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Chapter Text

In the first month of her seventh year at Hogwarts, Lily Evans is called into the headmaster’s office.

James gave her a thumbs up and a serious nod over the library table, as if she were about to be inducted into the Order of the Phoenix on the spot. Even James and his friends weren’t official members, no matter how much they snuck around at Dumbledore’s behest or hexed Slytherins in the halls. The errand boy’s new girlfriend would hardly be an essential member of a resistance movement.

As Lily opens the office door, she has to squint at the light gleaming off of whirring devices scattered throughout the room. Centuries of headmasters turn to scrutinize her from their portraits. The office is so bursting with brightness and energy that for a second Lily doesn't notice the man inside. To be fair, the snoozing phoenix is distracting.

“Ah, Miss Evans,” says Headmaster Dumbledore as she makes her way to the chair before his desk. “Thank you for your expediency.”

“Of course, sir,” says Lily. She couldn’t exactly have told McGonagall to come back later.

“I hear you're doing well in your classes,” he says.

“Yes, Headmaster,” says Lily, trying not to fidget. “...Is there a reason I’m here?”

Dumbledore nods almost sadly, as if the highlight of his day is making smalltalk with students. The twinkle in his eye fades as his face grows serious and he leans towards her.

“What do you think of Tom Riddle?” he asks.

Lily blinks. She’d thought this might have to do with Head Girl duties, though James was excluded and McGonagall usually handles that sort of thing anyway. Even official Order business would've been more likely than a spontaneous teacher evaluation.

“I think he's a good professor,” Lily says carefully. “I'm hardly a natural duelist, but I got an O on my OWL.”

Dumbledore continues watching her, eyebrows raised.

“I like our advanced lessons so far,” she tries, though they've only met twice. Professor Riddle said she's his first mentee; is Dumbledore already deciding whether they can continue? “We’re starting with how different components of dark magic correspond with runic wards, and then we’ll move onto actual counterspells. It’s mostly theory so far, but—”

“Excuse me, my dear,” Dumbledore interrupts. “That all sounds quite reasonable, yes. But I was wondering what you thought of him personally.”

Lily's face heats and she hopes the blush isn't visible. Like a solid third of the Hogwarts student body, she used to have a bit of a crush on Professor Riddle. Hard not to, when he's older than McGonagall but still looks like that—there are rumors he uses the dark arts to stay young.

“He's funny,” she says instead, then realizes she should've led with something else. “And very intelligent, he knows more about magic than anyone I've talked to.”

Remembering she's currently talking to the greatest living wizard, she quickly continues: “He is a good professor. He organized the class around defensive magic that's actually useful to know these days. He's mean if you can't keep up, but he’s a fair grader and not too humiliating in class. And he's very passionate, I do think he cares about both teaching and magic in general. He’s principled in his beliefs.”

Headmaster Dumbledore is listening intently. The thought occurs to Lily that he might want to recruit Professor Riddle to the Order. Well, why wouldn’t he recruit a brilliant and powerful wizard? Though he might not have much luck.

Lily had asked Professor Riddle about the war during their first lesson. She'd never talked to him alone before, and she wanted a non-Order expert opinion.

“The Dark Lord is going to win,” he’d said, unemotional and completely convinced. “And there isn't anything anyone can do to stop it.”

“What about the Order of the Phoenix?” Lily pressed, surprised at his certainty.

“Oh, Dumbledore’s silly little club of schoolboys?” Lily flinched, though he sounded less mean and more disinterested. “I wouldn’t hold out hope. No, the best thing you could do for yourself would be to leave the country.”

He looked down at her desk, then, at her color-coded notes on wards, and grinned conspiratorially. “Or learn how to defend yourself.”

“Is that why you're giving me lessons?” Lily asked, wary. “To help out another muggle-born?”

“Oh no, that's a coincidence,” Professor Riddle assured her. “I'm giving you lessons because you’re very talented and will surely do great things.”

Lily had smiled and blushed at her notes, too embarrassed to meet his eyes. She wouldn’t have minded, really, if he was just looking out for someone like himself, but the attention was welcome. Not many professors had complimented her efforts. It meant more coming from Professor Riddle than Flitwick, who complimented everyone, and Slughorn, who always wanted something in return.

It was disappointing how little faith he had in the Order, but surely he’d help if he knew their operations extended beyond secretive meetings in Dumbledore’s office. Lily didn’t know much herself, but James said multiple ministry higher-ups were on their side.

“And he's very concerned with the war, of course,” finishes Lily. She thinks the corner of the headmaster’s lip twists ruefully at that. Perhaps Professor Riddle has already declined to work with the Order—he certainly doesn’t like Dumbledore.

“Miss Evans,” Dumbledore starts, lacing his fingers together and looking at her very seriously over his glasses. Lily feels all of eleven years old again.

“Tom Riddle is a very dangerous man,” he continues.

Lily nods; Professor Riddle had spent years studying cursed items, curses in general, strange magic from all over the world.

“You know, you’re his first one-on-one student,” Headmaster Dumbledore says.

“He mentioned,” says Lily, wondering where this is going.

Before their first official lesson, he had kept her after class to excitedly give her a syllabus for their upcoming year together.

“Alchemy?” she’d asked, skimming it with enthusiasm. “Spellcrafting and Magic Theory too?”

“Good defensive magic requires foundational knowledge in every branch,” Professor Riddle explained. “It won’t be too fast for you.”

“That makes sense,” Lily agreed, not worried about keeping up; this class was too interesting for her to fall behind. “I’ve actually asked about Magic Theory classes before, but McGonagall says there’s not enough interest to make it an elective.”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, Dumbledore just won’t let me teach it.” Then he grinned. “But he let me teach you. As my first mentee, I’m afraid you’ll be the test runner for all the advanced classes you could ask for.”

“He won’t let you teach?” Lily asked, shocked.

Professor Riddle looked slightly embarrassed, like he hadn’t meant to let that slip. “He’s very particular about the curriculum,” he seemed to land on.

“Well, I’m happy to be your guinea pig,” said Lily, suppressing her disappointment at the headmaster’s rulings. She tried to lighten the mood: “I hope you’ll accept feedback on assignment difficulty.”

“Evans, you're smarter than that,” he scolded, smiling again. “I’m sure you’ll be able to meet my expectations easily.”

Excited, Lily had spent her next class reading and re-reading the syllabus under her desk.

“Do you want my help recruiting him, Headmaster?” asks Lily tentatively. If Professor Riddle and Dumbledore don't get along she can understand being needed as a go-between. She’s already been trying to get him on board.

“Oh dear, no,” says Dumbledore. “Quite the opposite, really.”

Lily sits, confused, waiting for him to continue.

“Do you imagine,” Dumbledore starts, “That there might be a reason I have until now prevented him taking on mentees?”

“It can’t be inappropriate behavior,” Lily blurts. She can't picture Professor Riddle being anything but polite with her, even when he’s affecting joking meanness. He’s never touched her arms or shoulders when evaluating her classwork, never commented on her figure—and Slughorn gets at least one research assistant a year, nevermind the parties.

“No, no, nothing like that,” Dumbledore brushes off. “I don't believe the man is capable.”

Lily is relieved, despite not believing it in the first place. She likes Professor Riddle; she doesn’t want her judgement to be wrong. It’s frightening to think she can’t trust herself.

“Now, my dear,” he says, meeting her eyes. “Understand that not a word of this conversation leaves this room, not even to tell your boyfriend.”

Lily nods, uncomfortable. She doesn’t like lying to James but she supposes it can’t be helped. And he has his own secrets to keep for the Order, though she thinks he may already be telling her more than authorized. Perhaps she’s being inducted after all.

“Tom Riddle is a double agent for Lord Voldemort,” Headmaster Dumbledore says calmly, like he’s talking about the weather.

“What?” Lily asks, barely processing the words. It’s inconceivable. “Are you sure?”

“Very,” he says, not without amusement.

“But he's muggle-born,” Lily gapes. Everyone knows that. They’ve talked about it.

During their second lesson, Professor Riddle had asked, “Do you have plans for after graduation?”

“Win the war,” Lily had said, mouth tilting up.

He laughed.

“Seriously,” he said, though Lily was serious. “You might have a lot of trouble finding a job. I want you to be prepared.”

“Because of the war?” she asked.

“Partially,” he allowed, frowning. “But I had the same problem in the 40s.”

“Because we’re muggle-born,” Lily accepted dully. Her mother gave her similar speeches about women in the workforce. She didn’t know what she could do about it other than work even harder. “I think we’ll still need to defeat You-Know-Who.”

He smiled indulgently, as if the war was already lost and she was only deluding herself.

“I was rejected from this very job right after graduating. Even as the Head Boy with record-breaking grades, no one took me seriously in the real world. I worked retail for a decade after Hogwarts, and then I was abroad another decade before landing this position,” he explained with muted bitterness.

