Chapter Text
It was after a failed attempt at searching elsewhere for information that Tom finally returned to the Restricted Section in hopes of gleaning something new from the book that he had initially found the mention of a Horcrux in. He knew this was likely going to be a fruitless search as well—his memory was not poor, so he was well aware that the book only contained a single sentence about horcruxes—but all the same, he figured he was better off searching anywhere than waiting helplessly for the information to fall in his lap.
Tom rounded the corner, entered the Restricted Section without so much as a blink from the librarian (who had long ago stopped denying him entry or asking to see his permission note), made his way quickly to the appropriate aisle, and stopped short in his tracks.
There was another student here.
Tom recognized him vaguely—while transfer students were not necessarily uncommon due to the war, they were rare enough to at least make an impression. This particular transfer student was in his year, if he remembered right, sorted into Ravenclaw after an impressively long hat stall. He looked like he might be descended from the Potter line with his thick, curly black hair and his strong jawline, but he did not share the surname so his lineage was of no particular interest to Tom. Nothing about him was of particular interest to Tom, in fact, and yet here he stood, holding the book that Tom had come here to find.
It would be a good time to turn away. The Restricted Section was restricted for a reason—only books documenting extremely dangerous or extremely advanced magic were stored here, and although students were given access from teachers for “personal” or “research” projects, no one in their right mind actually wanted anyone else to know what they were reading up on. For one thing, knowledge was power. For another, students rarely stuck to only the topics they had been approved to look at, so blackmail was nearly always in play. Tom was no exception to these rules. He knew nothing about this Ravenclaw—not even his name—but he did know that he himself was not supposed to be interested in reading material on dark soul magic, and if this Ravenclaw let that slip to someone he shouldn’t (Dumbledore, for instance), that would do very bad things to his reputation.
Tom’s feet, however, suddenly felt as if they were made of lead. It wasn’t magic keeping him tied down, but something far more mysterious like curiosity or even fate. In any case, the delay was all it took for the Ravenclaw to lift his chin and pause when he met Tom’s eyes.
This Ravenclaw, Tom realized, had eyes as blindingly green as the Killing Curse.
Tom did what he did best, and decided to play this interaction off as coincidence, aided by his considerable charm. “My apologies,” he said, smiling generously at the Ravenclaw who was still watching him with his furrowed brow and his deadly eyes. “I was just passing by. I don’t believe we’ve met.”
The stranger looked away—finally—and ran a finger down the spine of the book in his hands. The gesture was curious and strangely sad, like this book and this boy were old friends. “No,” he said, his voice hollow. “I suppose we haven’t.”
They were the sort of words that were usually followed up by a name, but there wasn’t one forthcoming. It was an interesting social faux pas, but no matter. “Tom Riddle,” Tom introduced himself, offering a hand to shake.
The Ravenclaw eyed him with an unreadable look in his eye. A second passed, and then another, until the point where Tom began to wonder if he was going to have to withdraw his hand awkwardly because this boy would not take it. Then he snapped the book shut with his left hand and clasped Tom’s with his right. His palms were rough, like he spent a lot of time riding a broom or wielding a sword, and his grip was strong.
“Peverell,” he said, and Tom did not miss the implications of leading with a surname. “Henry Peverell. Harry, if you want to be familiar.”
“Do you want me to be familiar?” Tom couldn’t help but ask, smiling in a way that he knew frequently caused girls to swoon. Some boys, too, though Henry Peverell didn’t seem to be one of them.
“I think,” he said with a dry look, “that’s something you’re better off asking yourself, Riddle.”
Interesting.
“What do you mean by that?” Tom asked innocently.
Peverell let go of his hand, but reached out unexpectedly, the tip of one finger landing accusingly against the prefect badge on Tom’s robes. Normally, Tom would jinx the hand that dared to touch him so brazenly, but something about this moment stayed his hand. “Slytherin, aren’t you? Isn’t it all about connections with you lot?”
“Are you implying you have something to offer me?” Tom asked, unendingly intrigued by this stranger. It had been a…truly long time since anyone had been able to hold his attention like this.
