give my consent to after all.”

Tom smiled. He had expected that. “I plan to trap the essence of a thestral’s aura,” he said coolly. “The edge of what it is to see one, to touch one, to be near one. The merest glimpse of what it is to them to walk in the realm of death.”

Lavinia’s eyes were wide when he finished speaking. “Yes, I think I could do that,” she breathed, and Tom knew he had her. She was one of the most experimental of his people, interested in figuring out how to do the seemingly impossible with Legilimency and wand magic combined. “But what effect do you need it to have?”

“To put someone into a coma,” Tom said. “We need to put down this wizard or creature, Grindelwald or whoever he is, for a time until we can determine who he is, what he is, where he came from, and whether he truly does have the Elder Wand.”

Lavinia winced. “You think he might?”

Tom thought of how the wand had looked, the way it had refused to leave Grindelwald’s grip, and nodded sharply. “I would try to kill him, but I…”

“You’re not sure you could.”

Tom studied Lavinia quietly, closely. He wouldn’t have admitted that to everyone who followed him, because of the potential problems a loss of faith in him could cause, but she was facing him with an open, accepting face, and he nodded. “Yes. He was strong enough to challenge me, strong enough to break my wards, and despite taking him off-guard, I didn’t manage to move fast enough to even bind him before he got away. He still thinks I’m Roland Peverell, but that’s a fragile disguise that can’t hold forever.”

He was also thinking about the notes on the constellation chart that Andromeda had sent him, and the way that the Elder Wand seemed to be moving strongly back into play. It might mean nothing. It might also mean that no one but Andromeda would manage to overcome the advantage of the Elder Wand, or manage to neutralize it somehow.

“We must have time.”

“Consider it done,” said Lavinia, and turned around to stare at the orb again. This time, when her mind dived into it, there was no gasp or falling to the floor, although Tom waited a short time to be sure. In the end, he relaxed enough to leave her with the thing and to her study.

There was yet another reason he hadn’t named to Lavinia. He was thinking about the strange presence that Harry had sensed, and which had tried to take control of him.

If it was Grindelwald, and if only a war wizard could fight him…

Then they needed time for Harry to become older and more experienced with those spells, and Tom going up against Grindelwald again might result in his own death, which would leave Fortius exposed and leaderless.

I will not risk my students. I will not risk the future.

Chapter Text

Tom stepped into the small forest near the edge of the Fortius grounds, or what looked to be a small forest. Once inside, it expanded abruptly, and the trees around Tom rustled and turned towards him. Tom had the impression of small eyes peering at him from the trunks.

He knew they weren’t real. The trees had ways of keeping track of intruders that made eyes seem tame.

Tom smiled, and began to walk.

When he reached the center of the forest, shadows stirred and cantered out to meet him. It was a tall female thestral, with an even thinner and more skeletal body than usual. The matriarch of the herd slowed, considered him, and then scraped one hoof on the ground, the signal they had agreed on that meant he could approach.

Tom bowed his head and stepped towards her. “Great one, I require a donation of an aura.”

The thestral snorted. Other members of the herd were melting towards him now, walking without a sound. Tom remained calm, ignoring the way that they pressed in near his back. They could do that if they wanted. They hadn’t violated the truce that had obtained between him and the herd for decades.

They wouldn’t unless they hurt him. Meanwhile, there were multiple ways that Tom might end up violating it. But considering how much humans were in control of the relationship with thestrals everywhere else in the world, he thought this a small sacrifice.

One of the smaller stallions caught his eye and trotted forwards. He was perhaps three years old, from his size, and had the odd silvery edging to his wings that some of those descended from the Hogwarts herd revealed at that age. He bared his teeth and came to a halt a few feet away from Tom, ducking his head and eyeing Tom’s arm.

Tom knew this particular gesture. The young stallion would donate edges of his aura for a taste of Tom’s blood.

It always comes back to blood, in the end, Tom thought, as he drew his wand and carefully cut the side of his arm. Magical creatures want it, it seals bargains, stupid people like Lucius use it to make a distinction between humans…

The thestral thrust his head forwards, trembling with eagerness, and latched his teeth onto Tom’s arm. As he drank, his tail twitching as if he were still a colt, Tom took out one of the prepared crystals from his pocket. He extended it slowly to the side, making sure that both the thestral feeding on him and the matriarch could keep track of everything he was doing. The last thing he wanted was to try and fill the thing, and then find it shattered by a back kick of powerful hooves.

The stallion feeding twisted one ear towards Tom, but didn’t move, and the mare didn’t shift. Tom held the crystal towards the thestral’s side and concentrated, not with his wand but his will, to draw the darkness and coolness of the aura that hovered around the stallion into the crystal.

There was a shimmering, chiming noise. The crystal began to glow with a dusky grey. One of the other thestrals came near to watch, but didn’t interfere, and then Tom just had to remain and watch as the crystal filled up to a certain point. He braced himself against a tree as the blood loss began to tell on him.

When the crystal was full of the glow that they would need to trap Grindelwald, or the creature wearing Grindelwald’s form, Tom retrieved it and bowed. The stallion let out a remarkably human-like sigh and separated his fangs from the cut in Tom’s arm. Tom cast a spell that would bandage the wound and clot the blood with a shaking hand.

The matriarch walked beside him out of the forest. Tom thought she probably wished to make sure that he left, but it was comforting to know that her presence also kept the rest of the herd from following and trying to take his blood from him by force.

When he reached the edge of the forest, he turned around and bowed deeply. The matriarch flapped her wings at him in acknowledgment, then turned and launched herself from the ground, soaring back towards the center of the forest. The sensation of being watched faded as Tom stepped past the outer trees.

He shook his head with a faint smirk as he took the orb to Lavinia. The purebloods claimed that their way was easier: exercising domination over goblins and thestrals and house-elves, hunting unicorns, forcing dragons into submission with multiple Stunners, completely ignoring the existence of merfolk and centaurs when they could and treating them with contempt when they couldn’t. It was “easy” in that it didn’t require them to think.

It was also an easy way of making enemies, many of whom Tom had allied with or recruited to his side of the war.

And all I pay is a little in blood and humility. What I gain is incalculably more.

*

“I think that you’re all right to join regular classes.”

That was what Theo had been waiting to hear, all these long weeks while he was catching up on magical history and, essentially, being tested to make sure that he didn’t have the same kind of bigoted beliefs his father had practiced. Theo had seen his sisters during that time, but hadn’t regularly eaten or visited with any of the other students. That kind of socialization was limited to awkward conversations in passing.

Now, for the first time, Professor Johnson was escorting him into her regular History of Magic class, where the other first-years sat.

Theo took a deep breath and squared his shoulders as everyone turned to stare at him. His father was a terrible human being, but he had some good advice about making sure that you appeared strong in public. Strong, proud, but also approachable. Theo kept repeating that to himself as Professor Johnson led him to a desk in between a brown-skinned girl with beads in her hair and a pale-skinned boy with hair that looked as if it had been used in a Lightning Shock ritual.

“We have a new student joining us this morning,” Professor Johnson said calmly. “Theo Nott. I expect you to treat him kindly unless he doesn’t treat you kindly.”

Theo clenched his hands under the desk. That was unfair. She suspected he would cause trouble—

No, she suspects that you were raised in such a way that you might run around shouting “Mudblood!” all the time. And she did say that they would get in trouble for being unkind to you, too.

There was a murmur of response, and Professor Johnson walked to the front of the classroom. “We were focusing last week on how the pureblood regime became so entrenched in the Ministry in particular. This is the last Minister who was elected before the current one, Lucius Malfoy.” Her wand flickered.

Theo twitched a little as the image of a tall woman with extremely curly blonde hair appeared in the air in the middle of the room. Binns had certainly never done anything like this in Hogwarts’ history classes.

“Her name was Millicent Bagnold,” said Professor Johnson briskly. “She was elected on a platform of promising more equal rights to Muggleborns along with purebloods, but also increasing the staff of Obliviators in the Ministry and other means of protecting the Statute of Secrecy. There were purebloods who saw her as a good choice, and those who saw her as a pawn.”

Theo studied the woman’s face. She was glancing around and blinking, a little like a slower version of a photograph. When she was staring in their direction, or maybe just the direction of the most people in the class, she smiled and waved. Her smile was a practiced politician’s smile, Theo decided. He couldn’t really tell anything about her from it.

“You will probably not be surprised to hear that Minister Bagnold’s term was one of the shortest in Ministerial history,” said Professor Johnson. “She was suspended within thirty days on a charge of spreading lies about pureblood families.”

Theo twitched. This was suddenly sounding familiar, although he didn’t think his father had ever given the name of the Minister involved.

Professor Johnson glanced at him and paused as if she thought Theo would add something, but went on when he didn’t. A twist of her wand changed the image of Bagnold into one of a woman in shackles, walking hollow-eyed between two cloaked figures Theo thought must be Unspeakables. “Minister Bagnold was tried, very quickly, by the Wizengamot, and it was said that multiple other charges were applied due to finding evidence of bribery, corruption, graft, and sympathizing with Muggleborns among the papers in her office. The trial was held overnight, and the next morning, she was sentenced to the Kiss.”

This time, the cloaked figures that swooped in from one side of the image were definitely Dementors. Theo folded his arms in his lap and held them there as he watched one of them descend, with a yawning, rotting mouth, on the picture of Minister Bagnold. Her head thrashed back and forth and her heels drummed on a floor of shadowy stone. Then the picture faded, and Theo remembered to breathe.

“Of course, that made it easy for Lucius Malfoy, playing Ministerial Advisor at the time, to be voted into power at the insistence of the Wizengamot.”

The image changed again, the grey turning into yellow and melting upwards. Theo swallowed a snicker when he saw how much of it became the shiny hair of Draco’s father. He was standing in front of a cheering crowd of indistinct figures, head bowed in that humble way that Theo’s father had made fun of him for.

Stop thinking so much about Father, Theo told himself sternly.

“And Minister Malfoy has been in power since. There are, technically, elections held, but since only purebloods are eligible to vote and there are procedures in place to accuse anyone the Minister doesn’t like of crimes on a regular basis…you can imagine how it goes. Yes, Miss Brenn?”

The girl on one side of Theo put her hand down. “Why did people stand for it?” she demanded. “I know people—Muggle people—who would protest things that are one half that bad!”

“I am afraid that neither our educational system, as it is at Hogwarts, or our press are calculated to encourage independent thinking,” Professor Johnson said, her voice soft and dry as desert sand. “And the ones in power by that point were purebloods. Remember that Albus Dumbledore was the last truly powerful half-blood to hold an important office, as Headmaster of Hogwarts, and he allowed his fears of civil war to force him out of that. When Malfoy said that the people supported him, it looked as if they did, because purebloods were the ones in the Wizengamot, writing for the Prophet, and making speeches about the will of the people.”

Brenn glared at her desk. Theo said nothing. He supposed he would have had the question himself, if he had grown up with Muggles.

“Yes, Mr. Potter?”

The boy next to Theo lowered his hand. “Were there any rebellions?” he asked. “I mean, I know that Professor Riddle is making a huge effort at revolution, but there must have been other people before him that tried, right?”

Professor Johnson gave him a sad smile. “Yes, Mr. Potter. There was the Muggleborn March, the Last Stand at Hogwarts, the incident where several prominent half-bloods took over the Prophet offices, and a raid on the Department of Mysteries itself. We’ll be talking about those in more detail over the next week.

“But all of them were defeated, through a combination of laws that the Ministry had already passed to give purebloods something so near complete power there was no difference, greater violence than the protestors or attackers were prepared to use, or sheer weight of numbers.”

“There are more purebloods than Muggleborns?” asked someone on the far side of the classroom whom Theo thought might be the Granger girl he had met once before. “I thought it was the other way around. I thought, because pureblood families generally have few children and they want to keep themselves an exclusive minority…”

Only sort of, Theo thought, wincing as he thought about the efforts to have more children that his father had ranted about more than once. Theo always listened when his father spoke, because he had to, and this was one of the only things he thought Father right about. Using Transfiguration and potions to create more children was a warping of the laws of magic.

“The other way around,” Professor Johnson said, her face as dry as her voice. “But so many Muggleborns have been killed in the harvests and Hunts in the past few decades, or perhaps simply refused the invitation to Hogwarts, that the numbers have been reversed.”

What could someone do with that information? Theo thought. If we could get it out that there are more Muggleborns than purebloods, probably more half-bloods than either, or at least more half-bloods than purebloods…

That did cause him to have a bit of a problem envisioning the next step, because since Minister Malfoy’s regime controlled the paper and the wireless and Hogwarts and the Ministry, it would be hard to make people believe that number. Theo frowned to himself and missed the next part of Professor Johnson’s speech, but he paid attention when Granger asked another question.

“What would happen if we started telling people all this, Professor Johnson?”

“There are some who would believe us, and some who wouldn’t, Miss Granger. But there are indeed people working at Fortius whose job is to come up with the best ways to phrase and spread that information.”

Theo sat up. Professor Johnson glanced at him from the corner of her eye, but since he didn’t say anything, she went on answering questions from other people.

Theo’s mind was whirling. He had wondered in the first days he was here if he really belonged at Fortius. Everyone else seemed to have a special talent or be doing something that would help the revolution Professor Riddle was planning. Theo didn’t have a talent. He thought he might be fairly powerful once his magic really recovered from his father’s draining, but that wasn’t the same thing.

Now, he thought he might know.

If I could work with the people trying to write that information—I might be good at it. I really might. At least Professor Snape gave me Outstandings on my essays and said they were really good.

He lingered behind when the other students departed the classroom. Professor Johnson gave him a small smile as she straightened what looked like a stack of essays on her desk. “Is there something you needed, Mr. Nott? I hope I haven’t gone too fast and confused you.”

“No, professor.” Theo took a deep breath. “Do you think that I could work with the people who are finding out ways to get the truth out there?”

“Hmm, possibly. I know that there are some people who wouldn’t think you a fit for the job given the way you grew up.”

Theo leaned a little closer to her. “I grew up learning how to spot bollocks when I heard it, Professor. Especially since my father also spouted justifications to leech me.”

Professor Johnson gave him a sad smile. “All right. Let me introduce you to Laurentius and a few of the others. At the very least, they’ll be able to tell you what some of their plans are, and you can decide whether or not that’s where you want to concentrate.”

Theo could feel his heart beating painfully hard as he stepped out of the classroom beside her. He wanted to prove himself good and impress them. But he also wanted to know the truth and spread it and learn how to make it so that people would swallow it. Because he had grown up hearing purebloods were better, and it had taken him several years to realize there wasn’t much proof backing that up, and to hear the same logical mistakes in those arguments that his father had carefully taught him to recognize in others.

I want to know the truth. That’s the world I want to live in, no matter what it says about me or purebloods.

*

Hermione knocked on Professor Elthis’s door and nibbled her lips hard as she waited for an answer.

“It’s not locked, Miss Granger.”

Hermione wondered for a second how Professor Elthis had known it was her, and then dismissed that notion. There were probably portraits or alarm spells or all kinds of ways she could have known. She edged the door open and also edged into the room, looking around. There were new crystal pendants hanging from the ceiling, singing softly to themselves.

Professor Elthis was sitting behind her desk, looking a little grey-faced and tired. Hermione paused. “I can come back if this isn’t a great time, Professor,” she offered uncertainly.

“No, it’s all right. The Headmaster asked me to complete a difficult task that I just recently finished.” Professor Elthis waved her to a chair. “I must say, Miss Granger, your essay on the ethics of Legilimency was extraordinary. I do have a few suggestions for you to present a more logical argument, but those are minor.” She slid the essay towards Hermione across the desk.

Hermione’s fingers twitched to pick it up right away, but she made herself hold her hand still in her lap. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Professor, I made my decision.”

Professor Elthis didn’t need to ask which one. She sat up a little. “Did you.”

“Yes. I—I want the darker path.”

Professor Elthis watched her with more expression than Hermione had ever seen on her face, maybe because she was tired. “You realize what you will be exposed to in developing your weapons?” she asked quietly. “You will need to look at memories of torture, of rape, of murder, and possibly of less pleasant things.”

“Yes. I—I know that. But I want to do something I could be good at and—” Hermione blushed hotly. The next thing she had to say was sort of pretentious-sounding, even in her head. “I want a path where people will be watching me and can keep me good. You’ll probably tell me if I’m going wrong more quickly than if I was on a different path and doing something with Legilimency that’s not as—as fraught.”

Professor Elthis’s eyes softened. “You fear that you might do other things in the future like invading Professor Lupin’s mind without enough consideration?”

“Yes. Or at least I could, if I’m not being watched. I didn’t grow up in this world. I don’t always know what the limitations of magic are. I’m trying to learn, but I think I need more adult supervision.” By now, Hermione was so hot with embarrassment that she was afraid Professor Elthis would probably laugh.

But the professor simply nodded and said, “That is a fine sense for a budding Legilimens to have. I promise that you will be watched over and guarded as you walk this path, Miss Granger.” She stood up and came around the desk, holding out her hand. “Let me shake your hand and welcome you to the ranks of people practicing this most delicate of the mind arts.”

Hermione smiled as she shook the professor’s hand, and watched eagerly as she walked over to a bookshelf. “This ethics text, yes, and this one,” Professor Elthis murmured. “And this one on developing resistance to pain, and compartmentalizing memories…”

Hermione bounced a little in her chair. She had the feeling that she was going to be very happy during the next few years.

*

Tom stood near the edge of Malfoy Manor’s grounds. He supposed he should have been able to guess that the thing calling itself Grindelwald was hiding there, but he had asked Harry to reach out with his war wizard’s senses and confirm it. The last thing he needed was to waste the orb that Lavinia had so carefully prepared on snaring someone who wasn’t his prey.

Now, Tom closed his eyes and dug with his magic and will into the orb in his hands. The lingering feel of Grindelwald’s magic, entwined with the young thestral’s aura, surged into his body. Tom hissed as it settled into his veins and began to burn. Both creature magic and this other magic were so foreign to his own being that he couldn’t carry them for very long.

But the other magic did feel like a wizard’s, surprisingly. Interesting.

Tom waited until he was sure that the combined aura and magic had filled his body. Then he reached out to the sense of half-similar power in the Manor.

He encountered a strong sensation of surprise, and then resistance. Tom smiled grimly and dragged Grindelwald towards him.

He heard cursing of both kinds, and then Grindelwald stumbled out through a door that opened onto the grounds from the eastern side of the Manor. Grindelwald snapped his head around to face Tom. He was still struggling, even as the orb dragged him closer, step by step.

“You cannot imprison me in the orb, Peverell!” he snarled, since Tom was wearing his glamour again. “I have the Elder Wand! I cannot be stopped, cannot be beaten!”

Tom smiled, despite the increasing burning in his veins and the effort it was taking his magic to hold Grindelwald even this close. If the man thought that Tom was trying to trap him, he wouldn’t be looking in the right direction for the real trap that was about to spring shut on him.

“You—might be right,” Tom panted. Merlin, this was difficult. He had never encountered a wizard or witch so near to him in power except for Harry, and Harry was young and untrained and didn’t have the practice in focusing his will like this. “It was—a terrible—struggle to get you to—come this far.”

Grindelwald smiled at him, and for a moment, his magic fluctuated as if he was basking in Tom’s praise.

And Tom struck.

He forced the mingled magic out of his body and into Grindlewald’s. The tether that he’d used to bring him so far snapped. Grindelwald lunged backwards, his mouth open in a soundless gape that might have been snarl or laugh.

But sucked right into his body along with the magic Tom had been pulling on went the thestral’s aura.

Grindelwald stiffened. His eyelids fluttered.

Tom smiled at him.

“You cannot,” Grindelwald said, his voice a low croak. He yawned, and reached out as if he was patting at an invisible wall, trying to feel it and destroy it. He lifted his wand, but his hand dropped sluggishly back to his side. “You cannot—you did not feed me the Draught of Living Death. I would have felt that. I would have countered that.”

“No,” Tom said simply. But it was an interesting comparison. Thestrals were creatures of death, and Tom had fed Grindelwald the edge of a thestral’s aura, and the edge of death was a sleep.

Grindelwald staggered and fell to one knee. He glared at Tom through steadily lowering eyelids. “I will have my revenge,” he whispered. “You can’t keep me trapped like this forever.”

Tom didn’t reply, simply taking a step backwards while eying the Manor. So far, no one had come out to check on the disturbance, but he couldn’t count on Lucius staying away from Grindelwald’s side for long, even if Narcissa had decided or been told not to interfere with her husband’s new Lord.

“What—did you do?” Grindelwald was on his hands and knees now. His wand was on the grass. Tom moved a small step forwards, but the wand rolled away from him and hid behind Grindelwald.

Very well. Tom had accepted that he would not be able to retrieve the thing, although he had thought to try. Somehow, at least based on the foretelling of the star chart, Andromeda was associated with the wand.

“That would be telling,” Tom replied smoothly when he realized that Grindelwald was still struggling against his oncoming coma, apparently waiting for an answer.

Grindelwald opened his mouth for another question, but he had waited too long. His eyes shut, his head lolled sideways, and he toppled.

A shout came from the side of the Manor, although in a voice that sounded more house-elf than human. Tom whipped his cloak around himself, backed a step away to make sure that he was beyond the reach of any wards that would sting him, and Apparated.

He landed back at Fortius with a long breath of air. It was unknowable how long the coma would imprison Grindelwald—he would have to come to terms with its effect on his body and magic, and understand it, and overcome any fear of death he might have—but the magical theory Tom had studied said he had bought them a few years, at least.

And by the time Grindelwald woke again, Tom intended to have the war well in hand.

“You smell happy,” Belasha remarked as she caught up to him walking across the grounds of Fortius and slithered companionably beside him.

“I have bound an enemy,” Tom said, and smiled at her.

“The next best thing to defeating one.”

“Yes.” Tom caressed her scales, his mind centered on the thought stirring in the back of his head.

And next time, it shall be defeat.

Chapter Text

“Are you sure that you have control of your magic, Harry?”

“Yes, Professor Riddle.” Harry kept his voice quiet and confident. It was much more impressive, he had learned in the last four years, to show off by sounding calm and restraining his power until he called for it, instead of flailing around with it. He breathed slowly and steadily, eyes shut, aware of Professor Riddle walking around him in a wide circle.

“Let it go,” Professor Riddle said at last.

Harry opened his eyes, careful to do it in such a way that he could slam them shut again in an instant if Professor Riddle was in the way. Not that he truly thought Professor Riddle would be that careless, but anyone could be unlucky.

The moment Harry’s eyes were fully open, the boulder in front of him ceased to exist.

Harry let his magic go with a little smile and shake of his shoulders. He stared at the blankness left behind by the boulder’s vanishing. There was nothing of it that still existed this time, no expanding atoms or dissolving trails of dust, the way there had used to be when he used this most powerful of a war wizard’s spells. It looked as if the stone had gained the ability to Apparate and had gone on a one-way journey.

Professor Riddle’s hand rested on his shoulder for a second. “Very good, Harry. I believe that our enemies will fear you more than a basilisk unleashed on the field of battle.”

Harry laughed, even as the compliment warmed the inside of his stomach. “Well, I think Belasha is probably more terrifying than me just because she’s a giant snake.”

“That may be true.” Professor Riddle glanced at him thoughtfully. “And what happened on your expedition to Malfoy Manor last week?”

The warmth turned to cold. Harry swallowed and tried to smile. “Sir?”

“I know that you went to Malfoy Manor,” Professor Riddle explained. “I suspected that it would be the first place you traveled when you learned to Apparate. And I know that you tried to kill Gellert Grindelwald.”

Harry sighed. He should have known his mentor would find that one out. “I just thought that maybe I could, since I’m a war wizard. But my first attack was too widespread and ripped through most of the wards instead of just one, and then those hellhounds of theirs came out, and I didn’t want to try and fight my way past them.”

Professor Riddle nodded. “I believe that the Elder Wand is protecting Grindelwald.”

“How, sir?”

“In a variety of ways. Certainly it must be responsible for summoning and controlling the hellhounds, something Lucius Malfoy could never have managed on his best day.” Harry liked the way that Professor Riddle sneered when he said Malfoy’s name. “I believe that it simply redirected my mind away from the thought of killing him the day that I put Grindelwald into a coma, or convinced me that I was so exhausted I didn’t dare attempt it. When your godfather and Professor Lupin went to Malfoy Manor, they found themselves facing that illusion of your parents who begged them to spare the wards that protected children. It was only after they left that they remembered that the Malfoys only had one child, and he was at Hogwarts at the time.”

“So we can’t kill him unless we can get the Elder Wand away from him?”

“Yes.” Professor Riddle’s fingers sped for a second over the bark of the tree that had grown stately and tall in the past few years, the major one on the grounds of his protected safehouse. Harry leaned on the tree, too, and watched him. “And we can’t get the Elder Wand away from him unless we kill him. Perhaps.”

“Why ‘perhaps,’ sir?”

“I believe there might be a way for us to do it. But it depends on the cooperation of someone who has so far refused to obey me.”

“Andromeda Tonks, sir?”

Professor Riddle’s head swung sharply, and then he relaxed with a snort. “I should have known you would figure it out.”

Harry shrugged a little, smiling. “Sirius complains about her all the time. Says her goals should coincide with ours, but apparently she wants things that you don’t want.”

“I only recently allowed her to see through my guise as Roland Peverell, in the hopes that it would help her make up her mind.” Professor Riddle stared into the distance across the hidden estate, frowning. “I thought her goals were simple, revenge on Lucius Malfoy and the others who forced her to kill her child. But now she’s fussing, saying that our goals are too complex and Dark for her, and we shouldn’t be using children in the battle. And she refuses to harm Narcissa Malfoy.”

“Does she have to?”

“She doesn’t want to take any action that would even potentially harm her, and that includes assaulting the Manor’s wards.”

Harry frowned. “Well, I would be willing to go the Manor with her for you, sir. But I don’t know how that works if she would be upset both about going and about the fact that I was with her.”

Professor Riddle nodded. “And there have been too many attempts that I and others have made which simply failed. Sneak attacks, brutal and open assaults on the wards, attempts to manipulate the Elder Wand from a distance, thestrals who volunteered to try and use their kindred’s influence on Grindelwald to open up a way…none of it has worked. I suppose that I made a stupid mistake after all in allowing the Elder Wand to seal itself behind the wards of Malfoy Manor.”

Harry moved uneasily. He hated it when Professor Riddle criticized himself. “You did the best you could at the time, sir,” he said. “You won us four years of peace.”

“Ones that could end at any time,” Professor Riddle muttered, and then shook himself. “Well, it doesn’t matter. I do have another plan in progress, and if that one works, then we will not need Andromeda to go near the wards at all.”

“Will you tell me, sir?”

“In a short while, if my preparations for it work.” Professor Riddle’s hand glanced over Harry’s shoulder. “In the meantime, I’d like to see you vanish part of this boulder, not the whole thing.” He conjured another rock and dropped it smoothly onto the earth in front of Harry.

Harry sighed and flexed his shoulders. “All right, sir. Which side?”

“The left corner up to that white mark on the flank.”

Harry closed his eyes and once again summoned the thrumming magic that had become second nature to him since he was eleven.

*

“Knock, knock.”

“Who’s there?” Sirius replied, rolling over and smiling at his godson as he barged through the door.

“Me,” Harry said, completing their stupid little ritual of setting up a Muggle knock-knock joke, and then flopped onto the bed and smiled at him. “Sophia and Constance are in classes?”

“Yes. I still worry that Constance is too young, but she’ll be eleven next year…”

Harry rolled towards Sirius and squeezed his hand. “You’ve been the best foster father they could ask for. I’m sure of it.”

Harry’s quiet, unwavering confidence made Sirius smile. “Where were you today? Riddle took you to his secret location to vanish rocks again?”

“I wish you’d call him Tom. You know that he’s perfectly willing to be friendly and use your first name if you use his.”

Sirius shook his head. He wasn’t sure that he could explain the semi-friendly, semi-antagonistic relationship he had with Riddle to Harry, and more sure that he didn’t want to try. “We do well enough.”

“Yeah, I reckon so.” Harry draped himself on the bed and closed his eyes.

Sirius had to hide his smile as he watched Harry. With his eyes shut, he looked so much like a thinner James that it was incredible. His hair stood almost straight up from his head, thick and black, and he even had James’s fingers and palms and lean muscle.

But where James’s muscle had come from Quidditch and the brutal training regimens that the Gryffindor team put its players through, Harry’s came from the equally brutal training that Riddle had put him through to become a war wizard.

Sirius breathed out. He had become reconciled to Riddle and the way he was training Harry over the past several years. It was the best outlet for Harry’s magic, which might otherwise have consumed him, the way that Riddle had finally deigned to explain to Sirius. And Harry was utterly committed to using it against the same people who had killed James and Lily, the ones who had imprisoned Sirius and driven Remus to become almost a wild beast.

Sirius couldn’t ask for Harry to have a better cause or to completely suppress his magic, and he knew it. He reminded himself of that every time he looked at Harry and wondered what James and Lily would say about the way their son had turned out.

They can’t say anything because the world he’s fighting killed them.

And their spirits guarded the school along with many others. Sirius remembered that, remembered Riddle telling him that. He didn’t think he needed to worry about them coming back and scolding him for not properly taking care of Harry.

“Remus said that your friend Hermione is really blossoming in history,” Sirius went on, recalling the conversation he’d had with Remus a few hours ago. “But his star student is Theo.”

Harry popped his eyes open. “I’m not surprised. Theo never met a truth that he didn’t want to use to take vengeance on people.”

Sirius snorted. “True enough. That test pamphlet Nora dropped off at the Leaky Cauldron a week ago is apparently attracting attention.”

“And burnings?”

“Of course. Can’t have anything that undermines the Malfoy regime.”

“No matter how true it is that Lucius Malfoy has got more and more erratic in the last few years.”

They grinned at each other. Sirius didn’t know if he would have noticed if he hadn’t already known that Malfoy had summoned some kind of odd creature who had the Elder Wand in its possession, because the change had been gradual, but Malfoy had tilted further and further towards extremes. There were no Muggleborns left at Hogwarts now; the last seventh-years had been chivvied out and new students had been barred two years ago. Riddle was constantly busy recruiting them now, and their houses bristled with traps and wards and alarms to let him know if Hunters got near them. Some Muggleborns chose to go abroad rather than become involved in Riddle’s war, but at least that meant they weren’t falling victim to Malfoy.

And Malfoy was preaching against Muggles, too, convincing more and more people that they needed to engage in war there, too, and dominate and crush them.

Sirius had to shudder when he thought of why the Elder Wand, or Grindelwald, or whatever the creature really was, would want that kind of total destruction.

A glance at his watch reminded Sirius of the mission that Riddle had given him, and he started and stood. “Have to get going, kiddo. There are a few Hogwarts students Riddle wanted me to fetch.”

“Those twins Professor McGonagall told you about?”

“Yeah. It’s a miracle they’ve survived this long. Only because their father’s friends with Malfoy and the youngest boy’s friends with Malfoy’s son, I think. But Riddle found out that they’re due to be slaughtered as entertainment at the feast in June. We have to get them out of there.”

“Don’t let me keep you.” Harry shoved at Sirius with one foot. “Come on, hurry up and rescue them.”

Sirius laughed as he reached for his cloak. “From what Minerva said, they probably won’t be very grateful for the rescue.”

“Who cares? They still need it.”

Sirius nodded and strode out the door. If necessary, he would invoke his own days of mischief-making when it came to rescuing the Weasley twins. It was unlikely they would have heard of the Marauders, but at least he could convince them, with his knowledge of secret passages and pranks galore, that he was like them, and that they were on the same side.

*

Minerva sighed a little as she watched Fred and George Weasley whisper together at the Gryffindor table. She didn’t even have to look across the Great Hall to know that their younger brother would be watching them with a judging gaze from the Slytherin one.

Ron Weasley had come to her several times during the last several years to ask questions about Gryffindor, the system of Sorting, purebloods and half-bloods, and how important proper student behavior was to staying in school. At first Minerva had thought he wanted to understand how likely his brothers were to die or get expelled before their seventh year ended. Then she had thought he wanted to take revenge on his brothers for their pranks.

Now she thought that it had fit into the larger pattern of his indoctrination into Draco Malfoy’s beliefs.

“Minerva.”

Minerva turned and inclined her head to Headmistress Carrow, who had come to a halt behind her seat. “Yes, Headmistress.”

Carrow raked her with careful eyes. “You are to bring the Weasley twins to my office tomorrow.”

Minerva felt as though someone had punched her in the throat, but she managed to hold her face calm, although her heart leaped and bucked and fought her. Just in time. Sirius is coming just in time. “Yes, Headmistress. At what hour?”

“Eight in the morning, I think. Best not to delay, and I believe that you have a class at nine-thirty?”

“I do, Headmistress. Thank you for your consideration.”

Carrow nodded and swept on in the direction of the Great Hall’s doors. Minerva struggled to swallow through a dry throat. Carrow had been—well, not an ally, exactly, but treating Minerva as though she was a loyal minion since the day Victoria Weasley had died and Minerva had “cooperated” in “covering it up.”

Minerva stood, casting a glance at Ginevra Weasley, seated at the Hufflepuff table. There was a girl who saw the value of keeping her head down.

For right now, it wasn’t either of the two younger Weasleys at Hogwarts who needed her help. It was the twins. Minerva stalked towards her House’s table and glared down at them as though she could make them respect her by the force of her eyes. Alas, if it was that simple, she would have managed to protect them better.

“Yes, Professor McGonagall?” George Weasley said a moment later, turning around and beaming at her.

Minerva ignored the edges to his smile and to the matching one on Fred’s face, so present since the death of their younger sister and their older brother’s shameless arse-kissing of Minister Malfoy in his Ministry job. “You need to come with me.”

“And why’s that, Professor?” Fred Weasley’s hand twitched towards his wand under the table.

Minerva gave them both a look so unamused that they actually froze in place, their eyes widening. Then she said, “You will know why. My office,” and led them out of the Great Hall, listening to the way they scrambled over the bench and reassured their friends with loud, boisterous voices.

I wish I could know that you’ll see those friends again.

But Minerva knew better than to make false promises. She glanced back only once, to make sure that they were following her, and caught Severus’s still eyes on the way.

Severus inclined his head sharply.

Minerva nodded back, and marched Fred and George through the corridors.

*

George remained close to his brother, his only ally in the whole family, as they walked. Ron and Percy had both turned into some kind of Malfoy minions, Bill and Charlie had essentially fled the country, Mum was abroad with Evangeline seeking a cure to her illness, Dad was serving as the Minister’s right hand, all Ginny wanted was to stick to herself and her Hufflepuff friends, and Victoria was dead.

No matter how long he and Fred ended up living—which he knew not might be very much longer—George wasn’t going to forget that.

Professor McGonagall guided them into her office, and indicated that they should sit on the chairs in front of her desk. Then she sat down behind it, clasped her hands, and gave them a look so weary that George blinked.

He exchanged a glance with Fred. They had thought they’d been hauled in here for more bollocks about respecting fellow students or professors—both of them had seen Headmistress Carrion pause next to their Head of House’s chair—but perhaps this was something different.

“You know as well as I do that you stand very little chance of surviving the end of the year,” Professor McGonagall said quietly. “You are now of age, and despite your status as sons of Arthur Weasley, you’ve simply got into too much trouble, harassing the Slytherins and making loud pro-Muggleborn statements.”

“If you’ve called us in here to tell us to stop it,” George began.

“You’re wasting your breath.” Fred leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. He might look arrogant or lounging, but the position put his hand much closer to his wand, something that no professor had ever noticed, as far as either of them were aware.

Professor McGonagall sighed. “I didn’t call you in here for that. I called you here to ascertain how much you knew about the danger you were in.”

George wanted to say that no one ever used the word ascertain outside the pages of a book and Professor McGonagall didn’t need to use it with them, but he glanced at Fred and bit his tongue. Fred’s eyes were bright, and he was leaning forwards a little.

“You want to protect us,” he said, and the notion fell into place with a clonk in George’s head as well.

“Yes,” Professor McGonagall said, as though she hadn’t essentially just declared herself a traitor to the whole of Minister Malfoy’s regime. George could feel his foot bouncing with excitement. This was honestly the best thing that had happened to him and Fred in years, at least since Victoria’s death. “Headmistress Carrow told me that I was to bring you to her office with me tomorrow morning. There is no time to waste if we are going to spare your lives. I thought we had until the end of the year, but…”

“Might have been that prank we pulled on the Slytherins yesterday,” George said.

“Not that they didn’t deserve to be covered with spots,” Fred pointed out.

“But I can see how it might have driven—”

“Headmistress Carrion over the edge.”

Professor McGonagall didn’t even scold them for the nickname. In fact, her lips twitched a little before she sat back and cleared her throat. “You can come out now, Professor Black.”

George wheeled to his feet, his back braced against Fred’s, as the flicker of a Disillusionment Charm in one corner of the office vanished. He cursed himself for not seeing the man before—well, the stranger before. He certainly was no one George had ever met.

The man had black hair and grey eyes and the kind of mad grin that George might have appreciated, if he hadn’t feared that he and his twin were about to die courtesy of the man’s wand. He bowed and said, “Sirius Black, at your service. Also known as Padfoot, one of the four Marauders.”

George heard the sound of his own wand dropping to the floor, but distantly. His mouth was open, his attention fixated on Black. Fred managed to keep hold of his own wand, from the lack of a matching sound, but he was clearing his throat loudly and nudging George with a backwards elbow in the ribs, as though George would have somehow failed to appreciate the announcement.

“Padfoot?”

“The Marauders?”

Black glanced back and forth between them and Professor McGonagall with his eyebrows raised. “Well, yes,” he said slowly. “I understand that you might not have reason to know that name, but I don’t know—”

It was George’s turn to carry the map that day, so he ripped it out of his pocket. Then he held it up and waggled it back and forth. Black’s eyes focused on it in fascination.

“We have the Marauder’s Map,” Fred said breathlessly. “We know you were—you were one of the four greatest students to ever walk the halls of Hogwarts!”

“We’ve considered ourselves your apprentices in spirit since we were first-years,” said George, and bowed at the waist, Fred echoing him. He couldn’t stop smiling. The world seemed to have filled with light for the first time since Victoria’s death. “We would—”

“Be honored to make the apprenticeship real,” said Fred. They were both breathless. George leaned heavily on his brother as they stared hopefully at Black, who blinked several times before he threw his head back and laughed.

“Well, this’ll be easier than I thought,” Black muttered, running his hand through his hair. “I was going to talk myself up and promise that you can come with me somewhere you’ll be safe, but this ought to work better…how would you like to come with me, meet Mr. Moony, and take up that apprenticeship?”

“Creating chaos?” George asked. He knew that Black had escaped from prison several years ago, and he must have some kind of backing if he’d managed to survive this long, and in what looked like fine condition.

“Sowing mischief and mayhem?” Fred added.

Black smiled at them, and there was something sharp and mad at the edges of it. Frankly, George didn’t care. It wasn’t worse than anything they saw when they looked into the mirror. “More than that, kids. Fighting a war. Bringing down the regime that says purebloods are better than anyone else and which imprisoned me and corrupted your father and, from what I hear, caused the death of your sister.”

“You don’t have to say more than that,” Fred said.

“We’re your men,” George said, and he bent down and picked up his wand.

“Excellent.” Black glanced at Professor McGonagall, who had her hands folded on her desk and seemed perfectly placid about a notorious fugitive in her office. It made George regret fiercely how much he and Fred must have underestimated their professor’s total coolness. “And what about you, Minerva? We have to account for their absence somehow. Constructs?”