Lily had been worrying about the same thing, obviously. Even without the danger of being killed in the street, the limited job openings were usually filled by nepotism. Lily had no galleons of family wealth in savings; after graduation she’d have to move back in with her muggle parents and put targets on their backs. Or she’d join the Order, leave the logistics to Dumbledore, and when they won she’d emerge into a world that wouldn’t reject her on principle.

“That’s why I need to do something,” said Lily. “That’s the point of all this fighting. We won’t change the world by refusing to engage with it.”

“You won’t change the world by playing by its rules, either,” he countered.

“The Order is an illegal organization,” said Lily, offended on behalf of the Ministry workers risking their jobs. “I don’t think wrenching power from the hands of purebloods is playing by their rules.”

He smiled at that. “No, I suppose not. Just Dumbledore’s.”

“Is it so bad to believe in Dumbledore?” Lily frowned. “Who else could defeat You-Know-Who?”

Professor Riddle exaggeratedly looked around for eavesdroppers and Lily laughed despite herself.

“Dumbledore always thinks he knows best,” he said. “I’ll leave it at that.”

Lily could infer for herself why opinionated and self-assured men like Professor Riddle and Dumbledore would clash with each other.

“Well, I’m glad you endure his horribly overbearing rules to teach here anyway,” she smiled.

“You know,” he mused, studying her. “I think I am too. If he hadn’t dealt me into this game of his, I might still be in Eastern Europe.”

“Beyond the Iron Curtain? Are you a socialist, Professor?” Lily asked, delighted.

She'd love to hear his opinions. Wizards barely seemed to have a grasp of politics outside of identifying the acting Minister for Magic. Muggle politics were right out; even politically-aware muggle-borns like them cared more about the Wizarding War than the Cold one. To be fair, Death Eaters were a more immediate threat.

“Oh no, I'm not really anything,” he dismissed. “But it’s beautiful there, and on the continent they can’t tell a wizarding name from a muggle one.” He shrugged. “It’s easy to disappear.”

“You really do want me out of the country,” Lily said, joking despite her growing dread regarding her options. “I’m insulted.”

“I want you to have a future,” he corrected, suddenly serious. “I can’t have my favorite student dying just because every British wizard went round the bend.”

“Oh,” said Lily, flushing. His favorite student. “Well, you’re forgiven then.”

“Good,” he said, smiling. “Because another option is accepting an apprenticeship with me.”

Her eyes widened. “Are you serious?”

“Of course. Why did you think I asked you to take advanced lessons with me?”

“I'm not even good at defense!”

“You’re good at everything you put your mind to,” he said unthinkingly, like it was a truth of the universe. “It’s my job to keep your interest.”

“Well, you don’t need to worry about that,” she said, and then her face heated. “I mean, your lessons are always interesting! I’d love to work with you, it’s an honor.”

He politely ignored her faux pas. “Then I look forward to our continued collaboration,” he smiled.

She can’t believe that he’s a blood supremacist. It makes no sense.

“Hatred is a funny thing,” says Dumbledore. “Self-hatred especially can lead even the best men down dark paths. Searching for meaning in a world motivated by power results only in the search for power. Of course, we must not discount the impact of the dark arts on one's mind.”

Lily thinks of Severus, demeaning himself and everyone around him for the chance of a sliver of power. Professor Riddle has too much self respect.

“I know he’s not the most enthusiastic about the war’s outcome,” Lily starts carefully. “But that doesn’t mean Professor Riddle is a Death Eater.”

“I'm sure this must be very distressing for you,” says Dumbledore, sounding almost frustrated beneath the grandfatherly empathy. “But please have faith in my investigative abilities.”

“Why is he still teaching here then?” asks Lily desperately. “Why let him in the school at all?”

“Common wisdom tells us to keep our friends close and enemies closer,” says Dumbledore. “While Tom’s in Hogwarts, I can keep an eye on him. And he wouldn’t dare harm the students, as he’s here to keep an eye on me. Rest assured that while he may attempt some minor scheming, he loves Hogwarts—and fears me—enough not to do any real damage.”

Lily finally accepts that this isn't some horribly tasteless prank, that Dumbledore truly believes Professor Riddle is in league with the Dark Lord himself. And if Dumbledore believes it, it must be true.

This might be worse than Severus.

“Then why is he giving me lessons?” she asks, feeling like someone took an ice cream scoop to her insides, cold and hollow. What was the point of it all?

“I admit I'm not quite sure,” muses Dumbledore, which isn't encouraging. “Perhaps he's trying to recruit you; more likely he wants information, details about your friends, professors, or headmaster who may contribute to the war effort.”

“Am I to feed him misinformation then?” Lily asks dully. James will be thrilled at her first mission, will probably be jealous, but she just feels sick.

“Oh, that's much too dangerous,” says Dumbledore, and she pales. “You will be continuing your lessons as normal, asking personal questions if appropriate and answering the same with discretion. Afterwards, deliver the memories directly to yours truly.”

“The memories, sir?” Lily has heard of Pensieves, but has never observed a memory in one. She hopes her meandering thoughts won’t be broadcasted to any viewers, that she won't have to maintain a facade in her mind as well.

“So I can observe his behavior myself. I won’t be judging your performance as a student or conversationalist,” he smiles at her. Lily plasters on an appreciative expression.

“Of course,” he says, “You need not take up this responsibility. It’s not too late to simply cancel these lessons and return to your normal studies.”

“I'm an of-age witch,” Lily assures him. “I want to fight for my fellow muggle-borns, however’s necessary.”

“Very good, Miss Evans,” says Dumbledore, and his expression turns serious. “Then you must be careful. Tom is very charming, but his compliments will only last until you’re under his control. His appreciation will become contingent on your usefulness to him. He will encourage acts of violence and forays into the dark arts. He may even undermine me.”

“Oh,” says Lily, stomach sinking through the floor. It had been working.

She had asked him, that second lesson, what being a muggle-born in Slytherin was like. She could barely imagine it; like being cornered by older girls in the bathroom, every night.

“Don’t worry about me,” Professor Riddle had smiled slyly. “A few well-placed hexes and they all rolled over.”

“I've charmed all my things to retaliate against tampering,” Lily confessed. “They insult people who touch them and reflect most spells back at the caster’s equivalent item.”

“Oh, brilliant,” he smiled at her, and she flushed, pleased.

“But you know,” he continued in a stage-whisper, smile growing sharp, “Those pureblood boys can't take a hit. Never even heard of a punch.”

“Not just the boys,” Lily said knowingly.

“Evans!” he grinned, delighted. “Don’t tell me the Head Girl herself has been brawling with other students.”

“It was just a slap!” Lily protested, but she couldn't help smiling too.

“I don’t believe it,” he said, eyes shining. “Perfect Lily Evans has a mean streak.”

“You knew that,” she jokingly pouted—he’d overseen enough spell practice sessions over the years. “Besides, it’s not mean if it’s self defense.”

His smile had turned vindictive, handsome face twisted with something more intense than mischief.

“It isn't, is it?” he agreed. “Now, would you say a preemptive strike is mean? Or self defense?”

Lily frowned. “I'd say it depends.”

“In my first year, I beat up everyone in Slytherin before they could lay a hand on me,” he said lightly. “After that, we were mostly comfortable to leave each other alone, though they sometimes needed the reminder.”

Lily could just picture little Tom Riddle, scared and alone and so so angry.

“You only needed to beat up some of them,” she decided, but he still looked pleased.

“What about a preemptive strike against an entire society?” he asked, leaning over her desk, expression intense. “Collapsing institutions of power and those that uphold them from the inside?”

“Like a revolution?” Lily asked. “Or like anarchy?”

“Whichever you like,” he said.

“You’d need something new to replace the old system,” Lily thought aloud. “Or else everything would fall apart again. We need to get rid of the Wizengamot, but without a replacement justice system Azkaban will be full of the Minister’s personal enemies.”

“Like it isn’t already,” Professor Riddle said, and she snorted.

“The problem,” Lily mused, “Is that the most vulnerable people are left in the lurch. Dumbledore can’t protect every muggle-born, so any revolutionary action he takes ends up punishing us. Of course, that’s better than leaving the system free for You-Know-Who to take over.”

She frowned at the contradiction, and frowned more at Professor Riddle’s accommodating smile. “I suppose your preemptive strike would only work with a united front of muggle-borns. The Order should get recruiting.”

“Rallying the Mudblood Liberation Army, Evans?” he joked, a little too meanly. “Are you sure you aren’t the socialist here?”

“Well, what’s your solution?” asked Lily. “How do we fix it all?”

“I’m not sure if Wizarding Britain deserves to be saved.” He said it jokingly, but the exhaustion in his tone made her sit up straight and look him in the eye.

“Really?” she asked. “You’d sit back and let You-Know-Who win?”

“No,” he sighed. “I’d let him collapse under his own weight. And then I’d go on sabbatical.”

Looking back, it feels very obvious that Professor Riddle wants the Order to fail, though Lily still isn’t convinced he wants You-Know-Who to win. He’s likely being coerced, but unfortunately that doesn’t change who he reports to.

“Has he said anything to you about the war?” asks Dumbledore. “Or the Order?”