Peverell moved again, dropping his right hand and bringing up his left. It took Tom a moment to realize he was presenting the book to him. The book Tom had come here for. The book this mysterious Ravenclaw had just been reading. “I have this, don’t I?”
He wore a ring on the smallest finger of his left hand. A signet ring, black, with a curious symbol engraved on it. A triangle, split in half vertically, with a circle sitting just above the base of the triangle and equally split by the line running through it.
With some effort, Tom refocused back on Peverell’s face. “Oh, I don’t want that.”
“The mouth says one thing,” Peverell said, rolling his eyes. The nerve. “The eyes another.”
And then he shoved the book at Tom’s chest none too kindly, fingers splayed over the back cover to hold it in place. Tom reached up out of some minor form of shock more than anything else, but as soon as he held the book Peverell let go, taking one step back and then another. Before Tom knew it he was gone, the aisle empty and undisturbed. For a moment, he had the strangest sense of unease. He found himself wondering if Peverell had been there at all, or maybe even if Peverell was real at all, or maybe even like he had spoken to him a thousand times before. But of course Peverell had been there, and unreal things could not shake hands, and Tom knew for a fact that those had been the first words they ever exchanged.
It was all so terribly interesting.
And that was what he thought before he opened the book that had been shoved into his hands and found a scrap of parchment tucked neatly between its pages. Not just any pages—but the one that mentioned Herpo the Foul’s Horcrux—and on that scrap were seven words written in the most atrocious handwriting Tom had ever seen.
Ritual in Secrets of the Darkest Arts.
It had been a long time since Tom had been made to feel so many things at once. Curiosity, intrigue, fear, suspicion, anger, desperation, mistrust, curiosity, curiosity, curiosity. He wasn’t sure if this note was meant to be helpful or if it was meant to be threatening, but. But.
He wanted to find out.
“Alright, Peverell,” Tom said, tapping his fingers against the back of the book’s cover. “You have my attention.”
“I must admit,” Abraxas Malfoy said as he lounged in a corner of the Slytherin Common Room across from Tom, “that this was already something of an independent research project of mine.”
He played with one of Tom’s captured chess pieces with long, pale fingers, slender and thin. There was a ring on his right hand, nestled on his fourth finger. It was silver, though the band had been studded with small diamonds. The stone set in it was large, bordering on gaudy, and swirling with the cloying magic of the Malfoy family. It was not a ring of Lordship but rather one of Heirship, as Abraxas was not yet seventeen and his father was not yet dead, but he would wear the Lordship ring on this finger one day and then his son would wear it after him and so on and so forth.
Tom did not have one of these rings. Nor did he have one to sit on his left pinkie to press into wax on sealed envelopes.
“Why is that?” Tom asked Abraxas as he lifted his gaze back up to his opponent’s pale face.
Abraxas smiled, but Tom did not miss the curl of his lip that was ever-so-slightly condescending, the gleam in his eyes that spoke of his intentions. Abraxas knew better than to outright insult Tom, but he would always push the boundaries of what he could and could not say. It was something that Tom admired about him and hated in equal parts.
Not one to stray from tradition, Abraxas’s next words were indeed suitably pitying without being blatantly rude. “Oh, Tom. It escaped my mind that you wouldn’t realize…” Tom grit his teeth and refused to rise to the bait. Not yet, in any case. Abraxas lost interest in trying to unnerve Tom quickly and leaned forward, holding the chess piece in his hand up by its head. It had once been a bishop, but it had been cleaved clean in half. “The Peverell name is dead. Or it was . Any… pureblood would have been startled to hear it spoken in conversation in this day and age, let alone attached to a new face.”
Tom raised an eyebrow as he took one of Abraxas’s knights. “You only said the name was dead, not the line.”
“The Peverells married into other families ages ago,” Abraxas said with a lazy wave of his hand. He studied the board with his piercingly blue eyes, hunting out his next move. It would ultimately be fruitless—Tom had not lost a game of chess to Abraxas in years, and he would not start tonight. “The Gaunts, for instance. The Potters. No one carries the name, but the blood is still the same . ”
The Gaunts, Tom’s thoughts echoed. The Potters.