Minerva shook her head. “Carrow wanted me to bring them up to her office tomorrow. I think Malfoy or someone else has become impatient, and they were going to become entertainment much sooner than the third week in June.”

George swallowed nausea. Both he and Fred knew what that word meant in the context of the end-of-year feasts at Hogwarts.

Black nodded. “So we’ll stage a scene where you called them here to tell them about the appointment with Carrow and they overpowered you and escaped. Do you want me to cast the spells, or should we allow Fred and George to?”

“Please,” said George. They’d never begged for anything in their lives, but now they would.

“I suppose we’ll allow them to,” Professor McGonagall said, and gave them both a small smile as she stood up and moved away from behind her desk. “Have at it, boys.”

Fred grinned at him, and George grinned back, and they cast some of the spells they had been working on in secret and flung some of their specialized Dungbombs and Decoy Devices at the walls. Black laughed and clapped his hands as he watched the scorch marks form, and Professor McGonagall shot them small smiles. George blinked a little as one of their pranks blasted off the corner of her desk, and glanced at her, but her smile didn’t waver.

When they’d finished, Professor McGonagall gave them both a swift hug, utterly startling both of them, and then stepped back. “It probably won’t take long for the noise to attract attention, but it’ll take them longer to break through the wards I have on the door,” she said. “You can take them safely to Fortius, Mr. Black?”

“Fortius?” George interrupted in utter shock.

“That ruddy little school for Muggleborns and half-bloods in the middle of nowhere?” Fred asked.

Black winked at them. “Not so ruddy, not so little. The grounds have to be fairly big to house the guardian basilisk, after all.”

“Basilisk,” said Fred dreamily.

George grinned at him.

“Yes, I can take them, Minerva,” Black said, and gave Professor McGonagall a one-armed hug. George was a little stunned that anyone would be permitted to do that. “Take care of yourself.”

George had all sorts of questions, most of them about what their professor was involved in, but Black had grasped both their hands and reached down to press his elbow against something round in his pocket. The world dissolved into the shimmering colors of a Portkey, and George’s last glimpse of Hogwarts was Professor McGonagall smiling wistfully after them.

They landed in the middle of a grove of trees. George turned his gaze outwards and gaped at the sight of a building that shone like the white stone of a temple nearby. Fred was drooling over something that looked like a hoofprint in the grass.

“Welcome,” Black said softly.

George knew, with a fervor as deep as his bones, that they had made the right decision.

Chapter Text

Tom sat in the middle of the room behind his office, a private sanctum with a hidden door that not even Harry or Nora or Lavinia knew about. He breathed with his head lowered, his will forming the circle around him. It crackled with silent dark fire that only his skin or eyes could perceive the heat or color of.

His hands reached out, and brushed the severed and skinned halves of the snake he had conjured. His breathing quickened, or tried to, but Tom forced it back under control. He had to do this right, or he stood no chance of seeing what he wanted to, and the divination attempt would be wasted.

He ran his hands up the snake’s scales and stripped muscle, pausing now and then. When he reached the ends, he cast his hands out in front of him, scattering the blood on the floor.

If he had done it right, then the blood would form a pattern that should tell him the answer to at least one question he was desperately seeking, whether that was how to get the Elder Wand out from behind Malfoy Manor’s wards or how to lure Andromeda to do as he wanted.

The sensation of dark fire died. Tom took a deep breath and opened his eyes, focusing straight ahead on the pattern of blood.

It was meaningless.

His magic surged back and forth in his body, searing his veins. Tom managed to channel it onto the halves of the conjured serpent, and set them on fire with a thought. He remained still as the small blaze consumed its target, and breathed hoarsely in an effort to control himself once more.

He had to figure this out. Harry was coming along as a war wizard, but he was still only fifteen. And the excesses of Malfoy’s regime had lately grown worse and worse. They’d begun to prey openly on purebloods who stepped out of line. They’d continued their violent experiments with potions to create children. Malfoy had preached so much against Muggles that there were also spontaneous attacks on them, and the Statute of Secrecy was in more danger than Tom thought it had been since it was established.

He did not know what to do.

Tom paused at the thought, and glanced back at the blood for a moment. Yes, the pattern was meaningless. But did that have to mean that the divination and the sacrifice had been wasted? Or was the pattern answering some question he hadn’t thought to ask?

Tom tried to let his mind relax, slip into the kind of crystalline clarity that he used when he was learning something new, or when he had first learned to memorize and manipulate the tenets of Occlumency. He focused on the floor in front of him, breathing so gently and softly that he couldn’t hear it himself, and his eyes unfocused. He didn’t know how long he drifted, trying to convey his openness to an answer, until his eyes focused again and he blinked and cleared his throat, aware that he was as thirsty as a vampire.

The blood gave him an answer.

Tom’s hands clamped on his knees, making sure that he didn’t move and disrupt the pattern. It wasn’t an answer to the question he had asked. But he ought to have remembered that even the pattern of strange Divination that Andromeda had seen in the star chart had more than one moving piece.

The letters slashed into the floor, formed in the empty places between the blood drops, said, Gaunt Shack. Little Hangleton.

Tom stood. He would leave the school through a door from this room. He didn’t want to be stopped by anyone over a petty piece of business or the answer to an “urgent” question right now.

He did wave his hand to let fire consume the blood on the floor as he left. He didn’t know if anyone else would be able to see the message—his research said this form of Divination functioned for Parselmouths alone—but there was no use in tempting fate.

Not when it had been so kind as to give him an answer.

*

Tom Apparated outside Little Hangleton, not far from the shack where the pitiful remnants of his mother’s family had once lived. His lip curled as he looked at it.

He could, of course, have done something more to them, with them, than he had. But he didn’t see the point in taking vengeance on those incapable of feeling it. Morfin Gaunt wouldn’t have. And Tom’s mother had been long dead, and Tom’s grandfather in Azkaban.

No matter what I did, they would only have seen me as a half-blood, not worthy of a real reaction.

Tom shook his head and stepped towards the shack, listening. There wasn’t the hum of wards, but there was something else, something that made him tilt his head. A hiss, a whisper, a crackle, as though he was once again back in the room he had just left and listening to the silent fire his will had summoned.

Of course, he highly doubted that any ward the Gaunt family had cast would have endured this long. And if what he had been thinking about just before his eyes saw the message in the blood was correct, then it wasn’t magic at all.

Not as such.

Tom eased into the shack, wand at the ready, and still nothing attacked and still something sang in front of him. Tom sat down near the door on a conjured chair and waited. He could force the waiting power to show itself, but he had the impression that would go extremely badly, and he didn’t want to force an attack.

The song of magic gradually died. Tom waited. Something was watching him, he was certain, without eyes, but with a cold and composed intent. Any motion of his might turn that coldness into hostility.

Tom kept his wand down at his side.

At last, with a rattle, a shape materialized on the far side of the shack under a window. Tom clenched his muscles to keep from jumping. By all appearances, this was nothing more than a pebble, but he was absolutely sure that it would be bad to judge by appearances.

The pebble lay there and watched him with senses that Tom knew had nothing to do with eyes. He simply waited. The part of a leader might be to take the worst risks, but it didn’t have to involve leaping to take them.

The stone finally stopped shedding the aura that seemed to make the air around them freezing and grey. Tom, still holding his wand, stood and stepped over to it, kneeling down so that he could examine the stone without touching it.

It was smaller than he’d thought at first, and a shiny grey that reminded him of the sludge he’d produced the first time he’d tried to brew a Draught of Peace. And on the top of it was carved the symbol of the Deathly Hallows.

Tom released a long sigh, and carefully picked up the Resurrection Stone.

*

Sirius glanced up in annoyance as someone knocked on the door. Even Remus and Harry knew better than to disturb his time with Sophia. She’d long since got over her distrust of him, but she hated practicing magic with anyone else but him or her siblings, and would clam up the second someone else entered the room.

Sirius tried to ignore it and turned back to Sophia with a smile, but she cast down her eyes and didn’t move. Sirius hissed between his teeth and stood up to stalk across the room to the door, flinging it open.

“What—”

His voice trailed off when he saw Riddle standing there. Sirius tried to clear his throat, and ignored the corpse-like smile that flickered at the edges of Riddle’s mouth. “What is it, Riddle?” Sirius asked, and decided that he didn’t have to bark as hard as he had originally when he’d thought it was someone he loved interrupting them.

“I found this,” Riddle said casually, holding out what looked like a rock he’d picked up from the side of the road. “And I thought of you.”

Sirius shot him a disbelieving look, but Riddle kept holding out the stone, and you did what Riddle told you or you were out of Fortius. (Most of the time). Sirius sighed and reached out, closing his hand around the pebble.

He was prepared for almost anything—from an electric shock like one of James’s pranks would have given him, to the stone to dissolve because it was just an illusion—but the shock of cold that ran up his arm still made him gasp. And the shadowy dark figure that materialized around the stone a second later made him start back, teeth bared, hand closing harder around the pebble in pure shock.

At first he hoped he was mistaken, but the dark figure formed into the one he’d thought it was since he caught a glimpse of a face. He didn’t forget the woman who’d watched over the darkest moments of his childhood.

“Mother,” Sirius hissed.

Walburga Black, or the ghost of her, folded her arms and glared around the room. Sirius half-glanced over his shoulder, glad to see that Sophia had already ducked out of sight. The last thing she needed was the kind of trauma that this dead bitch could have inflicted on her. “So you called me at last. You listened to me only after I was dead. I suppose I should have expected that.”

Sirius stared at her and said nothing. What the hell was she talking about? They’d screamed at each other when she came to “visit” him during his imprisonment, and they’d done the same thing after she’d died and Narcissa had made him a gracious present of Walburga’s portrait. Never did he remember her ever talking about ghosts or calling her.

Then again, he might have broken out of his imprisonment just to get away from her eventually, so he supposed he could have forgotten something like this in the midst of one of her tirades.

“Black,” Riddle said softly. “Ask her what she means.”

Walburga glanced over her shoulder and sneered at the sight of him. “Consorting with Mudbloods, Sirius?” she asked. “You haven’t done everything I told you, then. But why did I expect such an ungrateful bastard of a son to—”

“Why did you want me to call you, Mother?” Sirius interrupted. He had to speak now, before Walburga said something else that got Riddle really upset. He would have liked to scream at her the way he had at her portrait, but more than that, he wanted to know what she had to say and then dismiss her again.

Walburga snarled at him. It was remarkable how expressive her face was, even for a ghost’s, Sirius thought, and then clenched his teeth. He didn’t want to think about how expressive her face was. He didn’t want to stand here talking to her.

But Riddle had brought this stupid stone to him, and Riddle had given him shelter and introduced him to Harry and brought Remus in and given Sirius a purpose in life. So Sirius stood there and endured while Walburga did some more sneering.

“You would already know, if you had paid attention when you were younger.”

“What, to you cursing me? Ordering Kreacher to beat me? Telling—”

“There’s a book in the Grimmauld Place library. Secrets of the Damned.”

Sirius jerked. He remembered seeing that book, but he hadn’t paid any attention. He’d thought it was just some necromancy book or other Dark Arts tome that his ancestors had collected, and so what? Even after ten years nearly alone (except for his mother’s constantly screaming portrait), he hadn’t been desperate enough to read that.

“Black?”

“Just a minute, Riddle,” Sirius muttered, not taking his eyes from the ghost. “What about that book, Mother?”

“It talks about what you might need to do to win a war, should you be so unlucky as to find yourself trapped in one.” Walburga gave him a sly look. “And if you don’t read it yourself, then it’ll chew the eyes out of anyone who tries.”

Sirius shrugged angrily. He didn’t have any idea what value that bloody book had, but Riddle was scribbling down what might be the title, so he supposed the man had accomplished what he wanted when he’d handed the damn stone to Sirius. “Fine. Go away now.”

“How can I do that?” Walburga asked, with a soft, delighted laugh. “I didn’t come because you summoned me. The Resurrection Stone has to be turned over and a particular spirit concentrated on to do that. Instead, I came because I wanted to and have been hovering around you unseen ever since I died. Now that I’m here, why should I go away?”

Sirius stared at her, his mind leaping like a startled Kneazle between horrific things—that Walburga could stay around forever and that this was the Resurrection Stone—and not letting him do much except gibber.

“Enough, madam,” Riddle said softly, his voice coiling around the corners of the room like a cold snake. “I will not have you staying here, terrifying your son. Your welcome is rescinded.”

He seemed to hiss those last words, and a dark whirlwind picked up around the corners of the room where the cold snake had been, dancing closer and closer until Sirius had to close his eyes against the pressure of the air. He heard his mother shrieking something, and when he looked again, he was just in time to see her being sucked through the wall, her face distorting for a long moment before she vanished.

The minute Sirius was sure that she was gone, he flung the Resurrection Stone at Riddle. It bounced off his forehead. Riddle gave him a long look.

“Punish me all you like,” Sirius told him, panting. His Mind-Healers had said acting like that, like a dog, was something he should try to avoid, but he didn’t really care. “I’m not going to subject myself to that woman again.”

Riddle slowly inclined his head. “I only gave you the Stone in the first place because your cousin’s Divination showed that you were somehow associated with it, and I had to see what secrets you would expose.”

“So you gave me one of the Deathly Hallows not knowing what would happen?”

Riddle just raised his eyebrows. “You were never in any danger of being haunted permanently by her. I control the wards of Fortius, and because spirits are a part of their guardians, spirits cannot stay here when I rescind their welcome.”

“But you still didn’t know what would happen when you handed me the Stone. You are such a wanker, Riddle.”

There was a long moment which felt as if Sirius was balanced and tilting on the edge of a precipice, and he had time to reflect that perhaps it wasn’t the best tactic to address an all-powerful wizard who wasn’t a friend that way—

And then Riddle laughed.

Sirius stepped back with a long sigh and shake of his head. Riddle turned and left the room, Summoning the Stone to his hand on the way. Sirius slumped back against the wall and turned his head to check on Sophia.

Sophia was peeking up from around the chairs, an expression of intensity on her face that Sirius didn’t understand until she spoke. “You had the kind of childhood I did? You had that for a mother?”

Sirius hesitated. Then he nodded. “She was awful. And her portrait was worse. And the thought of being haunted by her spirit for the rest of my life was more than I can bear.”

“I’m glad that Father didn’t come back as a ghost,” Sophia whispered, settling into her chair again.

Sirius watched her for a minute, but she seemed to be all right. So he sat down across from her and went back to teaching her.

And tried not to think too much about his upcoming meeting with Fred and George Weasley, who were taking this apprenticeship thing a lot more seriously than he’d thought they would.

*

Fred thought he and his brother were doing pretty well about learning the rules of Fortius, given that they’d never been inclined to obey the rules at Hogwarts at all.

They’d arrived and been shown around the grounds by Mr. Padfoot, and introduced to Mr. Moony—something that they were reeling a little from internally, still, to know that Mr. Moony was the legendary murderous werewolf Remus Lupin—and the Headmaster, Tom Riddle. They’d heard of him before, but mostly in the context of a weak half-blood who did Hogwarts a favor by taking some of the Muggleborns with louder parents. Fred still didn’t know what to make of the man who looked at them across a desk scattered with crystals that seemed to be paperweights and looked more dangerous than Minister Malfoy ever had, the times they’d met him.

But they couldn’t get used to everything, especially since the seventh-year students at Fortius were taking classes so different from the ones at Hogwarts that he and George would essentially have to sit their OWLS all over again. For now, Headmaster Riddle had said they could attend the fifth-year classes.

And he’d taken them into the labs where they’d met Shante Carol.

Carol, as she’d told them to call her, was even more impressive than Mr. Moony and Mr. Padfoot. Yes, they were geniuses with pranks, there was no doubt of that. But Carol was the only person Fred and George had ever met who could reach out and touch a potion and shape it to be something else just because of her will.

Sometimes Fred thought he and George had almost achieved that with some of the simpler pranks they’d put together. But it had never worked out exactly the way they’d envisioned. He supposed that they had to work on it further.

Carol had already achieved it. She explained her method of making potions into diseases, and it sounded like nonsense half the time, but only half the time. And this was an area where, thanks to the rules at Fortius that implied seventh-year students should have embarked on their own private course of study several years ago, they could do what they wanted, as long as Carol was willing to accept them as students.

George had been the one to get down on his knees in the labs a few days ago and bow his head until it touched the floor. “Most marvelous and amazing Potions brewer Carol,” he had intoned, “will you accept a few humble purebloods as your students?”

The woman looked back and forth between them for a moment. She’d been clasping a capped vial that was filled with a potion which made Veritaserum seem heavy and clouded. Fred had wanted to touch it with a longing that surprised him, but Carol had warned them already that they didn’t want to do that.

Well, unless they did want blood to explode out of their eyes and noses and mouths and ears and arses. Then, Carol had said cordially, they could do whatever they wanted.

“I haven’t had good luck with students in the past,” Carol had finally said slowly. “Not direct ones, working under me instead of just attending a Potions lecture I did for a little while. They’re too horrified by what I do.”

“We’re not horrified,” Fred said, knowing that, as always, he was speaking for his twin. “We’re fascinated.”

“What you do is fantastic,” George agreed.

“If you let us help you—”

“And adopt some of your techniques, and adapt them—”

“Then we’ll be happy here.”

Carol obviously thought about it, her fingers tapping on the crystal vial. Fred watched with a curiosity and a nervousness that he couldn’t hide. Of course, he didn’t want to experience the disease that Carol had enchanted into the potion. On the other hand, he wanted to know how she’d done it, how her will and magic interacted with the potion, so badly that he felt hungrier than he ever had for food.

“I haven’t had many older students, either,” Carol murmured, seemingly talking to herse. “They were set in their ways by then, and didn’t want to listen to me. The younger ones sometimes did, but they didn’t have the skills.” She looked directly into Fred’s eyes for a second, and then George’s. “Would you be willing to listen to me? Obey, if I told you to move away from a cauldron or not use a certain set of ingredients?”

“Of course we would,” Fred said at once. George bobbed his head.

Yes, obedience hadn’t been their strong suit at Hogwarts. But there, there was almost nothing challenging, except planning pranks and sneaking into the dungeons around the Slytherin common room. (Fred had to touch his arm then, as a remembered edge of Ron’s curse made its way up the skin).

Fortius was a constant challenge, and Carol’s labs promised more and endless fascinations.

Carol thought about it some more. She was the stillest person Fred had ever met, the exact opposite of Mr. Padfoot with his constant whirlwind of motion and Mr. Moony with his barely contained energy. But it probably meant she was taking them seriously, so it wasn’t like they could really complain.

“Very well,” Carol said at last. “We’ll try it on a provisional basis. If you disobey me during the next three days or act as though you’re too impatient to be good in a Potions lab, then I’ll dismiss you.”

George stood up. “Yes, Professor Carol.”

Fred echoed him. He could feel prickling little thrills of gooseflesh racing down his arms, and he didn’t have to look at his twin to know he would be in the same state. They were going to work with someone who could turn potions to diseases by essentially combining the ingredients in the right way. How cool was that?

*

Hermione closed her eyes and waited for a long moment, the hovering hawk of her mind poised above a precipice. In a few moments, it would dart forwards and try to grab its prey in its talons, but right now, she wasn’t ready to do so.

“Go.”

Hermione sent the hawk flying without opening her eyes. She let the wind from her wings lift and bear her, and then hurtled down towards the crystalline target that was the mind of a Yaxley who had escaped the slaughter Professors Lupin and Black had inflicted on the family a few years ago. This was an advanced stage of training in Legilimency—reaching out to a distant mind where she had never met the person and couldn’t have eye contact—but Professor Elthis had decided that she was ready.

The pressure of what Hermione always saw as a starless night surrounded her. The distance between minds was conceptualized by every Legilimens slightly differently, but skies were apparently a common one. Professor Elthis had admitted that she visualized stars and a moon, though.

Hermione flew through absolute darkness.

Her talons pierced the crystal of Harmonia Yaxley’s mind.

Hermione gasped to herself as she twisted her wings and landed, a narrow, diving angle of attack that shouldn’t alert Yaxley’s conscious mind. Her hawk hunted only a single, specific memory, made easier to find in this case because Riddle had some control over Yaxley and Hermione was striking from a school controlled and warded by Riddle. If Hermione did this right, only that part of Yaxley’s mind would become prey and no other part would ever see or feel the hawk’s shadow.

Hermione flexed the hawk’s talons around the memory and yanked hard, pulling it first to the surface of Yaxley’s mind and then away entirely. Her eyes fluttered open, and she found herself staring at Professor Elthis, who had bent over her.

“You were gone so deeply into your own mind that I couldn’t feel you,” the professor said quietly. “Did you get it?”

“Yes.” Hermione shut her eyes and winced for a second, her hand coming up to touch her temple. The first moments after she integrated someone else’s memories into hers were always difficult. “I felt—I feel what she felt when she was at the slaughter of the Yaxley family in their home.”

“Main emotions?”

Hermione carefully formed a protective mental shell around the memory, sort of like the way she thought oysters must do it around the specks of grit that became pearls, and rolled it back and forth. “Disorientation. Fear. Rage. Terror. So much terror.”

Professor Elthis nodded. “Good. That’s a basic weapon, but it’s a powerful one. Do you think that you could lob it at someone else?”

“Yes.”

“Shielded?”

Hermione let out a slow breath. This was the challenge that she had failed before, but hiding from it would do no good. “Yes, professor. If you want me to try, then I will.”

“Good. Eyes open and on me, Hermione.”

Hermione opened them. Professor Elthis glanced at her and started to turn away, the way that someone might pass her in an ordinary corridor or in the middle of a duel when Hermione didn’t look like that dangerous an opponent.

Hermione struck.

The encrusted ball of terror and Yaxley’s memories tumbled from her mind into Professor Elthis’s, and hit the older woman’s Occlumency shields. Professor Elthis gasped a little, and Hermione pushed it forwards harder, relying on that fleeting moment of eye contact, and smashed into the shields again and again within the space of a heartbeat.

Professor Elthis’s shields broke, and Hermione’s, Yaxley’s, memory rolled in.

Professor Elthis turned even paler than usual. Hermione caught herself watching anxiously, and bit back the scowl. She had to be able to do this, or she wouldn’t be able to defend herself in battle. Catching someone’s eye shouldn’t even be necessary once she fully grew into her Legilimency powers, or so Professor Riddle and Professor Elthis had told her. She could do it just by feeling the dim light of someone else’s mind shining through their skulls.

The professor caught herself with one hand on the back of a chair, and breathed in a measured pattern for a long moment. Then she nodded and stood up. “Yes. That was well-done, and the shield surrounding it made it harder to deal with the emotion and incorporate it into my own mind. Someone who’s not an Occlumens and anticipating an attack like that would have no chance.”

Hermione beamed. She wasn’t the most powerful student at Defense—that was Harry—or the best with words—that was Theo—or the most clever and skilled student at shaping wards—that was Angelina. But she was what she was, and that kind of person could help in battle.

Hermione hoped she would have a chance at Lucius Malfoy’s mind before everything ended.

Chapter Text

“Your time of punishment has ended, Minerva.”

Minerva bowed her head to Carrow. “Thank you, Headmistress,” she said, and nothing more, since she hadn’t been instructed to speak anymore, and certainly not to look up.

Carrow kept staring at her. They were in the Headmistress’s office, and the tittering of the portraits was getting to Minerva. But she kept her head submissively bowed, and thought about the crystal that rested in her robe pocket, and what she might be allowed to do to the Headmistress someday.

“Why did you take the twins to your office the day before their scheduled punishment?”

She had asked the same question before, in the exact same words. Minerva didn’t make the mistake of always keeping her words the same, even though of course she didn’t intend to change her answer, either. “I thought that I could prepare them for it. If it was sprung on them the next day, I was afraid they would simply run. But if they thought I knew and approved of what was going on, they would be more likely to come quietly.”

“Did you want them to come quietly?”

“I can’t deny that it was a blow, knowing they would have to die,” Minerva said, and sniffled. “But they also had it coming. I warned them and warned them—”

Carrow cut her off. “I’m sure you did, Minerva. And you confessed to what you really thought of the twins under Veritaserum. I am sorry that you suffered so much in enforcing the rules of Gryffindor House when you had those blood traitors as part of it.”

Minerva kept her head down. She couldn’t chance even the shadow of a smile being seen. She had passed the Veritaserum test because Severus did all the brewing for the school, and it was a simple matter for him to bring a potion that looked like Veritaserum but wasn’t.

She was so glad that she and Severus were allies.

Carrow tapped her fingers on the desk and then said, “Rise. You may go.”

Minerva nodded to her and walked towards the door, wincing as the aches rang through her muscles. Carrow hadn’t been gentle with her wand, and neither had the investigator called in from the Ministry who had Lucius Malfoy’s authority to “question” her.

“Minerva.”

She paused with her hand on the doorway, looking back.

Carrow’s eyes were incredibly dark and large, like the eyes of a raven swooping directly at Minerva’s face. “If I find out that you had anything to do with their escape…” she said, and didn’t have to raise her voice.

“Yes, Headmistress,” said Minerva with a perfectly bland expression and voice, and then turned and walked out of the room.

*

“I can’t do it.”

“Yes, you can.” Theo sat down on the chair across from Constance in the set of rooms that his sisters shared. “You know that you’ve managed it plenty of times before when Professor Black taught you.” Technically, Black wasn’t a professor, but they tended to call him that anyway because he’d taught Sophia and Constance for so long.

Constance glanced up at him, biting her lip. Her blue eyes were bright with tears. “But I have to be able to do it in class. In front of people. You know that I can’t do it in front of people, Theo.”

“I know you won’t let yourself do it in front of people,” Theo began, and then sighed as Constance dissolved into tears. He got up and moved around the table to put an arm around her shoulders. “Listen to me, Constance. Are you listening to me?”

Her head nodded against his shoulder, but she didn’t look up.

“Just because your talent isn’t as impressive as Harry’s or Justin’s right now doesn’t mean it can’t be. Just because you can’t do it in front of other people right now doesn’t mean you can’t in the future. You just have to practice and get better at it, all right? And you know that you can’t get better if you never did it.”

“Sophia made fun of me when I got it wrong.”

Theo concealed a sigh. He was glad that Sophia had emerged from their father’s shadow so decisively, but unfortunately, part of that was because she felt confident in comparison to Constance, who had more trouble with her magic. “I know, but Sophia’s not here right now. Try it again.”

Constance nodded and sat back on the stool, drying her eyes. Theo cast a gentle charm that would dry the tears without hurting her face, and Constance smiled shyly at him in thanks, then turned around with a frown to face the crystal vase on the table across the room. Theo sat back and watched.

Constance closed her eyes and clenched her hands in front of herself and muttered nonsense words under her breath.

The vase shattered.

Theo applauded, and kept clapping when Constance opened her eyes and peered at him suspiciously. She had to know that he wasn’t making fun of her or saying that her magic wasn’t good enough, the way he now suspected Sophia had done. “Well done, Constance! Imagine what’s going to happen when you get to the point that you can shatter a rock.’

She giggled and flushed at the same time. “You really think I will?”

“I know you will.”

“Harry can do a lot bigger rock. He did it years ago. Hermione told me about it.”

“But you don’t have to compare yourself to him, Constance,” Theo repeated patiently. “You’re not a war wizard. But you are a wandless mage, and that means that you can do almost anything you set your mind to. Things that spells can’t do, things that no spell exists for, things that obey your will faster than a regular wizard or witch can do them with their wands…”

“You’re just trying to make me feel better,” Constance whispered, but she was smiling.

Theo tweaked her nose. “I am, but it’s working, isn’t it?”

As Constance laughed, Theo reflected that he really didn’t get to hear that sound often enough. And also that it might be time to have a word with Sophia about not undermining her younger sister’s confidence.

*

“And you didn’t find out anything interesting?”

Ron sighed and flopped back on the couch in the private room Draco had found within the walls of Hogwarts in their third year, the one you could configure to be whatever you wanted. “No. No one can tell me where Fred and George went. They seem to have just vanished once they ambushed McGonagall.”

“If they ambushed her.”

“What are you saying?” Ron sat up slowly, his eyes fastened on Draco.

Draco leaned forwards intently. The shadows from the marble fireplace on his left, which was modeled after the one in his bedroom at Malfoy Manor, flickered and danced on his face. “Just this,” he whispered. “It seems strange, doesn’t it, that Professor McGonagall would go along with condemning students she liked to death? And taken them to her office to inform them of what was going to happen, the day before it did?”

Ron shook his head slowly. “But would she really do that? Risk torture and punishment for people she must have been able to see were going to die anyway?” Ron had seen that for himself when he was only a first-year. And for all that McGonagall was a half-blood, Ron had never thought of her as stupid.

“Think,” Draco whispered breathily. “What are Gryffindors known for?”

“Recklessness and foolishness.”

“Yes, but in their terms, Ron.”

It took Ron more time than he liked to think back to the mindset he’d grown up with, the mindset he’d challenged and changed so much in the intervening few years to prove he belonged in Slytherin that it felt like using Legilimency on someone else to think of it. “Bravery,” he said at last. “Daring. Standing up for the underdog.”

Draco nodded. “And McGonagall might think of herself as standing up for the underdog because your brothers were students, for all that they were also reckless, impulsive idiots.”

Ron slouched down in his seat, frowning, while he folded his arms until it felt as if he would squeeze the breath out of himself. “Why would someone who thought like that want to work for the school? Why not go live in the Muggle world or with those outlaws that your dad is always talking about?”

“Because she might want to remain here for a specific reason.”

“Because she wants to undermine the school from the inside. Because she wants to undermine the pureblood students.”

Draco’s eyes glittered as he tilted his head. “Exactly.”

Ron felt a sick lurch in his belly. He hadn’t liked McGonagall, no, but he’d respected her. She seemed to understand his grief for Victoria in a way that even Fred and George hadn’t. And she was a firm and fair teacher, and if she spent a lot of her time overseeing detentions for the Gryffindors, well, that was only because they had the nerve to earn so many of them.

“She assigns detentions to Gryffindors. Do you think she could really be sympathetic to the rebel cause?”

“She might be doing that just because she doesn’t want people to suspect her.”

Ron cast his eyes down and was quiet. He knew he wasn’t as politically clever as Draco, but nor he was he stupid. He just didn’t tend to look for signs of treachery as often as he should. And he had read—

He had read all the reports on Muggleborns and half-bloods that Minister Malfoy would lend them. Draco seemed to understand them better. Ron had read them until he’d almost memorized them, and he’d watched people who he knew were half-bloods (and the Muggleborns when they were still here) carefully in his day-to-day life.

The fact was that he just couldn’t see what those reports showed. McGonagall and Snape were half-bloods, and neither of them were magically weaker than the purebloods on staff. And Flitwick was a half-goblin, and he had been a dueling champion until the rules got changed to make it impossible for half-breeds to compete.

Ron gnawed his lip. What was the truth? What the records showed, and which Draco had pointed out to him again and again, or what he saw with his own eyes?

Well, you’re not that experienced, he reminded himself. You didn’t even think McGonagall might be treacherous until Draco pointed it out, and then he had to explain her motivations, too. And maybe she’s strong in magic, but weak in character. That could be something the reports are talking about that you never thought to look for.

“You reckon we ought to keep an eye on her?” he asked Draco. “Since no one else seems to suspect her yet? Or carry word to the Headmistress?”

Draco sighed. “Unfortunately, Headmistress Carrow just got done running her own interrogation of McGonagall, and she found nothing. She wouldn’t like it if we popped up and told her she was wrong, no matter that she could be. I think we need to spy on her until we have something more concrete to take to the Headmistress.”

Ron nodded. That made sense to him.

And in the meantime, maybe he could get some of the clashing kinds of evidence to make sense, too.

*

Harry opened his eyes and glanced around the crystalline ground of his dreams. Ah. So he was here again.

He had tried to tell Professor Riddle about the dreams, but he literally wasn’t able to open his mouth or move his tongue when he intended to speak of them, or move his hand when he’d tried to write something down. He’d read the answer as to why in Disaster’s book. Apparently, these dreams were only for war wizards, and not to be shared with others, not even through descriptions. Harry supposed that was part of the reason only another war wizard could read Disaster’s book.

He moved slowly forwards, walking past the frozen shapes of trees that looked more like silver sketches on a dark blue background, his feet scuffling over the ground and raising a fine mist of silver that looked like snow. He arrived at the shape in the center of the garden, which resembled a frozen fountain, and settled in to wait.

It wasn’t entirely true that the dreams could only be shared with another war wizard. There was something else that came to share them with him, but Harry didn’t know what to call it. Certainly not a human, though.

The dark blue stirred as if a wind were blowing through it, and something settled on the other side of the fountain. Harry half-turned his head and watched it out of the corner of his eye. If he looked too straight at it, it would simply vanish, and Harry wanted to go on catching glimpses of it, building up the truth of it from those.

The creature stirred towards the fountain and lowered its head to drink. Harry restrained his gasp with an effort. Before, he had only had the impression that it had four legs, but now he could plainly see a long neck and lifted wings, and he thought he knew what it was.

A winged horse. Something close to a thestral.

The horse lifted its head to regard him. Its eyes shone, brilliant dark blue, so close to the background the dreams were built on that Harry would have had trouble seeing them if not for the darker-furred head surrounding them. Its wings were etched in the same black, shaggy feathers—not a thestral’s reptilian wings after all—with a silver outline. It opened its mouth, and Harry did gasp this time at the sight of long ivory fangs. It had only two of them, in the front of the mouth, instead of the curved predatory teeth of a thestral.

Harry thought he knew what it was, now, if not exactly how it would serve him. Disaster’s book had talked about a steed…

He held out a perfectly firm, perfectly steady hand.

The creature trotted towards him and halted near the bowl of the fountain, not quite all the way to him. It tossed its mane and scraped the ground with a hoof for a moment. Then it spread its wings wide and knelt in front of him.

Harry was a lot more experienced with riding brooms than horses. He’d only ridden on a thestral a few times, and those had been memorable enough that he was glad it had only been a few. But this creature had been born of his magic mingled with the quality of the dreams that meant only a war wizard could share them.

If he was right. If Disaster’s book was right.

Harry moved slowly forwards. The creature knelt like air or stone, and didn’t move when Harry slung a cautious leg over its back. Harry leaned forwards and touched its neck. Yes, like cold stone under his fingers.

He finished arranging himself, so that he was seated with his legs flung out over the broad sides. He felt like an idiot. But he had to trust Disaster’s book, because it wasn’t as if he had any other guide. He took a steady breath and said, “Up.”

The horse rose from the ground.

Harry shouted and caught it around the neck, where there should have been a mane and wasn’t, wasn’t anything but short, incredibly cold dark blue fur. He had expected at least a trot to gather speed, or a crouch like the one a thestral would make. But no. The horse simply soared straight up, and in incredible silence. The wings beat as quietly as an owl’s.

Harry looked around, dazed, from the incredible height. He didn’t know what would happen next. Disaster’s book had said there was no way riding his steed would hurt a war wizard, but that each had to discover for themselves what argumentation of their powers a steed brought.

It was clear up here.

Well, of course it was. It was a simple dark blue sky, without any stars or moon, the way Hermione had described the distance between minds when she flew in Legilimency.

But then Harry began to see sparks of light that swarmed around each other. He gathered his magic around him, but the sparks didn’t approach him. Instead, they flew up into the sky and arranged themselves in letters.

No, runes.

Harry squinted at them. They looked similar to runes he’d learned about, but not exactly the same. That one off to the left resembled Sowilo, but it had an extra bar above it and another below. And that one would have looked like Algiz without the serpentine mark that curled through it, ruining its symmetry.

“You brought me up here to read?” Harry murmured.

The horse didn’t flick its tail or toss its neck, but Harry had the distinct impression of someone peering at him disapprovingly. He shook his head and focused his attention on the runes again. He couldn’t share the dreams with anyone, but he might be able to share the runes.

And he had the feeling that Jacob Alexander, Professor Riddle’s most experienced runemaster, would be very interested in them.

*

Severus stepped back from his cauldron and examined it carefully. Then he nodded and waved his wand, freezing the potion in place.

He had finally created another version of his potion that would lock onto particular thought patterns and destroy the person it was targeted at. But this one was a neutral base, like untuned Polyjuice. It would become functional and attuned to one person alone with the addition of a hair or a drop of blood from that person, then go back to being neutral when it had done its work. No one who examined it afterwards would be able to tell what it had done, what it had been.

He could destroy anyone he wanted with this.

Including Grindelwald, or the thing calling itself Grindelwald, if it ever came out from behind the Malfoy wards. It wouldn’t matter what it really was. Creatures still had thoughts, and to the potion, it would make no difference whether or not they were human.

Severus lowered the Freezing Charm and bottled several samples of it, making sure that each was labeled with as a Draught of Peace, the potion most like his unique one in its consistency. Severus ran his fingers gently down the flasks as he placed them on the shelves of his lab and then cast the spell that would lock the cabinet and hurt anyone except him who touched them.

So far, Riddle had shown no inclination to order him out as an assassin. But that day was most likely coming.

And for it, Severus intended to prepare.

*

Tom squinted at the book and muttered imprecations. So far, it seemed to contain nothing except instructions for necromantic rituals, most of which Tom already knew. Black had been happy enough to hand the book over to him, but unless it was spelled to reveal its secrets only to one of Black’s bloodline, Tom couldn’t tell why it was supposedly so valuable.

He flipped through more pages. Instructions for creating Inferi, instructions for creating animal Inferi, instructions for using bones and intestines in divinatory rituals…

Something shimmered around his fingers.

Tom immediately pulled his hand back from the book and aimed his wand at it. The shimmer faded. Tom slowly brought his hand back down again, watching for the moment when the shimmer began to multiply.

There. It didn’t happen until his fingers were touching the ink.

Tom examined the page closely. It was a ritual for raising the dead who were more than two hundred years old, something potentially useful but not knowledge Tom would have lacked without the book. He tilted the tome back and forth, and then reached down and touched the in again, watching the silver shimmer climb his fingers to his wrist.

Perhaps the shade of Walburga Black had insisted on Sirius retrieving this book not because of the contents, but because of something hidden inside it.

Tom tried patient spell after spell, standing at a distance from the book to cast them, trying them verbally and aloud. None seemed to make a difference. He was left to conclude that this was something hidden inside a space the literal thickness of a page, and probably something that the Blacks had invented themselves. He’d certainly never heard of anything like it.

Tom closed his eyes and sat there in silent meditation for a short time. Then he reached out and lowered the shields that normally wrapped carefully and completely around his power, to keep from alerting a pureblood with a glimpse of it.

He focused that power on the book’s page, and around his own eyes.

There was a long moment when he thought he might not be able to break whatever protections had been woven into the paper and ink, at least not without destroying the book. Then a soft brightness wound through the paper, and Tom saw a folded sheet of parchment hovering there, tucked inside the page, in a space that should have been too small to hold it.

Tom smiled, and let the sight of the magic go. He would have to work carefully, to make sure that he wasn’t slicing the parchment apart when his magic cut into the space inside the page, but at least now he knew there was something worth seeking there.

*

Minerva stopped and put a hand to her head. There was a strange, sparkling feeling in the middle of her forehead, as if someone had lit a firework there.

Sybill would say that I opened my Third Eye.

But as little as she had liked the Divination professor who had been forced out a few years ago, that sensation was what this was like. Minerva sat down at her desk and put her head between her hands, while what felt like sleeting particles of light tore through her brain. She remembered—

Something she hadn’t been allowed to remember before.

She had been a professor at Hogwarts for a long, long time now, and her tenure would be the longest after this year, now that Filius had decided to move on before he was forced out. She had been here during the last years when Albus Dumbledore was Headmaster, and during the chaos before Headmistress Carrow was appointed more or less permanently to the position.