“He has. He doesn’t seem to like you very much,” says Lily. “Sir.”

“No,” the headmaster half-smiles, almost wistfully. “I imagine not.”

Chapter Text

For a long moment, Headmaster Dumbledore studies Lily. She meets his gaze, keeps her back straight, and tries not to feel like her future is falling apart around her. Her favorite professor, their upcoming year of study, the possibility of an apprenticeship and career—all crumbling on their false foundations.

Professor Riddle has been lying to her for a long time.

Dumbledore smiles sympathetically at her. “Tom is quite adept at integrating himself with people,” he says kindly. “Don't feel guilty for wanting to see the best in him.”

“Thank you, sir,” says Lily, looking down at her folded hands. She didn’t see the best in him; she saw his cruelty and apathy and liked him anyway, liked him more. Obviously her judgement's shot—she can never befriend a Slytherin again.

“I'm afraid I must warn you of something more,” says Dumbledore. “Tom is a legilimens, and a powerful one at that.”

At this point it's almost funny how quickly the disasters are compounding.

“He's been reading my mind?”

“He needs only look in your eye to read the surface of your thoughts,” says Dumbledore, looking her in the eye.

Lily despairs for a second, then squints at him. Can he do that too?

“I have a few tricks of my own of course,” he winks at her.

Of course. If it's that easy, how is she ever supposed to prevent Professor Riddle from learning about this meeting?

“Don’t worry, my dear,” Dumbledore assures her. “I have no intention of hiding your involvement from him, and Tom already knows he’s under observation. He wouldn't dare harm you within these walls.”

Lily nods with some trepidation. She still can't imagine Professor Riddle actually wanting to hurt her. “How much danger am I in exactly, professor?”

“These are dangerous times for us all,” he evades.

So quite a bit of danger then. At least she'll die contributing to the war effort; she may not even have to worry about getting a job.

“Yes, sir,” she says. “I understand.”

He considers her expression across his desk; she thinks only of her determination to prove herself and stop You-Know-Who.

“Very good, Miss Evans,” he says eventually. “I think we have one more thing to cover before I let you go. I find myself free for the afternoon, if you're amenable.”

“Of course, sir,” agrees Lily. James and his friends have probably finished studying already; the only thing left for Lily to do after this is run back through every conversation she’s had with Professor Riddle, looking for missed hints of his true allegiance.

“I would like you to extract a memory for me, and then we'll view it together. You'll get an idea of how both the Pensieve and Tom himself operate; I'll interpret his behavior for you.”

“Thank you, sir,” says Lily. She’s doubting that she ever really knew Professor Riddle at all—Dumbledore’s perspective will help her recalibrate. “Which memory would you like?”

“I admit I’m interested in seeing how he proposed these advanced lessons of yours,” he says.

Lily nods, trying to remember what happened that day, if she did anything embarrassing or incriminating. No helping if she did, she supposes.

Under Dumbledore’s instruction, Lily draws a gleaming thread of memory from her mind and deposits it into the Pensieve he placed on his desk. She watches the cloudy liquid swirl in its stone bowl and wonders how long it will take before this becomes routine.

“Just so,” he praises. “Now we need only look inside.”

He lowers his face into the Pensieve, and she follows his lead.

After a moment of dizziness, Lily finds herself next to Dumbledore in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. Scanning the chattering students that occupy the desks, she is unnerved to see herself leaning her chin in her hand, politely bored. This year she's been sitting in the back of the class with James and his friends.

Professor Riddle had smiled at her when she sat down for that first private lesson. “Good to have you back in the front row,” he’d said.

“Good to be here,” she smiled back. “The board's much more visible again.”

Professor Riddle staggered with a hand over his heart, mock offended, and she laughed.

To Lily’s relief, none of her previous thoughts manifest within the memory; missing her old seat and her uncharitable annoyance towards classmates stay secure in her head.

“Do you think Riddle will actually let us duel each other again?” James asks from next to her past self.

“Not after last year,” sighs Sirius from James’ other side. “It’ll just be more drills.”

“I prefer not running to the hospital wing in the middle of class,” says Peter, turning in his seat in front of them.

Remus elbows him. “Sorry, Lily,” he says on behalf of the group.

“Oh, it’s fine,” Lily had replied.

Last year, dueling practice went awry when two pureblood girls abandoned their assigned partners to team up on Lily. They all ended up in the hospital wing, though Lily likes to think she won that one. Professor Riddle has since prevented more than a couple students practicing offensive spells at once.

James pats her past self's shoulder. “You’ll get ‘em next time, Lils.”

“Thanks,” Lily had said.

Dumbledore, too tall and brightly-colored between the rows of desks, looks sadly fond. “These boys are so eager to run to their deaths.”

Lily frowns. She likes to think she’s more optimistic about their chances, but she’s been readying herself to go down fighting since entering a world with You-Know-Who in it.

“Welcome, seventh years!” Professor Riddle bursts into the room, startling Lily just as much the second time. “Good to see you all still alive—I’ll take credit for that.”

Some of the class laughs politely; Lily's amused exhale had been genuine. Knowing now that he's working for the enemy, she finds the joke a lot more ominous.

As Professor Riddle opens his mouth to begin his first-day speech, the memory freezes, everything going eerily still. Lily turns back to Dumbledore, who looks somewhat apologetic.

“While it's always nice to catch up on Tom's updates to the curriculum,” he starts, “For the sake of our time we may want to skip to the relevant bits.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” says Lily, horribly embarrassed. “Our conversation was at the end of class.”

“Not to worry, my dear,” says Dumbledore, and waves a hand.

The world jolts into motion like a cassette in fast-forward. Professor Riddle blurs as his lecture silently speeds past them, the students’ fidgeting contracts to seated vibrating. Lily watches herself nudge James whenever he leans towards her. The conciliatory smiles and laughs she'd sent him fade more quickly at this higher playback speed. Lily resolves to more carefully select memories for Dumbledore in the future.

The room suddenly bursts with movement as the students stand at their desks—after the short lecture they'd practiced shield charms as a warm-up for the upcoming school year. As they watch Professor Riddle speed through the room to correct pronunciation and form, Lily gets another chance to compare her performance to that of her classmates’. She feels a little smug seeing so many other shields immediately dissipate.

“Here we are,” says Dumbledore, and sound rushes back to the world as the memory resumes its original speed.

Professor Riddle had made his way to the back of the room, and was now shifting from Sirius to James. Lily remembers he'd left Sirius with a disinterested, “Well done, Mr. Black.”

James’ shield is weaker than Sirius's, but perfectly acceptable.

“Thank you, Mr. Potter. You may want to turn your wrist five degrees clockwise,” Professor Riddle tells him, and then steps in front of Lily’s past self.

He nods at her. She smiles back and neatly casts the charm. She doesn’t know why her classmates seem to struggle so much with it.

“Exemplary as always, Miss Evans,” he says with enthusiasm.

The responding smile on her past self’s face is more self-satisfied than Lily expects it to be. She tries not to look like that; it's what Petunia thinks of her.

Professor Riddle hadn't been put off by it, he’d grinned and said, “Stay behind after class, I'd like to talk.”

At her somewhat stricken expression he'd laughed and said, “Oh, you're not in trouble, I want to talk about a learning opportunity.”

And then he continues on to the other side of the aisle.

“He's putting you on-edge,” Dumbledore explains. “Lowering your expectations to make his offer more enticing.”

“Oh,” Lily frowns. He needn't have bothered.

“Is he giving you extra work?” James is asking, incredulous.

“He probably wants her to TA,” says Remus.

“That’s possible,” Lily had said.

“Damn, he's going to make you grade papers,” James commiserates, patting her back.

“He's going to make you teach first years,” shudders Sirius.

“That's definitely being in trouble,” says Peter.

“He's much friendlier with you than your peers,” Dumbledore notes as Professor Riddle moves on to the last row, giving cursory advice.

“Yes,” says Lily. She'd thought they were friends, that he liked her. If he does like her, if he's not just manipulating and using her, it now means something very different. Lily would prefer not to be an apprentice in the dark arts, and that's probably the best case scenario of his intentions.

“Tom’s greatest weapon is his ability to turn others to his side, to be liked and trusted,” continues Dumbledore. “Though he believes he has come so far on his own merits, he would be nothing without assistance.”

“Alright, class dismissed,” calls Professor Riddle from the back corner of the room. “Don't forget, read chapters 2 and 7 before next class.”

Over the heads of students shoving books into bags and shuffling towards the door, he and Lily had made eye contact. When he smiles and tilts his head towards his desk, Lily still sees no falseness in it.

She peeks at Dumbledore, who smiles pityingly at her. She has to prevent herself from frowning at that.

Together, they watch her past self put away her things and follow James towards the front of the room.

“Well, see you,” he'd said, taking her hand and glancing over at Professor Riddle, who Lily can now see is watching them amusedly.

“Yeah,” her past self says, smiling tightly. He squeezes her hand.

James and his friends head off. Lily internally cringes at the way her smile becomes more natural upon turning to Professor Riddle.