Had he not thought earlier that Henry Peverell looked like he might have been a Potter?
“I had that thought as well,” Abraxas said, with a knowing look at Tom. Tom was disappointed in himself—he knew he had not spoken out loud, and Abraxas was certainly not a Legillimens, so the fact that he could speak to Tom’s thoughts meant that he had telegraphed them with his face. “This new Peverell looks quite a bit like the Potters, doesn’t he?”
“Could he be one?” Tom asked. “Perhaps…illegitimate?”
Abraxas smiled like Tom had made a mistake. “The Potters are not nobility. Besides, the Potters stem from a younger brother—a Gaunt would have a claim to the Peverell name sooner than a Potter would, and if not, it would fall to a legitimate Potter long before it would an illegitimate one.” Abraxas sniffed. “No, I’ll tell you what most likely happened. This newcomer is a mudblood, and is falsely claiming a pureblood name to avoid detection from Grindelwald. It wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened.”
Tom took the barb blankly, though fury reared up inside of him all the same. He was not a mudblood—had never been a mudblood—but when he was eleven and carried a name as ordinary and Muggle as Tom Riddle, it had been what everyone thought all the same. In fact, as Abraxas very well knew, the only thing preventing Tom from taking up the Gaunt name now was the fact that anyone that knew him would think the very thing Abraxas had just said.
It was one of the many, many reasons why it was better to just start over anew. Claim a new name. Claim a new face. Leave Tom Riddle in the past, where it belonged. But for that—Tom had to be patient before he could do that.
“That is all well and good,” Tom said, silently vowing to punish Abraxas suitably at a later time, “but Henry Peverell wears a signet ring on his left pinkie.”
This gave Abraxas pause. Tom watched him carefully as his eyes slid down to his own left hand, finding his finger lacking. This was a crucial aspect of Abraxas’s personality—he wanted to feel like he was the most powerful person in a room, but only in the most inane ways. He wanted the nicest clothes and the most jewelry, the prettiest date and the best-styled hair. Peverell had a signet ring while Abraxas did not, and it was a loss that he felt keenly.
“What did it look like?” Abraxas asked. “This ring?”
Tom had been prepared for this question, so he removed the parchment on which he had sketched the symbol he had seen from his pocket and passed it to Abraxas, who studied it for only a few seconds. Tom once again stifled a familiar spark of jealousy—of course Abraxas, who grew up amongst wizards, would recognize it immediately while Tom was left with only the option of asking.
“The Deathly Hallows,” Abraxas said, sighing through his nose like he was trying to restrain himself from having any reaction at all. “I suppose that settles it. This Ravenclaw is acting head of the Peverell family until he turns seventeen.”
Tom noted the reverence with which Abraxas named the symbol and stored it away for later thought.
“What does that mean, exactly?” Tom asked Abraxas.
“There is no one alive that can hold that lordship except for that boy,” Abraxas said, drumming his fingers against the tabletop. “Which begs the question…”
“Why would that be so, when there are multiple family lines with countless possible heirs that likely could have claimed it previously, based on blood and age?” Tom finished, tapping his own fingers against the tabletop now.
“Precisely,” Abraxas concluded. “I’ll write to my father for any information he might have on how the Peverell Heirship is decided.”
“You will inform me of anything you find,” Tom commanded.
Abraxas bowed his head, just a dip, really. It was enough for now, but one day…one day Tom would have him on his knees. “Of course.”
In the meantime, Tom had something he needed to look into himself.
Tom put a temporary halt on his plans to find the Chamber of Secrets and unearthing the location of any of his magical family members, and instead turned his attention towards figuring out what the Deathly Hallows were. He scoured the library for books mentioning death or hallows with very little promise of success on either front. He also looked into the Peverell line, as much as one could look into a magical family publicly.
The whole chase was frustrating, maddening, made worse by the feeling that he was missing something simple because of his Muggle background. He’d been devoting all of the free time he could for the last week to finding what he was looking for and making minimal progress. The closest he got to a lead was a brief mention in a gossipy article— some say the Deathly Hallows are engraved on the cellar door of Durmstrang Institute— but there was no explanation of what they were.