She had not remembered allowing Albus to bury a piece of knowledge inside her mind and wrap it in a cloak of ignorance that would not crack open unless her own need was great. Unless she felt as if she was approaching a crisis of some sort in which the knowledge would make a difference.

Well, of course you didn’t remember it, Minerva, she told herself grimly. That was the whole point of allowing him to bury it.

But she did now. Minerva walked over to her desk and sat down beside it, eyes closed as her fingers felt along the bottom of the second drawer on the left-hand side. The secret space had been cunningly made, she had to admit. She’d certainly never noticed a problem with the drawer sliding in and out, and most likely no one else would have, either.

She pressed her fingers on the small shape carved there. She couldn’t remember exactly what it looked like, but it resembled a V to her questing touch.

Click.

The drawer lifted a little as the smaller one underneath it came out. Minerva plucked the thing inside it from the bed of green velvet that resembled the inside of a jewelry chest and held the object high.

A silver whistle.

Blow the whistle when you must, my dear, and help will come to you.

Minerva wished she could be sure that the whistle would awaken Albus, but he had given it to her and buried that memory a full year before Malfoy had imprisoned him, and at the time, Minerva did not believe that he had known what the punishment would be. No, it would be something else. Someone else.

Minerva closed her hand carefully around the whistle. Then she slipped it into a pocket in her capacious robes. She wished she dared hang it around her neck, but there was no guarantee that she would be able to conceal it that way, and all she needed now was Headmistress Carrow becoming suspicious of her wearing an ornament when she never had before.

She would simply have to remember to transfer the whistle when she changed robes, so that it would never be far from her.

One way or another, she had the feeling that the moment when she would need it was fast approaching.

Chapter Text

“So what do you want me to do, Riddle?”

Black was nervous and trying to hide it with bluster. But that was less annoying than it once would have been, when Tom didn’t understand the man as well. He nodded to Secrets of the Damned, spread out on the table in his office. “There’s a piece of folded parchment hidden inside one of the pages. I tried to cut open the page and fetch it out, but my power keeps curling back from it no matter how fine I make the tendril, and I don’t want to force more magic into the book in case I damage it. I think it probably needs someone of Black blood to pull it out, or you wouldn’t have been your mother’s first choice to tell about it.”

Black snarled. “Has it occurred to you that this kind of secret could be damaging, and that might explain why she was so eager to tell you?”

It had occurred to Tom, but he was confident his power could protect him against any traps that Walburga Black might have left in the book. He half-shrugged. “I’ll be the one facing up to the brunt of it, not you, Black.”

The man grumbled a moment longer, but then sighed. “What page is it trapped inside?”

Tom flipped to the right one and held it up by the edges of his fingers, using his magic to shine through the parchment and light it up. Black’s eyes widened. “I never would have seen it.”

Obviously, Tom wanted to say, but bit back on his instinctual response. “Can you get it out?’

“If your magic can reach into the space.”

Tom closed his eyes and dug the very finest threads of his magic into the page, both lighting it up and spreading out the dimensional space within the page. It was such intense, delicate work that he didn’t hear the first question Black asked.

“Riddle!”

Tom opened his eyes with a gasp, wondering whether he had applied too much power and lit the book on fire or something like that. But no, it was fine. Tom darted an irritated look at Black, who blinked but held his gaze. “What?”

“I just—just wanted to know when you want me to reach in.” Black gestured at the book.

Tom looked himself, and blinked. The page was a shining, fluttering mass of white motes of light, floating apart from each other with hazy spaces in between. Tom realized he was holding apart the molecules of the parchment, and checked his own surprise. He hadn’t planned to do it, mostly because he hadn’t known he could.

“Now,” Tom said quietly. The crushing weight of his own delicacy abruptly began to tell on him, and he wasn’t sure that he could keep doing it now that he knew what he was doing.

Black took a swallow of air and reached out with a hand that hummed with his own magic. It slipped between the hovering molecules and into the center of the page. Tom watched, breath pulsing in his lungs, as Black drew the folded parchment out.

Tom let his magic go.

The page rushed back together, and a small, sharp explosion sounded. Tom studied the book. It appeared to have several scorched pages, but otherwise, was none the worse for wear. He closed it and tucked it away, turning towards the parchment in Black’s hand.

“It’s a sacrificial ritual.” Black sounded more than a little sick.

“Who do you need to sacrifice?”

“A child.”

Tom frowned a little as he studied the ritual on the page. After a moment, he began to smile. “That’s not what it says, Black.”

“Oh? Are you already thinking of sacrificing Harry, then? He’s a teenage, so he’s not technically a child.”

Tom looked up and let himself visibly roll his eyes before he turned back to the parchment. “This is a ritual based in alchemy. Many alchemical ingredients have different names and meanings that link them to other branches of magic, such as Astronomy. It’s talking about sacrificing the sun’s child, not a human child.”

“That could still mean a human. Maybe a blond one. You’re not going after Malfoy’s son, are you?”

Tom didn’t say all the many things he wanted to say. He simply shook his head and murmured, “I wouldn’t do that, Black. Thank you for your help. You may go now,” he added, when Black seemed inclined to linger.

“If you sacrifice Malfoy’s son, I’ll tell Harry,” Black muttered rebelliously, but finally shut the office door behind him.

And Harry wonders why we still call each other by our last names.

*

“I’ll tell you when to duck.”

George grinned as he and Fred bent further down behind the table that Carol had placed across the far wall of her lab. It sparkled with wards and protections that they’d been studying in their classes, but they were still far away from managing to catch up on casting them.

On the other hand, their Potions work was coming along splendidly.

George listened intently as the glass flask broke on the stone floor, and exchanged another grin with Fred. Then they inched their faces up to the level of the table, and watched in glee as the bright green mist spread through the room. Loud bangs and cries accompanied it, the kind of thing that could utterly disorient an enemy in battle.

“Duck!”

They ducked again, beneath the level of the table, as a loud noise like a piece of metal breaking rang through the lab. Carol must have been casting wordlessly; George could see the shadow of her wand flicking on the floor between the table’s legs, but couldn’t hear anything.

Of course, the screams coming from the mist were loud enough that he might have missed something.

“Raise your heads again,” Carol said at last. “We were closer than last time, but it didn’t work the way we expected.”

George raised his head, and grimaced at the look of the air around Carol. The green mist seethed there, held barely away from her lips by the spells she must have cast to stabilize the air in the circle. Carol was regarding the mist with a wrinkle to her lips that said she didn’t know what had gone wrong, either.

“It started to asphyxiate you again?” Fred asked. He and George exchanged a dark look. Their battle potion was hardly going to work if it attacked everyone on the field, not just their enemies.

“Yes. But it lasted longer as an ordinary distraction factor this time before becoming so.” Carol glanced at them. “I believe that we may need to stew the pinecones for seven minutes instead of thirteen.”

George nodded. They’d been working with various magically significant numbers in their brewing, and thirteen had been the latest try, but there was no reason to assume it would be the final one. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Fred writing that down.

And at two, we’ll go to work on our map with Mr. Moony.

George grinned again. The Marauders’ Map had been an incredible thing, but they’d just used it like the original Marauders most of the time, to plan pranks and sneak around the school. When they finished their map of the Ministry, on the other hand…

Suffice it to say that Malfoy and his regime would be wishing for pranks by the time Fred and George and Mr. Moony were done.

*

Harry muttered under his breath as he considered the runes he’d drawn on the parchment. Yes, they were accurate to his dreams, as far as he could tell, but so far, they’d done nothing, and evinced no sign of magical strength, when he drew them. It probably came down to the way that he needed to arrange them, as with many ordinary runic arrays, but Harry hadn’t drawn them in the right sequence yet.

He closed his eyes and tried to remember his dream. Had the rune that looked like a modified Sowilo been above or below the others?

“Harry.”

Harry blinked and glanced over. “Hi, Dean.” The other boy didn’t visit often, given that he wasn’t in Gryphon House, but he was good enough friends with Harry that Harry wasn’t surprised to see him. Still, though, he didn’t usually see him with a greyish face and leaning over as if he was about to be sick. “Are you all right?” Harry added, getting to his feet.

Dean swallowed. “I—I did something.”

“Yeah?” Dean had turned out to be talented in art, and that was what he’d mainly pursued. Sometimes he drew art for the propaganda Theo wrote.

Dean took a deep breath and turned, waving at something behind him.

Harry heard nothing, and frowned curiously. He opened his mouth to ask what was going on, then closed it again when he saw what had come to stand beside Dean.

“What—how did you do that?” Harry breathed, staring at what seemed to be an enormous, perfect, totally real tiger crouched at Dean’s side.

“I was drawing it,” Dean whispered. “And I infused a little magic into my paintbrush, more than usual. And it came to life.”

“You didn’t cast any spells on it?” Harry asked, eyes never leaving the tiger. It stared back at him, eyes blazing green and impassively blank. But it also didn’t make any move to attack, or any motion at all other than its tail waving slightly.

“How could I have done that? It’s not like I want to point my wand at a tiger that is—somehow friendly to me.” Dean reached out gingerly and rested his hand on the tiger’s back. The tiger rumbled, a sound that might have been a growl, but still didn’t attack, and lay down, paws stretched out in front of it.

“Well, yeah. That’s true.” Harry blinked and stared. He hadn’t read anything about this, even in Disaster’s book, which had a pretty good record predicting odd magical phenomena. “Are you sure you didn’t do anything different when you were painting than you’ve done all the other times you’ve painted something?”

“Well, I was thinking about the revolution and wishing I had a talent that lent itself better to battle. You think that could have done it?”

Harry grinned. “I think you need to go and tell Professor Riddle right away.”

Dean shot him a sidelong glance. “Do you really believe that he’ll let me keep her?”

“Why wouldn’t he? As long as she doesn’t attack anyone else, she could be dead useful in fighting. Ha, dead useful, get it?”

“You’re hilarious, Harry,” Dean muttered, but he was smiling, and no longer looked as sick. “Right. Well, I suppose I’ll go tell him, and maybe if he won’t let me keep her, then I can draw something else that’ll still be deadly to our enemies but not as hazardous to our side.”

Harry laughed, and watched as Dean left with the tiger prowling beside him. Then he shook his head. It seemed Dean didn’t know Professor Riddle as well as Harry did.

Of course, Professor Riddle would want to verify that the tiger wasn’t going to attack anyone out of hand, but if he could confirm that? Why wouldn’t he let Dean keep her? And why wouldn’t he encourage Dean to use his talent to draw other things that could benefit their sides? Weapons. Traps. Creatures. Maybe even Galleons…

Harry loved being a war wizard, but he did have to admit that he envied Dean that talent. For a moment.

Then he sighed, and reminded himself that everyone would do what they could for the war, and they would have been much easier to defeat if their magic was all the same, and went back to wrestling with the stupid runes.

*

“Professor McGonagall? Can I talk to you?”

Minerva turned around, working hard to keep a pleasant expression on her face. It shouldn’t be this hard, not with one of Arthur and Molly’s children, but Ron Weasley had been consistently—different ever since he’d been Sorted into Slytherin. And he had asked her odd questions before in a way that made her think about his friendship with Draco Malfoy and regard him warily.

But it would have looked stranger not to answer the questions of a pureblood Slytherin boy who was best friends with Minister Malfoy’s son, so Minerva simply nodded and said, “Of course, Mr. Weasley. What did you want to know?”

Ron studied her with narrowed eyes. Minerva made sure to keep her gaze vague and somewhere in the middle of his forehead. It was extremely unlikely that he knew Legilimency, but “unlikely” wasn’t the same as “impossible,” as she had cause to understand.

“Did you like my brothers better than me?”

“I feel as if I understood them better, since they were Sorted into Gryffindor and under my care for multiple years,” said Minerva, fighting hard to hold onto her vague look. “But I wouldn’t say like better, no. The mischief they caused often disrupted my class.” The twins had been good at Transfiguration, but inclined to employ it only in the limited ways that interested them, and Percy had tackled it with the stiff competence that they did everything else. Minerva didn’t think she’d had a Weasley student who enjoyed the subject for its own sake since Charlie.

“Percy caused mischief?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Weasley. I thought we were talking about Fred and George only.”

“I wasn’t.”

“All right, Mr. Weasley. Then I would say the same thing for your brother Percy, as far as my understanding him better. But while he was good at Transfiguration, he wasn’t a fan of it for its own sake, and only did exactly as well as he needed to on the OWL and NEWT, no more than that.”

Ron blinked at her. Minerva blinked back, and waited for the next question. After all, she was a half-blood. It wasn’t her place to question a pureblood or try to get them to speak before they were ready.

“Mum always says that I need to be more like Percy.”

Duty-driven instead of friendship-driven. It might keep you safer. At least, that was the only way that Minerva knew to interpret those words. She gave Ron a small smile. “You should be like yourself, Mr. Weasley. Consider the words and facts in front of you and divine the correct action that way.”

“Is that what you do?”

“Remember my blood status,” Minerva murmured. She hated the words she spoke, but she had to be able to speak them and survive. There were larger factors than her own pride at play. “I cannot question what’s in front of me too closely, lest I stumble through over a question that a pureblood would intuitively understand. But I can give encouragement to those with superior intellects to question.”

“Because we can make a change?”

“Exactly, Mr. Weasley.”

Ron frowned at her one more time and left the classroom. Minerva didn’t let herself exhale in relief, because of who might be around to hear. She simply shut the classroom door and went about getting ready for the fifth-year Ravenclaws and Gryffindors, who would be arriving any moment now.

*

Ron stared at the closed door of the Transfiguration classroom, and then walked slowly up the corridor in the direction of Charms, his next class. There would be less fuss about a pureblood arriving late than a half-blood, so he took his time, and his mind worked at what McGonagall had said.

Nothing openly treasonous. Nothing that suggested she had let his brothers escape.

On the other hand, maybe she had been too neutral when talking about students who had been part of her House and who she said she had liked and understood, unlike him.

Ron sighed and rubbed his forehead. He wished that he could see to the bottom of everyone’s politics the way Draco and Mr. Malfoy could. Seeing clearly sounded a lot better than doubting and wondering and worrying.

*

“Minister Malfoy, you need to see this right away.”

Lucius sighed and turned around from the latest stack of parchment that estimated the Muggle world’s readiness for attack. He supposed it would be good to clear his mind briefly. So far, he hadn’t imagined anything that would compensate for the Muggles’ overwhelming numbers. “Yes, Goyle, what is it?”

Alicia Goyle, whom he had added to his research team looking into Peverell because she had published a book exploring the origins of some ancient magical legends last year, solemnly held out what Lucius recognized as an account ledger. He picked it up and flicked through it with a frown, only relaxing when he saw the Ministry seal on the front page. He had been about to ask what it was doing out of Gringotts.

On the other hand, the ordinary pages filled with ordinary numbers didn’t tell him why Alicia had thought he should see it. He shot her a questioning look.

“The first column on the fifty-first page, Minister Malfoy. I believe you will find it enlightening.”

Lucius grunted at the way she was presenting this, but he had been the one to train his staff to do that. He would rather see the data for himself and contemplate it, drawing the conclusions out like crystals growing in his own brain, rather than having someone else’s report prejudice what he was seeing.

He flipped to page 51 and glanced down the first column. Then he glanced up at the top, and then back down towards the bottom again. “These expenses seem reasonable for this second-rate school,” he said. “What did you want me to see, Alicia?”

“Reasonable for a second-rate school that presumably admits the Muggleborns who would have gone to Hogwarts, and most of the half-bloods as well?”

Lucius started to say that most of those children would have been harvested, but he had to pause as he thought about that. The Hunts had been more restricted in the last few years, of necessity. He didn’t dare widely advertise that his harvesting ability was gone, which meant he couldn’t lead them, and thus couldn’t benefit from the magic they gathered. “You think Riddle’s been lying about the expenses?”

“I think that he’s been taking in too many students for those to be the real numbers, Minister.”
\
Alicia was a simpler soul than many of those in his service, but sometimes it took a simple soul to spot the obvious, Lucius thought. He tapped his fingers for a moment on the page, then nodded to her. “All right. You want me to authorize an investigation of the school and its funding?”

“Yes, Minister.” Alicia clapped her hands once and beamed at him. “A surprise inspection, so he won’t have any chance to get up to nasty half-blood tricks.”

The more Lucius thought about it, the more reasonable it seemed. He couldn’t even remember the last inspection of Fortius. Before he’d become Minister, certainly. The school took so small a proportion of Ministry funding that it hadn’t been deemed necessary. And it was a convenient dumping place for Mudbloods and half-bloods it might have proven less worth the trouble to harvest.

It might be a convenient hunting ground, now.

“All right. Gather your forces, Alicia, and write the justification. But take as much time as you need. They don’t know that we’ve seen them, and they aren’t running anywhere.”

Alicia smiled at him and turned away to practically run out of the office. Lucius regarded the column of numbers again.

What have you been doing, I wonder, Tom Riddle? Holding your own harvests? Or your own leechings, which wouldn’t be as noticeable to Muggle parents?

Lucius smiled a little and set the ledger aside. He did enjoy foiling the hopes of other people who might have tried to pursue their own power growth at the expense of his own. There was room for only one great power in magical Britain.

And his name was Grindelwald.

*

Tom sat back and considered the alchemical ritual with a small, grin smile on his face. Yes, it was hideously complicated, and although the instructions looked straightforward at first, they were anything but.

First, they were written in the poetic language of High Alchemy, which Tom thought Dumbledore might have been the last British practitioner of. Tom knew some of it—knew, for example, that quicksilver was referred to as “the moon’s half-quick child”—but he didn’t know some of the other phrases. Was gold the sun’s child, or was it topaz, or was it something else? Did the Astronomical references mean the ritual had to be completed only at certain phases of the moon and certain alignments of the sun and the like, or was that only more poeticism and it could be done anytime?

And there were no measurements or proportions anywhere. Tom knew he needed quicksilver, but not how much.

Tom sighed and glanced at the ritual instructions once again. There was a gap in the circle that it showed, one that would be drawn with powdered silver—but how big the circle and how much powdered silver was necessary for each link of it, the page didn’t say. The ritual said unhelpfully that a “sacred rune” should be placed there.

It had led Tom, during his spare time over the past few weeks, through increasingly rarer runic alphabets and books, trying to locate any runes that might have been referred to that way. He had discovered that virtually every set of runes had been described that way at some point or another, by someone or another.

And he had to work on the alchemy and the runes involved in gaps between his talks with the goblins, his Defense classes, his private lessons with Harry, his meetings with other allies, and his spying on Lucius. Along with plans to try and fetch the Elder Wand and Grindelwald from behind Malfoy Manor’s wards.

“I do not have time for this,” Tom muttered. It was literally the truth.

The parchment simply lay there, as it had since Black had pulled it from the book, and sparkled with its secrets. Tom made a disgusted noise and pushed it away from him, standing up to slide it into a hidden drawer concealed near the top of the desk. He paused when someone knocked on the office door.

“Come in,” he called.

Harry entered with a parchment in his hands. It was large enough to look like a map, Tom thought, studying it, although he couldn’t see any of the front of it from the way Harry was holding it. Or one of the parchments that Jacob gave his students to work on their runic arrays.

Tom was out of patience with runes for the moment, no matter what intriguing interaction Harry might have demonstrated they had with war wizard magic. He made his face as patient and welcoming as he could. “Harry, if you’ll excuse me—”

“I have to show you this.”

Harry’s face was determined in a way that he usually only showed when he’d been practicing some new war wizard spell and got it to work. Tom narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. He would much rather Harry show him such a spell before unleashing it too much on his own. “All right. Show me.”

Harry thrust the parchment towards him. Tom considered it. There was a runic array there, but not any of the patterns that he was familiar with. In fact, the runes seemed scattered in a random pattern across the parchment, the only possible link between them being a rough half-circle. And even then, there were runes above and below the invisible line that Tom thought he had traced.

“What is this?”

Harry was silent. Tom looked up, and found Harry smiling at him.

“I can’t tell you too much about it,” Harry murmured. “But you haven’t noticed the particular runes, have you?”

It was true that Tom had paid attention to the array and not the individual runes, because the array was more likely to tell him what Harry was talking about. But now he looked back at them, and—

He stared. “Where did you get these?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t say.”

Tom glared at him. “Harry, if it was out of that section of library books that I told you not to touch—”

“I promise it wasn’t. These runes—” For an instant, Harry’s tongue tangled around his teeth in a way that made Tom wonder if someone had cast a spell on Harry to bind him to silence. He would find out who it was and tear them apart. But before he could get too far into his plans for revenge, Harry took a deep breath, straightened out his tongue, and said, “These are connected to my war wizard powers. I just can’t tell you how.”

Tom was about to snap that of course Harry could tell him how. Then he remembered Disaster’s book and sighed. “Something connected to advice that you got from a certain book, perhaps?”

Harry’s return gaze was relieved. “Yeah. I just want you to take a look at these and see if you can use them. Or if you know what I should be able to use them for. I think I have them in the right array, but I don’t know what they would do, exactly. Please, sir,” he added a second later, as if remembering that Tom was still his professor.

Tom studied the array in silence. But although hope tugged at him—perhaps these runes were the ones that were missing from the alchemical ritual—he couldn’t see anything immediately familiar or useful about them.

“I will have to spend some more time with them,” he said quietly, and laid the parchment down across his desk. “Do you mind if I borrow it?”

“Of course not, sir. I’m glad that they look as if they might be useful.”

“They will, I’m sure.”

Harry smiled at him and turned away, but halted with his hand on the doorknob. Tom had started to bend his head to study the runes again, but he looked up when Harry hesitated instead of leaving. “Yes?”

“When did you want to start the war, sir?”

“I had no particular timeline in mind,” Tom said quietly. This was an important conversation, he was sure, although he didn’t know for sure why. “I hoped it would be when more of our students grew strong enough to defend themselves, but I always knew it might be before then. Malfoy’s summoning of Grindelwald has advanced the timeline considerably. Why?”

“I think—I think it might be coming soon.” Harry glanced at him, and Tom caught his breath at the way Harry’s eyes were glazed with an odd white sheen. “I think—I can sense it.”

Because he is a war wizard whose powers might be used in war? But Tom doubted Harry would be able to answer the question with any clarity. He inclined his head. “Thank you for the warning.”

“You’re welcome, sir.” Harry’s eyes were normal again before he slipped out of the room.

Tom gazed down at the runes for a long moment. He hoped he would have time to complete the alchemy ritual, if these were the right runes, before the war began.

But then, nothing by and of itself was key to winning the war. Tom had always known he would have to give up even the secrecy about Fortius when the time came. He need not fear that not completing this alchemy ritual would lose them the war. It would probably only provide them some advantage.

But every advantage was to be seized, nonetheless.

Tom bent down and focused once again on the odd runes, trying to grasp all the differences as well as the similarities he could find between them and the ordinary runes that most witches and wizards were taught to handle.

Chapter Text

“The magic, of course, is different than the kind we used when we made the map of Hogwarts,” Remus said, gesturing with one hand as he sipped from the cup of apple juice in front of him. He seemed to be more relaxed and more cheerful than Sirius had ever seen him since the Weasley twins had come to Hogwarts. “Since it’s not like we can go to the Ministry and scout around, and Fred and George and I have only visited the Ministry a few times between all of us, so we don’t know every room, either.”

Sirius concealed a smile. “Of course.”

“So instead, we’re reaching out to the building from a distance with woven strands of moonlight and starlight.”

Sirius jolted and sat up in his chair. Remus glanced sideways at him. “What?”

“You know very well what. You’ve always refused to use moon magic because of the moon’s connection to werewolves!”

Remus’s mouth firmed, and he took another sip of apple juice. He didn’t say anything.

“Well?” Sirius demanded. They were in his room, and Remus was sitting on Sirius’s bed with Sirius in the chair across from him. And Remus had just dropped that revelation there casually and didn’t appear disposed to say anything about it. “Well?”

“I went so far with embracing other werewolf qualities in myself while you were imprisoned, Sirius. Why did you assume that I would keep refusing to use moon magic?”

“Because you said you’d refused it, right after I got out of Healing here for the first time!”

Remus sighed and nodded. “I had to—I embraced so much else about myself, so much that I used to think of as monstrous,” he whispered. “I had to have something to cling to that would separate me from that, from—other werewolves who had gone as deep as Fenrir Greyback went. So refusing moon magic it was.

“But lately, what with being an acknowledged werewolf here and so few people flinching from me, and spending ten years as a monster in most people’s eyes, and becoming a mentor to students who practically worship me…”

Sirius hid a smirk. He got along well with Fred and George too, but Moony was the one who had really taken the lead in mentoring them, partially because Sirius was always busy with Sophia and Constance. The twins would have put down a red carpet in front of Remus every meter he walked, if they were allowed.

“It seemed silly to hold onto that,” Remus finished softly. “If there’s some kind of problem with moon magic, or if I really did start becoming a monstrous werewolf, I knew people who would hold me back.”

Sirius nodded slowly. Then he reached out and clapped his friend’s shoulder, while shoving him at the same time. Remus caught hold of himself and blinked at Sirius. “What?”

“If you had changed your mind when we were still in school, just imagine how much more we might have got away with,” Sirius lamented, shaking his head.

Remus laughed. “We got away with more than enough.”

“Well, yeah,” Sirius said, and it became an afternoon ranging between reminiscence and theoretical uses of moon magic and back.

*

The runes Harry had gifted to him were fascinating. And frustrating.

Tom could tell that they were most likely the runes he had been looking for, simply because of the way they seemed to spark when he wrote them on a parchment that contained a copy of the alchemical ritual. But that didn’t mean that they taught him where they slotted, or which ones had to be placed first, or what they meant. Tom was almost coming to believe that they didn’t mean anything by themselves, that only in certain arrays would they come to life or reach out to the rest of the array and become imbued with meaning.

He knew that the alchemical ritual was important. He knew the runes were important. He knew they fit together.

But beyond that insight, he couldn’t go.

“Sir?” Lavinia asked when she knocked on his office door one evening. “I wanted to talk to you about one of Angelina’s projects—are you all right?”

“Yes, fine, Lavinia,” Tom said, leaning back from the parchments. He needed to control himself it he was revealing so much frustration and anger to his professors. The outcome of the war could not depend on these rituals or runes. They would help, that was all. Tom had come too far in setting up a multi-pronged plan for the war to let it go now. “Now, what about Angelina’s project?”

Lavinia eyed him as though she wanted to talk to him about the parchments instead, but nodded and sat down in the chair across from his desk. “Angelina has come up with a plan that might ensure we could have some income in the Muggle world.”

Tom blinked. “Has she?” He had made sure that certain places in the Muggle world were defended and that students of Fortius could hide there if they needed to, such as if a Hunt came for them. But he hadn’t made that many attempts to establish a foothold there. Muggles deserved to be defended if it came down to it, but he also thought it best to leave the vast majority of them ignorant of the magical world.

“Yes. You know that she has the ability to manipulate runes to find lost objects? Certain kinds of magic?”

“Yes.” Angelina had been working to build those kinds of runes into Fortius’s defenses, as a back-up to the wards that would sense hostile intent.

“She thinks she might be able to use them to find precious metals and gems, too.” Lavinia smiled. “Not ones that have merely been lost by Muggles or are in their possession already, as that would be too risky, but in their natural state. She could locate them, and some of our people who are more talented with earth magic could manipulate the soil and stone to release the metal and gems in as pure a form as possible.”

Tom leaned back in his chair, a small smile forming on his face. Yes, that would be useful. And while he didn’t know every nuance of the Muggle world, he did know there were places like Knockturn Alley where gold and silver and gems could be sold without too many questions, and other places slightly better that would accept those things for a higher price.

“Tell Angelina that she has my permission to go ahead with this,” Tom murmured. Angelina might have brought the idea to him herself, he thought. But she was a student, if one finishing up her seventh year, and in slight awe of him as a professor. “Be sure that you know who is best at earth magic and should accompany her on her travels.”

Lavinia nodded. She stood, gave the parchments on his desk one last look, and said, “I wish you good luck as you wrestle with this problem, sir.” Then she turned and walked out of the office.

Tom stared at the parchments, sighed, and shoved them roughly away. He wasn’t making any progress like this. He would take some time away from the ritual and runes and see if the solution might be clearer when viewed from a distance.

*

Minerva spent some time each evening strolling around Hogwarts in her Animagus form. It was the sort of thing that might have drawn the attention of Headmistress Carrow, so Minerva had never specifically mentioned it. But it also wasn’t against the rules that the Ministry had promulgated, either. Animagi were still so rare that there weren’t many rules that pertained specifically to them, except registration.

Minerva was heading down one of the corridors that led back to her office when she smelled two people who should have had no reason to be near this place. Her first thought was that Carrow had brought Archibald Geraldson, one of the Ministry inspectors assigned to run regular investigations of Hogwarts, to capture her. She tensed all her muscles and crept to the corner nearest her office, putting down her paws with more than silence.

But Geraldson was speaking of someone else.

“—an example?”

“It’s time that we do make an example of him,” Carrow said harshly. “We must make it clear that not even the mildest forms of dissent will be tolerated. And the portraits have told me that he is continually attempting to enter the Restricted Section of the library.”

“Do they know in pursuit of what?”

“Historical books, it seems, from what he has looked at the few times he has gained entrance. He will be reading forbidden material next, unless we are careful. And then you know that he might influence his grandmother, who is a nuisance herself.”

The little bit of Minerva’s fur that wasn’t already standing on end puffed out. She knew whom they were talking about.

“Very well,” Geraldson said. “Then I’ll need to speak to the portraits, and make it clear that they’re to be ready to repeat their stories to me and the other inspectors.”

“That will be no problem.”

Their footsteps moved, coming towards the corner. Minerva whisked silently back down the corridor, into a shadow that they wouldn’t be able to see for at least another few seconds, and then jumped. There was a small shelf embedded in the wall of the corridor here, one that would normally have held a bust but had been empty for years. Minerva landed on it and lashed her tail into place around her.

Geraldson and Carrow passed beneath her. As a cat, Minerva’s eyes were keener in the dim light than theirs were, and she would also have seen any small twitch of body language indicating that they’d seen her, attuned to such motions as she was in a predator’s form.

Neither of them looked up or otherwise indicated that they’d noticed her.

Minerva let a few more minutes go past when they’d left, tucking intense control around herself to keep her tail from lashing or her claws from shooting. There was always the chance that they had left eavesdropping spells lingering, or told portraits to spy on her.

But nothing happened. Minerva jumped back to the floor, stretched if she was lazily waking from a nap, and paraded back to the door of her office. She let herself in and renewed some of the protections that kept other people from using any sort of spies in her office, whether they were portraits or not.

Then she transformed and fell to her knees, folding her arms around her head.

They were going to use Neville Longbottom for the entertainment at the Leaving Feast, and Minerva knew that his grandmother—as stubborn and pigheaded as Geraldson had described her—wouldn’t believe a warning from her. Algernon Longbottom might have, but he also would have taken it to his sister; he wasn’t capable of an independent thought on his own. And Alice and Frank Longbottom, although not close personal friends of the Minister in the way Arthur Weasley was, were fully entrenched in the power structure and would have ignored her, sure that this could never happen to them.

This is the end, then. The end of this term is the end of my time at Hogwarts. And I can’t warn Longbottom ahead of time. I’ll have to do it the day of and make it a kidnapping.

Minerva took a deep breath and stood. Yes, it was a harder task than she would have liked, and she didn’t have the advance warning that had made Fred and George’s removal comparatively easier. But she still had an ally in Hogwarts. She could tell Severus.

And she could reach out to Tom Riddle, and warn him what was coming, and ask for help.

*

“I take it that you have assembled everyone you need then, Alicia?”

Lucius ran his eye over the team that she had lined up in front of him. She had chosen three Unspeakables, three Aurors, and five Hit Wizards. She also had an accountant, to give the impression of a legitimate mission, and two Hounds, howling and straining at the leashes of her will. Hounds did what they did best when they were given a target.

But Alicia had raw power to spare. She held the Hounds in check with her will alone, and gave Lucius a complacent smile.

“Yes, Minister. I think that we could use a little more warpower, but…” She shrugged. “Riddle is Headmaster of the school. The other professors and the students will be used to obeying him. Once I give his name to the Hounds, then there will be too much confusion and chaos on his part to give effective orders. And he won’t be able to handle two by himself.”

Lucius nodded. He had met Riddle numerous times, and while the man sometimes acted as though he hid resentment under the veneer of gratitude, he had never struck Lucius as particularly powerful. Not like the Roland Peverell of dreadful memory.

Lucius shook off the memory and glanced at the Unspeakables, the Aurors, the Hit Wizards. “You have the means to hide yourselves?”

One of the Unspeakables raised what looked like a golden amulet with a design of a spiderweb on the front, anchored by sapphires, and touched the center of the web. There was a small flash, and Lucius found himself glancing at the other two Unspeakables. He tried to turn his head to look at the third, and literally could not.

Lucius laughed, even as he made a mental note to himself that he would require all the notes on the magical theory behind the developing of that amulet, to ensure it could never be used against him or his lord. “Excellent. And you all have these amulets?”

Alicia showed him hers, before she tucked it back underneath her robes. “Yes, sir. The Hounds won’t, but I’ll bind them to their target once we get to the gates of Fortius, and they’ll be going too fast for anyone to stop, in any case.”

Lucius nodded and reached out to shake her hand gravely. “Then good luck, and Merlin go with you.”

*

Harry prowled back and forth inside his room. He’d woken restless, and it hadn’t gone away all day. He paused and stared out his window. The day looked back at him, pleasant and calm and cloudy. It wasn’t even very hot.

Harry bared his teeth and shook his head. There were warnings echoing around inside his head, but they had no direction. He couldn’t exactly go to Professor Riddle and declare, “Sir, my magic says that the war might start in an hour or three days.”

He’d barely slept last night, and he was aware that was addling his perceptions, perhaps affecting them so negatively that he couldn’t trust them at all. Harry sighed, sat down on his bed, and folded his arms. He would never be the kind of Legilimens Hermione was, but he had managed to become good enough at Occlumency to at least calm and clear his mind.

He had sunken some of his restlessness into the calm ground at the bottom of his mind when a single diamond-bright needle bored into the center of his thoughts.

Danger. Danger, coming now!

Harry scrambled to his feet, breathing heavily. Yes, he could sense the danger now, coming this way, coming today, coming to the gates.

Harry had never tried to command the magic of Gryphon House that protected them, but he thought that he could ask it for a favor. “Hey, magic,” he said, and felt the ceaseless churning of warmth around his shoulders pause for a moment. “Can you take me to Professor Riddle?” He could Apparate now, but not within the grounds, and he had no broom. The enchantment was his best bet to get there in time.

Silence, for a long enough moment that Harry didn’t think the enchantment had heard him. And then gryphon wings stretched into being around his shoulders, and Harry’s feet left the ground.

The enchantment hurled him through the corridors of Gryphon House, and out the nearest window. Harry tried not to be sick as he looked down at the ground speeding below them. Then he decided that he was just going to fix his eyes straight ahead, on the building that held Professor Riddle’s office, and watch it get steadily closer.

Inside him, his magic was stretching and growling, pacing in circles like a restless panther. Harry smiled, a little grimly. He was a war wizard, and war had come to him at last.

He would be glad to face it.

*

Alicia took a deep breath as her entourage appeared at the gates of Fortius. She suspected that some of their defenses would sense her people, despite the amulets, and report them to the Headmaster. But it didn’t matter.

She had intended to present a small deception if necessary, and pretend they really had come only to inspect Fortius’s finances, hence the presence of their accountant. But now that she was so close to the school, it wasn’t necessary.

She recognized intent wards woven around the walls, the sort of powerful ones that half-bloods were forbidden from casting and Mudbloods were incapable of.

Alicia clucked her tongue and turned towards her people. The three Unspeakables straightened, and the Aurors gripped their wands. The Hit Wizards looked a little more cautious, but their battle training, more limited than that of the Aurors, would still be enough to handle the weaklings they would encounter here.

“I will loose the Hounds,” she said, ignoring the deafening howls that broke from behind her. “In the meantime, I want you to storm the gates. They’re the weakest point in the wards.” Gates always were, no matter how strong the defenses. “Be prepared to enter the moment they’re broken.”

The nearest Unspeakable nodded, and activated their amulets. Alicia touched her own, vaguely aware of the others doing the same, and turned to face the Hounds, the only members of the group she could see at the moment. They slavered, long streams of drool running away from their jaws and making the grass die where it landed.

Alicia snapped the leash of her will, and the Hounds focused on her. Alicia smiled. They had been formed from Mudbloods kept in a dark room of the Ministry, and their coats were black, and their jaws and eyes shining white.

“Tom Riddle,” she said. “He is your target.”

Their mad and maddening howls filled the air, and then the Hounds charged the gates and blurred through them. Alicia didn’t know if that would weaken the protective spells on the gates, but it couldn’t strengthen them, and she thought some of the spells would fall in any case when the Hounds killed the Headmaster.

She nodded to her people and stepped out of the way so they could get at the gates. “Batter them.”

*

Tom was on his feet with his wand drawn by the time the threat landed in his office, and he nearly dropped his wand when he saw that it was Harry in the grip of his House enchantment. “Harry?” he asked warily, straightening. “What are you doing?”

“I got it to bring me to you faster,” Harry said. “The threat is at the gates. The beginning of the war.” His eyes were a paler green than normal, and glowing with an almost pearly color that reminded Tom of the reflections in a crystal ball. “I’m sure of it, sir.”

Tom started to answer, and then jerked his head sideways at the familiar calls rising up from the school gates. Hounds. Brought here.

And told to hunt him, most likely, although Tom could not be certain of that. What he knew was that cold rage had formed in him, and was now preparing to move, like a glacier.

How dare they come here? How dare they endanger my people? Even if the Hounds were solely focused on him, they could still injure others that they perceived as getting in the way.

“Harry,” Tom said, hardly recognizing his own voice. “Look at me.”

His long mentorship of Harry and the trust built up between them served them well now. Confused but obedient, Harry looked up at him, and Tom dived into his eyes and snapped the Legilimency bonds that had held the full extent of his power back. Harry’s eyes widened.

As the howls drew nearer, Tom snapped, “Get your enchantment to take you to Belasha’s dome. Set her free.” He was concentrating, drawing on the connections that tied him to the enchantments and the buildings of the school, slamming shutters and doors and stealing away the people who were free on the grounds to the safety of their Houses or quarters. “Go.”

Harry’s eyes remained wide, but he nodded, and the gryphon enchantment coalesced into animal form again and snatched him into the air. Tom swung to face the Hounds, dropping the bonds that kept his own magic sealed away. It stretched lazy wings around him and spiraled into the air, and Tom couldn’t help a certain delight in its freedom, for all that he hadn’t planned on revealing his strength to the Ministry personnel so soon.

It would not matter. None of them would be leaving Fortius alive.

Tom turned to face the Hounds, smiling as they blurred through the wall of his office.

*

Harry scrambled, panting, towards the doors of Belasha’s dome as the gryphon enchantment dropped him next to it. He couldn’t speak Parseltongue, but he had the sense to keep his eyes closed as he blasted the doors with a concentrated burst of power, opening them the only way he knew how.

He heard the basilisk’s deep hiss as she slithered out. Professor Riddle had said something once about her understanding English, so Harry kept his eyes shut as he bowed low to her.

“Um, hello, Great One,” he said, and managed not to stammer. “Please defend the school. There’s Ministry people here, and some kind of howling creature.”