“Evans, have a seat,” he says, taking his own seat behind his desk.

Lily had sat atop one of the students’ desks, she hadn't even thought about it. Everyone does it around the more laid-back professors. Luckily when she peeks at Dumbledore he only seems amused. McGonagall would've killed her.

“I'll cut to the chase,” says Professor Riddle, just as earnest as the first time around. “Dumbledore’s letting me teach advanced courses and I'd like you to be my first—well, only—student. We'll be able to actually go in-depth into all those interesting topics we just touch on in class.”

“I'd be honored, sir!” Lily's past self enthuses.

He smiles at her, and she smiles back. They stay like that; it takes a couple seconds for Lily to realize the memory has paused again.

She remembers how her heart had thudded in her chest, how she couldn’t keep the excitement from her face. Her professor had chosen her, out of all his students. She could learn something actually interesting, ask as many questions as she wants, study magic intensely enough to understand it rather than just utilize it—truly become the greatest witch of her generation, not just get good marks. She could also spend a good deal of time alone with Professor Riddle.

Lily is horrified at the besotted way her past self returned his smile. Did she always look like that around him? No wonder she was so easy to fool. No wonder James hates him.

“See how he maintained eye contact?” Dumbledore asks mildly, ignoring her embarrassment. “He was observing your thoughts.”

Lily forces herself to breathe steadily. She should count it as a success if the worst information Professor Riddle has gleaned from her is that she finds him attractive.

“I was happy he thought I was talented,” she says, the broadest possible summary of her mind at the time.

“Yes,” agrees Dumbledore, gaze turning sharp. “He will try to use your pride against you.”

Lily frowns, watching the memory of Professor Riddle's frozen smile.

“He will insist that he holds the key to fulfilling your potential, and take advantage of your desire to do so.”

“Yes, sir,” says Lily, chewing on the inside of her cheek.

Of course, she will have to improve her magic; even if she won’t turn the tide of the war she'll have to be able to defend herself when Death Eaters come knocking. So far, everything she's covered with Professor Riddle has been easily verifiable, but that may not always be the case. Perhaps he wants to spread faulty wards through the Order via Lily.

Lily had never found it suspicious when Professor Riddle encouraged her, or even when he told her she was better than other students and should be proud of that. She’d attributed it to his being a Slytherin who values ambition and success, not manipulation. Though, given the average Slytherin, there might not be much of a difference.

Still, he’d always seemed genuine, like he wanted her to see the same potential in herself that he did. Like he wanted them to develop that potential together.

Their second lesson, when she’d finally worked out the right runes to block the curse he'd demonstrated, she'd shouted in success. He smiled at her, amused in a way that didn't feel embarrassing.

“I'm quite proud of that one,” Lily had said, grinning brightly, a minor understatement.

“You should be,” Professor Riddle encouraged. “It took me much longer to get this down. Of course, I didn't have such a brilliant teacher.”

Lily laughed at his self-congratulatory grin. “I'll take the compliment anyway.”

“Please do,” he'd smiled.

“Recognize your achievements of course,” Dumbledore says now. “But there are more important things to celebrate.”

He flashes her a terse smile, then says, “Let us continue.”

“That's excellent,” Professor Riddle grins, jerking into motion as the memory resumes to tap at his desk. “I’ll get you a syllabus tomorrow, and we can start meeting on… do Friday afternoons work?”

“Um,” Lily had stuttered, flustered by the immediacy of his offer. “Yes, I think so, let me find my planner.”

Luckily, she managed to extract it from her bag without dropping her books everywhere, her instinctive magic preventing them from succumbing to gravity. From an external view, she almost looks put together.

“He's adding pressure by making this choice seem urgent,” Dumbledore explains as Lily watches herself fumblingly flip through her planner. “This prevented you from fully thinking through these lessons.”

More time to think about it had made her more excited, though.

“Fridays at 3?” Lily's past self asks, smiling and hopeful.

“Fridays at 3,” Professor Riddle confirms.

As her past self taps her wand on her planner to fill in the decided times, pink-cheeked with excitement, Lily can see Professor Riddle watch her with a similarly pleased expression. He'd wanted to teach advanced classes; she was his favorite student. It still doesn't seem like a trap.

She glances at Dumbledore, who’s watching her past self pityingly. She realizes with a sinking feeling that she fell for it again.

“Great!” Lily had said. “Thank you so much, professor, really.”

“Oh, of course,” Professor Riddle waves his hand. “Who else would I even ask?”

Lily notes that she hadn’t been fully successful in hiding her satisfied smile.

“I’ll see you next class, then,” her past self says, and they make eye contact when they smile at each other. Lily had been thinking that she might see him earlier than that, in the hallways or at a meal. Now she knows he’d been pleased about that.

And then she's back in Dumbledore’s office, head spinning, clutching the edge of his desk. She takes a steadying breath.

Dumbledore, standing calmly behind his desk as if nothing had happened, looks down at his clasped hands before speaking.

“I'm sorry you had to learn this way,” he starts, seeming almost unsure in his phrasing. “And I'm sorry you're in this situation at all, though you've stepped up admirably.”

He meets her eyes and Lily holds his gaze, letting him see her betrayal and determination.

“I must emphasize the extent to which he will prey on your emotions,” Dumbledore continues, voice tinged with regret. “You will feel like the smartest and most important person in the world, up until you've served your purpose. Any affection he may show you is only a reflection of his love of power.

“Be careful,” he finishes, sounding more vulnerable and wary than he ever has. “No matter how alluring he may be.”

“Yes, sir,” says Lily, twisting her hands in her lap, watching her thumb press to her index finger, then middle, ring, pinky, and back again.

Getting lectured by the headmaster over an ill-advised crush would be the most humiliating moment of her life if she weren't so scared. Professor Riddle won’t hurt her, Dumbledore said, and won't sexually harass her. It’s safe as long as she doesn’t fall for his machinations.

The problem is that he still sounds genuine, like he does think she’s talented and does want her company. And Lily does want to continue lessons with him; they actually talk about how magic works, the mechanics of harnessing and directing it. Things Severus would hint at but never explain, though now Lily wonders if he was covering up gaps in his own knowledge.

If Professor Riddle is just using her for whatever nefarious scheme he has, the least she can do is get advanced lessons out of it. If he really does want her to be his apprentice, she won't let him get to her head, and Dumbledore will be watching for him teaching her the dark arts.

“Why don’t you extract the memories of your lessons so far, and then you can get to the Great Hall?” Dumbledore asks kindly, conjuring a pair of small vials.

Lily does so, making sure the memories span only the time she entered the classroom until she left. She hopes he focuses more on Professor Riddle than her mooning over him and being highly unprofessional. At least they had some political discussions.

“Thank you, Miss Evans,” he says, examining one of the little swirling vials. “You may be excused.”

“Are you going to dinner, Headmaster?” she asks, standing up.

“No, my dear,” he smiles. “I think I’ll be a few hours.”

“Right,” says Lily, and leaves.

Back down the spiral staircase, back through the castle halls, Lily wonders when she'll face Professor Riddle again and tries to prepare herself for it.

Chapter Text

Lily enters their third lesson with her heart in her throat. Defense class had been much easier; she’d stared straight down at her notes all lecture, and avoided eye contact for the brief time it took Professor Riddle to approve the day's work. She isn't sure she's ready for a full hour and a half alone with him.

She doesn’t want him to know that she’s aware of his allegiance, and she wants to question his political views before he realizes. He might slip up and say something important. She’d also like to see how he goes about radicalizing students, if he even does so.

“Hello,” he smiles at her from behind his desk, no different from normal, scribbling at one of the numerous parchments scattered across its surface. His actual office is much too small to work in, he's complained, and has no room to demonstrate complicated spellwork.

“Hi, professor,” Lily says, watching his hands instead of his eyes. She sits carefully at the student desk in front of his own, and distracts him before he notices her avoidance: “I read through chapter four of the runes textbook and I wanted to ask about interactions with spellcasting.”

“Oh, excellent,” he says, excited, and pushes his parchment aside. “Yes, I'd love to hear your thoughts.”

“Well, it doesn’t make sense!” Lily starts, running a hand over her face. She makes sure to think only of the reading as she uncovers her eyes. “Runes that hold a spell for later release and runes that mimic the effects of a spell are presented as completely different, even if they ultimately do the same thing. But if you actually work out the specific symbols, they’re really similar. And even the differences seem to follow a pattern, but I didn’t get that far.”

“Yes, that’s what I’ve thought too,” he agrees, agitated. “But no one’s researching it. This book is considered the final word on the subject and it barely says anything!”

He grins at her then, sharklike. “What do you say we run our own experiment?”

“Yes,” she says, both because it will keep him occupied and because she wants to. Professor Riddle is the only teacher at Hogwarts who will entertain her questioning textbooks.

“If you were to design such an experiment, how would you?” he prompts.

“Like an actual muggle scientific experiment?” Lily confirms. “Not a lot of talk about the scientific method in Hogwarts.”