Tom was just about ready to throw every book on this godforsaken table into the fire when a hand that was not his own landed on the page of the book he was currently reading—or more accurately, staring at.
The hand was familiar, all honeyed skin and short fingers, knobby knuckles and a wide palm. The fingernails were rough with use, and the nail beds jagged like their owner picked at them—a disgustingly telling habit that certainly indicated something lesser. The real giveaway was the ring worn on the pinkie finger, taunting and mocking Tom with the very knowledge he was trying so hard to obtain.
“The Peverell Curse,” Peverell read, as he dragged his fingertips down the page contemplatively. “Many have speculated before that the Peverell family has been touched by death, as men die young and the blood of the women lacks the strength to carry the family magic on— well, that’s sexist— never more so than now that Cadmus Peverell has—”
Tom snapped the book shut abruptly, only barely missing Peverell’s fingers as he snatched them away. “Peverell,” he greeted neutrally, turning to greet the blue and bronze clad thorn in his side. He looked the same as he did before, with his burning green eyes and his wild black hair, though there was a set to his smile that wasn’t there before, something a little more smug and a little less guarded.
“Riddle,” Peverell greeted him back, giving an exaggerated sort of half-bow that grated on Tom’s temper for how mocking it clearly was. “Not going to call me Harry? You are researching my family.”
Tom smiled as pleasantly as he could. “I thought it was you that said I should only call you such a thing if I wanted to be familiar?”
Peverell raised a single eyebrow, questioning and defiant, and before Tom could react he’d snatched the book Tom had been reading out of his hands and began flipping through it. “The Peverell Family and the Tale of the Three Brothers, The Peverell Family Curse, The Peverell Legacy, The Lines that Carry the Peverells, The Peverells and Death—”
“Enough,” Tom hissed, rising out of his seat so he could snatch the book in Peverell’s hands. Peverell danced away from him, flipping the page. “Stop reading chapter titles out loud.”
“Would you prefer I read quotes instead? The mysterious Peverell family, thought to be entrenched in the darkest of magical practices, necromancy, met their early end when the son of Ignotus Peverell—”
“You are making a scene,” Tom interrupted with another hiss, noticing they were drawing an audience from other students at other tables. “Give that back.”
“Suit yourself,” Peverell said with a shrug. He snapped the book shut and tossed it at Tom nonchalantly—tossing books, a Ravenclaw— before inviting himself into the seat across from Tom’s original one. He lounged in that seat like it was a throne, legs extended, an elbow hooked over the back of the chair, fingers drumming a pattern on the table.
Tom took a deep breath. Fine, it was fine, he could work with this. He was going to have to talk to Peverell sooner or later anyway, though past and present experiences were indicating it was going to be difficult to get any sort of information out of him.
“Please, have a seat,” Tom said, smiling dangerously as he reclaimed his own.
Peverell seemed just as immune to this smile of Tom’s as he had been to his charming one. “Let’s not do that.” He made eye contact with Tom, suddenly somber, suddenly intense. “Let’s be frank with one another instead. For instance—you said that you don’t want to be familiar with me, yet you have books on my family.” A corner of his mouth ticked upwards. “The mouth says one thing, the evidence another.”
Tom sighed. “What is this? Is this a thing for you?”
Peverell smiled, but it was small and strangely sad. “I’ve learned to enjoy being mysterious, I suppose… But that’s not really what you want to ask me, is it?”
Tom pursed his lips. “What is it you think I wanted to ask you?”
Peverell studied him, his expression taut and weary. He flicked his eyes away with a sigh, and in the blink of an eye, there was a wand in his hand. It was a darker wood, with a deep grain and a thick hilt that matched with his wide palms. Tom eyed the wand curiously for only a moment, but Peverell was not pointing it at him so Tom did not draw his own. A flick of the wrist and a whispered word Tom didn’t catch later and a spell settled over them like a bubble. The magic was faintly soothing as Tom brushed a finger against it. He realized what it must be doing a moment later when he noticed he could no longer hear the sounds of pages turning and quills scratching.
Tom raised his eyebrows at his companion. “Impressive. I don’t think I’ve seen a silencing spell quite so airtight before.”