Belasha hissed in what sounded like satisfaction—what Harry hoped was satisfaction—and slithered past him. Harry stood still, shivering. He might be a war wizard, but the sensation of death still cloaked Belasha and moved with her like a cold wind. He didn’t dare look until he felt the earth stop trembling under her motion.

Then he straightened and opened his eyes, and hesitated. Professor Riddle hadn’t told him what to do next. Part of Harry wanted to head back to Gryphon House and let Professor Riddle and Belasha handle this. They probably could.

But why had Professor Riddle snapped the bonds on Harry’s power, if he was meant to just go back to his House and hide there?

Harry took a deep breath and asked the enchantment to take him to the top of Belasha’s dome. From there, he should be able to see more of what happened, and whether his interference would even be needed.

Part of him hoped it wouldn’t, if only because people who could handle a full-grown basilisk and someone as powerful as Professor Riddle were probably too dangerous for a teenage war wizard to kill.

But part of him was still the panther, not pacing back and forth now but crouching inside him, filling his muscles with silent, coiled power. Harry shivered with delight and anticipation and something so strong that it felt like being drunk.

He wanted to kill them. Warfare was what he was made for.

And that part of him was tired of waiting.

*

Alicia jerked as she felt her connection with the Hounds tremble and ripple. Something was wrong. They had encountered unexpected opposition.

Alicia was trying to remember whether there were any purebloods who might have thrown their lot in with Riddle when a maelstrom of magic broke out above the grounds, and she staggered from the force of it. Two of the Unspeakables cried out, from the sound of their voices, thrown to the earth from where they had been working on the gates.

He does have a pureblood, Alicia thought, swallowing. Perhaps Roland Peverell has joined with him. Or perhaps he was visiting and is handling the Hounds because he takes a poor view of them hunting an ally.

A moment later, the ground began to shake. Alicia backed up a step, her wand raised. Were there defenses that could cause an earthquake inside Fortius? It seemed a bizarre choice, to destroy one’s own school, but Minister Malfoy had shown her those reports that revealed the smaller size of half-bloods’ brains—

A great green head rose above the gates, and Alicia barely closed her eyes before she met the basilisk’s gaze.

Fuck, she had time to think, and then the real battle began.

Chapter Text

Tom ripped one of the Hounds in half with sheer strength as it barreled towards him, and sent those bloody pieces flying into the way of the other Hound. It snarled in surprise and managed to bound to the side, standing with its body half-in and half-out of his office wall, watching him with lowered head.

Tom watched it back. He weighed ripping it apart, too, but such a blast of power would take more out of him than he liked, and he didn’t know what might be waiting for him at the school’s gates, if Belasha wasn’t enough. And there might be easier ways to handle this enemy, depending on what it did next.

The Hound loosed a low, bubbling growl. Tom curved one hand down at his side. He could throw a wandless Blasting Curse, but that would also tire him out, and disorient him for long enough that, if he missed or if the curse wasn’t strong enough, the Hound could move.

Decision made, he reached for his wand.

The Hound leaped onto his desk and deliberately nosed one of the crystals that Tom had created to the floor.

Tom stared for a second. That was smarter than he had thought any Hound could be. As the crystal smashed and a choking grey mist filled the room, he held his breath and was glad he hadn’t gone for wandless magic.

He raised silent shields around himself, layering invisible ones behind the visible ones, and a second later heard a crash into one and a pained howl. Tom smiled grimly. Hounds could pass through all kinds of barriers, but if they didn’t see some of them, then the magic that allowed them to do so wouldn’t be prepared.

And it had bought him a second to prepare his own magic, which was all he would need.

He whispered the Lead Curse as the Hound charged him, this time breaking through the shields. The Hound screamed horribly as everything in its body—bones, blood, organs, anything else leftover from the human it had once been—simply changed to molten lead. Tom leaped back and onto the chair behind his desk, and released his breath as the last of the deadly mist that had come from his broken crystal dissipated.

He would do something about the puddle of metal on the floor later. The floor itself was reinforced, thanks to his frequent experiments in here, so that it wouldn’t bubble through to the rooms below.

And his people might need him.

*

Harry whirled around. He knew he hadn’t imagined it. There was a pressure on his mind from beyond the walls of Fortius, something or someone reaching out to him and leaning against his thoughts.

Harry didn’t know if it was connected to the attack at the gates or if this was something or someone attacking who was just using this as an opportunity. But they weren’t going to find Harry distracted and easy to defeat, no matter what they did or when they did it.

Harry raised his magic around him. He retained the faint memory of Professor Riddle’s instructions not to release his war wizard spells within the walls of Fortius, but he wouldn’t be doing that. He would be striking—

He stepped sideways, not knowing exactly how he was doing it when he was awake, but then he stood there. Under the dark blue sky, next to the frozen fountain, with the sketches of silver trees and the snow all around him.

And the power was there, too.

It formed a crouching shape that eddied and broke near the legs and fur of the creature, but was recognizable as something low and heavy anyway. Perhaps a wolverine, perhaps a small bear. Harry didn’t think it mattered exactly what it was, not when there were red eyes igniting in what must be the head and it came rushing towards him across the snow.

Harry reacted instinctively. “Oculos neco!”

The thing screamed as its red eyes flared and went out. Harry’s spell had destroyed the basic structure of whatever it had been using to see, which was harder to reverse or cure—if at all—than a Blinding Curse or the like. It still kept rushing, and Harry leaped up to stand on the rim of the fountain, which it slammed into. The whole thing shook, and the enemy’s shrieks went on and on.

But then it tilted back and stared at him, or oriented towards him, even without eyes, and Harry felt a sharp chill slide down his backbone. This enemy wasn’t going to be so easy to defeat, even with a war wizard spell.

He looked up and whistled, putting magic behind it. Here, what form things and sounds took was less important than the intent in them.

And his steed was there, the thing that was only a winged horse by courtesy, stooping down and hovering at the right height next to the fountain. Harry slung a leg over its back, and it took off.

Just in time. The creature had transformed, and was sending dark tendrils crawling all over the fountain. One of them seized the lump of frozen water in the middle of it and wrenched it off. Harry gasped and clapped a hand to his chest. Some kind of obscure pain was shuddering through him, as if he had a broken sternum. Apparently, he could be hurt when something else damaged features of his secret landscape.

He could dimly remember the time when, as a child, that kind of pain would have made him back off, sobbing desperately, and trying to avoid it. The time when he would have cowered before Dudley or Uncle Vernon, swearing to do whatever they wanted, as long as they just didn’t hurt him anymore.

Now, it filled him with rage. And the desire to hurt back.

He closed his eyes and called on the cold that lived inside him, not connected to the cold of this place, as he and the steed flew higher and higher. He felt other twinges as the enemy kept attacking the fountain and maybe the trees and hurting them, but they didn’t matter. All that mattered was calling up the kind of magic that could make it hurt.

He threw the cold when he had it compliant to his call. Not obedient. Never that. A war wizard’s power was not obedient. But it might choose to do what he wanted because it knew that that way lay more massive destruction.

There was no incantation for this spell. It simply sped down towards the enemy, which had grown dark wings of its own and was rising skywards.

Harry’s magic collided with it. Harry heard one more distant, half-desperate cry, what a bat might scream if Harry could hear it dying.

And then it was gone.

Harry hovered where he was, his eyes narrowed. It seemed odd that he might have beaten something strong enough to follow him between worlds so neatly. Even if he had touched it with the opposite to matter, the opposite to existence, that lived inside him, and even if dark cracks had spread through the world below him, which the deep blue and silver were only slowly repairing.

He heard the sound behind him a fraction of a second too late.

The steed screamed beneath him. Harry went wheeling down as it fell, its wings flaking and disappearing, while the enemy that had dived from above fastened its claws on his shoulders and began to feed.

*

Alicia heard scream after scream as she backed away from the gates, keeping her eyes closed. A basilisk. That was a fucking basilisk. Where did a half-blood like Tom Riddle get one?

An old rumor slunk across her mind, something about Tom Riddle being a Parselmouth and the last descendant of Slytherin for all that anyone knew, but she didn’t have time to think about it. Not when she could hear what sounded like the useless crackle of spellfire against armored scales and more of her people screaming as they died.

It didn’t matter. What mattered was that a basilisk was here, and it would tear apart the screen of the bush she was hiding in within a moment. Then it wouldn’t matter whether she met its eyes or not. It could still bite her with those deadly fangs, crush her with its bulk, or kill her probably half a dozen other ways.

Unless she evened the odds.

Alicia settled her mind, as best she could. She had never been particularly good at Transfiguration, but she still remembered this one. It was one that was taught in the lower-level classes at Hogwarts, partially because it was a way to get around the laws that wouldn’t let someone directly conjure food.

She waved her wand, cringing as she heard the basilisk crashing through what was probably a ward that the Unspeakables might have managed to set up, and whispered, “Creo gallum.” No time to try casting the spell wordlessly.

The air in front of her sparked and tumbled around, and Alicia risked opening her eyes the merest bit. She would die if she met the gaze of the basilisk, but she would die anyway if this didn’t work.

The air settled, and the spray of leaves and branches in front of her lifted its head. Alicia grabbed the Transfigured rooster by its feet and neck and hurtled out of the bush, eyes closed again, in the direction of the crashing.

She crouched down and released the rooster, casting a spell that would make the air around it the best possible carrier of sound. Then she glanced at the basilisk’s long green body twisting on the earth and took a deep breath. “Crow, damn you,” she whispered, and prodded the rooster with her wand.

The bird stalked a few steps away from her wand, and then—perhaps it was its normal response to danger, Alicia knew almost nothing about chickens—threw its head back and crowed.

A rising, inhuman sound came from the basilisk, and Alicia smiled.

*

Tom arrived in front of the gates, Fortius’s wards pulling him through the walls, and was in time to hear the crow of the rooster and see Belasha falling.

The pain tore through him like lightning, like hatred. He stared at the mound of the dead basilisk in front of him, his friend, the basilisk he had risked going back to Hogwarts for, the loyal protector of Fortius’s grounds—

And his magic snapped out in front of him and reached out towards the rooster and the sparks of life he could sense beyond that.

There was a scream, abruptly choked off. Tom walked towards it, barely aware of the earth beneath his feet, or the sobs from ahead of him. His mind was floating somewhere in a great silver fog devoid of emotions. He came around the corner of a tree and saw a woman sprawled on the ground in fine robes next to the rooster, two hooded Unspeakables, and two Aurors, as well as several bodies.

One of the Aurors was injured, a long stripe of blood leaking down his side, but still managed to whirl around and face Tom.

Tom raised his hand and brought it down, caring nothing for the exhaustion and the magic that was traveling, glittering, around him. This was the force that had come to oppose them. Small enough that they should have had no effect, should not have been able to kill Belasha—

He became aware that he was hissing in Parseltongue, and that he had no idea what he was saying. It didn’t matter. Both the language and the magic were focused on the Auror in front of him, and he cried out as Tom ripped his heart straight through the wall of his chest, hanging it in the air in front of the Auror’s eyes.

The man had time to see it hovering there before he died.

One of the Unspeakables fired a vivid blue spell at him that Tom didn’t recognize. He turned his head, and his magic burned it up in flight. Tom reached out with his power and established anti-Apparition shields around the gates with a thought. It wouldn’t do for them to escape before they were done paying.

Then he turned and stalked towards his remaining victims.

The Unspeakables stood back-to-back. The remaining Auror limped around until she was standing before the woman sprawled next to the rooster. That one was sitting up as Tom headed towards them, a hand clutched to her ribs and her face pale with shock. Tom was glad that that uncontrolled burst of magic when he’d realized Belasha was dead had broken at least some of her bones.

“Halloway,” the woman whispered.

“No, Madam Goyle,” the Auror responded, eyes hard and resting on Tom. “I swore to give my life defending you if need be, and I’m not leaving you to him.”

Tom gave the Auror a smile that made her gulp, but not stand out of the way. Tom spread his hands out in front of him, fingers still crooked but hands obviously empty, so they could believe that he was no threat if they wanted to.

If they were fools.

Black light formed around them, crackling and twisting, rising and falling. The serpents that split up from that began to fall to the ground. They opened their mouths. Serrated teeth lined their jaws, which Tom supposed probably attracted his enemies’ attention, but if they were smart, they would be paying more attention to the fangs in the front of the serpents’ mouths, dripping venom.

“We won’t tell you anything,” gasped the woman on the ground. Madam Goyle, apparently. The one who had killed Belasha.

“Not of your own free will,” Tom agreed softly, and watched as the serpents writhed forwards, as the Auror crouched to defend her from them, as the Unspeakables reached into their cloaks for some surprises they probably carried with them.

None of it was going to matter.

He was so angry.

*

After most of a controlled fall on his steed, Harry rolled off its back and fell to the ground himself, reaching into his magic and gathering it around him.

The rules of this world weren’t the same as the ones in the physical world. Harry knew he could survive a fall like this. But he was sure it would hurt, no matter that his power was partially there to cushion him, and he was also sure that it would hurt his enemy when Harry landed on his back and crushed it beneath him.

Either his enemy didn’t think that, or it was caught up in clawing at Harry and wasn’t keeping track of the fall. It didn’t let go of him as he tumbled, and when Harry landed on the ground next to the fountain, it screamed aloud as Harry pinned it.

Harry channeled magic through his back and shoulders, something he had never tried to do before, but it didn’t matter. He wanted to destroy it, and he was made for destruction. And he reached out and tapped the cold inside himself, the cold that said it was better to fall and possibly hurt himself than allow his foe to escape, and it crackled out of him, deeper than fire.

The enemy screamed and hissed and twisted, but it couldn’t get away. Harry hammered it with his strength, and ignored the sensation of broken bones shifting inside himself. It didn’t matter. It was going to die.

I cannot die, you foolish child.

Harry froze for a second, but didn’t let up the chokehold of his magic. The enemy was still caught between him and the ground, and he could start pounding it again at any second. On the other hand, it might be wise to see what it thought important enough to say, since it hadn’t tried to communicate with him before.

But you can be destroyed, Harry thought, with all the force of his conviction. War wizards are made to destroy, not necessarily kill, and I can destroy you.

There was a long pause, and then his enemy screamed in what sounded like pure desperation.

Harry froze again, and that was all the time his enemy needed to slip free. It tore itself away from him, clawing at his spine, and Harry hissed in pain as he bent over. He glanced up just in time to see a dark streak pelt away into the blue sky, wings flapping so hard that it was a distant speck in one second.

Harry staggered up and whistled. His steed landed next to him, ragged tatters hanging from one wing but kicking up willing heels. Harry sprang onto its back, and it flew furiously away in pursuit of the dark thing.

He chased it as long as he could, but at last he had to admit it was hopeless. The thing was gone. He touched his steed’s neck and directed it back towards the point where he had entered the world. He didn’t know for sure if he could only step sideways near the fountain, but he didn’t want to chance it otherwise.

He was worn out. But he had a new theory about what his enemy had been, and why it had attacked him so furiously.

There was a thin, hard smile on his face as he stepped back into the world that contained Fortius.

*

Alicia suspected she was facing death, but that didn’t matter, not as much as keeping Minister Malfoy’s counsel and dying before they could tell this half-blood anything. Not as much, for that matter, as getting away and telling Minister Malfoy the truth that had been hiding beneath the surface of Fortius and Tom Riddle.

He was powerful, somehow. Perhaps he had been doing his own harvesting sooner than they’d realized. Or he had “borrowed” the magic of a particularly strong pureblood. There were guides to doing that if you knew where to look.

Alicia would have liked to pick up her wand, but her right arm was broken, and it was out of reach for her left hand. She tried to turn in that direction, tried to reach for it without being obvious, and then the first snake darted forwards and bit Auror Halloway on the foot and Halloway screamed.

Alicia tried to reach out an arm, and grunted herself, because it was the broken one. But she kept shifting, trying to reach Halloway, wondering what in the world was in the venom of that snake to make her—

Halloway fell to the ground, still screaming. Purple-black veins of color were coursing up her leg from where the snake had bitten her, and her face was already swelling and turning black even though it was the furthest from the bite.

The Unspeakables cried out next. Alicia turned to look at them and found that the serpents were climbing their bodies, biting and biting and biting. Long strings of flesh were being pulled from their limbs and from beneath their robes. For all that the snakes all looked the same, they weren’t, Alicia thought.

She whirled back, or turned awkwardly back, to face Riddle. He was walking towards her still, his footsteps as measured and gliding as the pace of his snakes, his smile wide and wild. Staring at him, Alicia felt suddenly certain that he hadn’t taken any magic from harvested or leeched purebloods after all.

She held up her left hand and said as loudly as she could, “I surrender.” There had to be a reason that none of the snakes had bitten her yet. Riddle could probably tell she was the leader of the expedition. He might be willing to take her prisoner, and that would leave her time to work out an escape.

“Too late,” Riddle said, his voice dark, sliding, probably on the edges of Parseltongue, although Alicia had never heard it spoken, so she didn’t know for sure.

“It’s not too late. If you knew who I am, how high I stand in Minister Malfoy’s counsels—”

One of the snakes bit her.

Alicia had never felt anything like the fiery pain tearing up through her body, and she had once been under the Cruciatus Curse. She screamed, and screamed, and screamed. Something in her throat tore. She fell back, thrashing and kicking, the edges of her broken bones grinding together.

Riddle stood over her, looking down, face bright and pitiless, eyes as dark as death.

“You killed my friend,” Riddle said, when Alicia had screamed herself into silence. He had probably waited that long so that she would be able to hear him again, Alicia thought, in some part of herself that had survived the onslaught of the venom intact. “You’ll tell me what you know, but I don’t need to indulge you.” And he twisted his wrist and spoke in what must be true Parseltongue, a language of liquid slides and hisses.

Alicia felt something pinch her brain. It was the only description that made sense. Her thoughts were suddenly chaotic and leaping. She leaned her head back and gasped, and the sensation spiraled down through the muscles of her neck and into her chest. Then there was a tremendous yank.

The pain stopped.

Alicia blinked and looked down. She didn’t know why Riddle would have healed all her broken bones as well as the pain of the venom, but that was what it felt like.

She saw her body below her, the slackness of her face, beneath the crown of her shattered skull. She would have screamed, but it seemed she had no mouth left to her.

She was drifting. Alicia looked to the left, or what had been the left, and found herself heading towards a crystal held in Riddle’s cupped hand. She settled into it, and the light flared around her, dazzling, and she was contained in a way that she had never been contained before. She surged around the confines of her trap with a liquid sloshing, but there was no escaping the beams of crystalline light that arched overhead.

Riddle held the crystal close to his face. Alicia again wished the for the ability to scream at the expression, or rather the lack of it, on his face.

“You killed my friend,” Riddle repeated, and smiled at her. Alicia discovered that she no longer had the ability to faint, either. “And now you’re going to pay for it for the rest of your existence. Death would be too simple. There are all sorts of ways to hold your brain captive and to read your thoughts.

“I’ll know many more things soon enough than how high you stand in Minister Malfoy’s counsels, Madam Goyle. You and I, we’ll know each other for a very long time.”

*

“Professor Riddle?”

Tom looked up. Harry stood in front of him, robes shredded. Tom roused himself from his staring at his hands and shook his head a little as he straightened. “Harry? Are you all right? You look as if you’ve been in battle yourself.”

“Something attacked me. I thought it was connected to the other forces at first, but now I think it was an attack of opportunity.” Harry took a deep breath. “I fought it in a magical battle, but I think it left some physical marks.”

“You should go to the Healing Hall, then.”

“I will, sir. Sir—is Belasha dead?”

Tom closed his eyes. This pain, he couldn’t hide from or inflict on someone else. “Yes,” he whispered.

Oldest friend. Truest friend. Friend who had come with him because he had needed her and who had been so fierce in defense of Fortius’s children.

Gone.

“I’m sorry, sir.”

Tom nodded slowly and didn’t look at the crystal glowing on his desk that held the brain of Alicia Goyle. He hadn’t known, not for sure, that he could create snakes whose venom could do that, and now he was more exhausted than he had been after the battle with Nott. But his magic had answered his desperate call, and she would pay and pay and pay.

“Sir? What happens now?”

Tom shook himself out of his stupor. It was a fair question. It had been vital that none of the Ministry flunkies escaped, but of course, Malfoy would know now that Fortius was a danger zone and not simply a school for the second-best.

Part of Tom still burned with a steady flame of satisfaction at that, but the part of that wished Belasha could be here to see it was burning more.

“I have warding spells that will pull an illusion over the school and make it look like a blasted ruin,” he said quietly. “Malfoy won’t know exactly what happened, but he’ll most likely assume that I destroyed everything rather than have Fortius and its secrets fall into Ministry hands. Meanwhile, we have to send out strike teams to defend Muggleborns too young to attend the school and probably some Muggle family members of those who are here. We’ll offer as many as we can sanctuary in our safehouses, but I don’t think they’ll be large enough to hold everyone who wants to come. And we’ll start readying ourselves for assassinations from the top down. Malfoy is a prime target, assuming he’s foolish enough to remain outside wards long enough for it. But I want the deaths to look natural.”

Harry’s excitement dimmed, and he crossed his arms. “That means I can’t join the strike teams, doesn’t it, sir?”

Tom managed to summon a smile. “Your magic is rather distinctive, yes. I’ll be sending Carol, the twins, Black if he can keep himself under control, Lavinia, Hermione, others…” He trailed off.

“Is the illusion spell in place, sir?”

“Yes.” Tom leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

Harry’s hand fell on his arm. “Then just rest for a while, sir,” he said quietly. “I can carry any messages you need me to. I know that you probably—you need to think for a bit. Do you want to tell me what they are?”

It helped, to talk to Harry and think about how he wouldn’t have to manage the immediate crisis for a while. Then Tom leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes again as Harry quietly left his office. He had said he had something to tell Tom about the enemy that had attacked him, but even that could wait for now. For a while.

Tom could sit here and feel the chaos inside his chest, his brain.

He had lost Belasha. There was nothing that could compensate for that. The Ministry wouldn’t be fooled by the illusion for long and would start to poke at it. And he had people to keep safe, and he might not be able to keep all of them safe.

But underneath everything, stirring rapidly to life, was the rage and the longing.

They would carry this to war at last.

Belasha. I regret only that you will not see it.

But they will pay, and pay, and pay.

Chapter Text

“You intend to bring in Muggleborn children earlier then, sir?” Lavinia was frowning a little, her eyes fixed on him. “Where will we shelter them? We have some room in the Houses for them, but I thought you said the Sorting magic wouldn’t work on children who were too young.”

Tom nodded grimly. That had happened because he had patterned the school on Hogwarts, something he regretted now. There had been no reason for it except that he had yearned for Hogwarts to be something it was not. “We have room in the dome that—used to belong to Belasha,” he said.

Lavinia closed her eyes for a moment. Then she murmured, “Perhaps you’ll call on Mr. Black to Transfigure some of the walls and establish partitions for bedrooms?”

“Is he that good with Transfiguration?”

“I just realized I was assuming,” Lavinia said, and flushed a little. “He did learn the Animagus transformation, after all.”

“That does not always lend itself to skill with object-to-object Transfiguration,” Tom said, but relented when he saw how red Lavinia’s cheeks had gone. “It is still a good suggestion.” He took a deep breath and heaved himself up from the chair in his office.

Lavinia stood up at once, but Tom waved her off. “I will simply have to get used to the magical exhaustion,” he murmured.

“Is it—permanent, sir?”

Tom shook his head. “No, but I have not had the time to rest in the last day because of the need to have discussions and plan for the Muggleborn evacuations.” And the Muggle ones. Those would be more difficult, because while some parents and other family members might want to come with the Muggleborn children, others would resist, or argue, or disbelieve in the danger. Tom would do what he must in those cases to ensure they were protected.

“You should rest, sir. If someone comes to me with a question, I’ll take care of it, or set aside the questions I can’t answer myself for you to answer when you wake.”

Tom considered it. Lavinia was precise and knew as much about the school as anyone working there, but she had the kind of unemotional detachment that came with being a good Legilimens, and she might not handle all the requests as well as he would have. “You will do your best to respond with warmth?”

Color made its way across her cheeks again. Tom knew he was one of the few people honored with seeing so many emotions on display in her face, and he did consider it an honor. “Yes, sir. Of course.”

Well, if something went wrong, Tom decided that staying awake to deal with it would probably cost him more than it was worth in time and energy. He nodded and made his way from his office to his bedroom, where he lay down with his head on more pillows than usual.

His mind swam in the direction of Belasha, and he drifted off remembering the sound of her voice.

*

“I think I know what the creature is that attacked me.”

Harry watched as Professor Riddle blinked and obviously focused his mind on what Harry was saying. How much time it took him to do that concerned Harry.

Well, no, actually, it upset and frightened him. But yelling at Professor Riddle wouldn’t do any good. He had moved as fast and decisively as anyone could ask for, and Harry was going on a potential Muggleborn rescue mission himself in just a while. Okay, he would have to watch from the background in case Ministry people showed up to attack, but he was still going.

“What is it?”

“The Elder Wand.”

Professor Riddle blinked and sat up, the last clouds of dreariness clearing from his eyes. Harry half-smiled. They were sitting in the professor’s office with a private silver tea service between them, something they did quite often. It was good to see how Professor Riddle picked up his cup and snatched a biscuit a second later, as if the return of his predatory nature had restored his appetite.

“Why do you think that?”

“The magic that surrounded it felt familiar,” Harry said. “I’ve got better at analyzing magic that’s affecting me than I used to be. Or than I was the last time I went to the Malfoy wards.” Harry grimaced. He hated admitting that the Elder Wand could take him out as easily as it did Professor Riddle or anyone else who wasn’t a war wizard. “And it reminds me of that inhuman presence I’ve felt before. I don’t think it was Grindelwald that wanted to attack me at all, or that was afraid of me. It was the Wand.”

Professor Riddle gazed at him above the rim of his teacup. “I have to admit that I have often felt as though Grindelwald was only the human puppet of the Wand. But it doesn’t explain why the Wand is afraid of you. It has already manipulated you once before.”

Harry smiled. “It’s afraid of what I could do, not what I’ve done so far.” He had read and reread Disaster’s book with that in mind, and now he finally thought he had the beginnings of an answer. “The story of the Deathly Hallows says that the Elder Wand is—”

“The ultimate weapon of destruction. The most powerful wand ever to exist. Yes. But what does that have to do with its feelings towards you?”

“What are war wizards, sir?”

Professor Riddle didn’t even take as long to come to the conclusion as Harry had thought he might. His eyes widened. “Weapons of destruction given human form.”

Harry nodded once. “I think that I might be able to master the Elder Wand—not the way Grindelwald has, where his ‘mastery’ just means that the wand can use him, but really subjugate the Elder Wand to me. If it’s true that Malfoy summoned it and Grindelwald from some other world, then it probably didn’t expect to find an opponent like me in this world. Maybe it deliberately chose a world where it didn’t think there would be war wizards. That part, I’m still not sure about.”

Professor Riddle stared at him for a long moment. Then he smiled. Harry reveled in that smile, and tried not to let it show on his face. Professor Riddle would probably chide him for being undignified if he did.

“How sure are you of this?” the professor asked quietly.

“Pretty sure.”

“But the divination seems to imply that Andromeda Tonks will be involved somehow with the recovery of the Elder Wand. Do you have a plan to subjugate it that includes both the wand and her?”

Harry laughed. “Sir, I barely have a plan that includes the wand yet. But I wondered if you have anyone who knows wandlore, so I can start learning from them and planning out a trap. Of course I want to help with hiding Muggleborns and Muggles, but I think taking control of the Elder Wand is the most important blow we can deal to our enemy right now.”

“And you prefer the offensive to the defensive side of magic.”

Harry met his eyes and let his own strength rise to the surface for a moment, shining. He knew he looked different, felt different, when he did that. “Yes, sir.”

Professor Riddle studied him intently for a long second. Then he said, “You could not master the wand the last time you faced it.”

“No, sir. That’s specifically why I do want to study wandlore.”

“And would you like to speak to Andromeda? I warn you, she’s become intransigent lately. Not only does she want us to come up with something that would leave her sister entirely unharmed, but she insists that she be the one to strike the finishing blow to Malfoy.”

Harry smiled. “I don’t mind that, sir. It’s not the same thing as the finishing blow to Malfoy’s regime, and that’s the thing I care about most. I think you do, too,” he added, greatly daring, but even if Professor Riddle reacted badly to that, Harry didn’t think the man would really take it out on Harry himself.

Professor Riddle sat in silence for a moment. Then he nodded. “Very well. I have only one person who knows something about wandlore, and she usually prefers to work on other tasks, but I’ll have her talk to you about this.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And Harry? I do hope that you’re right, and we have a means of neutralizing our most powerful enemy.”

“If we don’t right now, sir, we will soon.”

Professor Riddle’s thin smile was the only reward Harry needed.

*

Hermione closed her eyes and waited for a long moment, until she felt the connection with Professor Elthis’s mind spring into life.

This was something they had only barely begun to practice when the attack on the school had happened. Now Hermione knew that she was an integral part of the defense, and her hands shook a little before she tucked them under her knees and sat back in her chair.

She had to concentrate. She was nervous, yes, but she would not fail.

“Concentrate,” Professor Elthis said, and so close were they now that Hermione had no idea whether or not she was speaking the words aloud. “Can you feel the difference that magic makes between a Muggle and a magical mind?”

Hermione would have said that it wasn’t quite that simple, because she could also feel a difference between Muggle and Squib minds, even though Squibs didn’t have magic, either. But it wasn’t the right time to correct Professor Elthis on terminology or the like. She needed to use all of her magic to feel the faintest flicker, as though magical minds—or Squib ones—had a fire burning in the center of them that threw a distant heat and light on the thoughts she was touching. And she had to reach out to a neighborhood with some Muggles in it who knew about magic that was quite distant from Fortius.

“Good,” Professor Elthis breathed at last, when Hermione had thought she might need to speak the information aloud. “Now reach out and create that ward I showed you.”

Hermione took the deepest of the breaths and wiped her hands one more time on her robes. Then she began to weave the soft strands of the ward together, while Professor Elthis watched for the approach of any enemy. At this point, that would be almost any wizard or witch not already in the area. All of Professor Riddle’s people in the area would be on guard, and Hermione could distinguish the minds of young children, like the Muggleborns living at home with their parents, from those of adults.

She knew the theory behind the ward, and knew she had the strength to create it—but also in theory. She hadn’t done it before because they couldn’t have tested it without finding some random Muggles and then attacking them when the ward was done to see whether it worked. Hermione had to work and trust that Professor Elthis, “listening” to the way that Hermione was entwining magic and thoughts, would alert her if she saw something going wrong.

If she could even do it in time. It wasn’t theoretically impossible for this ward to explode and wipe out Hermione’s and Professor Elthis’s minds with it.

Just statistically unlikely.

Hermione reminded herself of that again and again as she tied together the magic of the people who surrounded the Muggles, mostly Muggleborns and people who worked with Professor Riddle’s school and had decided to visit their relatives, and the thoughts of the Muggles. She could feel her body shaking, her breath coming in gasps. She could feel the cold sweat forming under her arms, and the sudden, ravening hunger swarming up from her belly.

But she didn’t stop until Professor Elthis whispered, “The ward is complete.”

Hermione took a deep breath and opened her eyes. She was slumped back against her chair, and Professor Elthis was holding a clear glass bowl of chocolate and strawberries that she must have asked for from the kitchens when Hermione wasn’t listening to her physical body. She grabbed it and began to eat, hardly waiting for Professor Elthis to offer her the spoon. “You think it’ll work?” she asked, when she had fulfilled some of her body’s sudden need for sweet things.

Professor Elthis gave her a short look. “I would not have told you that you were done if I had thought it wouldn’t.”

Hermione flushed and nodded, then went back to eating. Her hand still shook a little, but that came from nervousness rather than the need for calories.

“It will alert them,” Professor Elthis said quietly when they had spent perhaps five minutes in silence, and Hermione had moved on to the plate of meat and crackers Professor Elthis had pushed towards her. “If someone uses magic around them, it will wake the Muggles even if they are in a deep sleep. And it will prevent them from being Obliviated or having the Imperius used on them, and those are still the most common weapons that purebloods turn to when dealing with large groups of Muggles. Finally, it will alert us. You’ve done it, Miss Granger. Your parents should be protected, and all the others who know at least a little about magic.”

“We can’t do much about all the others who just happen to live in the same neighborhoods and might be victims of the purebloods, though,” Hermione said miserably. It was the sort of thought that haunted her dreams at night, that the purebloods could slaughter people and make the Muggle authorities utterly unable to investigate it.

“That’s what our strike teams who don’t include a practicing Legilimens are for,” Professor Elthis said. “And you know that there are other ways you can be involved in that.”

Hermione nodded again, and resigned herself to eating. Manipulating minds and magic from such a distance tired her out as nothing else did, and she would have to set up wards around multiple Muggle neighborhoods, as many of them as she could manage, before the Ministry started reacting to what they had done.

Hermione was a little surprised that they hadn’t done something already, but maybe the illusion Professor Riddle had layered over the school was more effective than she’d thought.

*

Lucius stood and stared at the broken gates, the trampled earth beyond it, the stone buildings scarred with spellfire. He’d walked through them and felt the smoldering heat still lingering beneath the ground and in the stones. He’d gone up and put his hand on them, and the heat had seared his palm.

He didn’t believe it.

Riddle had always struck him as the quiet, cautious type, because that was the only type that would survive running a secondary school. Most people Lucius knew would have got too ambitious and tried to raise their school up to rival Hogwarts. But Riddle was the sort who didn’t care for personal glory, and even if he had been running a scheme of sorts beneath the surface, as the account books suggested…

It didn’t make sense that he would utterly destroy the school in response to the threat Alicia had presented. And it didn’t make sense that Alicia’s force could have razed Fortius. She hadn’t brought that much power with her.

Lucius stared at what had been a huge dome-like building, and which now was missing its roof and had black streaks running down the walls, as though someone had stuck them again and again with a crazed Lightning Curse. He wondered if that had been the place where the puppetmaster had lived.

Because someone had commanded Riddle to do this, had pulled his strings and made him act in a way that had overridden his natural caution—although Lucius still thought Riddle would probably have insisted that all the students and books and treasures be moved somewhere safe first.

It would have had to be someone who had enormous power, a pureblood whom Riddle would have feared and obeyed.

Who better than Roland Peverell?

Lucius smiled with only his lips.

And perhaps this was an illusion, one that Lucius could penetrate to see the real places left underneath. Riddle might have intended to come back with his students once the Ministry was fooled into withdrawing. Lucius would have to make sure that he couldn’t do so.

But he also wasn’t powerful enough to pull down such a wide-ranging illusion by himself. He would have to arrange help.

Lucius gave the place a thoughtful look and walked out the blasted, twisted gates. He suspected that Fortius’s secrets were waiting to be discovered, and if Peverell had lived here—perhaps inside the magnificent dome—he would return when he saw them threatened.

And then Lucius could make sure Peverell was pinned in the open.

Easy prey for his lord.

*

Tom paused when he opened the door and found Angelina Johnson slumped over the table in front of her, in the midst of what looked like a dead faint.

“What’s wrong with her?” Nora demanded, moving past him. She put down the tray of soup she was carrying on the edge of the table and cast a swift charm at her younger cousin. It did nothing. She glanced at Tom with narrowed eyes.

“Exhaustion, I suspect,” Tom said, and looked at the chart in front of his student. It was a combination of the one he had made of the alchemical requirements from the parchment hidden in Secrets of the Damned and the runes Harry had given him. Even though Tom considered himself something of an expert on Runes, his favorite branch of magic after Dark Arts and Legilimency, he had no idea what to make of these.

“Magical?”

“No, I just fell asleep studying,” said Angelina, pushing her braids away from her face and reaching to accept the soup that Nora offered. “Sorry. I’m really tired.”

“Have you made progress on realizing what the runes mean?” Tom asked, sitting down in the chair next to the table on the other side. “It looks if you may have joined them to the alchemical symbols in a way I am not sure I understand.” He studied the parchment again, but it was no more comprehensible from the other side of the table and upside-down.

“Not really, sir.” Angelina hesitated until Nora frowned at her, and then she started eating her soup again. But Tom waited until she had eaten enough to push the bowl away a little and ask, “Are you sure that these runes are correct, sir? I mean, correctly drawn or copied from their source?”

“As far as I know, they are. Why?”

“It’s—they feel unfinished.”

“Unfinished.”

“Sorry, sir, I can’t explain it better than that.” Angelina now looked a few breaths away from snapping her quill in a fit of frustration. But she managed to keep it whole enough to turn the parchment around and trace one of the new runes with the edge of it. “Look at this. This bar through Algiz. Why isn’t it longer?”

Tom arched his eyebrows. “I think most people would be asking why it’s there at all, Miss Johnson.”

“I know it’s there to change the rune, to charge the rune, to feed it power.” Angelina bobbed her head decisively. “But it doesn’t feel as though the line is long enough. As though whoever drew the rune was interrupted before they could finish. And I know that, but I don’t know how to make it long enough! Where I would stop drawing if I tried to finish it!”

She looked close to tears, but that was probably just the few late nights and the exhaustion. Tom put his hand over hers. “Please don’t drive yourself mad trying to solve this, Miss Johnson. The person who gave me the runes couldn’t explain them, so even what you’re saying now is more information than we had before.”

“But we could use them for so much if we could just solve them.”

“Solve them?”

“Yes, professor. They’re put of an equation, or they could be, the way that Arithmantic numbers are. Can’t you feel them?”

It was still never easy for Tom to admit a shortcoming. He had a voice, or what felt like a voice, hissing in the back of his head, They’ll attack you if you’re weak, they’ll hate you, they’ll shun you. But long years as a teacher had modified that somewhat. Students did surpass their teachers, often, in time. So he was able to smile and shake his head. “I’m sorry, Miss Johnson. I don’t know what you mean.”

“There’s an energy to them that I’ve only ever felt with Arithmancy.” Angelina was scowling at the parchment. “The Arithmantic equations almost rush ahead to their solutions, if you use them well enough. But that’s because equations have solutions. It feels like these runes could—could create new ones, could create something on the other side of…”

“Of what?”

“I don’t know.”

Tom nodded. He supposed he had felt a similar kind of energy around the runes, although he hadn’t connected it to Arithmancy. “It’s all right, Miss Johnson. If you continue to work on this project, then it’s the most important thing you can do right now. I have some information to indicate that these runes will be an important part of our defenses in the future.” He stood.

“All right, professor.”

Nora gave Tom one more narrow look, but decided to stay and attend to her cousin while Tom left. Tom stepped out of Angelina’s room in Phoenix House and stared at the dome that had housed Belasha. Some of the Muggleborn students had convinced their families to move in there, and Sirius Black had indeed proven useful with Transfiguring plain stone walls and floors into partitions and rooms.

If Tom squinted, he could make out the illusion of the ruined dome that would be showing to Ministry eyes.

If he closed his eyes, he could fool himself into thinking Belasha was still alive.

Tom shook his head and walked towards his office again. He would have to find another Parseltongue-based method of defending the school, since he didn’t have the kind of time that breeding another basilisk would require, but it was not the sort of thing that could occupy his mind right now.

*

“I have not been able to find any trace of a man named Roland Peverell or of the Peverell bloodline continuing under that name in recent times, sir.”

Andromeda kept her eyes lowered as she handed the report to Lucius. Lucius scanned it and bit back a curse. Yes, she had been most diligent in tracing the bloodlines to their end. The Gaunt family had ended when their last member, Morfin, had died in Little Hangleton, and he had had no children. The Potter family carried some of their blood, but of course hadn’t existed under the Peverell name in centuries.

“What does this note near the end mean?” Lucius asked, squinting at it.