“The Statute went up before the Enlightenment rolled around,” Professor Riddle rolls his eyes. “Of course no pureblood listens to us when we tell them how to actually acquire knowledge.”

This is something Lily would have expected him to say before she knew. Now, she has to wonder if he really respects muggle science or if he’s leading her towards some specific conclusion. The textbook being wrong doesn’t mean Professor Riddle is right. Though if they design and conduct the experiment together, she sees no issue.

“Well,” she thinks aloud, “We’d have to compile a list of runes that hold versus replicate spells. Then we could both look for syntactic patterns and measure their effects against each other.”

As they work out an actionable experiment, Lily finds she has to keep reminding herself exactly who it is she’s speaking to. It’s just so easy to talk with him; their minds work in similar ways and they appreciate each other’s input. She feels comfortable with him, and it’s hard to fight that when he’s still the same as ever. She almost wishes he'd do something different, indicate somehow that the world really had shifted beneath her feet. Back in this classroom, with him smiling and laughing like normal, that discussion in Dumbledore’s office almost feels like a dream.

James wouldn’t be so hung up on this; if he knew Professor Riddle was a spy, he’d never be able to ignore it. Though James doesn’t like him in the first place.

“If I’m a blood traitor for not wanting muggle-borns to be killed in the street, he’s a blood traitor for just staying out of it,” James had said once, when Lily explained his position on the Order. “At least Dumbledore’s doing something!”

Lily had frowned. “The issue is that from his point of view, Dumbledore isn’t doing anything. How are we supposed to gain recruits if the average muggle-born thinks we’re useless?”

“He’s living in Hogwarts, isn’t he?” insisted James. “He relies on Dumbledore’s protection and then insults the man. And I’d hardly call him the average muggle-born.”

Lily kept frowning, but she didn’t push the issue. Now that she knows who Professor Riddle really works for, she’s glad she didn’t.

Laughably, James has already tried to get her to quit her advanced lessons to focus more on her mission.

“An apprenticeship is a huge deal, you’d be spending years with him,” he’d boggled when she’d mentioned that Professor Riddle had offered one. “And you’re already giving up Friday afternoons. Are you sure he isn’t monopolizing you to sabotage the war effort?” he joked.

Lily is very glad that she’s handling these lessons alone; James would instantly blow their cover.

“I think learning advanced defense techniques is very helpful for the war effort,” Lily had argued primly, ignoring that James was more worried about her commitment to him than to the Order. She didn’t get jealous when he talked about transfiguration with McGonagall for hours. “Dumbledore certainly seems to think so. And I’ll need some sort of career after we win the war—”

Just in time, she cut herself off from mentioning his inheritance. His parents just died; that would be unspeakably insensitive.

James had frowned. “Then why do you always do your makeup before your lessons with him?”

“I always do my makeup!” Lily threw her hands in the air in frustration. “I like looking nice!”

“You do look nice,” James had said then, shamefaced. “You’re beautiful, Lily, I’m sorry.”

She had sighed and pecked him on the lips.

“I’m fully dedicated to the Order,” she assured him. “And I won’t leave you for our professor.”

But he did have a point. She’d always done her makeup before these lessons without really thinking about it; she did it every morning and touched up if necessary throughout the day. While preparing herself for today, it sunk in that she’d deemed the previous lessons a necessary cause for touch-ups. She had to continue doing so to remain consistent.

While she and Professor Riddle quibble over experimental procedure, Lily tracks his mood with quick glances. She keeps her mind on those conversations with James, on her makeup routine, on her possible future apprenticeship—far away from Dumbledore. It’s embarrassing, but it keeps her thoughts occupied until she can look back down and silently congratulate herself for not giving herself away.

The way she figures it, Professor Riddle has known she's had a crush on him for a long time. If he was going to use it against her, he would have done so already, but his smiles and banter would barely qualify as flirting in the most generous interpretation. Therefore, it should be relatively safe and inconspicuous to pretend her discomfort this lesson stems from her recognizing the full depth of her feelings for him.

Obviously, she's pretending her feelings run much deeper than they ever did. She wouldn’t be dating James if she was truly hung up on another man; Professor Riddle was more like a handsome celebrity than an actual romantic prospect. Nobody expects to end up with their John Lennon poster.

The ruse wouldn’t be necessary if Lily could make her mind blank and impenetrable like Severus has bragged about. At least the embarrassment adds authenticity; this would be a very good reason to avoid eye contact.

They complete their preliminary list of runes to compare and measurements they could make regarding their effects. Despite herself, Lily is excited. Professor Riddle settles back in his chair, satisfiedly rereading their notes.

Lily doodles on a scrap of parchment. If it were a week ago, she thinks, this is when she would engage him in conversation.

“Professor,” she starts, eyes tracing the stroke of her quill. “What do you think of You-Know-Who?”

“Oh, he's mad,” he says dismissively.

She didn't expect him to immediately insult his boss, but she supposes he has to maintain cover too. A hopeful little part of her, though, thinks he might help them as soon as he escapes You-Know-Who.

“Is he?” she asks, trying to phrase this the way she would have last week. “He seems so… methodical. That may not be the right word. Just that You-Know-Who obviously knows all sorts of ways to get agents in the Ministry and Wizengamot, knows how to locate and kill every muggle-born and blood traitor in Britain. He wouldn't have caused so much damage if he were totally mad; he only hasn’t succeeded yet because of Dumbledore.”

When she chances a peek at him, thinking of how Dumbledore can keep them safe, he's frowning thoughtfully. She looks back down before their eyes can meet.

“Maybe he's not mad,” Professor Riddle allows. “Maybe he's simply incompetent.”

Lily laughs in surprise, glances as far up as his mouth to see that he's smiling too.

“No, I don't think so,” she says, then risks: “Maybe some of his followers.”

He laughs though, not insulted, and Lily smiles at her notebook in relief.

“You really think,” he starts then, and despite the pleasantness of his voice her blood turns cold. “That Dumbledore, old and alone in his office, can stand up to a powerful—and competent—dark wizard set on ruling Britain?”

“He's not alone!” Lily says reflexively, not daring to look at him.

“His little toy soldiers can line up against the Dark Lord's,” Professor Riddle dismisses, and Lily seethes in her seat. She's never felt this betrayed by his apathy before.

“No,” he continues, “I think he could quickly and easily take control of the Wizarding World if he so chose.”

“So why doesn't he?” Lily asks, almost snapping at him. If his recruitment speech to muggle-borns is that You-Know-Who doesn't actually want to kill them all because he already would have otherwise, then Dumbledore really doesn’t have anything to worry about.

He smiles enigmatically. “Why indeed?”

“Mass panic?” she suggests dully, staring straight ahead at his chest. “Undermining faith in the government? Higher casualties?”

“Not exactly conducive to ruling,” he observes mildly.

“Well, he is the Dark Lord,” says Lily. “...Are you saying his only goal is causing chaos and destruction?”

“Inciting a blood war is an easy way to do so,” shrugs Professor Riddle.

“That's awful,” says Lily. “All we are is a convenient target?”

He laughs. “You'd rather he actually hate us?”

“Death Eaters come for us either way.” She crosses her arms, glaring at his chin. Does he seriously think he can save himself by allying with them?

“You've got me there,” he smiles, not taking her at all seriously.

Which is good, she reminds herself, she'll be a more effective spy. But it hurts because he does take her seriously sometimes, or at least pretends to. He seems to respect her magical abilities a lot more than her political opinions.

Last year, when those girls attacked her, Lily hadn’t been worried at first. Her shield had held, and she handily disarmed and incapacitated one girl with a stinging hex before anyone noticed the fight.

And then she’d glanced towards the front of the room. Professor Riddle was watching her with an odd expression—not concerned for her, or angry that they were fighting, but almost egging her on. Like he wanted her to win. Like he expected her to.

That’s when the second girl got her in the back with a jinx. Lily took her down with her of course, but she’d been disappointed in herself. Still, as Professor Riddle escorted them to the hospital wing after a stern dismissal to the rest of the class, he'd winked at her and said, “Good work, Evans.”

Looking back, it seems almost portentous: she’ll get distracted by Professor Riddle and fail to notice the real threat coming at her, this time much worse than mean classmates. She doesn’t know if he'd cheer her on against Death Eaters, and that uncertainty hurts.

“Do you think there’s any hope at all for muggle-borns?” she asks him.

“Maybe someday,” he shrugs, and then smiles at her upset expression. “Not as long as the Ministry and Hogwarts carry on as they have, though they may not last much longer.”

“Are you saying You-Know-Who will make things better in the long run?” she says, appalled. “That we should let everything burn just in case something good rises from the ashes?”

“You’re the one campaigning for the Order of the Phoenix,” says Professor Riddle, pleased with himself.

Lily rolls her eyes. He won’t actually engage with her, he’ll just try to make her feel hopeless enough to abandon her principles.

“We’ll agree to disagree,” he says
considerately, and Lily almost laughs at his blatancy.

“Sure,” she says, tapping at her parchment with her quill. “So, how do we know we’re measuring the right qualities of magical output?”