Peverell shrugged half-heartedly— modest— and tucked his wand up his sleeve. He must have a sheathe strapped to his wrist. How very pureblooded of him.
“I was…surprised by your reading material,” Peverell said, like he was choosing his words carefully. “I thought that after the hint I gave you, you would be interested in a different…book.”
Tom felt himself stiffening minutely before he forced himself to relax, but he had a feeling the reaction hadn’t gone unnoticed by Peverell. “I had other priorities,” he told Peverell coolly. “I’m sure you can understand.”
“Like looking into me?” Peverell asked, eyebrows raised in challenge. “And public execution records? And…hallowed ground.” He picked up one of the other books on Tom’s table before casting it aside, eyebrows going incredulous instead of challenging. “And death in various mythologies, Deadliest Magical Artifacts , Sacred Death Rituals …oh.” The last word was soft, on the verge of understanding. “The Deathly Hallows. You’re trying to figure out what they are.”
Tom supposed he could allow that maybe Peverell was Ravenclaw for a reason. He had come to that conclusion—the correct conclusion—rather quickly.
Tom leaned forward, snagging Peverell’s wand wrist and squeezing slightly. Peverell, the unnerving bastard, merely gave Tom an unimpressed look. “You wanted us to be frank with one another, yes? Let’s clear something up. You, Henry Peverell, are a transfer student from a family line that should have been long dead. No one knows anything about you—not where you came from or who your parents are or how you are even a Peverell—and you think you can just approach me, and slip me a threatening note, and sit at my table, and not come under suspicion? I don’t think so. You’re hiding something—you are likely hiding a lot of things—and I intend to uncover them all.”
“Do you, now?” Peverell asked, looking amused. “That’s nice.”
Tom had never wanted to curse an expression off of someone’s face more than he did now. “You—”
“Hey, Riddle,” Peverell interrupted, his voice deceptively soft as he flipped their grip expertly so that it was Peverell holding Tom’s wand hand and not the other way around. Tom twitched in an attempt to get out of the hold, but Peverell’s grip tightened like a vice. Tom met Peverell’s unforgivably green eyes, and Peverell stared back at him with a hardness to his jaw that spoke of battles to be had.
Peverell squeezed. “I’ve found that withholding information from others very rarely accomplishes anything good for anyone, even when that information is dangerous. So, next time you want to know something about me…try asking.”
He released Tom’s wrist and stood all in one motion, the strange silencing spell he cast popping as he did. Had he even gotten his wand out? He had not. Wandless, wordless magic…not even Tom could perform at that level.
Not yet, anyway.
“The Tales of Beedle the Bard,” Peverell said inexplicably. “Wizarding fairy tales. Read them—I think you’ll find them more enlightening than you’d expect.”
He gave Tom one last hard look, and then strode out of the library with an easy gait.
As much as Tom hated to admit it, he did actually read The Tales of Beedle the Bard. He read it cover to cover, more than once, caught up in a strange sort of delayed fascination.
Prior to Peverell informing him of its existence, it had never occurred to Tom that wizarding children had fairy tales that they grew up with just like Muggle children did. He’d put in so much effort to belong in this world, to cast everything that made him less aside, and yet he’d never bothered to think of things that would be essential to a magical childhood.
On top of that, he had an answer. A plain answer. The Deathly Hallows were from a children’s story. Fictional items, as real as Cinderella’s slipper or the spindle Sleeping Beauty pricked her finger on.
As to why, exactly, the Deathly Hallows would be the symbol of the Peverell family, he wasn’t sure. But he had an idea, at least.
Armed with a copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard in his bag and some spare time before he had to start working on some of his essays, Tom set out to find Henry Peverell. He was a Ravenclaw—and it was the only place he’d seen Peverell outside of classes and meals anyway—so Tom started with the library, with no results. He recalled rough palms and thick calluses and walked down to the Quidditch Pitch next, but it was unoccupied other than a couple snogging in the stands.
Tom left that well alone and continued on his search.