“There is a family with the last name Perryvale whom I tracked to the States,” Andromeda said. “They once lived here in Britain. But the magical community where they live has made the records of many families in it a matter of public record, and I was able to determine that the name is a coincidence. They have no Peverell ancestors.”

Lucius shook his head. “Then he must have stolen it. A pureblood with green eyes and dark hair, Andromeda. Use that information. Track him down and search for someone of the right age and look who might have vanished or appeared to die.”

“Yes, sir.”

Arthur hovered behind when Andromeda and the other members of Lucius’s research task force left the office. It took an effort for Lucius to force a pleasant edge to his smile. Arthur had become a worse than useless ally since the death of his potionborn eldest daughter. He was forever interested in harvests and not much else. “Yes, Arthur?”

“I just wondered if you know a way to heal a potionborn child without harvesting?”

Lucius paused. That was at least a new question. “I don’t know of one. Why do you ask?”

“Molly wrote to me to say that she found one. And she and Evangeline are coming home.” Arthur licked his lips. “Of course I’ll be delighted to see them, and I couldn’t wish for better than to know that Evangeline is out of danger…”

“But?” Lucius asked delicately when Arthur trailed off.

“I’m afraid that she might have found something illegal to save Evangeline. She’s so fierce in defense of her children, my Molly.” Arthur kept his head bowed, his fingers twisting. “I’d just like to make sure that she isn’t prosecuted when she gets home.”

Lucius felt like bursting out laughing, but he settled for patting Arthur’s shoulder. “Of course not, my dear fellow. A magical discovery like that will be hailed by the researchers working to perfect the potion. And as long as it doesn’t harm purebloods, what does it matter?”

Arthur gave him a smile full of desperate relief and scuttled away. Lucius rolled his eyes. Yes, Arthur was in some ways a useless ally, but more than that, he was naïve, not to have understood the way their world worked before now.

*

Arthur smiled a little as the lift carried him down to the Atrium, where he could Floo home. He could write back to Molly and reassure her that her fears about coming home and publicizing her discovery were unjustified.

Yes, well, he hadn’t told Lucius outright that her discovery involved blood magic, but he had hinted at it, and Lucius had said it was all right. And all that really mattered was that Evangeline would survive.

It was too late for poor Victoria, but we need to focus on keeping the living safe.

Chapter Text

“Molly. Welcome home.”

Molly leaned in to her husband’s embrace with her eyes closed and one arm wrapped around him. Her other hand remained extended, resting on Evangeline’s shoulder. Evangeline was giving everyone near their Apparition point, in a shop near the back of Diagon Alley, anxious looks. Molly had told her she didn’t need to worry, that anyone looking at her couldn’t tell what kind of magic was flowing underneath her skin, but her daughter didn’t believe her.

“You’ve found a way to keep the children alive?” Arthur asked, stepping back and putting his hands on Molly’s shoulders, gazing at her searchingly.

“Yes.” Not the way you mean. Molly pulled off the scarf that had been wrapped around her neck for what felt like years. She had had to go to the Arctic with Evangeline to find a kind of magic that would work, buried in the snow and ice, of the snow and ice. “Look at our daughter, Arthur. Just look at her.”

Arthur’s eyes were soft as he gazed at Evangeline. “How do you feel, dearest?” he asked, smoothing Evangeline’s red hair back from her forehead.

“Fine,” Evangeline said softly, eyes on the floor.

Arthur frowned and glanced at Molly. “Is she well?”

“Oh, yes. But we were traveling in less inhabited regions. She hasn’t seen this many people for a while. You know how it is, Arthur.”

Actually, Molly was almost sure Arthur had no idea how it was, but he nodded and accepted what she said. Then he put one arm around both of them and steered them towards the entrance to the robe shop where they’d landed. “Come, you simply must see the new restaurants they’ve opened, and the one that’s a bubble made of pure crystal, and you’ll never guess what kind of fashion in wand holsters they have this year…”

Molly beamed at her husband and caught Evangeline’s eye. Evangeline was smiling, a little. She nodded to Molly without losing her smile.

Molly relaxed a little. The secret she had found had been as much for her daughter as it was for the others, for the future of magical Britain and the children who had been created with the potion that had birthed Evangeline. Molly knew now she should never have taken the potion, never have birthed the extra daughters she had, but Evangeline was here now and deserved care.

And given that the magic would take care of part of Malfoy’s regime at the same time, Molly was more than happy to share it.

She had letters to write, once they got home.

*

Minerva didn’t know how she knew, but she did. The moment the footsteps crunched down the stairs behind her, she did, and turned around, one hand falling to hang at her side. They would think it was useless there. It was not.

Behind her on the stairs stood Headmistress Carrow, who looked weary, and two men Minerva had never seen before. She let her eyes pass across their faces as if simply wondering who they were, and then glanced at Carrow.

The woman shook her head slowly. “You should never have intervened to help the Weasley twins escape, Minerva. I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt, but once Minister Malfoy’s people began to investigate, they pointed out the shortcomings of my own investigation to me. You enabled them to flee. Where did you put them?”

“They left,” Minerva said. “I didn’t put them somewhere.” She let the full weight of her defiance land in her voice, and watched Carrow’s eyes widen.

“Oh, my dear,” Carrow breathed, which was about as creepy a thing as she’d ever said to Minerva. “You’ve been defying us for a very long time, haven’t you? Thought we were too harsh? Perhaps been upset about Gryffindor House’s loss of prestige?” The two wizards behind her fanned out, drawing their wands as if to shoot spellfire from multiple angles, but Carrow never took her eyes from Minerva. “To think I thought you a realist.”

“I am a realist,” Minerva agreed quietly. “Which means that I know your regime can’t last forever, and the exceptions you created for a half-blood Gryffindor professor wouldn’t, either.”

Carrow sighed faintly. “If you come along quietly, I can at least ensure that your death is painless. I have been fond of you, Minerva, in my way.”

Minerva pretended to consider it, while she nudged her robe pocket with the tips of her fingers. The whistle rolled to the front. “Would you really? Even if Minister Malfoy wanted to harvest my magic?”

“Yes, I really would.” Carrow’s eyes were pinned on her. “I promise it. Draw your wand, and I cannot promise it.”

Minerva nodded, and in one fluid motion spun away, ripped the whistle from her pocket, and raised it to her lips.

The sound that came out of it was a pure note, high and true and ringing like a silver dish dropped on a floor. It went on and on, and Minerva shoved the whistle back into her pocket and began to run, certain that whatever was about to happen would come with her.

Spellfire came from behind her, but Minerva transformed in mid-stride and hurtled down the corridor as a tabby cat. She heard startled curses and supposed that at least one of the spells had hit something it wasn’t supposed to.

She ran around a corner and leaped up to a crack near the ceiling, which ran all the way towards a bathroom on the floor above and was used often by mice. She crouched inside the stone, waiting, head tilted. She didn’t want to lose track of Carrow and her minions, and she also didn’t want to be too far from whatever help the whistle was supposed to summon.

The curses had gone silent, and at least one of the wizards was probably an Auror from the Ministry, because there were no sounds at all of footsteps, and Silencing was one of the first and most basic tactics they taught. Minerva ought to know. She folded her paws beneath her chest and waited, ears twitching.

There was one faint sound. Incompetent Silencing Charms, or ones not keen enough to fool the sensitive ears of a cat. Minerva crouched a little. Perhaps she could leap down and rake someone’s nape with her claws.

Then there was a bloom of fire down the corridor.

Screams sounded, and Minerva leaped out of the crack. Perhaps one of the Aurors had turned on the others, but she thought it was much likelier that her help had arrived.

Albus?

It was what she hoped, with every part of her from her whiskers to her claws, but what swept around the corner instead a moment later was almost as good. Minerva reared back and sat up on her haunches as Fawkes hovered over her.

She mewed a greeting to him, and from the brilliant trill he uttered, he seemed to understand. He dived at her with his talons extended, and Minerva bowed her head and tucked her paws in close so that she made as small a target as possible.

It was still unnerving to have a bird’s talons grip her, phoenix or not, when all her feline instincts were insisting that the grasp should go the other way around. Minerva mastered those instincts and hung as limp as she could while Fawkes beat his way back into the air and swooped towards the ceiling.

The last thing she saw before they vanished in a rush of flame was Headmistress Carrow’s incredulous face.

*

Tom lifted his head from his battle plans. Minerva McGonagall was stirring at last, several hours after having been placed on a bed in the Healing Hall. The phoenix sitting on her headboard twitched his tail and warbled.

“Yes, you were the one who brought her here, I know,” Tom said dryly.

The phoenix gave him a benign glance. Tom still wasn’t used to that. The first sight of Fawkes had brought those unhappy hours in Dumbledore’s office when he was a teenager roaring back to him. But if the phoenix was here to help them, or even if he had come merely to deliver Minerva to them, then Tom would accept that help.

Minerva coughed. Tom leaned over with the conjured glass of water that had been waiting for her, charmed to remain icy. Minerva sipped from it and sighed out, shaking her head so that her grey hair fell around her shoulders.

“I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen your hair out of a bun,” Tom couldn’t help saying.

Minerva blinked at him as if she hadn’t expected him to say anything like that, and then shook her head and sipped some more of the water. When she spoke again, her voice was low and precise. “You have room for me here?”

“We will have room for many more people than we have now,” Tom said. “We are converting some of our buildings into places that can house younger Muggleborn children and their Muggle parents and other family members when the attack I fully expect comes.”

“Just one attack?”

“Say multiple attacks. Raids.”

Tom glanced over at Fawkes, and Minerva followed his gaze. Her face softened. “I didn’t know that he would come for me. All I had was a whistle Albus had left me, and he’d even buried the memory so that it wouldn’t surface until I might need it.”

“Albus? Did he know what would happen to him?” Tom had never been fond of the old man, but if there was a way that they could have that magical powerhouse on their side…

“I don’t think so. This was a year before his burial was announced.”

Tom closed his eyes and nodded. And he shouldn’t be as let-down by the news as he was now, he scolded himself. At best, Albus would expect to be promoted and put in charge of any armies they might field. At worst, he would try to make peace with Malfoy the way he had tried so hard to do before he was put into the ground.

No, Tom. At worst he would be insane from his punishment and level half of Britain with his magic bursting out of control. It was the kind of thing that Tom could have imagined happening with Harry if he hadn’t worked with Harry to calm his war wizard powers down.

Tom dismissed the thought. Either way, they could not rely on Albus. “Do you think Fawkes would be able to help us?”

“I think we can ask him if he would.” Minerva turned and looked up at the magnificent phoenix sitting on the headboard of her bed, stretching out one hand. She didn’t ask with words, unless she knew some silent phoenix language that Tom didn’t. She simply asked with her eyes and the movement of her arm.

Fawkes gave a slow croon and reached out to lay his scarlet foot in Minerva’s grasp. Minerva at least closed her eyes and bowed her head, seeming to take that as a yes.

Tom kept looking at the phoenix, wondering if the bird held any trace of Albus’s grudge against Tom. Fawkes slowly tilted his head, plumes falling around his head, eyes dark and wide, and crooned again.

Tom smiled reluctantly. It seemed that was the best answer they would get.

*

“If you are going to gape at me, I would prefer that you get it out of the way.”

Harry blinked at the woman standing in the small room Professor Riddle had directed him to. “I’m not going to gape,” he said, studying her. Her skin was as pale as a corpse’s, but her hair was long and dark, tumbling down in waves around her, a definite contrast. Her eyes were blue, he thought. Maybe silvery. An odd color. “Is there some reason I would?”

The woman paused for a long moment, eyeing him. Then she said, “I am part-Veela. They react very badly to it, sometimes.”

“Men?”

“Humans.” The woman shook out her hair around her and settled back on the chair next to the desk in the room. “Please come in and shut the door.”

“Yes, Professor.” Professor Riddle had said that her name was Professor Madeline Crouch, but she hadn’t offered him her name personally, so Harry decided he wouldn’t use it until she did. He sat on the chair in front of the desk and paid quiet, careful attention.

“Tom said that you wished to learn about wandlore.”

“Yes, Professor?”

“Why is that?”

Professor Riddle hadn’t warned Harry one way or the other about how much Professor Crouch might already know. He would just have to hope that he wasn’t betraying secrets as he said, “I’m a war wizard. Professor Riddle’s thought for some time now that the Elder Wand is actually puppeting the wizard who calls himself Gellert Grindelwald, not the other way around. But a being I believe is the Elder Wand attacked me during the raid on Fortius. It seems strange that it would be afraid of me, when I’m a teenager, unless it’s because war wizards could actually master the Wand completely.”

“Why would you think that?” Professor Crouch fastened her strangely-colored eyes on him, and didn’t move in a way that made her look like a predator crouching in place.

“War wizards are weapons of ultimate destruction. The Elder Wand is a weapon of ultimate destruction in wand form. I think that’s why.” Harry offered the same explanation that he had to Professor Riddle, and hoped that would satisfy her. He had the feeling that it wouldn’t. She was wrong-footing him considerably, and he wasn’t sure what to say next.

“Hm. Perhaps.” Professor Crouch turned and picked up a small blue book that was lying in the center of the desk. “In any case, I shall teach you wandlore.”

Harry relaxed. He didn’t know if his explanation was perfectly correct, but he didn’t need her to think it was, as long as she was willing to teach him. “Thank you, Professor.”

“The first thing you need to know is that wands have a soul.”

Harry blinked. “A soul in the sense that they have bits of creatures and trees in them, and they have those souls? Or a soul because something about the process of their creation gives them one?”

Professor Crouch paused to stare at him again. “That is the first interesting question that anyone has asked me in years.”

Harry blinked again and said, “Oh. Thanks.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure there will be plenty of chances for stupidity in the future,” said Professor Crouch, and looked back at her book. “Have you ever read a book that is bound to blood closure, Mr. Potter?”

“No, Professor.”

“The information in the book is so precious and sacred that it has been warded. To read it requires two things: your blood and the presence of someone keyed to the book to unlock it.” Professor Crouch stared at Harry again. “May I have your blood?”

“Yes, Professor,” Harry said. He started to reach for his wand, and then reminded himself that he didn’t know for sure how she wanted to obtain it. “Do you want me to cut my skin, or do something else?”

“I prefer to retrieve it myself,” said Professor Crouch, and fluttered her fingers. Harry thought she was casting a wandless spell at him for a minute, and then saw that claws had come into being at the tips of her fingers, filaments of silver so thin and fine that it was hard to see them looking straight on. “Stretch your hand across the desk.”

Harry hoped he hid his grimace as he did. He’d never been cut by a Veela’s claws before, and had no idea what would actually happen as a result.

What happened was a brief flash like the flash from the claws themselves, and a thin slice on the tip of his left ring finger that spattered blood across the book. It was so sharp that he felt nothing. Harry blinked and drew his wand to heal the cut, which Professor Crouch glanced at and then nodded to.

“I give Harry Potter permission to read this book, with his blood on the cover,” Professor Crouch said, and fluttered her claws over the cover of the book. Then the claws vanished and she was using ordinary fingertips again. Harry eyed her in respect. He could see how almost invisible weapons would make a difference in battle.

More than that, weapons that could cut so well you would never even know you were wounded at first. Harry made a note to look into that for himself.

The book glowed for a moment, and then the blood melted into its cover as if swallowed by a flat blue mouth. Professor Crouch tilted her head to the side, apparently listening, and then nodded and spun the book around so that she could extend it to Harry. “You will look at this and read it here in the office, only,” she said.

“Yes, Professor.”

“You will not take it outside this office, and you will not tell even Tom Riddle of its contents.”

“Yes, Professor.”

Professor Crouch nodded absently and sat back behind her desk, another book, a smaller green one, appearing in her hand with a flash of her palm. Harry bent over the blue book in front of him.

The first thing for you to know is that a wand has a soul. The combination of core and wood calls something into being far greater than the sum of its parts. And its bond with the soul of its wielder is stronger still.

Harry wondered how that worked for the Elder Wand, who apparently wielded humans instead of the other way around. He marked it down in his mental notes as something to think about and kept reading.

The soul of a wand may submit to someone who wins it in a duel. It may choose to let someone else wield it when its original wielder has died, if it feels enough similarity to the bond it once had. It might sing its readiness to be used again when it is buried in a grave, reaching up through the soil. Those who commit to wand-crafting must commit to that, utterly, and cast no spells that do not relate to it.

Readers of this book, we are in the business of binding souls.

Harry blinked a little, and then smiled. He didn’t know exactly how this would help him in the fight against the Elder Wand as yet, but he was sure that it was going to.

*

“Here.”

Sirius didn’t question how Carol knew exactly where to halt. They were in a meadow outside a small Muggle village where two of the students at Fortius had family. Carol was turning her head back and forth, sniffing slightly at the air with shallow flutters of her nostrils. She nodded and bent over to unsling the potions belt clasped around her waist.

“We’re just going to establish a ward?” George whispered. Over the last few weeks, as he’d worked with them, Sirius had got much better at telling them apart. “Nothing else?” He sounded disappointed.

“Establishing a ward is the most important work we can do at the moment,” Carol said, and then fell silent. She laid the potions flasks in front of her and bent over them as if communing with them. Sirius had taken dog form shortly before Carol had Apparated them here, so that he could alert them more easily if people started towards them, and he saw her also delicately sniffing at the flasks.

“Why, though?” Fred asked.

“Yeah, couldn’t we at least—”

“Invade the Ministry the way we were discussing?”

“Professor Riddle received word that your father was there on a frequent basis, speaking with Malfoy,” Carol said absently, and her hands blurred above the flasks in a way that Sirius’s canine eyes strained to follow. “He didn’t want you to have to fight your father.”

“Like we care.”

“He made his decisions when he chose his—”

“Future children’s existence over their health.”

Sirius scratched himself to avoid barking some commentary. He could have seen that being true of him if someone was talking about his family. But he didn’t think the twins were as cavalier as they pretended, especially since they were almost foaming at the mouth while they glared at the potions on the ground.

“That is Professor Riddle’s decision, not mine,” Carol said, shrugging a little, and then she reached out and tipped two flasks together.

According to Sirius’s eyes and nose, the flasks shouldn’t have broken when they hit each other, and they certainly shouldn’t have set up the horrific stench that they did. But they did, and the roiling cloud of hot, reeking smoke rose and hung in the air about the height of an adult human head. Sirius retreated with a yelp.

“My apologies, Professor Black.”

But Carol said it absently. Her hands were both moving through the cloud, which Sirius was sure wasn’t healthy, but she didn’t seem to be afraid. He wondered if she had used potions to give herself immunity to the diseases she concocted, or maybe if she had it naturally, as a consequence of her magic.

Carol’s wand appeared in her hand and gestured in several small, tight loops. The cloud disappeared, but Sirius could still smell traces of it lingering.

“What’s going to happen now?” Fred demanded, bouncing a little in place. Sirius had the impression that if it wasn’t sufficiently violent for the twins, they would “add” something to make it more so.

“The cloud will remain in place within the ward,” Carol said, head tilted, bobbing a little. “Normally, it will be passive. But it will become more active when a wizard or witch Apparates into this meadow. And if they try to enter the village with hostile intent…”

“It’ll activate,” George said, a smile so vicious on his face that Sirius prudently edged a little further away.

“What kind of diseases will it give them?” Fred asked.

Carol gave him a fleeting smile. “Good, you noticed that there must be more than one. A particularly intense flesh-eating virus of my own design. At the same time, a disease that vanishes their bones. They will collapse into a puddle of nothing but flesh, which my virus will eat.” She looked dreamily into the distance. “They won’t make it three steps to threaten the Muggles.”

Sirius stared at her. A jolt of memory shocked him as they didn’t often do anymore. James and Lily would have loved her.

Sirius swallowed, and swallowed again, and sat back on his haunches, to watch as Carol taught the Weasley twins how to sense the edges of the ward and how to make sure that such a combination of potions would only affect wizards and witches, not Muggles. He didn’t want to howl in loneliness, but that was the feeling that was welling up in his throat.

*

Theo smiled as he added the final touches to the pamphlet that would soon be distributed over Diagon Alley by a number of anonymous barn and tawny owls. The pamphlet was simple, consisting of a drawing of Lucius Malfoy on the front and seemingly bland statements of fact about his proclivities and things that had happened to him during the last few years, such as his losing the ability to harvest magic and becoming more interested in history from the Grindelwald era.

Theo’s task was to suggest, as delicately as he could, that Minister Malfoy was delving into magic of that kind that wizarding Britain had agreed should be banned during Grindelwald’s war, and that some of those studies had cost him the ability to harvest magic at all.

It wouldn’t be enough, by itself, to turn a lot of people against Malfoy’s regime. Some of them wouldn’t care, some of them would assume that any Dark magic Malfoy used would rebound to the benefit of purebloods, and some of them would have made up their minds on what had happened and that Malfoy was lying or concealing some grand plan. But it would sow a little uncertainty, and make some people whisper, and infuriate Malfoy by suggesting that he was weak.

If they were very lucky, Theo thought, it would provoke Malfoy into the kind of rash action that meant they wouldn’t need to do much more than sit back and reap the chaos.

Probably not. But Theo liked the feeling, as he looked at the pamphlets and considered the neat mixture of fact and innuendo, that he was making a difference in the world.

*

“What do you have there, Ron?”

Ron stuffed the pamphlet he’d been holding back into his bag before Draco could get a good look at it. “Just something my mum sent me for a lark,” he said, shaking his head. “Do you know that in other countries like the ones Mum visited with Evangeline, they ban research into the kind of magic that your Dad’s been working on? It’s insane.”

Draco looked at him with narrowed eyes, but took the distraction bait. “Well, of course they do. Those countries don’t have any standards. They have to ban the magic because otherwise non-purebloods might get hold of it, and Merlin knows what that would do to research standards…”

Ron nodded along, but his mind was on the pamphlet in his bag. It had arrived with his mum’s owl not long after breakfast began, but there hadn’t been a note with it. It had simply—been there, and Ron had read it two times before Draco came into breakfast, late and rubbing his eyes and complaining about the little sleep he’d got because he’d stayed awake studying for OWLS.

The thought of the pamphlet and what it said kept sitting in the back of Ron’s mind, like a boulder, as they went to class.

Chapter Text

“You think you understand more about how to trap the Elder Wand, Harry?”

“Not enough to be sure of it yet, sir.”

Tom grimaced and turned away to stare out the window of his office. He would have striven to hide his disappointment and fear from Harry until the last few months, but the boy had become a trusted confidant, as much as any student truly could be. He knew what it was like to have immense amounts of power but not the kind that would simply let him crush Malfoy’s regime.

“We may not have much more time,” Tom said, his fingers tightening on the windowsill. Outside, he could see Nora leading a tour for some of the Muggleborns’ parents. They were gaping at the phoenix shape of Phoenix House currently. It was one of the more visually impressive buildings on the grounds, Tom had to admit. “I can feel Ministry sniffers around the edges of the illusion.”

“Sniffers, sir?”

Tom blinked for a moment, and then reminded himself that Harry had chosen to pursue a course of study that focused almost entirely on offensive magic and the kinds of spells their enemies would use to kill their people. Sniffers were passive and not very common anywhere near Fortius.

“People who have been modified so that they can scent magic,” he said, turning around. Harry was sitting near the edge of Tom’s desk, eyes fastened on Tom with a hunger that reminded Tom of a Hound’s. “It’s one of the ways the Ministry finds children they want to harvest. All they do is wander around the Ministry or Apparate around Britain sniffing for magic where it shouldn’t be.”

“Or where they think it shouldn’t be,” Harry muttered, sounding disgusted.

“Yes.” Tom flashed him a quick smile. “They believe that no magic should be in the presence of Muggleborns. They consider them essentially temporary storage containers until they reach the point where they can harvest them.”

Harry stared of into the distance for a long moment. Then he said, “I’ll work harder on studying the lore we need to trap the Elder Wand.”

“Thank you, Harry,” Tom said quietly.

*

“For Merlin’s sake, it should be easy enough to sense,” Lucius snapped, prowling back and forth behind the sniffers who stood in front of the illusion of Fortius’s shattered gates. It had to be an illusion.

“With all respect, sir, your magic is so powerful that it’s getting in the way,” said one of the sniffers, a small blonde woman who looked like she might have been graced with Malfoy heritage in the past, and stepped a little closer to the illusion.

Lucius took a deep breath and moved further back. He couldn’t bring himself to leave entirely, even if it would improve the sniffers’ chance of success. He had to be here when they broke the illusion, if only to see the look that would appear on Roland Peverell’s face.

The sniffers ranged carefully back and forth along the edge of the illusion. Lucius grimaced as he heard their sniffling. Unfortunately, the modification process that made sniffers able to locate misplaced magic also made them sound as if they had a lung infection at all times.

“Sir!” The male sniffer who was standing near what at least looked like a pile of broken stone and timber had his head tilted back.

Lucius walked towards him, holding himself to a quick stride instead of a run only by reminding himself of what dignity he owed the Minister’s position. He came to a stop near what seemed to be a stone and said, “What is it, man?”

“The smell of many people with magic,” the sniffer said softly, turning his head back and forth. Lucius averted his eyes in time to miss what he hoped was just a drop of clear snot and nothing else as it dripped from the edge of his nostril. “If they were gone, the scent would be old, and if they were dead, it would have stopped smelling like live magical people. But they smell as if they’re alive and near here.”

Lucius chuckled. “You shall be richly rewarded,” he promised, and clapped the sniffer on the shoulder. “Prepare to Apparate back to the Ministry and alert the strike force.” He turned around to smile at the other sniffer. “Remain with me so that you can point out the weak points in the illusion.”

“Yes, sir,” the sniffers said simultaneously, and did as he’d ordered.

Lucius turned around, a smile on his mouth that nothing could change or disturb. He stared at the illusion of the ruined school and shook his head a little.

“Beaten at last, Peverell,” he whispered, “at your own game.”

*

“There’s a rather large strike force massing on the eastern border of the school, sir.”

Lavinia’s voice was soft and polite, but Tom could hear the uneasiness under the surface. He nodded without taking his eyes from the gates, from the place where Belasha had died. “I know, Lavinia.”

“And you have…no plans to combat them, sir.”

Tom swiveled his head. Lavinia turned even more pale than usual and looked down. “I’m sorry for implying that, sir,” she murmured. “But the others are getting restless, and I fear that Hermione or Harry, in particular, might do something soon because they feel threatened and don’t like sitting on their hands.”

“It would not be sitting on their hands,” Tom said mildly, but he tilted his head in acknowledgment that he’d heard her. “Go to Hermione and tell her she may soon have enemies to attack. I will handle Harry.”

Lavinia gave him a grateful smile and hurried out of the office. Tom let his gaze go back to the gates one more time before he went to fetch Harry.

He doubted they would destroy Lucius himself or enough of the important Ministry officials during their attack. They were the sort to linger behind the lines and send less skilled wizards and witches in front of them, and also to flee the moment they realized the battle was going against them.

But they would kill some.

And Tom would have the beginning of his vengeance for Belasha.

*

“Can you feel their minds, Hermione? It’s no shame if you need to concentrate. Simply reach out, concentrate as hard as you can, and tell me if you feel them.”

Professor Elthis’s voice was calm and confident and almost droning, which helped Hermione fall into the mindset that she’d practiced since they began warding the Muggle villages and Muggleborns’ family homes. She reached out and discovered a darkness in front of her crowded with stars. After a moment, she nodded.

“Good. I know that you won’t be able to distinguish between them without more silence than this battle is likely to afford you.” Professor Elthis sounded tense, but she wasn’t allowing that tension to break through the surface of her voice. “Now. Let’s listen. Can you distinguish any thoughts among them? Anything that would tell you whose mind you’re feeling?”

Hermione tried, but she was too jittery and the minds too strange. All she knew for sure was that the minds were those of strangers, they were all magical, and they all seemed united in some purpose. “No,” she whispered finally. “I’m sorry, Professor Elthis.”

“It is of no matter.” But from the way her professor’s mind and voice both grew sharper, Hermione was sure that she had at least hoped for Hermione to do better, if not expected it. “Now. The minds in the front. Can you do the Possession Attack we talked about?”

Hermione swallowed. That had been one attack they’d only discussed the theory of and had Hermione act out in limited ways within Professor Elthis’s mind, since testing it completely would have involved destroying the mind of an ally. “I think I might be able to.”

“If you think that you are losing yourself within their thoughts at any time, Hermione, I want you to pull back. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Professor Elthis.”

“No, Hermione.” Hermione started, her eyes flying open, as Professor Elthis reached out and shook her shoulder with one hand. “I want to make sure that you understand your life and sanity are more important than results. Do you?”

“Yes, Professor,” Hermione said, and blinked a few times, and settled herself in herself. She nodded, and after a long moment of studying her, Professor Elthis nodded back and leaned away, closing her own eyes.

She had heard that there was no telltale of a lie in Hermione’s voice, then. Hermione bit her lip and closed her eyes again and reached for one of the minds at the forefront of the people working to bring down the illusion that cloaked Fortius.

For a moment, walls seemed to thrash past her. This person must have a little Occlumency. Hermione concentrated and bored past those walls, and then memories were falling past her like a collapsing mine.

Arnold Selwyn, that was his name, and he was proud of his pureblood heritage and his spells that would pierce the illusion and open up the bellies of the magical creatures who had surely allied themselves illegitimately with Roland Peverell—

Hermione shivered with how much she abruptly hated Selwyn, and it was a positive pleasure to possess him, override his personality with hers and fill him with her own goals.

Attack the people who came here with you. Kill them.

Selwyn swung around and began firing curses. Hermione could sense that much before she leaped away from his mind and attacked the next one, forcing her way through heightened Occlumency shields. This person didn’t have any idea of what she’d done to Selwyn—Hermione could sense that even before she got all the way into their mind—but they were alert to the presence of enemies now.

It wouldn’t matter. Hermione wouldn’t let it matter. She would be bringing them down.

*

“You’re sure that you want me to use those war wizard spells, sir? Even if some of them could affect the people sheltering in Fortius?”

“I trust that you’ll keep control of them and not allow them to do that, Harry. And technically you are not using them on the grounds of Fortius, which means that I am not asking you to break your word.”

The conversation played in Harry’s mind as he hovered on the back of a thestral, clad in a Disillusionment Charm, over the mass of attackers. It looked as though most of the Aurors in the Ministry were here, and some Unspeakables, too.

He’d offered to aim for Malfoy, but Professor Riddle had smiled darkly and said that he had plans for Malfoy, himself. Harry was to take out the Unspeakables, who might have dangerous artifacts or special kinds of magic they’d studied in the Department of Mysteries that Fortius’s defenders wouldn’t be able to counter.

Harry could pick them out, luckily, because they wore the same grey cloaks that they apparently did inside the Ministry itself to conceal their identities. They moved among the Aurors and other Ministry flunkies, and they seemed to be placing sparkling crystals in a circle.

An excellent thing to do would be to disrupt that circle before it could get going, Harry thought, and touched the neck of the thestral mare he was riding. “If you would?” he murmured. Professor Riddle had warned his people never to take the thestrals lightly, but that was only sense, as far as Harry was concerned. They were powerful and they were here as allies, not as servants.

The mare dived, wings spread out around her and a hunting screech breaking from her mouth. Harry doubted that most of the people down there noticed. It was lost in the general chanting, shrieking, spellfire they were directing against the illusion, and apparently the chaos of someone near the front attacking their comrades.

Harry grinned. He’d bet anything he owned that was Hermione’s doing.

Then he settled his mind and let the humor drain away. He was close to the circle now, and could see that the sparkling crystal orbs the Unspeakables were laying out were about the size of his own hand.

Harry smiled. One of Disaster’s spells from the book was about turning an enemy’s weapons against them.

“Arma hostibus!” he hissed, aiming his wand and speaking the incantation just in case, but mostly flinging his will into the air and bringing it down on the crystals.

Hands spouted from the surface of the crystal and reached up on long, spindly arms. The Unsepakables had time for perhaps one cry of surprise or denial each before those hands were ripping off heads and limbs, plucking out eyes, and snapping wands.

Harry laughed as his victims screamed in fear, and the thestral mare pulled out of her dive a good ten meters above the battlefield, close enough for Harry to direct his magic and see individuals but not enough for him to be hit by most spells himself. He rested one hand on the thestral mare’s neck and closed his eyes, trusting her to protect them and move out of the way as needed, while his mind bore down on another of Disaster’s spells that he’d been looking forward to trying.

Yes.

Harry opened his eyes and pointed his wand at a line of Aurors who were hastening to help the Unspeakables. He whispered the words and watched the air around them tremble for a second as pure nothingness opened there and then swallowed them.

In mere seconds, that line of Aurors had ceased to exist. Harry laughed aloud, in the glory and the exercise of his power.

Unfortunately, that did draw some attention. The thestral mare swung sideways as the first cascade of spells rose up to meet them. Most of them fell short, but the Killing Curse could continue on for much more than thirty meters until it met a target, and Harry had a healthy respect for it. He leaned sideways on the other flank of the thestral just to be sure as that one shot by.

Then he located the man who had flung it and stretched out a casual hand. The man’s body split from the crown of his skull down, and his skeleton came yanking out, showering the people around him with blood and flesh. They screamed in what was probably disgust as well as fear, and scattered.

The thestral mare wheeled in a wide circle at Harry’s urging, and then dived towards a line of Aurors under a shield who were hurling various magic-draining spells at the illusion. Harry smiled. He was going to enjoy breaking that shield in two.

*

Tom closed his eyes and stepped in a direction that didn’t exist for most people who weren’t Parselmouths.

Serpents had long been worshipped as chthonic creatures, and that had affected the magic woven around them. The image of underground tunnels, as green as spring, opened around Tom, and he walked through them, from place to place, from serpent to serpent, searching for the magic that would allow him the most revenge on Lucius Malfoy.

His only regret was that it had to be quick. He would have liked to make the man suffer for years with a serpent of madness eating his brain, or to slowly lose his human body and transform into a snake, losing the ability to grip things or walk normally over time, giving him hinges to his jaw and making his hair fall out…

But they needed the Ministry forces to either die today or make their way back with no way to report clearly what had happened, and anything long-lasting he placed on Lucius would probably just be undone by the Elder Wand. Tom drew his attention away from the side-tunnels that promised to offer him spells like those he had been daydreaming about and focused on the tunnel ahead, running through darkness.

At the end of it floated the misty, serpentine shape that now existed nowhere outside his own head. Tom stared at her with desperate eyes, and she bowed her head and floated towards him.

“There is no reason for you to be sad, Tom.”

“You died.” Tom reached out and slid a hand down her scales. “You could have lived centuries, Forever. And you died.”

“I enjoyed what life I had. More than if I had stayed safe in the Chamber.” Belasha’s ghost flickered her tongue out at him. “You sought me here for a reason. It puts enough strain on your magic that it’s not safe for your body. What was the reason, Tom? Send me forth, one last time.”

“You know the man I spoke of? That caused the deaths of so many children and ruled the Ministry?”

Belasha laughed like a pair of claws skittering up his spine. “I am to destroy him? Tom, you spoil me.”

She floated closer, and Tom put his hand out to touch the cold scales that existed only in the in-between realm of Parselmagic, only in his head, only in memory. “I am giving him to you. Go, dear one.”

Belasha used his body as the conduit, bringing enough magic with her that she would be able to strike at Lucius in the physical world. Tom opened his eyes to find himself kneeling, panting harshly, against the wall of his office. He forced his way slowly back to his feet, shaking his head. Then he fumbled for his wand and went to the crystal sitting on his desk that would show him the front gates.

He seemed to fly again through tunnels as he stared into the blue-silver surface, letting the crystal blur past him. And then he smiled as he came out at the gates and saw the tatters of the illusion fading away, and also the tatters of Lucius’s invasion force, dead and dying. Harry circled on a thestral above them like a herald of death.

The crystal focused in on Lucius’s face.

This is not as great a torment as he deserves, but it is punishment, Tom thought contentedly, and settled in to see what happened.

*

Lucius leaned back and carefully cast another Killing Curse at the figure circling above them. It was strange. Whenever he glanced at what the person was riding, he thought he could see something, but a blurring seemed to pass in front of his eyes and leave him with only a strange impression of a black body and reptilian wings.

Perhaps this figure was riding some kind of dragon.

Lucius cast the thought away as soon as it occurred to him. Roland Peverell was not the wizard capable of taming dragons. If there was a magical person capable of such deeds, Lucius would already have earned their allegiance.

The Killing Curse missed, again. The strange mount the figure was riding cast itself sideways and down in some kind of twisting corkscrew, and several more of Lucius’s Aurors died screaming, their spines apparently bending forwards to eat the rest of them.

Lucius sneered in disgust and opened his mouth to sound the retreat. The illusion was floating apart now, and he could make out undamaged grounds beyond. He would return with other purebloods stronger than these and worthy of a conquest, now that they could see through the surface.

Then he screamed.

The pain was so sudden and jarring that it seemed as if he screamed before he’d felt it. Lucius staggered, his hand rising to his face. He could feel bulging veins making their way across his cheeks, and wondered for a second if he’d been the target of another spell by the rider on the strange flying creature.

The pain coursed through him like a living thing, another being. Lucius took a step forwards and fell to his knees, struggling feebly. His hand groped out in front of him and then clenched into a claw.

He saw what was probably happening to his face a moment later. Black lines slid through his arms and down to his fingers, and then split open when they reached his knuckles. Dark pus spilled out, withering the grass it dripped on.

Lucius noted that with the part of him that hadn’t vanished into the endless pain.

Something pale drifted past his face, and he ended up turning his head with excruciating slowness. He stared at the strands of white lying on the grass beside the pus, not understanding, before he realized it was his own hair. One of his hands rose and slid over the top of his scalp to find a skull as bald as a snake’s.

Lucius screamed again. The thought of what he must look like—

He crawled. He must reach his wand, he thought. He must Apparate, and perhaps once he was away from Fortius, he would be able to stop this spell, whatever it was.

He crawled. Then his arms gave way from beneath him and he sprawled on the ground, twisting and still screaming. Or else he was emitting hoarse, jagged gasps from a throat that had been torn by his earlier sounds, and he couldn’t scream anymore.

The vein rippled over his left eye and shed more pus. Lucius went blind a second later.

He could feel his bones projecting from his fingers as the skin sloughed away. He screamed, but there was no sound anymore. He wasn’t sure that he had a throat any longer. He rolled, and something snapped beneath him, soft and muffled but a new bright pain in the sea of endless agony.

Did he have limbs? He didn’t know.

Lucius Malfoy screamed himself to death in pain and humiliation, clawing at the grass, clawing at his skin with thin fingerbones.

*

Tom opened his eyes slowly and breathed out. The man whose orders had resulted in Belasha’s death, although not her direct killer, was dead from a magical infusion of basilisk venom.

Belasha, you are avenged.

*

The people beneath Harry and the thestral mare were fleeing.

Harry swooped after them, the mare neighing in challenge, and opened more and more gates of nothingness to swallow them down. He tore heads off bodies, arms from torsos, feet from legs. He kept a close eye on his powers to make sure they weren’t spilling over the gates and into Fortius, but otherwise, he slaughtered and killed and rejoiced.

This was what he was meant for. Ultimate destruction, and of dozens of people. He knew that others of Fortius’s defenders besides Hermione had probably helped, but he didn’t know who, and he didn’t know whether they were still doing it. He laughed aloud and rose to a point that would allow him to focus on the people off to the sides who might be trying to Apparate somewhere, and destroyed their magic with a negligent flick of his fingers.

He laughed after that, too, because until he’d done it he hadn’t known he could.

He slanted the thestral down and killed the last of the Aurors and Unspeakables and Ministry people in the grass outside Fortius, while the tide of battle raged through his blood.