He accepts the change of topic, eagerly launching into a lecture that’s part explanation and part guesswork, noting how some of his theories could be tested. Lily’s starting to think that she’s becoming a research assistant rather than a student. She imagines telling her parents this, like it will compensate for not attending a muggle university.

“Were you serious when you asked me to be your apprentice?” she asks when he pauses for breath. What sort of future has he been imagining for himself amidst the war?

“What?” he says, taken aback for a second, searching her face as she stares over his shoulder. “Of course I was.”

“Would Dumbledore even let you?” She thinks of how Dumbledore dislikes Professor Riddle, how, in spite of everything, she would still love to continue studying magic with him. She meets his eyes.

“You’re an adult,” he says, waving a hand. “It’s your choice. Dumbledore has nothing to do with it.”

“He’d have to let me back in the castle after I graduate,” she argues.

“Ah,” he starts. “Well. My time in this position may be limited anyway.” He knows that Dumbledore’s onto him, then.

“And you’d take me with you?” she asks. She imagines he’ll go into hiding once he outlives his usefulness to You-Know-Who; would he really take her abroad?

“If you’d like,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“Oh,” she says. She doesn’t know what to do with that. He could be lying, of course, but he seems more genuine about this than he has anything else. He honestly seems to like teaching her. “Thanks.”

He smiles wryly. “You don't need to make a decision now. You could even take a gap year or two to run around with the Order, provided you don’t get yourself killed.”

She frowns, somewhat insulted, but considers the offer. Professor Riddle isn't dedicating his life to You-Know-Who, he's surviving until he can leave the country. He seems to spend more of his time working out lesson plans than spying on Dumbledore or prying her for information. He even has a friendly relationship with her, the girl with close connections to the Order.

He should be easy to turn to their side, or at least away from You-Know-Who’s.

“If you ever need protection,” she starts.

He actually laughs. “I would not find it with the Order of the Phoenix,” he says. “I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself. But I appreciate the sentiment.”

Lily chews on the inside of her cheek and considers his unworried smile. She has nothing to offer other than her continued presence in his classroom. As enthusiastic as he is about it, she won't delude herself into thinking he'd betray You-Know-Who for the sake of her education. If nothing else, Professor Riddle will look out for himself.

He continues the lesson with the same infuriatingly confident expression, smiling at her whenever she can't help looking annoyed. He seems certain that she'll accept his offer and is very pleased about it.

A week ago, this would have made her ecstatic. Now, she wonders if she’ll ever be able to convince him to permanently join their side, to stay in Britain. He’s so fed up with the Wizarding World as a whole that he'd leave in an instant, and she would never go until the war is over. This apprenticeship was doomed from the start.

She keeps peeking at him, trying to make her thoughts vague and expected—Can they convince him to join us? Will this apprenticeship be possible? What does he actually want from her? Wound up from stress, she avoids his eyes more and more obviously as time progresses, flushing every time.

He seems almost bewildered by it beneath the smugness. At least she’s not the only confused one.

When the class time runs out, Lily clumsily packs her notes into her bag. She can feel her heartbeat in her red face.

“Evans,” Professor Riddle says, almost hesitantly. “Are you alright?”

“I'm fine!” Lily blurts, mortified. “Sorry, sir, I'm just distracted.”

A small, amused smile forms on his face. “I see,” he says. “Well, until next week, then.”

Simultaneously embarrassed and pleased that her cover is holding, Lily heads towards the door. She waves as she leaves, but he's already been distracted by his mountains of paperwork.

She wonders what he might say outside of Hogwarts’ walls and wards, if he might be more willing to talk politics when outside of Dumbledore's shadow. Even if he only seems to be interested in the Order and Death Eaters’ mutual destruction, he may give her information just to spice things up.

“Oh, professor?” she asks, stepping back to the doorway.

He looks up from his desk and smiles faintly. If he’s reading her mind, he’ll see only himself superimposed onto her memories of the walk to Hogsmeade.

“I was just wondering if you were coming to Hogsmeade tomorrow,” she says.

“I wasn’t planning on it,” he considers, leaning back in his chair. “But now that we have a shopping list I just might.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” Lily grins, nervous but excited.

He slowly smiles in response, like he’s actually looking forward to it. “I suppose you will.”

Flushed, she makes the trek to the headmaster’s office. When she enters, Dumbledore stands in anticipation.

“Ah, Miss Evans,” he says. “Good to have you. I trust your lesson went well.”

“Yes, sir,” she says, uncertain how many details to give since he'll watch the memory anyway. “He talked about his political opinions and future plans. I don't think he noticed you told me he works for You-Know-Who,” Lily adds, trying her best not to be prideful.

“Very good,” Dumbledore says absently, conjuring a vial. “If you wouldn't mind.”

Lily extracts her memory of today's lesson, from when she entered the room until she exited. She decides not to include their last exchange.

“Thank you, my dear,” says Dumbledore, already turning towards the cabinet that houses his Pensieve.

“Headmaster,” Lily starts instead of taking her cue to leave. “Isn't there some way we could offer him protection? Or even passage out of the country? I don't think he likes the Death Eaters any more than we do.”

Dumbledore looks very sad at that. “I’m quite certain of Tom’s allegiance,” he emphasizes. “And equally certain it is not forced. I’m afraid whatever he told you were falsehoods to inspire feelings of comradery. He has, for instance, no intention of taking you on as his apprentice. He’s trying to sever your existing relationships.”

Lily frowns. She knew Professor Riddle was trying to undermine her faith in Dumbledore; he wasn’t exactly hiding it. She can accept that he’s firmly on You-Know-Who’s side, if only for the sake of survival. But she still doesn’t think the apprenticeship was a lie.

Not wanting to disagree with Dumbledore, she nods slowly and decides to wait until he’s seen today’s lesson.

“Don’t worry,” he tells her kindly. “Keep your true friends in mind, and know that Tom will never be able to forge such a connection. Spend some time with your fellow students, learn more about their lives. Unity can take us through the hardest of times, and Tom offers only an approximation of it.”

Lily weakly returns his twinkling smile, thanks him, and takes her leave.

She knows Dumbledore’s convinced Professor Riddle doesn’t care about her, but she thinks it’s much more likely he wants something from her. And unity… the Order has unity, small as it is. But Lily isn’t sure there will ever be unity at Hogwarts, not as long as Slytherin exists as a breeding ground for blood purism.

Professor Riddle had talked about that, more or less, in the first class she’d ever had with him.

“Professor, what house were you?” one of the kids had asked, the classic question for first years.

“Slytherin, of course,” Professor Riddle had replied with a sly smile.

Lily had perked up at that. She knew Professor Riddle was the only muggle-born professor, Severus had mentioned it in his rant about the ideal Defense curriculum, and Lily had felt a certain connection to him. It had been serendipitous, she thought, that these two significant people were sorted into Slytherin.

“But you’re muggle-born,” another student had said derisively. “I thought Slytherin was only for purebloods.”

Lily had still been processing the extent to which Severus had omitted bigotry from his descriptions of Hogwarts. If she was in Slytherin like Severus wanted, would she be hassled even more than she already was? How had Professor Riddle handled it?

“Well, it’s all a bit of nonsense, isn’t it?” said the professor. “Really, I think the hat just goes by which common room you’d prefer.”

Most of the newly-sorted first years had not been impressed, some laughed politely. Lily had mentally compared Severus’s description of the eerie Slytherin common room with Gryffindor tower, and snorted.

Lily almost forgot how silly it all is to separate children by disposition in the first place. If Slytherin didn’t exist, Death Eaters would have fewer places to propagate their ideas. Severus would still be her friend and Professor Riddle wouldn’t have joined them to get ahead. If the children weren’t separated in such a way, they’d understand that blood doesn’t make a difference.

Looking at it like that, Lily wonders why Dumbledore keeps the houses around at all. Wizards, she thinks, are a little too tied to their traditions.

Chapter Text

Saturday dawns bright and cloudless. Lily rises before the other girls in her room, anticipatory and a little scared, but spends so long dithering over her outfit that they wake up to rib her for her presumed date at Madam Puddifoot’s. She’s wearing muggle clothes of course, to make a point, and she eventually settled on a simple blue dress. This outing is technically a date with James in addition to the spying, so she decided against jeans.

James and his friends are already at the Gryffindor table when Lily arrives in the Great Hall. He compliments her muggle clothes in the same way he always does, like it's a bit scandalous and sexy of her. Wizards aren’t used to bare legs. She’d considered wearing tights, but warming charms were more effective against the autumn wind anyway.

Professor Riddle isn’t at the High Table, and he wasn’t last night either. Normally this wouldn’t be strange, as he works odd hours and often takes meals in his office or quarters. However, she invited him to Hogsmeade for the express purpose of extracting information. What if he figured it out? Would he no longer talk to her? Worse? What if he tries to harm her while she’s outside of the castle?

What if You-Know-Who learned, and Professor Riddle’s already dead?