He checked the Great Hall, not really expecting to find Peverell (which turned out to be a fair expectation), and a few of the more popular alcoves for studying or snogging. He was beginning to think Peverell was holed up in his common room or someplace otherwise barred to Tom and he had better things to do than search a castle for someone he barely knew anyway, when he finally found Peverell.
The Astronomy Tower wasn’t nearly as popular of a destination during the day as it was during the night, where it was the number one date spot for couples interested in romantic cliches. Peverell sat near the railing, one arm hooked over the lower safety bar and the other around one of his knees. His forehead was pressed against one of the bars, and he stared down at the ground in a vacant way. Because he had apparently spawned into existence just to annoy Tom, he didn’t turn to look at him when he came in, either.
“Peverell,” Tom greeted coolly. He had not warmed up to the concept of having to earn the other boy’s attention one bit.
Peverell still did not look at him.
Tom cleared his throat. “Peverell.”
No response.
At this point Tom took stock of the situation—vacant eyes, blank face, white-knuckled grip on a kneecap, faintly quivering muscles. This was not intentional ignorance—no, something was wrong.
“Henry,” Tom tried, taking a step closer. “Henry Peverell. Harry.”
He touched Peverell’s shoulder, and he jerked back to life. Peverell released his knee, flailing slightly as it unbalanced him. He caught Tom’s forearm to steady himself, his grip tightening to an unbearable degree. His eyes met Tom’s, deathly green and full of anger, and for just a moment, Tom thought he was going to get hexed.
No sooner had he had the thought, Peverell seemed to school his expression into something a little closer to calm. Tom did not miss the way he dropped his arm like he was disgusted by it, though.
“Tom Riddle,” Peverell said, in a blank way. “ Just Tom Riddle.” He ran fingers through his hair, riling it up in the worst way. It seemed to be all he needed to collect himself, though, because when he looked at Tom next, he looked just like he had the last few times they’d met—like he didn’t particularly care for Tom, but in that way certain personalities left a bad taste in one’s mouth.
Not like he fervently hated him.
Which had been the expression on his face a moment ago.
Interesting.
“What are you doing up here?” Tom asked. He was nothing if not courteous, so he shuffled back another inch to offer Peverell some measure of comfort.
“This place is close to—the sky.” He had most certainly been about to say something other than that. “Reminds me of flying.”
Tom raised an eyebrow. “You could always just…fly.”
“No,” Peverell said, shifting so he could lean back slightly, resting his temple against one of the bars in a way that spoke of deep-seated exhaustion. “I don’t have a broom.”
“That is what the school brooms are for,” Tom pointed out sardonically.
“Do you need something?” Peverell asked, instead of responding.
To figure you out.
To know what your interest in me is.
To have an explanation for why you seem to hate me, but told me where to find the ritual I was looking for.
To ask why you knew I was looking for that ritual in the first place.
Tom held up the copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard that he had checked out from the library and brought with him. “To ask you why items from a fairy story make up your family crest.”
Peverell didn’t lift his head, but he raised one hand in a silent request for the book. Tom didn’t see a reason not to comply, so he set the book in his hands. Normally Tom would have chafed at the lack of an immediate answer, but watched Peverell with interest. He flipped to the Tale of the Three Brothers as if he had done it a thousand times. He ran a thumb along the edge of the page while his eyes flicked slowly over the words. There was something about how Peverell held himself that was familiar. Something in his posture, something in his face, something in his eyes.
“The Peverell brothers are thought to be the original inspiration for the story,” Peverell said at long last, lifting his gaze from the pages to glance at Tom. Thoughts ran out of Tom’s head as he met that gaze, new ones forming before he could identify them and running again just when he thought he might. “Whether the symbol is something they devised themselves or something they adopted out of irony, I don’t know.”
“How do you not know?”
A flicker of irritation passed over Peverell’s face before he smiled cheekily. “I can’t exactly ask them, can I? Not unless you’ve got the Resurrection Stone in your pocket.”
“Ha,” Tom commented dryly. “They aren’t real, anyway.”