*

“I thought you had decided not to kill Lucius Malfoy before this, sir.”

“Plans change.”

Nora leaned forwards to look Tom in the eye, and he allowed it. She wasn’t a Legilimens with the kind of skill that Lavinia had, but she was good at reading people. If she decided that he wasn’t worth serving anymore, that he was mad, he would accept her judgment and do what he could to win back her good opinion.

But Nora just took a breath and shook her head a minute later, leaning back. “Belasha changed things,” she said.

“Yes.” Tom saw no reason to deny it. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. “We will send emergency strike teams to the villages to bring Muggles and Muggleborns here.”

“You think there’s still a danger of attacks there, when the Ministry lost its Minister and so many people?”

“There are still people who will try to hold the Ministry together,” Tom said. “Including Grindelwald, or whatever is truly the puppet of the Elder Wand. There are purebloods who will panic and try to harvest more magic from children. And there are those who might think they should do whatever they want now that their political world is ending. I want to be prepared for any eventuality.”

Nora nodded slowly and stood, pausing only to look at him. “You think this is it,” she said. “You think the war is essentially here.”

“Yes,” Tom said. “I don’t think it will look like anything we envisioned when we believed Malfoy would be in charge of the Ministry during it. But it is here, and we have no choice but to fight it.”

Nora smiled. It transformed her face in subtle but vibrant ways. “Good,” she said, and strode out of Tom’s office.

Tom leaned back with a long sigh. He had checked on Harry already, and the boy was nothing but exhilarated at finally having been able to use his war wizard powers on the battlefield. Hermione had pulled back as soon as Harry had begun to kill so many, so she hadn’t had to experience a mind she was inside dying. Tom was glad. He did not think her ready for such a thing.

They would have to move faster than he had been prepared for. They would have to utilize talents that had been decades in the training and even now might not be as fully ready as Tom had hoped for.

But he felt a swift satisfaction walking through him nonetheless—no, striding the way Nora had done.

This was their time.

Chapter Text

“Father didn’t come home last night.”

Ron blinked and glanced up from the chessboard in front of him and the pieces of pure onyx that Draco had given him for his birthday a few years ago. “What?”

“I said, Father didn’t come home last night.”

Draco was standing in front of Ron, trembling, his hands locked into fists near his knees. Ron felt his tongue tangle around itself. He would have offered sympathy, but he doubted Draco would thank him for it. And something in Draco’s voice made him sure that Draco already knew what had happened to Lucius Malfoy, even if there were lots of possible explanations.

“Do you think his enemies captured him?” Ron asked slowly.

“No. I wouldn’t have felt that.”

“You felt him—”

“Die, Weasley,” Draco said, and leaned forwards. They were gradually drawing attention in the crowded Slytherin common room, normally something Draco wouldn’t have wanted to happen unless he was bragging about some new achievement or something his parents had bought him. But now he didn’t seem to care. “I felt him die.”

“You did?” Ron stared at him. He had heard stories of such feats on the part of pureblood families, being able to sense each other’s danger and pain and deaths, but he had always dismissed them. He certainly hadn’t felt Evangeline’s sickness or her healing, or Victoria’s sickness, and Victoria had been his twin. Then again, his family had acted in a misguided manner until the past generation, so maybe they’d lost the gifts like that.

Draco nodded choppily, still never taking his eyes from Ron. “I felt it, Weasley.”

“Why are you calling me Weasley?” Ron felt uneasiness shoot up his spine, a long prickling of uneasiness. He didn’t know why he was feeling it. Except that Draco had never called him “Weasley” in that tone. Sometimes he used Ron’s last name when he thought Ron was being particularly stubborn about learning something obvious, but that was still teasing. This—

Wasn’t.

“Because I think your bloody brothers were involved in this,” Draco snarled, and pulled out his wand and pointed it at Ron.

There was a definite silence in the common room now, and Ron could hear his own panting, but distantly, as if he was disconnected from his family. He was staring down Draco’s wand to Draco’s gleaming eyes, and thinking about what kind of spells Draco could cast when he looked like that. His body seemed to vibrate from the force of his own heartbeat, but that was distant, too. Muffled.

“You think Fred and George did—something?”

“They at least helped the people who did this! And probably that bloody McGonagall, too! Where did they go when they ran away, Weasley? You think they just headed into the wilderness? Or to the Muggle world?” Draco laughed like a crow. “Of course not. They did something. They went to someone. And they killed my father.”

The silence had broken into small murmurs behind them. Ron knew there were people who would turn on him and sneer at him tomorrow, now that he no longer had the favor of the most powerful fifth-year in the House.

If there was a tomorrow.

Ron took a deep breath and met Draco’s eyes and said, “You think I don’t hate them too?”

It was the right thing to say. It made Draco’s hand falter a little. “What do you mean?”

“They tormented me constantly when we were little,” Ron said, and let his voice sink into bitterness. “And after I came to Hogwarts and got Sorted into Slytherin. And now every day since they escaped, Headmistress Carrow stops me and asks if I know where they are. They’ve caused me harm, too, Draco. I’d no more help them than I’d help a Mudblood escape the harvest.”

He felt and heard his mouth speak the words, but it felt as if someone else was speaking them. He remained that detached. He sat there, and the words poured out, and he watched as Draco slowly lowered his wand.

All that mattered was getting out of this situation.

“You’re right,” Draco said. “They wouldn’t have hated you as much as they would have hated my father, but they would have hated you, right? The Slytherin Weasley. The one who they thought turned his back on his family.” He sat down on the couch next to Ron and shook his head a little. “I’m sorry for doubting you.”

“It’s all right,” Ron said, and let the tension seep out of him. It took a while of his speaking normally with Draco before the common room went back to normal, but at last Ron could feel that people weren’t staring at him anymore, either, and it was possible to let the smile that stretched across his face become a little more real.

But not entirely real. Lying in bed in the Slytherin fifth-year boys’ dorm that night, Ron wrapped a hand around his own neck and thought about the way that his pulse could have stopped beating if Draco had been serious about cursing him.

And no one would have thought to interfere with Draco. He was the Minister’s son, even if the Minister was now dead, and that was the kind of power you didn’t mess with. Ron was just a nobody compared to that.

Even though he’d been a Slytherin for five years. Even though there were people in that room he’d worked with, laughed with, played Quidditch with, studied with, taught chess to.

Ron swallowed. They had turned on him at a moment’s notice, and although he might think that he hadn’t acted enough like a pureblood to satisfy them, he knew it wasn’t that. It was because of Draco’s temper, and Draco’s family having enough power that…

I thought I was safe because I was friends with Draco and Minister Malfoy liked me.

Ron closed his eyes. He was good at thinking. Draco had told him that over and over again during the past few years. Maybe it was time to think again.

*

Draco lay in his bed and closed his eyes, but that didn’t stop the sharp, gnawing cold inside him.

I miss him. I want Father.

He had always said that when he was a child. It was Father who had told him stories to soothe him to sleep when he had nightmares. It was Father who had cradled him and spun him around the room when he was a baby so he could feel what it was like to fly without a broom. It was Father who had taught Draco about power and told him what would happen in the future with a predictability that Draco had been able to climb like it was iron.

The Minister’s office had never been hereditary in the past, but then, there had never been Malfoys like they were occupying it. Father had promised Draco that he would be Minister someday. He had promised it.

Now his promises lay broken, just like his body.

Draco didn’t know how he knew that his father’s body had been broken by whatever killed him. He didn’t know how he knew for sure that it was murder and not just a tumble down the stairs. From what Father had said, Malfoys had once had the ability to sense the deaths of family members. But it hadn’t been true for centuries. Father always thought it was the result of a blessing spell cast on the family by some ancestor that had worn off, and by then, no one left had known how to recast it.

But maybe it was because Draco was one of the extraordinary modern Malfoys Father had talked about, the ones who would have deserved to become monarchs. He could feel the deadness and the loss and the realization of murder echoing through him, and agony crawling through his limbs in echoes of the pain that must have killed Father.

The pain that his enemies would suffer before they died.

I will kill them. I will kill them for you, Father.

Draco did close his eyes and sleep eventually, but he didn’t dream of what his father’s death must have been like, the way he had assumed he would. Instead, he dreamed of a great and shining thing that slowly moved towards him. It was so bright that Draco couldn’t see what it was until it got closer, but then it arrived, and he could.

A wand. A burning, shining wand of what he thought might be elder wood.

We have work to do, you and I, whispered a voice into his mind.

*

Molly sighed and leaned back from Evangeline’s bedside, staring at her. Her daughter’s eyes were solemn as she looked back.

“Is it going to be all right, Mum?” she whispered.

“It is, baby.” Molly leaned over and kissed her forehead. Of course Evangeline’s existence had begun in horror, but she hadn’t asked to be created because Arthur wanted more daughters, and now that she was here, she had to be protected and taken care of and loved. And Molly had found a way to ensure that Evangeline was free of the horror.

“I just…Dad.”

“I know.” Molly held Evangeline’s hand. Her daughter didn’t understand everything about the magic they had found in the Arctic, but she knew her father wouldn’t like it.

“Are you going to get a divorce?”

Evangeline’s tone was so solemn that Molly’s heart broke. She leaned over for another kiss. “I don’t think so, dearest.” The rate the war was advancing, with the news about Minister Malfoy’s death this morning, Molly thought that either she or Arthur or both of them would die before that happened.

“Oh. Good.”

Evangeline’s breathing deepened in the direction of sleep, but Molly sat by her bed with her hand in her daughter’s for a time longer. A sharp sound behind her finally broke her from the trance that was listening to Evangeline sleep, and she turned and blinked at Arthur, who was leaning against the doorway.

“What are we going to do, Molly?” Arthur breathed, and tugged at his hair with both hands. “Lucius is dead. His allies are going to—going to feel the brunt of it.”

Molly nodded. Arthur had been one of Lucius’s closest allies. He would no doubt feel the brunt of it.

But Molly had been secretly writing to Professor Riddle for years. She would make sure that she was safe, and as many of the children as she could protect.

Bill and Charlie were out of the country. Percy was embedded in a minor Ministry position and would be affected unavoidably, but not as much as he would have been if he was a Department Head or someone else in a position of power. Fred and George were at Fortius, not out of the war but somewhat protected from it. Evangeline would be with Molly wherever she went.

Which left Ron and Ginny, at Hogwarts.

Molly sighed. She wasn’t sure that she could do anything for Ron. When he’d been home this last summer—which wasn’t often, as he’d been Flooing off to the Malfoys’ every chance he got—he had stared at her with eyes so wide and betrayed most of the time that she hadn’t been able to do anything with him. She had tried to explain a few things, like that Muggleborns weren’t actually weaker than other witches and wizards, but Ron had only sneered at her and left as soon as he could.

Well, she would send Ron a Portkey soon. She would make it clear what it was. And she would let him make the decision. It would take Ron to a place where he could be closely watched before someone came to get him, so if someone else used it instead or he brought Malfoy’s son with him, nothing too terrible would happen.

Molly had already sent Ginny a Portkey. It looked like a delicate little golden bracelet, pretty but cheap, the kind of thing that other purebloods would sneer at. Molly had asked her daughter to please wear it all times, and she could only hope that Ginny had obeyed.

“Molly?”

She had forgotten her husband was even there. It was something she’d once never allowed herself to do, because Arthur might be dangerous or make some sort of silly decision like the ones that had resulted in the birth of their two potion-created daughters.

But there was little that Arthur could do now, one way or the other. The war was surging forwards without him.

“It will be all right, Arthur,” Molly said. She believed that for herself and Evangeline, and she had to believe it for the rest of her children. She stood and came to put her arms around him. Arthur swayed towards her, sobbing a little under his breath, and Molly wondered if there was a chance she could save him. He had been a good man, once.

But he wasn’t now, and she doubted Professor Riddle would let him into Fortius if Molly and Evangeline had to flee there. For now, Molly simply held him in her arms and made soothing noises, and Arthur eventually went to bed, sobbing out something about how he was so grateful to have her.

Molly stood watching him sleep for a few minutes, then returned to Evangeline’s side. When she opened the door to a quiet, dark room instead of one lit with a subtle glow, she sighed in relief.

The glow of the blood Molly had drawn from beneath permafrost and bound, with equally ancient bone, beneath Evangeline’s skin had been more than unsettling at first. It could have given them away to someone who knew what kind of blood magic Molly was performing. Molly felt that most purebloods in Britain would have no idea, but Evangeline might have accompanied Arthur to the Ministry at any point and been seen by an Unspeakable.

No, Molly would fight for her daughter to live the kind of life she should have lived if she had been born naturally. The potion that had created her in Molly’s womb and the stolen magic that had empowered her were both gone now, replaced by the blood and bone of a creature that had died long ago and was using them no longer.

It might shine for a little while, but the shine had already begun to die.

Reassured, Molly shut Evangeline’s door and went to write a letter.

*

Minerva stood beside the gates of Fortius and let her magic sway out of her and connect with the magic pouring through the grounds.

It was magic that felt ancient, far older than the school itself could have provided, subtle and powerful. Minerva had felt deeper magic than this at Hogwarts, but that hadn’t been as fluid. Hogwarts was a castle so long established as a school that the vast majority of the power leashed there had gone into protecting the students, holding up the walls, making the staircases move, and so on. Fortius had magic that had protective intent but hadn’t been shaped yet.

Minerva was honored to be able to work with such magic. She was honored that Professor Riddle had entrusted this task to her.

It wasn’t every day that one got to Transfigure guardian magic into true guardians.

With long sweeps of her wand, Minerva began. This sort of thing couldn’t be shaped by a spell. It had to be pure intent, and will, and it was one of the reasons that so few people studied Transfiguration beyond the NEWT. Transfiguration worked more closely with physical materials than any other branch of magic. One had to impose one’s will on them, wrestle with them, understand what would absolutely not yield—the toughest granite of mountains, for example—and what would, and how one could shape them.

Minerva leaned and forced and pressured and, where she could, coaxed. The magic flickered and danced in front of her, and then spent itself in a great rush like a shout. Minerva staggered and caught herself on the gates of Fortius with one hand, forcing herself back to her feet. For all that she didn’t think she had an audience, she didn’t like to show weakness.

But she had done it. The magic had shaped itself into a giant suit of armor, like the ones that guarded Hogwarts, but made of pure power. Its armor shimmered and glinted, and if struck, it would simply break apart in front of the blow and then reform behind—or around—it. Minerva smiled. She hoped that at least some wizards and witches on the opposite side would try to strike her knights physically, and get their hands caught.

“Stand over there,” Minerva said, and gestured towards the side of the gates.

The knight stepped lightly over the earth, not causing it to tremble any more than a light breeze would. It could be as insubstantial or as heavy as was needed at the moment. Minerva preferred that it be heavy in battle, of course, but that wasn’t yet here.

Minerva took a moment to look the armor over and make sure it had no obvious weakness, before she nodded, and closed her eyes, and began the arduous process once again.

Fortius’s enemies had some idea of what had happened here, although not the details. Fortius needed stronger protectors.

*

Carol smiled to herself as she raised her hands, and the cauldrons in front of her began to bubble and dance in response.

In one, pneumonic plague sang its soft, destabilizing song. Carol’s version of it in a potion needed only to touch the air that an enemy breathed, and it would explode inside their body, plague sped to a hundred times its natural speed, felling a foe between one step and the next.

In the other cauldron was an invention that Carol was particularly proud of. She held out her hand, and the potion inside the cauldron leaped higher, brushing against her palm. Carol smiled at it and shook her head a little.

She was immune to the disease as she was to everything she had personally created, but it would devour the flesh of anyone else who touched it. And that included those who “touched” it by smelling the fumes.

Of course, Carol would have to be careful, when she used these diseases in battle, that they didn’t eat her allies. But she was used to taking such precautions. She and Tom had always been preparing for the war, even when they had thought it was decades further away.

Carol turned her head so that she was looking at the shelves of potions behind her, her older diseases, all waiting patiently. When she looked at them, a ripple of awareness did run through them, like animals in cages seeing the one who would feed them come through the door.

Of course Carol’s new creations enchanted her, but she wouldn’t forget her older ones. For the most part, they’d been languishing there for years, unable to be tested on human beings. Carol made great use of conjured and Transfigured animals, but even Tom couldn’t often procure prisoners for her.

Carol smiled. “You’ll have plenty to eat soon,” she whispered.

*

Andromeda shook her skirts out as she stepped from the Floo. “Narcissa?” she called quietly. She had received an urgent Floo call from her sister to come to Malfoy Manor at once, and she had thought that it might have to do with the funeral preparations for her brother-in-law.

(Who was dead. There was a silence at the center of Andromeda’s being where there had been noise for decades, despite her disappointment in not being able to destroy Lucius herself. Her daughter and her Ted were avenged).

But the Manor was quiet enough now that Andromeda gave in to her nerves and drew her wand. Perhaps she was being silly, but she knew very well what else was here besides Narcissa. The last thing she wanted was to give the Elder Wand a chance to seize control of her because she’d been careless.

“Sister.”

That was Cissy, standing in the center of the doorframe between the Floo room and the sitting room beyond, done all in shades of white and silver. Her eyes were huge and watery, and tears spilled down her cheeks.

Andromeda slid her wand back into her sleeve and went over to wrap her arms around Cissy. “I’m so sorry,” she breathed. And if Narcissa thought she was expressing sorrow over Lucius’s death instead of her sister’s grief, she could think that all she liked. Andromeda didn’t intend to disabuse her any time soon.

Narcissa gave one sob, and then got control of herself, stepping back and placing one hand across her eyes. “We—we have so much to plan.”

“The funeral will be elaborate?” Andromeda asked as gently as she could. She knew Lucius was dead, but the sparse details in the letter Riddle had sent her weren’t satisfying. She didn’t know if Narcissa had Lucius’s body back, or in what condition it was.

“Only as elaborate as it needs to be for the funeral of the Minister of Magic.” Narcissa stood up and smoothed her hair back down with one hand. “No, it’s the plans for the takeover that will occupy the most time.”

“Takeover?” Andromeda echoed blankly.

“You know that Lucius died when he went to attack Fortius.” Narcissa’s eyes burned as she stared at Andromeda. “That’s the school where his enemies are hiding. Our enemies. And they have defenses so deeply entrenched that we’ll never take them easily.”

“So you’re preparing for a siege? Or the Unspeakables are going to let one of their devices take care of it?” That would have been Andromeda’s bet, if she were wagering.

“No,” Narcissa said, and her eyes snapped with fury. “We are going to create a Render.”

Andromeda opened her mouth, closed it, opened it, closed it again, and then slowly shook her head. “Narcissa…”

“It’s the only way to get revenge for Lucius against someone as powerful as Peverell,” said Narcissa, and her eyes were shining with something that Andromeda thought for a moment might be the control of the Elder Wand. But it could also just be her sister’s fanaticism and desire to avenge her husband. “We have to build it, Andromeda. Of course you’re protected and won’t have to give up your life to it, and neither will I or Draco. But it’s necessary.”

Andromeda swallowed. A Render was a legendary magical creature that was unstoppable, absorbing all the pain and punishment that a hundred people could take and responding with as much magic as a hundred people would have.

That was because it was a hundred people, all sacrificed so that their magic and vital force could create the Render.

“You know that Lucius always said the magical population of Britain was small enough,’ Andromeda murmured. In truth, it was something Lucius had said regularly only about the pureblood population of Britain, but she thought that distinction might escape Narcissa right now. “Where are these lives going to come from? Are there that many Mudbloods that can be sacrificed?”

Narcissa shook her head slowly. “There will come a way forwards. Someone will show us the path.”

Who are “someone” and “us? Andromeda thought, but she already suspected the answers to that. “Someone” was the Elder Wand, or the Grindelwald that it puppeteered, and the “us” was her, Narcissa, and Draco.

Narcissa leaned forwards and clamped her hands on Andromeda’s arm. “I’ve asked Bellatrix to return.”

Andromeda closed her eyes. This situation had needed only that, of course. “She was exiled.”

“Yes, of course. I know that. I was one of those who stood to witness the sentence being carried out.”

“She was exiled to another dimension, Cissy,” Andromeda snapped, and opened her eyes again. She doubted, by now, that any glare would get through Narcissa’s pure fanaticism, but she did have to try. “Who knows what it’s done to her? What she’s become to survive, if she’s still alive?”

“She’s alive,” Narcissa interrupted. “There’s a figurine of obsidian I keep in my bedroom that would have shattered if she had died.”

Andromeda closed her eyes again. “And do you remember what she was exiled for?”

“Of course. Trying to build a Render. That’s exactly why I want her with us now.”

Andromeda swallowed. It did sound as though she wasn’t going to be able to sway Narcissa one way or the other. She stepped back mentally and tried to remember everything that Narcissa babbled about, so that she could bring it to Riddle later.

It would have to be later. For now, she had to listen to this insanity and determine everything from how soon it would happen to whose lives Narcissa planned to sacrifice.

We must stop this. And I don’t know how.

Chapter Text

“I hope it’s all right, Draco.”

Draco gave Ron a tight smile and kept walking up to the front of the Great Hall with his mother, who had personally come to fetch him for his father’s funeral. He wanted to rage at Ron for being an ignorant idiot, though. How could anything be all right when his father had been murdered and they still hadn’t caught the person who had done it?

But it wouldn’t serve the Malfoys right now for Draco to show that kind of emotion in public. With an effort, he smoothed down his response and kept walking beside his mother.

The moment they got out of the Great Hall, though, Mother’s hand tightened on his shoulder. Draco turned to face her, ignoring the prickling of fear down his spine that someone might spy on them from the entrance of the hall. His mother would notice if something like that happened.

“Draco,” Mother whispered, her face pale and her eyes burning. “We have something very important to do.”

“What is that, Mother?” Draco was proud of how steady his voice was, comparable to the stone walls and floors around them.

“You know that your father had a guest in the house? In the rooms that we told you never to visit?”

Draco nodded, although truthfully, he hadn’t known they’d had a guest. He’d thought that his father might be keeping a prisoner or perhaps an experimental potion or dangerous beast in the rooms. But he had obeyed the directive to keep away, because he’d loved his father.

Father.

The grief tried to bite at him and drag him down like a wolf dragging down a deer again, but Mother was speaking, and Draco had to pay attention to her.

“Protecting the guest was one of the things that your father needed to do. Now that he’s dead, we will need you to take up that burden. Do you understand?”

“Not really,” Draco had to admit. “Mother, what is going on?”

“Shhh.” Mother’s hand rested on his face for a moment, then his hair. “I promise, Draco, you will know soon enough. But we can’t talk like this in public. Our enemies might overhear.”

Draco bit back the temptation to say that she had been the one to bring the subject up, and nodded. He simply had to realize that Mother was a little scattered these days, affected by Father’s death, and he could hardly blame her when he was experiencing some of the same stress, sleeplessness, anger, and feelings of being useless.

“Come now, Draco. We will be late if we don’t go soon.”

Draco hurried after his mother in silence. He wasn’t surprised when they went up to Headmistess Carrow’s office. The only surprise had been that his mother had come to the Great Hall to fetch him in the first place, instead of just having the Headmistress summon him.

But Draco reckoned his mother had been too distraught to care about what would happen when people saw them together in the Great Hall, so he held his peace.

“Mrs. Malfoy. Mr. Malfoy. I am so sorry about what happened to the Minister.”

Carrow looked as if she was a corpse trying to act a part, thought Draco. It made her sympathies worth less than nothing. She was probably just trying to calculate how losing the Minister would affect her own position, when he was the one who had appointed her. But Draco nodded as if he accepted and believed her, and Carrow turned to Mother.

“Please keep Mr. Malfoy by your side for as long as you need to. I will arrange to have his work in his classes excused.”

“Yes,” Mother said, mechanical-sounding now that they had someone else in the room with them. She took a pinch of Floo powder from the bowl that Carrow offered her and cast it into the fire. “Malfoy Manor!”

Draco followed, doing his best not to sneer at Carrow. She had her hands clasped in front of her, and was only a moment away from wringing them. He wondered if he would find her fled from her post when he came back.

He came out into the receiving room of the Manor, and started when he saw the woman waiting for him. He had seen her a few times before, but always in his father’s office. Mother had made it clear that his aunt was not a worthy visitor to the Manor.

“Aunt Andromeda,” Draco said, and made his voice as calm and clear as he could. If she was here, there was a reason. He stepped forwards with his hand out.

Andromeda shook it. “I’m sorry to hear about your father,” she murmured.

Draco had his doubts whether someone who had once married a Mudblood was capable of the finer gradations of feeling that would have allowed her to actually grieve Lucius Malfoy, but he inclined his head. “Thank you.”

“Come, Draco, we have to have you meet our guest.”

For some reason, his aunt’s eyes widened. But she stepped back and waited as Draco and Mother left the room and traveled down a corridor paneled in dark wood towards the suite that had been kept locked for the last several years.

Mother paused before they entered the outer room, one hand resting on the door, and looked hard at Draco. “Do you know what your father most believed in?” she asked.

“Blood purity.” Draco was sure on that, given the amount of times he’d talked to Father about it, and was astonished when she shook her head.

“No. Protecting and saving our family. Making sure we were always among the powerful.” Mother exhaled slowly. “When he first came to me and told me about our guest, I was astonished. But then I understood. This man is the most powerful man in the world, Draco. It made sense that Lucius took him as Lord and began to serve him.”

Draco felt as though she had punched him. He stared at her in disbelief. Mother nodded back and opened the door before Draco could object at the thought of his father serving anyone.

The door swung open on a neat sitting room, decorated in whites and pale greens. Draco took a step in, glancing around. This impressive man his mother was talking about wasn’t anywhere in sight, but there was an open book on the small glass-topped table between two chairs. Draco half-closed hiss eyes when he recognized it as one of the bound reports his father had mentioned studying in his last letter to Draco.

“Through there,” Narcissa whispered, motioning at a door with a shining window in it that Draco knew must lead to the bedroom.

Draco took a deep breath and walked over to it. He listened, but no sound came from behind it. Was this “lord” asleep? He glanced at his mother, who motioned impatiently with one hand again. Draco opened the door.

The bedroom beyond was blue and white, and sunlight created by charms showered from the large window over the bed. A tall man lay there, younger than Draco had expected, and crowned with shining golden hair that made Draco wonder if he was a lost Malfoy relative. That might explain how his father had thought he was preserving the family’s power by bowing to someone else.

The man stirred and rolled over. Mother caught her breath behind Draco.

And then a shining wand leaped off the table beside the bed and streaked across the room, hovering in front of Draco. Draco stared at the colors coming from the wand and felt lost. He had had a vision like this once, hadn’t he? Someplace, sometime.

“I have waited for you,” said a voice that seemed to sigh with promises, and then the wand lowered itself into Draco’s hand.

Draco had never felt anything like it, not even when he’d found his hawthorn wand at Ollivander’s. The sparks that ran up his arms and circled around his shoulders felt like being embraced by a creature of pure sunlight. Power surged through him, and he turned and aimed his wand at the man on the bed without being told, simply because it was what the wand wanted him to do. “Avada Kedavra!” he cried.

The jolt of green light that tore out of him was as green as the Manor’s grounds in spring, although the last time Draco had cast the spell, he’d barely managed a thin line on the verge of blue. The spell slammed into the man, and he stopped breathing.

Mother gasped behind him.

The feeling of magic roaring through Draco changed direction and strength, and he laughed aloud. He turned back to Mother with a smile and shake of his head.

“It was never the man who was worth following, Mother,” he said. “It was the wand. It is the Elder Wand. And now it has come to me.”

*

Andromeda fought the temptation to sink to her knees as Draco and Narcissa came back into the sitting room. He was carrying a wand that Andromeda was certain was the Elder Wand, and all but glowing with power. His lip was curled back from his teeth, and he walked as though daring someone to hit him.

“Cissy?” Andromeda whispered.

Draco focused on her, and Andromeda recoiled as he did. “You will no longer call my mother by that disgusting nickname,” he ordered. “In fact, you will forget that you ever knew it.”

Andromeda gasped as something seemed to rip across her mind, stinging the way a slap to the cheek would have done. She knew that her memories had shifted, were altered, but for the life of her, she couldn’t remember the thing that she had been ordered to forget. She ended up bowing her head, because that was the only way to survive at the moment. “Your will be done,” she whispered.

“Yes.” Draco glanced around and then turned to the fireplace. Flame danced across its logs without him having to gesture or say a word. “Mother, what kind of arrangements have been put in place for Father’s funeral?”

“We will be holding a reception at the Ministry for those who wish to come and pay their respects,” Narcissa said. She looked calmer than she had when she’d brought Draco through the Floo, but Andromeda wasn’t at all sure that was a good thing. Her eyes followed the wand in Draco’s hand as though it was the string guiding her movements. “The funeral itself will take place tomorrow, here on the grounds. Afterwards, there will be a gala to collect donations to the Phoenix Fund.”

Andromeda kept her mouth shut, as dearly as she wanted to scoff. The Phoenix Fund, which billed itself as a charitable organization, had been established to pay wardmasters and other witches and wizards with comparable talents to keep adding their strength to the web of spells which kept Albus Dumbledore sleeping and imprisoned. Lucius had delighted in the name, claiming that because Dumbledore had once owned a phoenix, there could be no greater irony.

What is ironic is how afraid he was of a half-blood, years and years after he put him in the earth.

Draco nodded, his expression distant. “Those plans can proceed,” he decided. “But I will be adding to them.”

“Yes, my son? How?”

“I will introduce everyone to their new Lord at the gala.”

Andromeda felt as though her stomach had filled with ice, and also was sure she felt the wand gazing at her. She stood still. Objecting was foolish. Trying to flee would be more so.

“Our new Lord?” Narcissa asked, staring at her son. “Not our new Minister?”

“The Minister’s office has outworn its usefulness.” Draco’s voice had an odd cadence to it. While Andromeda hadn’t spent a lot of time around him, she didn’t think he was the one speaking anymore. “It is time that our world learns and profits from the reign of a Lord.”

“Are you sure that you’re ready for the burden, my son? At only fifteen—”

“The wand has much more experience than that, Mother.”

Andromeda continued to remain quiet. She wondered if Draco would kill her, if he would bind her magic in some way, if he would remember and dismiss her. She had already sent an owl to Riddle about the Render that Narcissa wanted to build, but this was another development she desperately wanted to inform him of.

Not that she thought she would get the chance.

“Aunt Andromeda.”

Andromeda jumped, and tried to convince herself that the light along the wand was simply a knowing glint such as might be in an eye if the wand had one, and not the beginning of a Killing Curse. “My lord?” she whispered.

“I need something from you.”

“Yes, my lord.” It grated to lower her eyes and step towards Draco as if she really revered him, but she would need to survive and get out of here somehow. And pretending was second nature to her now after years of living in a pureblood world and hiding her rage and hatred.

“I need your loyalty,” Draco said, and smiled at her, and a tide of obedience crashed into Andromeda’s mind and swept most of what she was away.

*

Harry came awake, gasping. He lay for a long moment in his bed with his hand clasped over his chest and felt his heart leaping as if trying to escape from behind his ribs. He blinked at the ceiling and listened, trying to understand what had awoken him when he couldn’t hear any wards sounding.

Silence answered his listening. Harry sat up and swung his legs out of the bed, then rubbed his face.

It had seemed like a voice speaking through his dreams. But Harry couldn’t remember what it sounded like, or what it was saying, or even why it had seemed important. Perhaps it had been nothing more than a dream sudden and startling enough to wake him up.

Then he glanced blearily around the room, and started. Because, no, there was something obscuring his view of the window.

Harry quietly gathered power around himself. He could obey Professor Riddle’s injunction not to use war wizard magic on the grounds of Fortius and still hit the intruder with something intense enough to dissolve him or her.

The shape moved, and Harry ducked and rolled from his bed onto the floor in absolute silence. His roommates were breathing quietly around them, none of them waking up. That worried Harry. Some of them had keener senses or different training than he did. Why were they all sleeping on as if they didn’t have a care in the world?

Harry clenched his hands into fists and took a long moment to listen. There was no sound of breathing or footsteps, or the crackle of magic. Of course, with his luck, there was someone in the room with them who could cast without a wand.

But they probably would have killed us by now if that was true, Harry thought, and stood up, his hands still in fists at his sides.

The shape had moved away from the window, and for a long moment, Harry didn’t know where it had gone. Then it draped itself over his head and shoulders, and Harry went down with a flail and a shout.

Someone stirred in the bed and muttered something irritated that ended with his name. Meanwhile, Harry was discovering that the figure that had worried him and then attacked him was—

A cloak, apparently.

When Harry lifted his arms to try and fight it, he discovered that the cloth swathing him had made his arms vanish. He stared, said something soothing in response to another repetition of his name, and then sat up and stared down at the Invisibility Cloak Professor Riddle had told him about but had had no luck finding in the house at Godric’s Hollow.

Why did you come to me now? he wondered uneasily. Andromeda Tonks’s foretelling hadn’t indicated any reason for the cloak to emerge from hiding.

The material shifted and slid in his hands, so soft and sleek that Harry’s fear was pierced by wonder. He held it up and tilted it back and forth. The shimmer of power running through it could be mistaken as just the shimmer of the cloth unless you were really paying attention.

“You were a Deathly Hallow,” he whispered, addressing the cloak softly enough that he shouldn’t wake up his roommates again. “You are a Deathly Hallow. Have you come to me because the wand is moving? Is this the endgame?”

The cloak pressed closer to him. Harry stood up and wrapped himself in it. He disappeared so thoroughly that he could feel a thick layer of muffling start up between him and the ordinary sounds and sights of the room. It was like looking at the others through a film of starlight.

Harry shook his head and stepped out of his room, moving in a silence that seemed to well out of the floor beneath him and swirl around his head. He made his way to a balcony of Gryphon House that hadn’t seen much use lately. Most of the people in the House felt that it was too exposed to whatever the purebloods might fling their way.

Harry sat down on it and took off the cloak, turning it around and around. It remained the same, an extremely well-made and shining piece of cloth that turned everything that touched it invisible.

“Why now?” Harry murmured. “Why didn’t you show up earlier when I was fighting the wand?”

He gasped aloud and bent over in the next second as pure sorrow seemed to stab him in the stomach. The sorrow welled up into his head, and Harry’s eyes ran with tears as he sagged back against the stone wall behind him, forced to relive the Invisibility Cloak’s memories.

*

We were three, and one.

The years that we passed together could not be counted. Even when we were apart, in the hands of different humans who thought themselves our masters, we always knew where we were. We knew where we intended to be. We knew what purpose we served, and we were content.

Then came the first of the wizards who intended to wield one of us against someone who had the other. The House of Gaunt set the Resurrection Stone into a ring and tried to use the ring to command the wielder of the Elder Wand at the time. This was not the purpose for which we were made.

We lashed back at the wizard, and the ring that held the Stone broke apart. But the Gaunt wizard who had wielded it survived, and he did not give up the idea of the ring. He called spirits from the veil with the Stone and bound them into the next ring he forged, so that it would have the power to contain and command us.

We attempted to move to protect ourselves. But in the meantime, the Cloak had come to rest in the possession of the Potter line, and no matter what it tried or who tried to steal it, there it remained. And the Wand was in the possession of the wizard Grindelwald, among those who attacked the Potter line. We did not wish to have someone who would raise two of us against the Stone, any more than we wished the Gaunts to use the Stone against the other two.

We thought we had found a solution to our problems. We worked on the lines of fate, and ensured that Albus Dumbledore met Gellert Grindelwald in battle and took the Wand from him. We planned that he would find a young wizard who would claim the Stone as his heritage, and in turn, find a Potter who would be traveling with the Cloak. We did not care who would win that three-cornered battle, as long as we were in charge.

But it did not come to pass. The wizard who could have claimed the Stone did not. Albus Dumbledore befriended the Potter who had the Invisibility Cloak but did not act against her, and that meant the Cloak went on passing down the line. We did not understand. It was as if another force of fate were acting against us.

And then when Albus Dumbledore was buried in the earth, we discovered that the Elder Wand was not with him.

We do not know what happened. We know that we felt all three of us existing within this world, and then it changed, and we do not know how or when. We—the two of us, Cloak and Stone—searched for our Wand in such ways as we could, motivating our owners to act, sending dreams and foretellings, and driving a few people to go near Dumbledore’s burial spot. But we could not sense it. And if a pureblood had claimed the Wand, we would have been able to, and might have been reunited at last.

Now, we know the truth. Somehow, the Wand was pulled beyond the world, and took over the role of puppeteer in order to come back to us. But something corrupted it. Now it is in the world, but it does not intend to reunite with us. It intends simply to destroy everything and everyone in sight, including us and the people who wield us.

I have emerged from hiding because there is no other way to settle this conflict. If you face the Wand directly in battle, you will die. You must become something more than a force of pure destruction. I will help you.

*

Harry tore himself out of the cloak and the pressure it was exerting on his mind with a gasp and a shake of his head. He stared down at the cloak covering his hands and obscuring part of his chest. His heart was beating wildly. Not that he thought he would have been able to see that, even without the cloak.

“I don’t understand,” he whispered. “If you’re so powerful, what can I do?”

The cloak stirred, and more images and words poured into Harry’s mind, but this time, he managed to retain his own separate identity enough to hear them, instead of simply plunge into them as into the middle of a stream and be lost within them.

We must find out what corrupted the Wand. We must find out why it is so intent on destroying things. A war wizard can make it focus on you. It does fear you, for all that it thinks it does not need to. And that means we need your help.

“Oh,” Harry said flatly, and leaned back to stare up at the stars, feeling helpless in a way he hadn’t since Professor Riddle had rescued him from the Dursleys. “Bait. That’s what I am.”

It is the role you must play while we find out what has gone wrong with the Wand. But we will protect you. It would not serve our plans if you died before we could lure the Wand onto the battlefield and call to it.

“Call to it.”

It is ignoring the two of us speaking to it. It is as if it does not even recognize the form of our language anymore. But in the middle of fighting for its existence, then we have more of a chance of breaking through the shell of indifference or corruption that surrounds it.

Harry simply shook his head. In some ways, he supposed, this wasn’t so different from how he had been positioned and played across the board so far by Professor Riddle. He was a manipulator, even if he was also the one who had given Harry the freedom and power to determine his own fate. And Lucius Malfoy and the purebloods who followed him had manipulated Harry’s life before he was even born, by murdering his parents and creating the world he had to grow up in.

We will give you a reward.

“I can’t think of anything that’s going to make up for planting me on a battlefield and making me into bait.”

We will ensure that your war is won the way you want it to be won. That the purebloods die and you have your revenge on them. That their plans do not come to pass. Did you know that your professor is blind?

“I—what?”

He once had eyes in the house that now holds our Wand and its wielder. The wife of the man who died. But that control was taken from him when the Wand began to assert its will. She has been feeding him false information. The Wand sensed your professor’s control and arranged this. We will give you the true information and allow you to defeat your enemy.

Harry breathed out. Well. Put that way, at least the cloak seemed to be more on his side and Professor Riddle’s than it had seemed so far. He held up the shifting, glimmering thing and stared at it for long moments.

“And after this is over, you’ll go away? I won’t have to be around you or serve you.”

I am as eager to be parted from the Potter line as you are to defeat the Wand.

Harry nodded grimly. At least that was something.

And what he had to tell Professor Riddle couldn’t wait. He stood up and ghosted into Gryphon House, to leave and go to Professor Riddle’s quarters. Harry had permission to wake him in the middle of the night for emergencies, and this, Harry thought, bloody well was one.

Chapter Text

“I’m sorry, Professor Riddle. I was sure that I’d have the runes figured out by now.”