All through the walk to Hogsmeade, Lily is unable to focus, scanning up and down the road like Professor Riddle might appear from behind a cluster of students. James and his friends’ conversation, punctuated with laughter and playful shoving, goes in one ear and out the other.

There have been fewer and fewer open shops in Hogsmeade as the war has progressed, and the existing ones are more run-down. Seeing the boarded-up remains of the stationery shop she’d frequented only two years ago makes her even more determined to play her role in stopping You-Know-Who.

Eventually they reach the Three Broomsticks, overly warm and packed with students. They have to shove past some chattering third years to even get in the door.

“Miss Evans!” Lily hears over the hubbub, and she stiffens. Disbelieving, she turns her head to indeed see Professor Riddle at the bar, looking very handsome amidst the overexcited teenagers and drunk adults. The stool next to him is occupied only by his cloak. He tilts his head at it, eyebrows raised in invitation.

“What does he want?” grumbles James.

Lily glances over at his annoyed expression and his friends’ suspicious ones, then back at Professor Riddle, whose grin makes her blood run cold. He knows, she thinks with complete certainty, he's figured it out.

“There’s something from our last lesson I’d like to discuss with you,” he half-shouts over the commotion.

Hogsmeade doesn’t offer the same protections as Hogwarts, but even in the very worst-case scenario he wouldn’t kill her in a public place. He couldn’t. He’d have to lure her to a second location, or else grab ahold of her and apparate. She’ll just have to stay out of reach.

“Oh, come on,” James is complaining.

“Is he trying to shag her?” asks Sirius, dumbfounded.

“No!” Lily says, shocked out of her daze and turning to a horrified James. “No, he really does want to talk about our lessons, we're planning an experiment. I'll be right back.”

She didn’t tell them she might be meeting with Professor Riddle because she wasn't sure of it herself. As she’s unable to tell them about the mission, it would just look like she’s on a shopping trip with a professor they hate. She'd wanted to avoid that argument.

“We'll get a table,” James sighs.

At least Lily doesn’t need to tell them to keep an eye on her; James seems to have that covered. She smiles reassuringly at him, though he looks no less troubled, and turns away.

Weaving through the crowd towards Professor Riddle, she frowns as his smug grin grows wider. Killing her right now would be very stupid, and she doesn’t think he’d do so anyway. Does he just want to rub in that he’s so much more powerful than her, that he'll always have more information? Will he start flirting with her, as James fears, for the sake of manipulation?

She assumes not that one.

He removes his cloak from the stool so she can sit.

“How serendipitous that we should both be here,” he says, very pleased with himself.

“Quite a coincidence,” she agrees mildly, and waves at the bartender for a butterbeer.

As she receives her drink, she hears a modified silencing charm surround them, something like Severus's Muffliato. He must have cast it wandlessly; his hands are safely on the bar.

“For privacy,” he explains, noticing her scrutiny. “I’ll teach it to you later. Our words and lip movements will be garbled to outside observers.”

He smiles condescendingly and tilts his head to the side. Following his gaze reveals James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter at a nearby table, openly staring. James looks furious; she shoots him a tight smile.

“I see,” Lily tells Professor Riddle, voice level.

“Now, Evans,” he says, horribly amused. “What have you done to get Dumbledore so riled up? He accosted me last night to ask what I wanted with you, and wouldn't believe that I’ve been truthful all along—I want you to be my apprentice.”

Lily is stunned; she didn’t think Dumbledore would confront Professor Riddle directly. She thought he'd give her more time to investigate.

He smiles slyly. “I thought he might be accusing me of sexual impropriety, but he seemed shocked I’d even bring that up.”

Lily chokes on her butterbeer, also shocked he brought that up.

“But then he said he'll be checking your memories and will figure it out sooner or later,” he finishes, spreading his hands. With a knowing smile, he asks, “Were you aware he was doing that?”

Lily carefully avoids eye contact.

“Evans, I don't read your mind every time you look at me,” he says, amused.

“I can't trust that,” she says.

“I guess not,” he agrees. “You did fool me. I wonder how long you'd have gotten away with it if Dumbledore didn't blow your cover.”

She frowns; she really would have preferred Dumbledore not do that, but he surely has his reasons.

“To think, you were spying on me the whole time!” he says with delight. “I’d wondered why you were suddenly in love with me.”

Lily flushes, clenching her hands around her butterbeer. She probably should've expected that he just wanted to make fun of her.

“It proved an effective strategy,” she manages.

“That it did,” he agrees, almost fond. “Perhaps not so effective with your boyfriend, though.”

She glances over to James's table, where Sirius and Remus seem to be locked in heated debate. James is seething beneath the arm Sirius has thrown around his shoulder, staring at her, and Lily's comforting smile does nothing to placate him.

When she turns back to Professor Riddle, he's watching as one would a soap opera. He only needs popcorn.

“Are you just here to make fun of me?” she asks.

He laughs. “I thought I was here to take you shopping.”

“That's still happening?” she asks. “You still want to give me lessons?”

“If you want to take them,” he says. “Dumbledore won’t get anything from our conversations. I already knew you were in the Order, just not that you were tipped off to me. This really doesn’t change much,” he waves a hand. “In fact, it may help stave off your recruitment speeches,” he adds wryly.

“If you don't try to recruit me either,” she frowns.

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it,” he says, with enough flint beneath his flippancy that she believes him. “The last thing I want is you serving the Dark Lord.” He grins, showing teeth. “I want you doing research with me.”

Professor Riddle is a very self-serving person, she thinks. He puts intellectual curiosity above politics, and personal safety above both. He doesn’t seem to care about or even get along with many people. Yet he wants her indefinitely in his life, on the basis of her magical skill and intelligence.

He could be lying, of course. He could be using her to upset Dumbledore, which seems to work. She doesn’t think so, though. She doesn’t think he'd put this much work into tutoring her if he didn't want to.

She won't go with him when he inevitably flees the country, but she’ll learn from him until then. Dumbledore may have to keep more information from her, but she didn't know much in the first place.

“Alright,” she agrees slowly. “Throw in no mindreading and we have a deal.”

“I said I didn't do that very often,” he smiles. “But yes, of course. I wouldn’t want to betray the trust of my new apprentice.”

She flushes a little, pleased to have secured an apprenticeship with her favorite professor despite every extenuating circumstance. She doesn’t trust him to follow through on that promise, but she doesn't really trust him with anything besides her general safety and curriculum. If nothing else, she'll learn a lot.

“Good,” she says.

He extends his hand with a winning grin, and she takes it. The handshake is firm and professional. His hand is warm and sturdy. She meets his eyes. He makes no indication if he’s disappointed she doesn’t fully trust him.

“Will You-Know-Who punish you if he knows about all this?” she asks as he lets go of her. She doesn’t want to put him in danger.

He laughs. “I’ll be fine,” he assures her. “He doesn’t care about Dumbledore’s games, and he wouldn’t care about hurting you either. But I’m flattered you asked.”

She smiles, embarrassed but relieved.

“Shall we head to Dervish and Banges?” he asks. “Or do you need to finish your drink?”

Lily looks down at her half-full mug, then at James's table, where all four boys look very concerned.

“I need to talk to James,” she says.

“Oh, yes,” he says dismissively. “Call off your attack dog.”

Lily shoots him an unimpressed look, which he grins at.

“I'll wait,” he says, putting a casual elbow on the bar.

James stands to meet her as she walks towards them. “Lily,” he says, taking her hands. “Are you alright?”

“Of course I am,” she tells him, and then grins. “I'm now officially Professor Riddle's apprentice.”

James gives her a dark look.

“Congratulations,” Remus says weakly.

“We have to tell her,” says Sirius.

“Tell me what?” asks Lily.

The boys exchange glances in various shades of paranoia.

James squeezes her hands and leans closer to her. “We think Riddle is working for You-Know-Who,” he hisses. “He's trying to get to Dumbledore through you.”

“Oh,” says Lily. Had Dumbledore told them too, so they could provide her backup? But then why would they need to warn her? “Why do you think that?”

“He leaves Hogwarts at odd times, even late at night,” says James, glancing suspiciously at Professor Riddle. “Not out the front gate but through secret passages. He goes to all sorts of parts of the castle he shouldn't, and he follows Dumbledore around.”

Sirius nods. “And he just disappears sometimes,” he says, gesturing. “Vanishes. Out of nowhere.”

“It's suspicious,” Peter emphasizes.

“He may not be a spy, but he's definitely doing something he shouldn't,” says Remus.

“How on Earth do you know all that?” asks Lily, more surprised by that than the information itself.

The boys exchange looks again, seeming to communicate by eyebrow.

She glances back at Professor Riddle, who's leaning on the bar, watching them. He looks incredibly amused, and Lily just knows he’s heard every word of their conversation. She narrows her eyes at him, and he grins at her brightly.

“We made a map of Hogwarts,” James eventually admits. “It shows where everyone in it is.”

Lily is momentarily distracted from wondering whether Dumbledore would want her to confirm their suspicions.

“That's incredible,” she says, genuinely impressed. “Can I see it?”