“Realer than you’d think,” Peverell said in a soft voice. He passed the book back to Tom. “Well, the Invisibility Cloak and the Resurrection Stone are lost to history, but there are some that have tracked the supposed Elder Wand. It changes allegiances depending on whoever bests the previous wielder in battle. If the legend is to be believed, though, it doesn’t have to be battle—the eldest brother was killed in his sleep. That’s true, by the way. I can confirm that.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Tom said, but he felt a thrum of curiosity echoing through him anyway. “It’s just a children’s story.”
“It’s my family history,” Peverell said with a shrug. “And even if it wasn’t…is it really so hard to believe? Here, in a world where dragons exist? Here, in a school where staircases move of their own accord and portraits talk? Here, where someone has created a Philosopher’s Stone?”
It…was an intriguing concept, if nothing else. Tom would allow the conversation to continue, if only for that reason. There was nothing wrong with engaging in a theoretical debate with an intellectual.
“Alright. So, say the items are real. What’s the point of them? Why would an entity like Death want to share his powers with mortals?”
“Why wouldn’t they?” Peverell asked rhetorically, cocking a challenging eyebrow. “Don’t they share something with us all already—death itself, for no one is truly immortal?”
“There are ways,” Tom said. “There are ways to be immortal.”
“There are always drawbacks,” Peverell said. “Think of known practices to achieve immortality, or pseudo-immortality. There are vampires, but they have to live only off blood and avoid sunlight, and there are still ways to kill them. You could drink the blood of a unicorn to sustain a life-force that would otherwise end, but your existence would be cursed.” Tom…hadn’t realized that was an option. “If you could create a Philosopher’s Stone, you could drink the Elixir of Life…but that doesn’t prevent you from being murdered. Even Horcruxes have drawbacks.”
Tom felt as if he could scarcely breathe. “Why do you know what those are?” he asked. “Why do you speak so freely about them?”
“I have an invested interest in immortality,” Peverell said, his lips quirking up like it was a joke that only he understood. Then, apropos of nothing, he asked, “Do you ever wonder what the Sorting Hat is really judging people on?”
Tom wanted to push about the Horcrux comment…but at the same time…
“I do, as a matter of fact.”
“I’ve always thought…” Peverell trailed off. He shot an unreadable look at Tom. He glanced away. “It’s peculiar to me that so many of the houses have overlapping traits. Are cunning and wit all that different? Bravery and determination are essentially the same emotion applied to different situations. Tell me hard-work and ambition don’t really go hand-in-hand, or that wisdom isn’t a kind of fairness.”
“I see your point.”
“On top of that, it’s not as if someone sorted into Slytherin can never be brave, or someone sorted into Hufflepuff can’t be cunning, or someone sorted into Ravenclaw can’t be loyal, or a Gryffindor can’t be wise. They aren’t mutually exclusive traits. I suspect, in fact, that most people carry all of them within them in near equal measures.”
“I wouldn’t think so, listening to you now,” Tom pointed out dryly. “You seem all Ravenclaw and not much else.”
Peverell curled his fingers in the blue and bronze of his scarf, expression twisting slightly. “I do, don’t I? Merlin, maybe the Hat had a point.”
“I think the point is that the Hat always does have one,” Tom said, tapping his fingers against the cover of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, as it was still in his hands. “That was where you were going with this, yes? The Hat sorts us where it does for a reason. Yours is that you dabble in philosophy.”
Peverell shot him a glare. “The point is about your question, actually.”
“My question? Which question?”
“The one about why I’m telling you things that could further your evil plots,” Peverell said.
“Evil,” Tom objected.
“Yes, evil. Murder is evil, Tom.”
Tom? Tom thought, bemusedly.
Then, Murder?
“Anyway,” Peverell continued, blissfully oblivious to Tom’s inner thoughts. “I think the sorting has a lot less to do with who we are, and a lot more to do with how we are. I’m not sure that really makes sense, but…think of it this way. If I asked a Hufflepuff what the best way to further their career was, what would they say?”
“Hard-work,” Tom said. “That’s one of the traits of the House that you just spent so long trying to tear down.”
Peverell sighed. “They would say it’s about what they do, Tom. Pose the same question to a Gryffindor, and they would say it’s about who they are. A Slytherin, who they know. A Ravenclaw, what they know.”