Tom shook his head. “Miss Johnson, the failure isn’t yours. If the best runemasters and scholars that we have here can’t figure it out, that’s our problem.”

Angelina gave him a grateful smile before putting her head down on the table and simply going to sleep. Nora looked in from the doorway, and Tom nodded, gathering up the scroll on which Angelina had written down the runes she was working with.

“Yes, yes, I’ll leave her to sleep. You needn’t be afraid that I’ll keep her up all night.”

“I’d be happy if you checked the wards near the gates,” Nora said coolly, and walked over to smooth her cousin’s hair back from her forehead. “Something passed them a while ago, I think, but not something that triggered alarms.”

Tom nodded. He hadn’t felt that himself, and he thought that Nora’s magic might simply be reacting to a student or professor who had come too near the wards, but it would provide a distraction from the bitter unease curdling in the bottom of his stomach.

He had heard nothing from Andromeda since her terse description of Narcissa proposing a Render would be built on the backs of a bunch of sacrificed people. And while that might not have bothered him if he had still been able to trust in intelligence reports from Narcissa, he hadn’t had those in some time. The Elder Wand had found out about his Imperius Curse on her and severed it even before Lucius’s death.

Tom stepped out onto the grounds and stared up towards the clouds. They towered overhead, racing towards the east. Tom felt a few slaps of raindrops on his face, and shivered. They wouldn’t be even that gentle for long.

He turned his head abruptly towards his office. Someone was waiting for him there, and he didn’t know how he knew. Perhaps the brush of magic that Nora had felt over her senses.

Tom extended his own senses towards the gates, just to make sure that no one was really walking along them or trying to break in, and felt nothing. He broke into an abrupt jog towards his office.

*

Professor Riddle wasn’t in, and the longer Harry waited, the more nervous he became. If Professor Riddle was already awake in the middle of the night, he might have a worse emergency to deal with, and wouldn’t appreciate Harry just showing up.

You have no need to be afraid of him. You are a war wizard, and you carry me.

Harry just shook his head grimly. The cloak could talk all it liked, but it had never been human and had a relationship with a mentor.

The cloak was just starting some tale of a time that it had belonged to a student who’d been mentored by the Headmaster of Hogwarts when the door to the office was flung open. Harry started to his feet. “Sir?” he asked. Professor Riddle’s hair was wet, and he looked pale and wild.

“I felt a power in my office that I didn’t understand.” Professor Riddle’s eyes swept across Harry and then came to rest on the cloak. “But now I do. You found the Deathly Hallow that Andromeda’s foretelling said would be associated with you.”

“It came and found me, really,” Harry said, a little helplessly. “It wanted me to warn you that the Elder Wand has corrupted Draco Malfoy and taken over someone in Malfoy Manor who was feeding you information.”

Professor Riddle’s eyebrows arched. “It is a little behind the time. I did have Narcissa Malfoy under the Imperius and feeding me information, but she hasn’t done so for some weeks now. The Wand cut the connection so that she could become a better servant to it and not undermine her husband’s plans, I think.”

I meant Andromeda Tonks, the cloak said, with a shiver that made Harry feel as if his magic was dividing in the bottom of his belly. He did his best to ignore the squirming sensation and told Professor Riddle what the cloak had said.

“Of course it did,” Professor Riddle said, with a small, hard smile that made Harry more uncomfortable than the cloak had. “Well. I will not trust any report that Andromeda sends me. I wonder…” He tilted his head, then shrugged. “Well, no need to worry about that until some more time has passed.”

The cloak rippled on Harry’s back, and its words rippled into his mind. Harry sighed. “It claims the Elder Wand is corrupt, sir. It wants to confront the Wand along with the Resurrection Stone and end that corruption.”

“And it thinks to use you as that tool?”

“I don’t think it has much of a choice, sir. It says that it was bound to the Potter line and tried several times to escape my family’s, er, control, but some kind of force prevented it each time. There was a wizard who was supposed to claim the Resurrection Stone or something and get to know Dumbledore, but that didn’t happen.”

Professor Riddle’s face went perfectly blank. Harry had no idea what he was thinking, and just stood there. The cloak shifted around and forth and back, until Harry reached up and nipped a fold of it between his fingers to keep it still.

“Sir?” Harry finally asked. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” Professor Riddle said slowly, staring into the distance. “I only had an idea—” He broke off abruptly and glanced at Harry. “Are you all right working with the cloak to counter the Elder Wand?”

Harry frowned, but nodded. It seemed to him that there probably wasn’t any other way to get rid of the cloak or the wand. And if it meant that his spells could be used just to counter the wand…well, realistically, not everything was going to be like the battle at Fortius’s gates, with his allies and his enemies clearly separated. He was still wary of what might happen if he unleashed his magic over a place where there were people he didn’t want to hurt. Maybe this would make better use of his skills.

It will, it will, the cloak whispered, and rustled, and stirred restlessly around him. From the way one of Professor Riddle’s eyebrows rose, it was making parts of Harry’s arms and shoulders disappear. Harry patted at it to get it to stop, embarrassed.

“Then you should decide early on how you will do so,” Professor Riddle said, and stood. “I have something else to attend to.”

“Are you all right, sir?” Professor Riddle’s face still looked wrong to Harry. He didn’t have as much expression as he should, and his fingers were tapping and surging out rolls on the chair next to him.

“As all right as I can be at the moment,” Professor Riddle said, and smiled briefly. “As I said, I have something else to attend to.” Then he hesitated. “But I meant what I said about only wishing you to combat the Elder Wand if you are comfortable with this, Harry. I will not spend your life in battle needlessly.”

Harry was touched, although he did notice the implications of those words. Professor Riddle wouldn’t spend Harry’s life needlessly. He would probably still spend it if he needed to and thought other goals could be accomplished by it.

“I’m all right, sir,” Harry said quietly. “Please go take care of whatever it is that needs to be taken care of.”

Professor Riddle nodded once, as if he had needed Harry’s reassurance, and then turned and left.

I do not like him, the cloak murmured.

“I don’t think you like a lot of people. Including me.”

That is true. Humans are too disruptive of the grand pattern.

Harry rolled his eyes and went back to Gryphon House to catch what sleep he could. He had a feeling he wouldn’t be sleeping much or for long once he and the cloak started the push to destroy the Elder Wand.

*

It was nothing, Tom thought. Just a flash of insight that couldn’t even be called that. After all, there were many people in the world who could have inherited a stone, or been supposed to have inherited a stone, and some of them would have met Albus Dumbledore before he was imprisoned. Dumbledore had been famous all over Europe and in demand for consultation on problems or magical solutions to them.

But all the same, he was remembering the ring that had been on his uncle Morfin’s finger the only time Tom had met him, and the space where the stone should have been. And Morfin’s description of the stone as “the blackest thing you ever saw.”

It was silly to think that the wizard was Tom himself, that the stone had been the Resurrection Stone. But Tom could not dismiss the notion, not when similar flashes of insight had saved his life before or turned the war in a certain direction.

So he went to the goblins and waited in one of their anterooms for nearly two hours before the doors of gold and bronze opened and a goblin stood staring at him without a word.

Tom rose and bowed his head. “I am willing to pay as much gold and blood for a Fate-Divination as the person performing it needs.”

There was a little silence, although Tom could feel the surprise running through the goblin like lava. Then she turned around, still without a word, and led him further into the bank. Tom followed, and saw the way that the goblins’ eyes followed him. The pureblood, or mostly pureblood, customers in front of them appeared to notice nothing.

Still, appearing not to notice and truly not noticing were not the same thing, and Tom couldn’t afford to have someone start a rumor that would hurt his protection of Fortius. He kept his hood up and his stride steady, as seemingly as much on business as any of the other clients of Gringotts.

And, in truth, he was. The most important business in the bank that morning.

His silent guide opened a silver door leading into a wide room. Tom stepped into it and looked around. There was a huge, empty basin in the center of the space, hollowed out into the floor. The basin, like the door, appeared to be made of pure silver. Tom had a feeling he knew what would fill it soon.

The guide left. Tom stood and waited for five heartbeats before the door on the far side of the room, and the basin, opened.

The goblin who stepped through was a tall one, and carried a jagged knife as long as she was tall. She came to a halt and pointed one claw at him. “What have you come for, Tom Marvolo Riddle?”

Tom felt the magic judder into life around him, and hoped that he hid his sigh of relief. The ritual had begun when the goblin addressed him by name, and that should mean it was impossible for anyone to stop or block.

Theoretically.

Tom did not want to underestimate the power of the Deathly Hallows.

For now, though, he held the gaze of the goblin with the knife and said softly, “I have recently come into possession of information that says a certain force opposed artifacts so powerful that they should have been able to do whatever they wanted, and that my family’s past was somehow involved in that force. I seek knowledge of the force, what it is, how strong it is, and how I can aid it.”

The goblin was as silent as the one who had led him here for endless moments. Tom felt them tick past, and tried to keep from glancing at the basin. It was hard not to.

Finally, the goblin said, “What is the name of these artifacts you think powerful enough to create their own path?”

“The Deathly Hallows.”

The goblin made a shrill whistling sound, spinning the knife in her fingers, and for a moment Tom feared that he’d somehow trespassed on a goblin taboo. Maybe they feared the Deathly Hallows or held them sacred, and wouldn’t think they could oppose them.

But it seemed the whistle was merely a noise of astonishment, because after long moments, the goblin nodded and leaned forwards. “You know what the ritual requires from you.”

“Gold and blood.”

“We will take the gold from your vault.”

“Yes.”

“And the blood from your veins.”

Tom nodded and stared at the enormous basin in the floor. “Yes. Will you feed me Replenishing Potions so that I can continue to shed blood enough to fill it up?”

The goblin laughed, a crackling noise that reminded Tom of branches breaking and raised the hair all along his spine. “We have no need of human-invented potions for our deepest magic,” she said, and held up her blade. “When I bleed you, this steel will create new blood so that you continue to shed it.”

Tom nodded and took a deep breath, then shucked his robe. “From the arms? From the neck?”

“From all over,” said the goblin, her smile bright and jagged. “You will carry the scars of this shedding and this Fate-Divination all your life, Tom Marvolo Riddle. That is the price of what you ask.”

Tom just nodded. If the Deathly Hallows had simply wanted to be reunited and had taken one of his best warriors off the field of battle so that they could deal with the Elder Wand, he would have accepted the price without demur. But the fact that the Resurrection Stone had been tangled with his own family’s past, that things had changed already from the Hallows’ plan and more than once, and the silver runes that Andromeda’s foretelling about the Stone had guided them to…

Tom didn’t intend to let the Hallows control everything when it might mean risking the fate of his people.

The goblin sang a high, piercing note, and Tom closed his eyes and shuddered as he dropped his robes to the floor. That note seemed to cause all his blood to rush to the surface of his skin and hover there, as if eager to be collected by the blade. He turned over his left arm and bared it.

The goblin stepped over the basin in a single, eye-blurring moment, and slashed across his arm.

Tom swallowed as he watched the first blood drain out and flow towards the basin. The knife seemed to jab not just pain but more eagerness deep into his arm, and he felt what he supposed was the blood regenerating so it could be collected by the same blade.

It was beyond strange.

But he would have the Fate-Divination he’d wanted, because he could pay the price.

*

“And you tell me that you have absolutely no knowledge of where Minerva McGonagall went?”

“I do not,” Severus said stiffly. He disliked the way that Carrow kept questioning him, as if it was only natural that he would know where Minerva had gone. He didn’t know if she had noticed them spending some time together when Minerva was still at Hogwarts, or if she had simply decided that since they were both half-bloods, of course they would have to be friends and have something in common.

“But you spent time together before she fled.”

“We sat together at the High Table, yes, Headmistress.” Where you put us, Severus did not say. He stared at the Headmistress with his eyes blanker than they used to be when he spoke with Lucius. “But we spent little time together. I know well enough that my own half-blood status disadvantages me. Spending time around the Head of Gryffindor House…” He shook his head. “I did not want to tarnish my reputation.”

“But did you not think Minerva McGonagall a rather unusual half-blood, Severus?”

“Yes, in that she had the talent to survive despite being a Gryffindor,” Severus said. “Of course, I assumed that part of that came from her usefulness to the administration. If they were not going to dissolve Gryffindor House completely, then they had to have a Head for it, and it would be a problem to find a non-rebellious one.”

“She was rebelling.”

“Yes, Headmistress.”

“Rebelling all this time. Even when I made a push to make sure that she would be spared some of the consequences of her actions…”

As Carrow stared at one of her office’s enchanted windows, Severus thought he understood. Carrow had invested herself in doing, as she saw it or pretended to see it, “good things” for Minerva. And Minerva had ungratefully (as Carrow would see it) rejected her efforts and fled.

Carrow must be wondering how she had missed those subtle signs of rebellion, how she had failed to anticipate Minerva’s next move.

Severus concealed his smile as he bowed his head. “The duplicity of some people is beyond the ability of more rational actors to guess,” he murmured.

“Yes, I suppose that is the truth.” Carrow continued to stare out the window for a moment, and then turned and looked at him. “And you do not find yourself discontent in your position here, Severus?”

“No, Headmistress,” Severus said. It wouldn’t have been true a few years ago, but now, he had the satisfaction of knowing that he was contributing to Riddle’s rebellion. And the potions he carried with him at all times, merely waiting for the chance to attune them to a particular target’s thought patterns, clinked and rolled in his robe pockets when he shifted his weight a little.

His time would come. He was content that Riddle had plans for Hogwarts and he would not be forgotten.

He would have his revenge, for himself and for students like Theo Nott and even for students like Draco Malfoy, who could have grown into a much finer person if not for the influence that his father had. For the subtle and unsubtle slights and insults flung Severus’s way over the years. For the looks of pity. For the self-satisfied sniffs of ignorant purebloods, so sure that they were above him that most of them didn’t even assume he had important skills.

“You may go, Severus.”

Severus half-bowed his head and stood. Even the bows had grown easier to make of late, he thought as he went down the stairs from the Headmistress’s office.

He stepped out into the corridor beyond the gargoyle and paused when he saw Draco walking towards him. He had thought the boy weeks from returning, given that his father’s funeral had been held just a few days ago. In truth, he had believed Draco would stay home and finish out the Hogwarts term by correspondence.

“Mr. Malfoy?”

Draco halted and looked up at him.

Severus felt a cold shiver grip him. There was something more than the boy looking at him through those eyes. They were darker and brighter, at once, than they had been, and a thrum of power traveled up through the floor into Severus’s feet.

“Hello, Professor.” Whatever wore Draco’s skin was apparently trying to sound innocent. “Are you surprised to see me?”

“Well, yes, I am,” Severus said, deciding at once to treat this opponent the way he would a dangerous fellow Legilimens, and not tell any outright lies. He fell into stride beside Draco, who was heading for the Slytherin common room. “I thought that you would stay home for the rest of the term. I know that you’re a good enough student to succeed by owl correspondence, and when one loses such a father as yours…”

“Yes. I lost my father.”

For a second, Severus was sure that he was hearing Draco’s real grief, leaking through his voice like water through a sieve. Then he shook his head and glanced at Severus.

“But I didn’t know that you thought I was that good a student.”

“You are my best one in Potions,” Severus said, and he was being honest. “It’s true that I don’t know all the specifics of your other classes, but I assume someone would tell me—”

“Because you’re my Head of House?”

“Yes.” Severus decided that he must not act as if he could sense the difference in the child and fear it. That would probably only get him marked out by—whatever it was—as an enemy. He turned and faced Draco, adopting a look of concern. “Are you falling behind in a class? I know Transfiguration has been woefully-taught since the ungrateful half-blood fled.”

Draco looked at him, and smiled, a cold, mirthless thing. Severus forced himself to stand in place stolidly, and Draco inclined his head a moment later and shook it slowly back and forth.

“Not—as such, Professor.”

“Then you are falling behind in some other manner?” Severus adopted the most teacher-like look he could under the circumstances, since Draco would have known him as less than helpful to other students. “Perhaps you will come to my office and we can discuss it?”

A moment passed when Severus could feel subtle currents of power thrumming through his own body and the stone under his feet, and probably the body of the young man in front of him, although he wasn’t sure what they were. Then Draco inclined his head in a slow nod that also wasn’t the gesture he would have given before.

“Of course, Professor. Say, tomorrow at two?”

Tomorrow was Saturday, a day Severus usually dedicated to marking and brewing, but he nodded. At the moment, he had the impression that was this was more important than any of the private labors he might carry on.

“Excellent, Professor. I will see you then.” And Draco went down the corridor without a hint of his own easy stride. This one was mechanical, precise, like a soldier’s.

Severus stared at the stone wall in silence for a moment, wondering if his own time at Hogwarts was coming to an end, much the way Minerva’s had.

*

“You understand, now?”

Tom lay on the stone next to the basin, gasping aloud and staring at the ceiling. But in response to the goblin’s question, he nodded and rolled slowly to the side so he could see her. He flinched as his new scars came into contact with the cold stone, but that was something he would just have to endure.

“Yes,” he whispered to her, watching as she held the blade glistening up with his blood up before her eyes. “I understand that there were forces at work. One, the Hallows, could be thought of as fate. That was things as they could have happened. They are interfering now to guide the world back onto what they think of as the right path.”

“What caused the world to forsake that path?”

“My own actions,” Tom breathed. It was a humbling and terrifying thing to know. “Because I did not myself become the force of fate that the Hallows thought I ought to be, that I would have become with the Resurrection Stone on my finger.”

“And the other?”

“I thought it was another force of fate, at first,” Tom said. “But now I can call it history, or inertia. It is things as they have happened. The choices that we made which led us to this point. The Hallows want to reverse them. The force, or the mindless idea, is leading us forwards, however, in the direction that our choices have pointed to.”

“We goblins call that force by another name.”

“What is it?”

“Freedom.”

Tom blinked and stared at her. She nodded.

“There are forces in the world that no mere mortal can fight,” she said. “But there are also forces that only approximate the greater ones—powers that can still be fought. The Deathly Hallows are part of that group. We will not surrender to them.” She snarled and gripped her knife. “We will not give ourselves up to them. We will fight for our freedom.”

Tom smiled as he reached down and traced one of the new, thick scars that ran up his left arm. “Then you will join me?”

“Yes, indeed, Tom Marvolo Riddle.” The goblin snapped her teeth, and sparks leaped off and scattered into the far corners of the room. “Yes, indeed.”

*

“Are you all right, Draco?”

Draco had walked into the fifth-year boys’ bedroom without looking left or right or saying anything to anyone. Ron had wondered if he should be relieved about that. It might mean that Draco had forgotten the argument they’d had before he’d left for his father’s funeral, and Ron could be safe in Slytherin again.

On the other hand, it might mean that Draco was still angry at him.

Draco turned around and gave Ron a bright smile. Ron started. There was something wrong about that smile, but he wasn’t sure what it was.

“I’ve never been better,” Draco said. “I have a way to get revenge for my father.”

“Oh. Um. Does that mean that the twins weren’t involved in his death, after all?”

Draco looked momentarily thrown. Then he snorted and waved his hand. “No, I should have known better than to think they could be. Father had a grand death. A spectacular one. Far beyond what they could have achieved.” He gave Ron another smile. “My revenge is going to be spectacular, too.”

“Oh. Um. Good?”

Draco smiled at him again, winked with one eye like a spark going out, and slapped the curtains around his bed shut.

Ron lay back on his own bed and thought about the way Draco had smiled, and the glances that some people in Slytherin House had continued to throw him, and the Portkey his mother had sent him.

*

Draco lay behind the curtains where no one could see him, and gently touched the Elder Wand, and thought to it, I am ready.

The walk through the school did not change your mind?

No. You were right. None of them can understand me, even when they pretend they can. Their lives don’t matter to me.

The Elder Wand shone in his thoughts, and said, It will take some time and work. But we have the first, and we have the will to create the second.

Yes, Draco sighed. Yes. Let their parents suffer the way I did. Let them know what it is to lose their children.

Hogwarts would be the perfect place to create the Render.

Chapter Text

Severus swept a critical eye around his quarters, and finally nodded shortly. As far as he could tell, there was nothing that a Draco possessed or influenced by the enemy could take offense to. Severus had made sure that he’d got rid of the books that might hold, or seem to hold, knowledge Lucius would have disliked. His chair and his couch were shabby enough to say that he was a half-blood who didn’t have much money, who knew his place. The tea service was likewise battered and more than a little tarnished.

A knock came on the door. Severus turned to face it and stilled his mind. “Come in.”

Draco entered, moving with that mechanical stride that everyone else seemed to have accepted as characteristic of the boy since his father’s death. That was what Severus had heard Sinistra muttering about, at least. It had taken all his self-control to keep from rolling his eyes at her. “Professor Snape.”

“Mr. Malfoy,” Severus said softly, and looked down at the floor with the kind of deference Lucius would have demanded.

“Look up, Severus.”

That name was also new. Draco Malfoy had never called him anything but Professor Snape. Severus slid his hand into a pocket to rest on the glass vial of his prepared potion, and looked up.

Draco’s eyes had a slight glow behind them as he stared at Severus. Severus swallowed convulsively and knelt, bowing his head.

“I see that you know your place,” Draco said in a voice that seemed to have echoes harmonizing with it. “Know your master.”

“Yes,” Severus said softly, while pressure bore down on him. It was warping, twisting pressure, the kind that wanted to bend and break his mind. He had felt it before when he stared into the eyes of another Legilimens.

But Severus had also felt pressure greater than that. The power that had unfolded lazy dark wings above Nott House before its destruction. The power of Albus Dumbledore when he stood before the students of Hogwarts and somberly announced his decision to go into “retirement” to preserve peace in their world.

And the power of the man who had taken him as servant and follower.

So he knelt there, but didn’t panic, and let the power settle around him like snow. His mind circled restlessly inside its Occlumency, knowing what was him and what wasn’t, alert to any changes in the pattern of his thoughts after years brewing potions that would, if he used them, bind to and alter the thoughts of others.

He could weather this.

The storm drifted around him and then retreated. Severus had the distinct impression that the power had been withdrawn into Draco’s body. Either it thought Severus conquered or it didn’t think it needed to waste the effort, what with Severus projecting submission and desire to serve on top of his mind as hard as he could.

“I never knew you were so afraid,” Draco said conversationally.

Let him have bought my act, at least, if the power inhabiting him did not. Severus licked his lips and continued to stare at the floor. “The world your father built is one where purebloods rule,” he whispered. “I know I’m not a pureblood, and there’s no way that I could pass as one or claim their power. I can at least serve the most powerful, so that I’m not trampled.”

“I never knew that you would rather be alive than powerful, either.”

Then you were not paying attention, Severus thought, but only with the part of his brain that was tucked away. He nodded slowly, staring down at his hands, and shivered when Draco’s hand came to rest on his shoulder.

“Rise, faithful servant,” Draco said, voice ringing with those odd chords again. “You will follow me, and after this conversation, we will talk about earning you a brand.”

“A brand, my lord?”

From the way Draco smiled as Severus stood up and carefully looked at him from the corner of his eye, he thought Severus was curious or honored instead of horrified. “Yes. My father said that of old, Dark Lords marked their chosen ones with a brand that showed their allegiance. I would do the same to you.”

So much revulsion stormed through Severus that he thought for a moment his Occlumency would break and reveal the truth to the thing hiding inside Draco’s body. He maintained his calm expression with an effort, and simply inclined his head.

“What will your brand look like, my lord?”

Draco tilted his head and seemed to be lost in reverie, perhaps communing with the thing manipulating him. Severus waited, his head half-bowed, pressing against the potions vial in his pocket with his thigh as he dared not touch it with his hand.

*

What kind of brand would be appropriate for a follower of the Elder Wand?

The entity in Draco’s head, as filled with rage as he was at the death of his father, pulsed cold amusement through him at the question. A wand, of course. To show that no matter what weapon they may wield, they would be under my dominion.

Draco nodded, content. He supposed that some people would bridle at the wand’s tone or the description of it as controlling Draco’s followers, but Draco knew his place. He knew he would have his vengeance when they slaughtered the children of Hogwarts to create the Render. That was enough for him.

“A wand,” he said, and turned his attention back to Professor Snape. The man practically trembled in the wash of his attention. He was a smarter and more cunning half-blood than most, Draco believed, or he would never have survived as the Head of a House full of purebloods. But that didn’t mean much when he was facing the ultimate pureblood, who was far more now than just his student. “Positioned in the center of the left forearm, and surrounded by a shining golden snake.”

Professor Snape blinked. “A snake, my lord?”

“Am I not a Slytherin? I would not have our House forgotten.” Draco would try not to kill the students of his own House, unless they were those who deserved it, who had some connection to his father’s death, like Ron Weasley did. “But gold in color, to show the light of the future that I offer to those who would follow me.”

Professor Snape looked suddenly eager. Draco wondered why until he sank to a knee again, bowed his head, and asked, “You would spare my life if I agreed to follow you?”

“Yes, of course,” Draco said, a little amused. Perhaps the man really had thought he would simply be slaughtered on the spot? He was too useful for that. Draco intended to keep him around until he had a use no longer. “Now, let us talk in more detail about those who would receive the brand and those who would not.”

“Yes, my lord.”

*

It will work.

Severus prepared the tea with steady hands, his head still bowed. Draco and the thing inside him sat on the couch not far away, intently watching him. Of course the entity would be alert to the threat of poison, even if Draco would not.

But Severus had perfected sleight of hand when he was young. It had been the only way that he could spare some of his possessions from the relentless torment of the Marauders, and the only way, afterwards, that he could earn some revenge, by slipping mild potions into the food and drink of various people at Hogwarts. They would suffer and never blame him. Of course they would not. It was widely-believed that the only way someone could be poisoned or potioned at a meal in Hogwarts was to involve the house-elves.

And if the house-elves swore up and down, trembling, that no potions had passed through their hands, who could but believe them? None of them thought to glance sideways at the man sitting at the same table as they were, a Potions master whose hands were clever at brewing, certainly, but not at slipping things undetected into cups or plates.

And he was a half-blood, moreover. He was weaker than they were, less clever than they were, the purebloods thought. As with so many things in Severus’s life, the assumption of pureblood superiority had protected him as much as it had damaged him.

Severus’s hand slipped the potion into both cups, a final precaution. If Draco did see him doing this, he probably wouldn’t drink it, might force Severus to drink it, but the potion was harmless to anyone whose thoughts it wasn’t attuned to.

And Severus had taken a sample of Draco’s blood when he cut himself with his Potions knife his first year, undetectably, as he did with all his students who might prove…problems.

The potion bristled with Draco’s blood, and the fact that Draco was thinking about the brand, and in such detail, would make it easier for the potion to bind with his thoughts, as well. Severus turned and set the cups on the table in front of Draco.

Draco’s hand lashed out and caught Severus’s wrist.

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice you adding it?” Draco whispered. “I don’t care if you want to die. You’ll drink from both cups.”

Severus simply nodded and reached for the cups. Draco sat back and stared at him.

He still thinks it’s poison, then, Severus thought, and sipped quietly at the tea. Then he sat back and waited for something to happen. Of course, nothing would. It was completely ordinary tea except for the potion that couldn’t affect him in any way.

“What was that potion?” Draco asked, when enough moments had passed that even the entity inhabiting his body appeared to be getting impatient.

“Something that I add to make the tea taste better.” Severus shrugged, part of him mildly amazed at the way the lies rolled off his tongue. But in a way, he had prepared for this moment during all the years when he had thought he would be offering this potion to Lucius. “Most of my guests don’t object to it, either. But then, they put so much honey and milk and lemon and so on in their cups that they probably don’t taste it.”

Draco stared back and forth between the cups for a long moment. Then he snorted and waved his hand. “Then you’ll add more to the cups. And more tea. I will be asking for the recipe for that potion before I leave.”

“Yes, my lord,” Severus said, and went to add in the potion and the tea with hands that did not shake.

*

“Would the people who choose to follow you have to keep this brand hidden, my lord?”

Draco swallowed the last of his tea and set the cup down. Professor Snape was calmly watching him. He really hadn’t suffered any effects from the potion in the tea, Draco had noticed. He could see someone who badly wanted Draco to die being willing to swallow the poison themselves, but Professor Snape wanted to live.

And he had kept talking about the brand and Draco’s possible lordship for as long as it took to finish the tea, not showing any kind of upset stomach or ill temper.

The brand seemed to burn more brightly in Draco’s mind the longer he thought about it. He leaned back against the couch now, and listened to the words of the Elder Wand, murmuring about the design of the brand. The Elder Wand wanted the wand part to be large and the golden snake to be small. Draco had no problems with that.

The design burned brighter still as he considered it. Draco smiled and glanced at Professor Snape. “Would you try to deny that you served me?” he asked softly. “Would you want to hide the brand?”

“Not particularly,” Professor Snape said softly, and inclined his head. “But I do believe that a power struggle will happen now, because of the unspeakable death that took your father, and those who swear allegiance to you won’t be well-regarded by the others who want to take the Minister’s office.”

“I plan to abolish the Minister’s office in time,” Draco said, and laughed sharply as he watched the professor’s eyes widen. “Did you think I would keep it around when it caused my father’s death?”

“I—did not think you would move so quickly,” Professor Snape said, and exhaled.

“That is why the in time part of that sentence is important.” Draco smiled, and made his tone a little condescending. Half-bloods didn’t pay enough attention to the important things, he thought. But he could think about his brand, and the people who would eventually bear it, and his thoughts churned and moved in a calm sea. “But my father always intended the Minister’s office to be hereditary.”

Professor Snape nodded. “Well, it would make sense that he wanted to raise you to be a Lord.”

“Yes,” Draco said. “And lords have brands. And lords have followers.” He drew the Elder Wand, feeling it sing in his hand, and noting the way that Professor Snape’s eyes turned down to it. “You will kneel and take this brand now.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Professor Snape offered no protests and no shying away, simply sinking to his knees and baring his left arm. Draco was impressed. Perhaps, dirty blood or no, this one would stand high among his followers, and the wand of the brand could be especially bright and shining, since he would be the first.

As long as we discover that he had nothing to do with my father’s death.

Draco touched his wand to the skin of Professor Snape’s forearm and closed his eyes, the better to concentrate on the brand.

The thought swelled to fill him, the blaze of the wand and the golden serpent consuming him until he could think of nothing else. Draco began to pant as he thought how grand it would be. He would have dozens of marked followers—no, hundreds—no, better perhaps to keep it at a small number until he understood better how this worked and they proved themselves loyal—no, better to have it at hundreds so that no one could get close enough to betray him—

Something is happening!

The thought tore through Draco, hovering behind the images of his brand. He blinked and shook his head and panted, but nothing changed. His hand still gripped the wand, it still rested on the skin of Professor Snape’s forearm, and already he was back to arguing with himself about how many followers he wanted.

He staggered and sat down. He felt more than saw Professor Snape rising to his feet, heard him calling, “Mr. Malfoy?”

That is my name—I have to get up, have to respond to it—

Why should you? snapped the voice of the Elder Wand. You should have people bowing to you! Have him call you Lord Malfoy, and then perhaps you can respond!

Draco tried to reply, but his heartbeat was surging erratically in his chest. He panted, and the panting consumed him. He tried to stand, and couldn’t make his legs work.

Professor Snape’s hands curled under his elbows. “Draco—”

“Unhand me! Do not address me by that name!”

Professor Snape stepped back, and let Draco collapse in an ungainly heap on the floor. Draco didn’t care, as long as someone with dirty blood wasn’t touching him.

You were about to touch him with me. Does that not make a difference?

Draco tried to answer, but he was picturing the wand in a flare of light against Professor Snape’s sallow skin, and the golden serpent curled around it, and his legs twitched and wouldn’t let him rise, and he was—

“Mr. Malfoy!”

Professor Snape was calling somewhere far away. But Draco’s mind was surging and dancing with the thought of his brand, and the way he would stand on a dais above his followers, and the way they would kneel to him, upturning brightly shining faces—

The Elder Wand whispered stories of war and glory to him, and Draco was smiling as he fell into blackness.

*

Severus stood for long moments with his eyes fixed on Draco and, more importantly, the long wand of elder in his hand before he breathed out slowly.

It had worked. The thoughts of Draco’s brand had consumed him as the potion altered his brain processes, to the point that he wouldn’t be able to think of something else. Even now, in the middle of a coma, his lips twitched with soundless words and his fingers thrashed open and shut around the wand.

Severus Levitated Draco onto a bed in the back of his quarters, a small room that he had sometimes used in the past for his extremely rare guests. He conjured ropes that bound Draco to the bed, and charms that would ensure Draco’s body remained in the same state it now was, not losing strength or muscle tone, not needing food or water because he had already taken an adequate amount, not needing to pass waste.

Then he stood back, and closed his eyes, and thought.

His first impulse had merely been to stop Draco. But now he wondered if he ought to join Minerva in fleeing to Fortius, since Draco might have told someone else about his visit to Severus and Severus would certainly be a suspect in his disappearance.

Of course, doing such a thing would ensure that Draco wouldn’t be monitored, and if the potion wore off and Draco woke up…

Severus grimaced and shook his head. No, it would have to be the third of his plans.

Moving swiftly, he sealed Draco’s eyes with more charms and encased his body so strongly that he wouldn’t be able to move even if he exerted all his magic through his muscles at once. And if the charms might not hold against the Elder Wand’s strength, well, they had only a short journey.

Severus floated the bed into the air and surrounded it with a transparent bubble that he then projected an illusion of an injured student on. No one would find it remarkable that he might have been overseeing a detention and now escorting such a student to the hospital wing.

That done, he arranged his face in an expression of perfect irritation and stormed towards the door from his quarters, throwing it open. The bubble floated after him as he made his way down the corridor with long strides.

The potions he had most recently brewed rested in warded flasks in his pockets. A shrunken trunk filled with books sat in another pocket. It was everything he wanted to take with him.

After more than ten years at Hogwarts, perhaps that was a sad statement of what mattered most. But it would not be sad if he lived.

*

“Professor Snape?”

Filius was standing near the stairs. Severus turned and glanced at him. He had hoped to make it to the highest towers where he could leave without being spotted, but Filius was a better option to stop him than almost anyone else would have been.

“Yes, Professor Flitwick,” Severus said, and slowed, ignoring the way that Filius stared at the bubble behind him. Severus had made the illusion’s face covered in boils, so it was impossible to make out the features of anyone in particular. “Did you need my help chastising students?” Severus hoped it was that, so that he could leave without much loss of time.

“No, I…” Filius turned and stared at Severus. Severus maintained his impatient expression, and he was sure it was perfect, without any trace that would give him away, but FIlius abruptly chuckled. “You’re one of his.”

“His, who?” Severus yawned as if bored. Filius probably wouldn’t miss that Severus’s hand had slid into his sleeve to grip his wand, but nothing could be done about that. Severus would aim to Stun if he could, blind and deafen if he couldn’t. He didn’t really want to kill Filius, who had already decided to leave at the end of this year. “You can’t be speaking of Lucius Malfoy.”

“No, no, his opponent. Word is spreading that his name is Roland Peverell.”

Severus flinched and hissed, glancing around. The corridor was empty, but that could change any second. Even Saturday afternoon saw students going to the library and professors moving back and forth between their quarters and the Great Hall.

Then he realized what he’d revealed by his look, and turned on Filius, only to find his colleague holding his hands up.

“Word is spreading of him,” Filius repeated calmly, “and that he allies with other magical species and doesn’t care about blood. I want to join you, Severus. I would have come to you sooner if I’d suspected that you had an in with him.”

“It is still only a suspicion that you have.”

“Yes, but you haven’t tried to kill me for it or curse me or run to the Headmistress to denounce me.” Filius’s irritating smile widened across his face when Severus only stood there. “I want to come with you. I can be useful.”

Severus closed his eyes and took a deep breath. This wasn’t something he had planned, and something that he hadn’t cleared with Riddle beforehand, either. He doubted he would get in trouble for showing up with an enemy bound and potioned into stillness, but bringing in a conscious adult…

Well. There were undoubtedly defenses at Fortius that could deal with unexpected arrivals. And there was the potential of not bringing in Filius conscious, either.

He drew a vial from his pocket, one of the Sleeping Draughts he’d modified so that those who drank it could not be awakened until someone else had cast a Finite Incantatem over them. “Drink this, then.”

Filius took the potion from Severus while looking him steadily in the eye. Severus only sneered back. If Filius thought he could either intimidate Severus or gauge his honesty from that, he was a fool.

But Filius only shook his head a little and said softly, “There comes a time when one must stand by one’s choices,” and knocked back the potion with a jerk of his head. He collapsed to the floor in the next instant, and Severus hastily snatched the potions vial, capped it, and slid it back into a robe pocket. He couldn’t leave it, not when there was the chance that someone could study the traces of the potion left in the vial and figure out from there how it worked.

He hastily bundled Filius in another bubble of illusion, looking like a second student who had been injured in the same Potions explosion that had supposedly injured Draco, and then made for the Astronomy Tower as quickly as he could. He wanted no more delays.

*

And yet, standing on the Tower, Severus found himself delaying after all.

He swept his gaze slowly across the Hogwarts grounds. Dark trees stared back at him, the dark water of the lake. He could see the spot, if he squinted, where James Potter and Sirius Black had once humiliated him in their fifth year.

He grimaced. Severus did not like the thought that Potter’s son and Black would be at Fortius. But Riddle would keep them from causing Severus any harm, assuming they were inclined to. They likely had larger goals.

Severus had spent more than half his life at Hogwarts. And he had spent it as a student jeered and spat at, then as a half-blood, whispered about and only tolerated a little. It seemed incredible to him now that he had stayed for so long where he was so miserable.

Well. Now, no matter what happened, he would never come back.

Severus closed his eyes and reached into the deepest part of himself, accessing magic he had last used on the night that Lily had died, when he had tried futilely to reach and save her. The Hunt had gone in a different direction than the one he’d anticipated, and he’d arrived too late. But now…

His body wavered, becoming thin black smoke. The bundles that contained Draco and Filius, tethered to him by his magic, did the same.

Severus launched himself from the top of the Tower, and watched the earth sliding beneath him. For a moment, the wind caught him and made him waver back and forth, and he thought about letting it bear him away.

There was a certain appeal to the idea, to being carried off by the wind and taken wherever it willed, perhaps a long way from the war.

But Severus did not actually want that to happen, and he bent his attention towards Fortius, and sped in that direction, the bundles making soft bundles of ash and trouble behind him.

Chapter Text

Tom stared in silence at the body that Severus had placed on the bed in a private room separate from the Healing Hall. He’d taken Filius Flitwick to the Healers, since the man might need some help waking up from the potion Severus had given him, but this…

Draco Malfoy was a special case.

And the wand that lay quiescent in his hand was even more so.

“Why did you decide to bring him with you?” Tom asked, not removing his eyes from the wand. He had already woven so many wards around the bed that the air practically thrummed and glittered, as if sparks were catching on diamond facets. He didn’t know if it would be enough, should the wand wake up.

“I had no idea what else to do.”

Tom turned around and looked at him.

Severus was sitting on the sole chair in the room, his hand shaking as he gripped a vial of Restorative Draught. A plate which had been covered with heavy slabs of meat and cheese sand bread sat in front of him, only bearing crumbs now. Flying the way that Severus had took a great deal of energy, as Tom had cause to know.

Severus met Tom’s eyes and swallowed, looking down and away. “I had no idea what to do,” he repeated in a low, hoarse voice. “I thought he might wake up without my being there. And someone might have found him and woken him up, which would be even worse. I certainly couldn’t keep up my place as a spy in Hogwarts and watch him over twenty-four hours a day.”