“Hm,” Tom allowed. “Clever. I can’t actually say I disagree.”
“Imagine that,” Peverell said, looking out over the grounds. Tom couldn’t help but think he was looking away to hide a smile. “Tom Riddle agreeing with me . The horror.”
“Sorry, have I done something to you?”
“Your reputation precedes you, I suppose. In any case, that’s the answer. I’m telling you things because it’s important to me that I know them at all. Why have knowledge if I’m not going to use it? Share it? My approach is Ravenclaw, so to Ravenclaw I went. I think.”
“That doesn’t explain why you knew I was looking into…Horcruxes,” Tom said, feeling a thrill run down his spine at saying that word aloud to another person. The whole point of making a Horcrux was to ensure no one knew he had one, but…if Peverell already knew… Well, it wasn’t like he couldn’t dispose of Peverell later if it came to that.
“Invested interest in immortality, remember?” Peverell said, eying Tom. Several moments passed like this, thoughts passing behind the green of Peverell’s eyes and Tom resisting the temptation to dip inside so he could know what they were.
“Have you looked at the ritual yet?” Peverell asked, at the end of this silence. “Do you even know what it is?”
“No,” Tom said, feeling like it was a dangerous thing to confess. “I haven’t. I don’t.”
Peverell took a deep breath, and looked out over the grounds. He clenched and unclenched his fist. A muscle in his jaw jumped. “When you kill someone, it tears a rift in your soul. That rift will heal naturally with time, but if you don’t let it… That’s what the ritual is for. That’s what the Horcrux is. You use a murder to rip half of your soul out of your body, and then you place that half into an object.”
“And…that makes the soul immortal,” Tom finished, his mind whirring. This was progress. “If your body is killed, then a piece of your soul will live on…you could reclaim life again, using the container, you could—”
“The downsides,” Peverell interrupted quietly, “are perhaps the most extreme, of all the options one has to pursue pseudo-immortality.”
Tom scoffed. “It hardly seems worse than having to drink blood and avoid the sun.”
“Aside from the murder, you mean,” Peverell said, rolling his eyes. “Though I suppose you probably view that as a non-issue.” He eyed Tom appraisingly, Tom refused to do anything with his face that would confirm Peverell’s assumption was true. “It’s painful to split one’s soul. Housing part of it outside of your body makes you…vulnerable, to things worse than death. It’s harder to think. It’s harder to feel. Madness is not just likely, but inevitable. You could say it’s a different kind of half-life. The only thing that makes it better than drinking unicorn blood is that there’s no explicit curse, I suppose. Assuming murder is a non-issue.”
Tom paused.
He played the words over in his head.
“You’ve made one?” he whispered as he realized it. “You have a Horcrux?”
Peverell didn’t look at him.
Tom breathed out a long exhale. “You do.”
This took some of the fun out of it, he thought. If Peverell had already made a Horcrux, then Tom wouldn’t have been exceptional for doing it at a young age. If Peverell had already led him to all the answers about Horcruxes, then Tom didn’t have the satisfaction of discovering them for himself. If Peverell had already killed someone—no, sacrificed someone—then Tom’s ruthlessness wasn’t anything particularly special.
Tom sat back, suddenly disgruntled. Had this been Peverell’s play all along? Just…take all of the fun out of making a Horcrux by doing everything for Tom? It was horribly conniving if that was his plan, and oddly competitive for someone Tom barely knew, but Tom had seen worse from people.
Not to mention…part of him, a not insignificant part of him, couldn’t help but respect it.
“I haven’t made a Horcrux, Tom,” Peverell said quietly. “That’s not the kind of immortality I’m interested in.”
What a curious, captivating stranger Peverell was. What a tapestry of odd threads to unravel. What an enigma.
“What kind of immortality are you interested in?” Tom asked, breathless yet again.
Peverell tapped the cover of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, lying where Tom had set it between them. “This kind,” he said.
It made absolutely no sense, and somehow, it also made all the sense in the world.
“Who are you?” Tom asked.
Peverell smiled. “Henry James Peverell,” he said. “Harry, if you want to be familiar.”
Maybe Tom did.