Tom considered that and then nodded. He had been thinking that there was something else Severus could have done, but now that he thought about it, Severus’s reasoning was sound. “I am not angry with you.”

Severus slumped for a moment. “I thought…”

“I know. But I only wanted to understand your thought process.” Tom paced a slow circle around the motionless boy in the bed. “And I think that I will have to have someone wiser than myself in the ways of the Elder Wand investigate this.”

“My lord?”

“Call me Tom. Or Riddle, if you must.”

Severus nodded hesitantly, although from the look in his eyes, he seemed to believe Tom didn’t mean it and would change his mind at any instant. “Who is it?”

“Harry Potter.” Tom chuckled a little as he watched Severus’s face darken. “I did hear from Sirius Black and Remus Lupin that you had some feud with Harry’s father. Put that aside. His talents are valuable to me, and so are yours. You will work together as necessary.”

“I can do that if Potter does not feel some hatred for me as a result of what his blasted father did.”

Tom shook his head. “He never knew his parents, remember. And I do not think that Black and Lupin have filled his head with so many stories. There are other things that have occupied their attention more.”

“All right.”

Severus sounded ungracious, but the man had spent years surrounded by purebloods who disdained him and then years spying for Tom and thinking he might be found out. Tom could grant him this much.

And one thing more, now that Severus would not be returning to Hogwarts and the only chance that he would spend time around an enemy Legilimens would be if he was dead.

“This is the final push, Severus.”

The man blinked and looked up at him. “What do you mean?”

“The war we have trained so long for.” Tom felt his voice lifting with a savage joy, but he didn’t think that would do him any harm in Severus’s eyes. Rather the opposite, by the way Severus looked at him. “It took the death of Lucius Malfoy to unleash it, something I never anticipated, since I thought Malfoy would be our main adversary. But he is gone now, and even if the Elder Wand has been captured, other purebloods will fight on.”

“So you think…”

“I do. The time has come to destroy them.”

The hunger in Severus’s eyes made Tom smile. He had made his choice well, when he had reached out to Severus and asked the man to follow him.

And not just because of the boy lying motionless on the bed in front of him, with the Elder Wand, although that was part of it. Tom was not foolish enough to think that all their problems were gone now that they held the wand prisoner. There would be others the wand could inspire or, more likely, coerce.

But it was the beginning of the end.

*

The Wand does not feel like the Wand.

Harry rolled his eyes and sat down on the edge of the chair that wasn’t far from the bed where Malfoy lay with his mouth open in his sleep. The Wand was encased in a separate bubble around his hand. They hadn’t wanted to move it in case that somehow woke the bloody thing up. “You’ve said that before. But it doesn’t make sense.”

The Wand does not feel like the Wand.

Harry sighed and pulled the Cloak off from where it was lying across his arms, draping it over the back of the chair instead. It muttered something about unfair treatment, but Harry ignored that. He was too busy studying the silver runes on the scroll that Angelina had been working on, and had passed to him.

The runes had to mean something. Even as Harry stared at them and willed them to make sense, he felt as though the extra bars and lines Angelina had added did mean something, and that meaning was boiling away in the back of his head, like a song he had heard once and forgotten.

But he didn’t know what it was.

Harry forced down his rage and frustration. He had time to study the runes. Malfoy’s disappearance had probably been noted, and his mother would probably do something, since Professor Riddle thought she was also a puppet of the Elder Wand. But no one else in Hogwarts would have a particular reason to search for the Wand itself, as opposed to Malfoy.

He glanced over at the boy’s still body on the bed. He didn’t look threatening, Harry thought. Not the son of the great threat that had been Lucius Malfoy. Then again, Harry didn’t know for sure what he had expected Minister Malfoy’s son to look like.

Harry shook his head resolutely and turned back to his study of the runes. It wasn’t the time to be thinking such silly things that would never matter to anyone anyway.

*

“Come to us. We are your sisters. Come to us.”

Andromeda chanted the words without wanting to, her mouth speaking them while her eyes focused on the dark rip in the air. Narcissa was kneeling beside her, wearing a set of black robes and speaking the words with such devotion that something in Andromeda shuddered away from her.

But only something in Andromeda. The rest of her was doing the chanting because Narcissa had commanded it of her.

At least with the Elder Wand not in the house, Andromeda could fight back a little. She had tested the extent of her enforced obedience, making her bows a little less deep and watching what happened. Narcissa never seemed to notice, and the Wand wasn’t present to enforce anything.

But still she couldn’t stop herself from doing exactly what Narcissa told her. And part of her, floating on top of the rebellious part like oil on water, rejoiced in it and was pleased to serve the Elder Wand in whatever it required.

Nauseated, sick, Andromeda continued the chant, and watched the air or the darkness inside the black rip in the air writhe and spin. There was a shape almost like a star condensing out of it now.

“We are your sisters. Come to us, come to us, come to us…”

Narcissa altered the chant into something high and singing, and Andromeda followed her without wanting to. The star-shape snapped together, the various points coalescing into one, and then the suddenly white form barreled straight at Andromeda.

She fell over with a shriek she couldn’t help; Narcissa hadn’t told her not to make it. The white light passed over her head and crashed into a corner of the wall. Narcissa spun on her knees to face it, and Andromeda did the same thing after she managed to scramble back up part of the way.

The light was snapping back and forth in odd patterns, and while it had formed a mostly human-shaped figure, Andromeda felt a dread curdling in her stomach. There was something wrong. Something wanted her to run away from the Manor and never look back over her shoulder.

But Narcissa had forbidden her to leave the Manor, so Andromeda could do nothing but watch as the light formed into a truly human shape.

It looked odd, but Andromeda discovered the reason when the light snapped into flesh. Bellatrix was crouched with one palm on the floor and the other hand lifted with her wand balanced on the fingertips. Her long, wild, tangled hair sprawled around her head, and her lip was curled in the most vicious snarl Andromeda had ever seen a witch wear.

“Why have you called me home now?” Bellatrix snapped. She was looking at Narcissa.

Andromeda would have liked to protest the automatic assumption that Narcissa was in charge, but she couldn’t move her tongue or her hands. Her thoughts surged with gratitude, telling her it was only right Narcissa was in charge, and she fought a vicious battle with herself.

“I had a place in the dimension I was exiled to,” Bellatrix continued, a grey growl in the back of her voice. “I fought for my life and I liked it. Why did you pull me home?”

“My husband is dead,” Narcissa said, standing.

“Is he? Good.”

Andromeda stopped fighting the battle with herself for a moment and stared at Bellatrix. That hadn’t been at all what she’d thought her sister would say.

“He was killed fighting a Peverell who was challenging him!”

“So? Why is that my problem?”

“Muggles and Mudbloods will take over on this world unless we do something!” Narcissa stomped her foot in the way that Andromeda had once thought cute when she was a little girl. “You have to make sure that we can support the Lord my son is going to become through use of the Elder Wand.”

“The Elder Wand, you say?”

“Yes. He has the Elder Wand, which belonged to a man Lucius summoned from beyond this world. Lucius became the Wand’s servant, but now that he’s dead, the Wand has chosen my son, and he will lead us to victory.”

Bellatrix stood there for a moment, tapping her wand against her teeth. Then she said, “I require two things from you, Cissa, if I’m to help you win.”

“Name them.”

“First, you’ll return me to the dimension I came from when you’re done. I don’t belong to this world anymore. I made a place for myself, and I’m going to retain that place.”

“Done. And the second?”

Bellatrix smiled. “You’ll give the Elder Wand to me. That seems like reward enough for helping you win your war and being forced to abandon my people in the middle of a demon attack.”

Andromeda tried to scream at the thought of a witch as dangerous as Bellatrix fighting with the Wand, but she couldn’t do anything except smile and kneel there as her sisters began a negotiation.

*

Tom snapped his eyes open. There was someone in his bedroom, and the number of people who could enter without stirring up his wards was so small—

He rolled to his feet, magic gathering around his hands, crackles of black and silver lightning. His most profound defensive spells had come out looking that way since Belasha’s death, and he knew, although he hadn’t tested it, that anyone who met that magic would simply disintegrate.

“Tom.”

It was Carol’s voice. Tom dropped his hands and waved his wand to call a ball of Lumos light. It hovered above his head as he stared at her. “What is worth waking me in the middle of the night, Carol?”

But his voice was indulgent, and she simply smiled at him, almost bouncing in place. “Someone has violated the wards around one of the villages where some Muggleborn students’ parents live.”

“And you want me to come with you to make sure things are working properly?”

Carol gave him a look of confused outrage. “I know they’re working properly. I thought you would want to see some of the arrogant fools devoured by my viruses.” She held up a potion that sparkled like liquid moonlight in a capped vial. “And to see the special new treasure I’ve invented that will take care of any who might manage to start casting Healing spells.”

Tom smiled, and he knew that it was dark, and he knew from the way Carol returned it that she didn’t care. He stood and gathered his magic close around him, plaiting the restraints that would keep it from exploding and alerting the purebloods who might be hoping to sneak undetected into the village. “Let us go, my dear.”

*

Edgar Bones sighed as he led his contingent down the main street of the Muggle village, Elfric’s Hollow or something like that. He had believed that they were being sent to Godric’s Hollow at first, but the Unspeakables had corrected his mistake.

Edgar was partially relieved that he didn’t have to attack a mixed magical-Muggle village, but he was also tired, and cold to the soul with the thought of killing innocent Muggles or Mudblood kids. He knew all the reasons for it. He knew that he would be killed if he tried to resist. He knew that his own past marriage to a Mudblood was barely tolerated and that his half-blood daughter, Susan, whom he’d barely managed to get admitted to Hogwarts, would be harmed if he didn’t do as the Ministry wanted.

But Merlin, it was hard sometimes.

The air ahead of them abruptly sparkled. Edgar halted, peering ahead. They’d heard confused stories about the possible rebellion that had perhaps caused the death of Minister Malfoy. A Muggle village would be a strange point for it to begin, but Edgar had read about stranger, in history.

Silence. Edgar twisted his head back and forth, wiping absently at his forehead. It felt hot. He glanced at his second-in-command, Amethyst Fawley, and her face was covered with sweat. She was panting a little.

“Amy?” he asked quietly.

“I don’t—I don’t, Edgar, I don’t feel so good,” she gasped, and bent at the waist.

Then her flesh sloughed off her bones, and her skeleton collapsed in the middle of a putrefying puddle of liquid.

Edgar scrambled out of the way with a cry. The cry seemed to bounce back from invisible walls, as if muffled, and he realized that a ward had sprung up around them. It was keeping them concealed from anything outside it, Edgar thought, his brain seeming to swim through the same soup that had come boiling out of Amethyst. It was muffling sound.

It was trapping them in here with whatever had killed Amethyst.

Potion fumes? That was the only thing Edgar could think of, as his thoughts became heavier and heavier. He turned around with his wand out, seeing cloaked figures standing just beyond the ward, and he tried to aim at them.

The shorter figure laughed and tossed her hood back, revealing the face of a dark-skinned woman with braided hair. She smiled at him and tossed a chalky vial high in the air. It passed through the ward as if it didn’t exist.

Potions, I was right, Edgar thought, and tried to brace himself against the heat rapidly devouring him from the inside. The potion was a less immediate threat than this, this disease or whatever it was. The vial wasn’t even aimed at him. He began to shape a basic Healing spell with his lips, one that should at last hold his damned body together until he got back to the Ministry and the Department of Mysteries.

The vial landed and shattered.

Edgar screamed as tiny particles hit him, flying very fast. They felt like tiny pellets of ice, or chalk, or hardened dust. His hands scrambled at his robes, and he tore them off. He had to get them off, there was heat—

And then his consciousness drowned in the fire.

*

“Hmm.” Carol frowned at the burning corpses that sprawled on the street of the village, shaking her head. “I didn’t expect that result. My newest little pet should have interacted with the viruses that were already in their bodies to make the disease more horrific, not make the fevers so potent that that happened.”

“Always best to experiment,” Tom said as lightly as he could, watching the bodies with a hard smile on his face. He wouldn’t give in to either his disgust or his satisfaction. “Perhaps we can configure some of the wards to capture instead of kill, so that you can have some subjects to experiment on?”

Carol gave him the second sharp look of the night. “Honestly, Tom, I can have Alexander raise corpses if that’s what I want. I have to make adjustments in theory and the temperament of my little darlings.”

Tom nodded absently. Alexander, his necromancer, lived far away from Britain since he’d had the misfortune to be recognized in Diagon Alley after raising a few of the Unspeakables’ victims to attack them. “All right. Work more on theory, then. Unless you think more of these attacks will happen before you can?”

“Oh, sure, some of them will,” Carol said cheerfully. “But the next one, I think I’ll watch the interaction of the diseases to establish a baseline instead of adding my new potion. That must be it. I accounted for the strength of individual viruses, and how they would interact when first combined, but not what would happen after they had a few minutes of mixing. Plus, the magical strength of the victims…”

Tom tuned out the rambling, and watched the bodies, some of their first casualties, with the satisfaction climbing up deep and rich from his stomach after all. The Deathly Hallows and other forces of fate might be trying to force the world back onto whatever path they thought best for it.

But Carol, a force of pure chaos, would help Tom in keeping that future as free and brightly-burning as possible.

*

Harry opened his eyes on a blurry grey dreamscape, and promptly wrapped his mind in the Occlumency that he had finally managed to learn from Professor Elthis. He would never have Hermione’s strength in the mental arts, but he didn’t need to. She was a much better battle Legilimens than he could ever be, and they would both play their parts in Fortius’s defense.

But what worried him was that he had never had a dream like this before, so he doubted it was part of his war wizard magic.

Harry reached out with his senses, searching for something solid to put his back to or turn into a weapon, and frowned when he felt absolutely nothing. Whatever was controlling this dreamscape had no intention of letting him stand in more than fuzz and fog and mist, then. Harry flexed his hand down at his side and called up his magic, letting it dance in long trails of sparks over and between his fingers.

It is time.

Harry recognized the Cloak’s voice at once. He had heard it so many times while he was awake. “Time for what?” he snapped, pleased to note that his voice at least seemed to echo in this strange place the way it would in a room with normal acoustics.

Time for you to surrender to me.

The air or fog in front of him blurred, and the Cloak appeared, hanging in midair. It seemed to be the most solid thing in the place. Harry could see what looked like long bars and lines of runes scrawled through it, and felt his stomach drop.

Those were the runes Angelina had been working on. The runes that were somehow associated with the world he had seen in his dreams before this, and the Resurrection Stone.

Harry had never once thought that they might be used against his side, instead of for them.

The Wand has possessed someone and rooted itself deeply into a human soul, the Cloak said as it floated towards him. That is the source of the corruption we sensed, the force of the possession and the soul and the other dimension that soul was born in. That means I must possess someone to fight it, as well.

“You don’t need to,” Harry said, holding still. His best bet was still to talk the Cloak out of this, rather than trying to fight an immortal artifact supposedly created by Death itself. “We could work together.”

You care too much about the school and the students and other humans. This is our battle.

The Cloak darted towards him almost immediately after the cold, silent voice faded.

Harry pulled up the power around him and set it rotating in a shield around the edges of his body. It was one of the spells that Professor Riddle had made him promise never to practice on Fortius’s grounds. Whatever touched the shield from the outside ceased to exist.

That meant the air and the world, too. Already, the grey fog looked thinner than it had, replaced by white spots that looked oddly like blank canvas.

The Cloak halted before it touched the shield. The white spots spread towards it, and it altered its position, dangling and swaying as if someone had put it on a hanger and was moving the hanger back and forth. You are being stubborn. You know that this is the way things must end.

“No, I don’t,” Harry snapped. “I might have to fight the Wand, but I don’t have to do it your way.”

There was a sensation like someone laughing through a mouth of decaying flesh. Silly boy. You will never win without my help, and I will never give my help until I can possess you.

Harry didn’t know what prompted him to ask the question, when, after all, the silver runes gleamed on the Cloak and he thought he probably knew the answer already. “And the Stone?”

You need not worry about the Stone.

“You spoke about we until just now. Then you switched to I. Why is that?” The Cloak darted off to the side again, and Harry backed and turned to face it, his hands clenched. The shield around him went on eating at the air and space and substance of whatever world the Cloak had brought him to. “It must have some significance. What does it mean?”

It does not mean anything you should be concerned about. And now, I will end this foolish spell.

The Cloak loomed high and then came towards him like a swooping thestral, over the top of the nothingness shield. Harry took a deep breath and clasped his hands over his own arms, narrowing his mind to a small spot like a pinprick of sunlight, the way Disaster’s book said he had to for this particular spell.

This is blood. This is not blood.

The spell flooded his body. It was meant to counter spells like the Blood-Boiling Curse that didn’t have strong countercurses. Difficult to enchant someone’s blood when they had only dust in their veins. But Harry had learned that he was even better at a variant of the spell that Disaster’s book had only mentioned in passing.

Harry held the shape of his body, filled with ordinary blood, in his mind, and fell to dust for a flash of a moment as the Cloak swept past. Then he reformed, took down the nothingness spell, and collected it to hurl at the Cloak.

The Cloak came through it unharmed. Did you think that you could hurt an immortal force of the universe?

“I won’t wear you,” Harry said. The voice hadn’t changed, in tone or inflection, but he had sensed a slight pause before it spoke. He doubted the Cloak, whatever it said, had thought Harry himself would resort to ceasing to exist so that it could pass by. “It doesn’t matter what incentives you offer.”

I am enslaved to your bloodline. If you do not wear me for this battle, I cannot be free.

“I won’t let you possess me.”

He thought the Cloak might offer to work with him in that case, and he was prepared with an answer for that, but the Cloak gave a slight shake that seemed irritated. You will not stand in the way of my plans, child. It must be this way, then.

The silver runes that decorated it flooded off it and into the air, or what was left of the air in the dreamscape the Cloak had created. Harry saw them turn and flash and crawl. They were forming odd, absurd, ugly shapes that seemed to sink into his mind like branding irons.

Harry squeezed his eyes shut, but it didn’t change things. The runes were still there, still pressing into him, still twisting and warping him.

A war wizard is dangerous uncontrolled. You might indeed destroy the Wand, instead of returning it to its original spirit. But this way, you are bridled.

Harry drew his mind down to an intense point again, and collapsed into dust.

Only, this time, he remained dust for far more than a moment. He fixed on the sunlight inside him, the light of his thoughts and the burning throb of his magic. He was magic and he was thoughts, and that was far more important than the body he might inhabit right now, or the body he might have inhabited a short time before.

The Cloak swept over him. Harry accepted it into his thoughts as an enemy, and went on drifting in the manner of the dust.

He sensed distant words, which he thought was probably the Cloak trying to speak to him the way it had before, but there was nothing for it to speak to. Harry circled, and was himself, and was.

The Cloak swept over again and again. But it couldn’t find him, and even if it was somehow freed from what it claimed was slavery to the Potter bloodline, it wouldn’t be able to find him here if he willed it not to.

At last the sweeping stopped. Harry allowed one more facet to enter the thin point of light that was himself, and vanished the dreamscape the Cloak had created.

*

Harry opened his eyes and rolled out of bed in a single smooth movement. Then he fell to the floor as he realized that he was still in the chair next to Malfoy’s bed and hadn’t gone back to his room after all.

It didn’t matter. The Cloak wasn’t hovering nearby, which meant Harry didn’t have to fight it right now, and he had a message to deliver. What the Cloak had said made him sure that the Stone would also choose to possess someone, if it could.

And he had his suspicions about the person the Cloak thought was “supposed” to have come into possession of the Stone, which meant he had to speak to Professor Riddle as soon as possible.

Chapter Text

Tom lifted his head. There seemed to be a vast humming noise all around him that had fallen silent suddenly. At least, he couldn’t think of any other way to describe it.

His fingers flexed beneath the desk, near one of his crystals, rather than his wand. He had the feeling that whoever was coming towards him would be better fought that way, instead of with spells.

His instincts were almost never wrong.

Tom stood as one of his windows broke, and a small shape spun through it towards him. Tom ducked easily out of the way, feeling something burn on his right arm. For a moment, he assumed that a piece of glass or rock from the broken pane had hit him, and then he saw a glow through his clothes and realized what it was.

The scars the goblin had given him when she’d drained his blood into the basin were alight, shimmering with golden fire.

Tom smiled slowly. He stepped around the desk, his eyes locked on what he could now clearly see was the Resurrection Stone, hovering in midair. Black spokes seemed to stick out from it, piercing invisible weaves of power.

“Why are you here?” Tom asked softly.

The scars lit again at the same moment as the Stone spoke into his mind with a horrible voice, like the fall of ashes from immense mouths. You are the one who turned away from the path you should have walked, the path that would have led to my freedom. You are the one who must be put back on that path.

Tom nodded slowly. It was what the goblin had told him. The Hallows were forces of fate, determined to bring the world back to the path that would favor them and that “should” have happened.

Unfortunately for them, Tom had paid the price in scars to tell how the world should be guided towards freedom instead.

Will you submit to your fate?

Tom laughed, and the sound made the air in his bedroom crackle. He thought he saw a soft flare of light around the Stone, although he didn’t know what it meant. He would have liked to think the thing taken aback by the sound of his laughter, but who knew if it could even feel such human emotions?

“I have never submitted to anything in my life.”

You should have. The Stone drifted towards him. You would have been happier than you have been in the endless struggle of this war. And you would not now need to be made a slave.

Tom simply shook his head. Nothing the Stone said could be trusted. It was a force of slavery as much as the inertia or fate the goblins had spoken of. He lifted his hand, and his magic flared around him as he dropped the restraints he still usually kept on it. “I think not.”

The Stone flew towards him, as silent as a hunting owl. Tom wound the lash of his magic around himself, hunching in the kind of dragon wings that Nott had spread when he and Severus went hunting in the man’s house.

He did not think he could defeat the Stone in direct battle. What he could do was defend himself.

The Stone crashed against the barrier of his mind—and was stopped. Tom poured his magic into his Occlumency, and the walls rose higher and higher, muffling his thoughts but also shielding him from the incredible power the Stone was exuding.

You cannot be doing this, Tom heard someone say, dimly, on the other side of the walls.

Tom didn’t reply. There was no point. But caught in his own Occlumency as he was, trapped in his mind, he brought forth the swirling memory of one of the things the goblin had said to him after he had bled into the basin.

The Hallows have succeeded as often as they have because on some level, everyone desires them. They cannot overtake those who truly do not.

Tom smiled, although it felt as if his lips were being ripped open. He had no desire for the Stone, no desire to commune with the dead or harness the power it represented. Even if the Stone got through the Occlumency walls, it could not enslave him by picking up on a shard of willingness in his soul.

And as long as even part of him was free, underneath the surface…

He would keep fighting.

He heard a silent snarl, and then a sound like the door of his office flying open, although no one should have been able to enter against the forces that he and the Stone were hurling at each other.

The Stone spun in midair, and then pressed part of its force against whoever had come through the door. Tom had no time to worry about whether they would survive or not. He flung himself forwards, against the Stone.

There seemed to be a ring of magic surrounding it, glowing and sparkling and pressing outwards with invisible strength. Tom drove himself forwards, ignoring the feeling of his skin peeling back and his veins burning. He was going to win.

The Stone abruptly broke free and reeled back against the wall as if flung. Tom was in time to see Harry, who was standing by the door, lift a palm of glittering fire high and turn it on the Stone.

It was a much brighter and purer blue than any fire Tom had ever seen before, even at the heart of a flame, and it was almost certainly one of the war wizard spells Tom had told Harry never to use on the grounds of Fortius. But he was glad to see that Harry’s teeth were bared like his and that he lashed at the Stone with a focused lance of blue power.

There was a time for rules to be forgotten. Tom had always known the time would come, although he’d never suspected it would be so early in the war.

There was a spitting sound, and part of the Stone caved in. Then a keening wail filled Tom’s ears. He staggered, but didn’t fall.

The Stone turned and sped out of the room, through the same hole in the window that it had made coming in. Another splatter of heated glass landed on Tom’s arm. He flinched, but after the cessation of the battering at him from the Stone’s power, it was nothing. He blinked and took a deep breath.

“Are you all right?”

Harry’s eyes were wide and worried, pinned on Tom. Tom nodded and swept a hand down his robes, rustling them back into place. “Yes. I am—surprised that the Stone attacked me at all, and surprised even more that it retreated when confronted.”

“The Cloak just attacked me in some kind of dreamscape,” Harry said, and his mouth writhed for a moment as though he wanted to say more and couldn’t. Perhaps the magic that was on Disaster’s book kept him from speaking of it more, Tom thought. Harry glanced around with narrowed eyes. “The Stone could come back at any time, couldn’t it?”

“Yes,” Tom said quietly. “I am not sure how we should stop it.”

“I’ve—learned of some wards that depend on the power of a war wizard, but I’ve never practiced them.”

Tom turned and reached for the crystal he had originally intended to use in the fight with the Stone. “This may help you.”’

Harry turned the crystal over in his hand, his eyes growing wider. “There’s—something pulsing in the center of it. Reaching out to me?” He looked up at Tom as if expecting him to validate Harry’s perceptions, but Tom thought Harry had grown beyond the need for such reassurances. He held Harry’s eyes instead, and Harry nodded. “There is.”

“Yes. And that particular flutter and pulse, if you want to explain it that way, can help you anchor your wards.” Tom didn’t want to guide Harry’s every move, but a few words of wisdom couldn’t hurt.

Harry sat down right in the middle of the floor, the crystal still cupped in his hand as he reached inwards for his own unfathomable power. Tom felt his eyebrows rise, but he remained still, waiting to see what happened next.

Harry began to spark, and then glow. The red light that developed around him was feverishly bright, and it turned and considered Tom as though it were a sentient fire. Tom stood still, his hands cocked at his sides. He might have spread them out, empty and harmless, but he thought it prudent to remain in the same position that he had been at the beginning.

It took a moment longer of growing fire, but then Harry leaned in and breathed on the crystal. The pulse and flutter that did indeed jump in the middle of it surged up for a second, and Tom thought they might meet the fire and die. But the fire wrapped around the crystal, and then expanded, and soon Harry sat in a pool of light that reached past the crystal and out, to settle around the grounds.

Tom nodded slowly as he saw the sharp edges to those wards. He had had a moment of surprise that anything so defensive was found in Disaster’s book, but now he understood. The wards’ primary purpose was still offensive. He could feel them hungrily scanning the darkness, waiting for another enemy to appear, so they could devour it.

Harry opened his eyes and rose to his feet, although his legs were shaking. “There. I don’t think anything will get past them while I’m—”

His head snapped up, and he bared his teeth. Tom thought he could actually see Harry’s nostrils fluttering as he sniffed the air.

“What is it?”

“Something is wrong,” Harry said, and then he turned and ran from the room. Tom ran after him, ignoring the pounding headache from the assault he’d taken on his inner barriers.

Anything that worried a war wizard was something that needed to be dealt with now.

*

Harry burst into the healing hall, ignoring the admonitions of the Healer on duty, and barreled straight across the room towards the small door at the back of it. He hadn’t known where he was going until he got in here, and now that he knew, he could feel a hollow pressure against his neck, the temptation to swallow.

He couldn’t. Not until he was sure.

He tore the door open and bounded into the small room where Draco Malfoy lay with the Elder Wand clutched in his hand. He stared at the wand, and felt the wards he had created with the help of Professor Riddle’s crystal coming to bear, curving down and ready to consume what Harry told them to consume.

Panting harshly, Harry held up a hand. He could feel Professor Riddle halting behind him, and heard him say something sharp that made the Healer’s complaining cut off.

“What is it, Harry?” Professor Riddle asked, calm and cold.

Harry used the voice to steady himself the way he had used the crystal to steady his wards. “This isn’t the whole Elder Wand,” he said, staring at the length of wood in Malfoy’s grip.

“What?”

“There’s a—it kept a shard of itself elsewhere,” Harry said. “I felt the wards react to it, but not the way they should react to a threat as profound as a Deathly Hallow. This is a part of it. Three-quarters of its power, maybe, but not the whole thing.”

Silence from behind him. Harry turned around to see how Professor Riddle was taking it, and found his nostrils flaring as he stared at the wand clutched in Malfoy’s hand.

“You are certain of this.”

“As much as I can be, sir.” Harry braced himself. He wasn’t sure he would be able to explain how he knew, or the intricacies of the war wizard spells or senses that made him sure.

Professor Riddle nodded once. His eyes were distant, and he made a cupping motion with one hand as if he were picking up something and cradling it close. “We will do what we must to make sure we are safe, Harry.”

“Sir?”

“If most of the Elder Wand is still somewhere outside the wards, then it might participate in the assault on Fortius that I am sure is coming.” Professor Riddle turned his head to the side. “In the meantime, try to get some sleep. I am sure that I will need to spend the rest of the night preparing for that assault, but there is no reason you need to.”

He strode out of the healing hall, leaving Harry staring after him. He thought Harry would be able to sleep when part of his greatest enemy was still somewhere out there, and might help their other enemies?

But then he remembered a line from Disaster’s book that he had read at the time without really understanding it. It murmured now in his head like a tune or a benediction, and Harry found himself sighing and straightening his shoulders.

Rest when you can. You never know what enemy will come after you in the future, or try to injure those under your care.

Harry nodded shortly. The impressive magic of a war wizard was fueled by that war wizard’s strength, and he would be no good to anyone if he was collapsing because of exhaustion and lack of food. He turned and walked back towards Gryphon House, absently planning to stop at the kitchens and grab some food on the way.

*

Andromeda wished she could scream.

She was standing a few miles away from the gates of Fortius with Narcissa next to her and Bellatrix crouched in front of her, staring at something that writhed and danced as a golden image on the air. Andromeda had never heard of a spell like this. All the scrying she knew of had to be done with crystal or water, or, in times of desperation, tea leaves. It had to have some connection to liquid to show an image.

This again, this was probably one of the things that Bellatrix had learned in the other dimension they’d banished her to.

Bellatrix pushed her long, wild hair behind her ears and frowned at the golden image. “It says that power is somewhere nearby, but it’s not more specific than that.” She snapped around from the image. She had chosen to wear the clothes that she’d come from the other dimension with, or rather, enchanted some of the robes Narcissa had offered her into ones like them. These heavier battle robes fluttered up and then fell back around her again. “Narcissa, are you sure that the Elder Wand is available for me to use?”

“Why would it not be, sister?”

“So you don’t know,” Bellatrix muttered, and sighed a little. She seemed to be saner than she had been since they’d pulled her through the portal, at least when she was considering ways and methods of battle. She stood upright from the golden image and spent a moment tracing her wand through the air. Andromeda tried to open her mouth to say something about the aimless movements, but her voice was still choked back into her throat.

“There!”

Andromeda had no idea what to make of the red symbols flashing in the air where Bellatrix had traced her wand, other than that they seemed to be in some foreign alphabet. But Bella was smiling at them as if they were a secret recipe for an important potion. “Yes, I see. The power of the Elder Wand is split, in more than one place at once.”

“How can that be?” Narcissa was on her feet in a moment, her own wand snapping into her hand as if she expected to curse someone in the back. Andromeda watched with contempt that was no less real for being silent. “The Elder Wand has chosen my son! There is no way that Draco would break it!”

“I didn’t say it was broken,” Bellatrix muttered with a roll of her eyes. “I said it was in two places at once.”

“There is no way for that to be the case without its being broken!”

“You were never that good at magical theory, Cissy,” Bellatrix said conversationally, and swept her wand around in a new motion. The golden light on the air followed the spin of the wand tip, and new spokes of radiance extended off to the sides. Bellatrix studied them, and her eyes widened. “Fortius has a colanchirazan.”

“A what?” Narcissa asked, luckily speaking the question that Andromeda would have asked if she could speak freely.

“It’s a term for a ridiculously powerful wizard who can destroy entire armies,” Bellatrix said, her eyes narrow and still focused on the golden light. “Not so much of a problem in the other dimension, because magic works differently there and many people working together can overcome one. But more of a problem here.”

“You must be sensing Draco and the power of the Elder Wand,” Narcissa decided to speak up.

“No. I don’t sense any trace of a magic like yours or Lucius’s in this colanchirazan.”

Narcissa started to argue with Bella. Andromeda stared in silence towards Fortius, and wondered if this was Harry Potter. Probably.

She wondered if it would make any difference, in the end, or if Bella would simply end up being more careful with her plans and come up with some way to avoid Potter and how he might defend Fortius. She drew in a harsh, painful breath as the bonds around her mind tightened. They wanted her to tell Bella and Narcissa the truth about the war wizard.

But Andromeda pushed back against them, and…

They loosened.

Andromeda must have made some sound, because Bella glanced towards her with sharp eyes. “Did you have something to say, sister?”

Andromeda massaged her throat. “No, nothing,” she whispered, and bowed her head so that her hair fell around her face. She made sure to stand motionless for the half hour the argument took, until Bella had managed to persuade Narcissa that the powerful wizard she sensed could absolutely not be Draco.

But in the meantime, Andromeda carefully tested the bonds around her mind and soul and magic, and felt them drifting, as if they had been placed on water instead of looped tightly around her.

If what Bella had said about the Elder Wand dividing its power in two was real…

Then it might no longer have enough power to hold Andromeda captive the way it had.

*

Hermione stepped outside Phoenix House and took a long moment to stretch. It was her favorite time of morning at Fortius, when grey light was still brighter than golden and the chill of the air around her hadn’t subsided. Normally, Hermione took a long walk before she buried herself in study or went to eat.

This time, she couldn’t. There was an enormous thestral mare standing in front of her and staring at her.

Hermione swallowed and took a step nearer, bowing her head. She hadn’t been able to see thestrals for long, only since she had accepted the fact of death in the middle of fourth year when she’d seen a patient die in the healing hall. But Professor Riddle had always made it clear that students at Fortius should respect the herd.

“Greetings, Great One,” Hermione said. It was the title that Professor Riddle had said all thestrals appreciated, but it seemed more appropriate for this mare than most of them, given her immense size and the great bat-like wings she stretched above her head. “What can I do for you?”

The thestral cantered towards her. Hermione forced herself to stand still and not run, but she did shiver when the cold breath gusted across her forehead. It smelled like carrion. Hermione kept holding still and bore that, too.

The thestral abruptly backed away and slid to one knee, wings deployed like ramps. Hermione swallowed slowly and took a step towards her.

She kept kneeling, so Hermione kept walking. She slid onto the thestral’s back and winced at the stretch of her legs around the beast’s barrel. The thestral rose and simply slid into the air from the ground with hardly a flap, the way she’d slid to her knees.

Hermione clutched at the short, bristly hair of the thestral’s mane, and stared beneath them as the ground got rapidly further and further away. She repeated to herself several times that she knew magic to save her life if the thestral decided to just toss her off for some reason.

It didn’t calm her.

But at least the thestral turned to sweep in an immense circle above Fortius’s grounds instead of flying away from it the way Hermione had been afraid she would. Seven circles the thestral made, and Hermione wasn’t entirely surprised to see a wave of darkness pass across the pearly, gleaming grounds on the seventh one.

She still had to hold her breath against a scream.

There was no Fortius in the vision the thestral was showing her. There was only a blasted battlefield, crisscrossed by Dementors drifting back and forth. Bodies lay there with their faces turned upwards and their eyes blank. Hermione clutched harder at the thestral’s withers and bent over a little so she could see if there was anyone she recognized.

She couldn’t see any familiar faces. But then the thestral let loose an impatient whinny, and as if the sound had knocked something loose in her brain, Hermione could see what it had wanted to show her.

None of the corpses on the ground wore robes. There were suits and skirts and dresses and casual clothes, but all of them were Muggle. All of them.

“What is this?” Hermione whispered, the wind seizing her words and bearing them upwards. “Are you trying to show me a future where Muggles discover Fortius?” For all that Professor Riddle wanted to protect Muggles, like Hermione’s own parents, against purebloods, Hermione didn’t think that he would allow that to happen.

The thestral neighed again, this time with a sound like a great bell tolling. She dived towards the ground, and Hermione clamped her legs down and shrieked. The thestral paid no attention.

Halfway to the spread of Muggle corpses, they seemed to pass through a thin film of darkness in the air. Hermione blinked, and blinked again when they came out of it and she realized the vision was different.

There were wizards and witches struggling below, dark-cloaked ranks fighting against people in robes of many different clothes. A wizard with a long white beard led them, wearing robes so bright that Hermione’s eyes watered. Her breath caught when she realized she had seen him before, in some of Professor Johnson’s History images. This was Albus Dumbledore.

The man facing him was—was not a man, Hermione thought at first. He was taller, paler, with red eyes so piercing that Hermione flinched away from them even though she knew this wasn’t real. The gestures of the pale wand in his hand seemed to send exclusively Killing Curses and the Cruciatus everywhere.

People wept and screamed and died. The thestral bore her closer and closer, and Hermione flinched every time one of the figures fell over so that they were staring at the sky.

They can’t see you. This isn’t real.

That still wasn’t as reassuring as it should have been.

The thestral was finally hovering right above the tall man. He was important, Hermione supposed, and she probably had to make sure she recognized him if she ever saw him again. Maybe he was a monster the Department of Mysteries was creating to attack Fortius. Holding her breath again, this time against the smell of blood and death and loosened bowels, she bent over to study him.

She knew him.

No, wait. She knew his wand.

Professor Riddle’s wand.

The thestral swooped further down, and down, and for a moment Hermione thought she saw those red eyes turning up towards her…

And then they were landing on the ground in the modern Fortius, with no dead people and no battle. Although Hermione knew it wasn’t likely to stay that way for long.

She slid off the thestral’s back and leaned against the mare, shaking. For a few minutes, the beast let her do that, and then she pulled back and champed her teeth near Hermione’s ear, making Hermione jump as a piece of her hair caught in the thestral’s teeth for a second.

“Why did you show me this?” Hermione whispered, still wiping tears away from her face. “I’m not—gifted in Divination or anything like that. And my magic isn’t as powerful as Harry’s or Professor Riddle’s. Or even Professor Elthis’s.”

The thestral trod on her foot. Hermione yelped and jumped back, staring at the creature.

The thestral focused on her, and Hermione had the impression of magic straining at a leash. She swallowed and tried to keep as still as she could, focusing on the message that the thestral was trying to send her. Professor Riddle had warned her that there wasn’t a means to talk to the creatures like he could talk to snakes.

Words arrived in Hermione’s mind abruptly, like carvings chiseled into a stone wall. One minute she didn’t know what the thestral was trying to say, and the next moment, she had always known.

Your right magic at the right time.

Hermione sighed out slowly. “I don’t—understand. How can Professor Riddle become that creature I saw when he’s himself? And how can Albus Dumbledore be fighting in that battle when he’s been buried for decades?” She faced the thestral again and reached out with her mind, this time trying to connect with Legilimency. Professor Elthis was going to be angry at her for this later, she just knew it.

The connection smashed into her and bore her off her feet. Hermione screamed before she was able to control herself, clenching her hands in front of her.

Forces of DEATH. Trying to CHANGE THINGS.

The words slammed out again and left her reeling, and when Hermione managed to blink her watering eyes open, she saw that the thestral had taken flight. She took a deep breath and sat up in the grass, wrapping her arms around herself and shivering.

There was still the grey light and the chill she liked in the world, but it seemed a lot paler and more precarious than it had before.

She didn’t know exactly what the forces of death were, but she supposed that if anyone knew about them, it was a thestral. And somehow, they were trying to change things so that Professor Riddle would be the creature she had seen and Dumbledore would come back and Muggles would die. Maybe with time travel.

And somehow…

She had the right magic to change things at the right time. She could use her battle Legilimency on someone to make things happen the way they should.

She just wished she had more reassurance than a thestral’s word, and her own growing dread.