“Later,” says Sirius, annoyed. “Our professor is a Death Eater! And he’s trying to shag you.”

“He isn't!” Lily and James shout at the same time.

“He isn't, right?” James worriedly asks her.

“He just wants to teach me,” Lily confirms, unimpressed. “And I’m perfectly safe. Even if he did work for You-Know-Who, it's not like I know any confidential information. And Dumbledore wouldn't let him hurt me.”

“Are you serious?” James asks. “We tell you he's a Death Eater and it's all fine because he might not kill you?”

“He's not a Death Eater,” Lily rolls her eyes. “I've seen his arm.”

“You've seen his arm?” James squawks, scandalized. Sirius nods knowingly, as if this proves that Professor Riddle is trying to seduce her, and not that sometimes people roll up their sleeves to work with their hands.

Lily throws up her hands. “Look, I'm not in any danger from him. I've agreed to be his apprentice because I think he's brilliant. I'm not trusting him with more than that.”

“That’s still trusting him with a lot,” Peter says unhelpfully. Sirius crosses his arms.

“Lily, we just want you to be safe,” Remus says.

“Right,” agrees James. “None of us know what he's going to do.”

“He's going to survive until he can leave the country,” she sighs. “And he'll teach me until then.”

“That's just what he told you,” dismisses Sirius.

“This is going nowhere,” says Lily. “Professor Riddle and I need to pick up some things for our next lesson. You can follow us to provide backup if you’re so worried.”

James looks deeply unhappy with this plan. She doesn’t give him time to disagree.

“It won't be too long,” she promises him, kissing the corner of his frown.

She walks back to where Professor Riddle is grinning on his barstool, and his privacy charm once more surrounds them.

“You think I'm brilliant?” he asks, smug.

Lily blushes. “You knew that.”

“But it's nice to hear,” he says, completely guileless, and jumps to his feet.

She gives him an unimpressed look, and he laughs.

“I think you're brilliant too, of course,” he says, not mocking at all, and she can't help smiling. It is nice to hear.

“Shall we?” he asks, gesturing towards the door.

“We shall,” she agrees, and they set off.

Back on the street, she gets him to show her his privacy charm.

“This is skipping forward a bit in my lesson plan,” he admits. “I haven’t derived an incantation and wand movement for this one because they’re just not necessary. You can channel magical intent in many ways, and if you know how it works you don’t need a wand or runes or rituals at all.”

Lily listens eagerly. This is basic magical theory, but most people stop at which tools are best for channeling, not how to do so without them. Even most wandless magic uses the same incantations and movements, just without the wand.

“Really, all I’m doing is modifying the air around us so sound and light travel differently through it. It’s the same as a disillusionment or silencing charm, just more focused. Why don’t you try those, get a feel for it?”

“Alright,” says Lily, and wandlessly casts both charms on herself. She’s familiar with them, so it isn’t very hard. She focuses on the feeling of summoning that magical power, how she shapes and manipulates it with her intent like smoothing clay into place rather than chipping away at stone. The hammer and chisel are unnecessary, just as Professor Riddle said.

“Brilliant,” he reaffirms, gaze fixed a little too far to her left. She feels very pleased with herself.

“I felt it,” she says after undoing the spells with a wave. “I just had to push the magic into the right shape.”

“Exactly,” he agrees, excited. “You’re a natural. Now, to muddy the speech you just need to bounce it around a little. The lip movements are trickier and not strictly necessary, but nice if a lipreader's following you.”

He tilts his head to where James and his friends are watching them through the window of the Three Broomsticks. Lily waves at them, and they duck.

Amused, Professor Riddle continues, “You just have to filter out the light reflecting off our mouths, and replace it with light depicting random movements. A bit like disillusionment, though that just bends the light. And there’s no need for a full illusion here. Give it a try.”

Lily does, trying to modify the tenor of the concealments she’s used to. She has to move her hand around to get the right configuration, but the charm eventually snaps into place.

“Can you hear me?” she asks.

“Excellent work, Evans,” he grins at her. “Perfectly garbled. Your mouth looks very weird, but I certainly can't read your lips.”

She drops the charm and grins back at him. “This feels really intuitive, actually. It’s a bit like my magic before Hogwarts.”

His eyes glint, and he leans towards her. “I perfected a lot of techniques before Hogwarts, you really just need to work at it. In fact, professors will often teach the most inconvenient way to perform magic. In some ways, people are much more talented before forming those bad habits.”

“I spent a lot of time working on my magic as a kid, reviving plants and such,” says Lily. She doesn’t really like to think about it, things being as they are with Severus and Petunia now. “I was worried I wouldn’t get into Hogwarts, Severus had told me about it.”

“I’m glad you did,” he says. “You have a strong basis for wandless magic; you can actually feel what you’re doing. For most things you shouldn't need more than the twitch of a finger.”

“Professor, why don’t they teach this at Hogwarts?” Lily can’t help asking. “I see why Dumbledore doesn’t let you specifically teach it, but someone should.”

He scoffs. “Nobody’s interested. Why refine so-called accidental magic when wands make it so easy? Anybody studying magic is at the Department of Mysteries, and all they do is complicate things. They aren’t investigating the nature of magic or how to channel it directly. And it’s the same everywhere else I've been, or at least it was a decade ago. Wizards are a complacent lot.”

“There’s no universities,” Lily realizes, a common complaint from a new angle. “We only have apprenticeships or training programs. There aren’t any schools for higher education, so there’s no professors doing research either, no funded labs.”

She looks up at Professor Riddle. Knowing Dumbledore will see this later, she says, “Dumbledore should let you do research. Dumbledore should be doing research.”

“Oh I’m sure it’s very time consuming to be Headmaster and Chief Warlock and whatever else,” he says, like he’s sure it isn’t time consuming at all. Then he grins at her, “And I will be doing research with you.”

Lily beams at him, excited again. He really does agree with her on this. He really does want to research magic with her.

“Do you want to try casting around both of us?” he prompts. “You’ll need to widen the radius and let the magic figure out how many mouths to filter.”

“Yes, alright,” Lily agrees, and he drops his own charm.

It's harder to cast over multiple people, the magic faltering in her grasp; she fears the way she's concentrating and waving her hands looks incredibly stupid. But when she opens her eyes, Professor Riddle is smiling proudly at her.

“Perfectly functional,” he congratulates her. “You'll get the aesthetics in no time.”

She grins.

As she drops the charm to try again, a boy runs up to them. She vaguely recognizes him as a sixth year Ravenclaw.

“Professor?” the boy asks, shifting from foot to foot. “Are you teaching an extra spell today? I really am worried about the war and if you're giving extra lessons to students I'd love to be involved…”

“No,” says Professor Riddle.

The boy hesitates. “Er—”

“Miss Evans is my apprentice,” explains Professor Riddle, very annoyed. “You are not. This is an advanced technique you aren't ready for. If you must, talk to me when I'm in my office.”

He turns pointedly back to Lily, who tries not to laugh as the boy scampers off.

“You didn't have to be quite so mean,” she says, unable to hide that she’s pleased by his preference for her.

“I told him he could talk to me later,” he protests. “I was incredibly nice.”

She laughs at him. “Let's go figure out what instrument we want.”

They set off down the street. Lily, excited for their experimentation, thinks back to his rant about the inadequacies of current magical research.

“Professor, how do you know so much about the Department of Mysteries?” she asks.

“Well, they're public with things like time turners,” he says, rolling his eyes at the tackiness of time travel. “And I've heard gossip.”

Lily takes that to mean You-Know-Who has a mole there, and suppresses a shudder. Professor Riddle smiles blithely and holds open the front door of Dervish and Banges for her.

Their actual shopping is uneventful, though somewhat fun. They bicker over which instruments will be the most useful for tracking the type of magical signatures that interest them. Professor Riddle pays, promising it's out of his limited budget for class. It's as they leave Dervish and Banges, still mid-conversation, that something happens.

A group of men, barely past boyhood, are rowdily walking past, laughing and shoving at each other. They seem quite drunk. Catching sight of Lily and Professor Riddle, they nudge each other some more.

“Hey, Professor Riddle,” one calls mockingly as the others snigger.

They look familiar, from that crowd of older Slytherin boys who graduated a few years ago, Lily thinks. Next to her, the professor sighs in annoyance.

“Going after mudblood schoolgirls now?” the ringleader continues.

“Ones his age won't put up with him,” one of them suggests.

“I always thought he was a poof,” another says. They laugh again.

“Fucking idiots,” Professor Riddle hisses.

Under any other circumstances, Lily would be shocked and delighted to hear him swearing, but she's still having trouble believing this is happening. Compared to torture and death, the harassment is nearly quaint, but it's still horrible.

“Hey, sweetheart, nice legs,” one of them tells her, and she stiffens. At her side, Professor Riddle tenses as well.

“If you like older men, we’re a lot richer than Riddle,” the ringleader smirks.

“Fuck off,” she advises them. It’s nothing she hasn’t heard before, but her heart is still beating in her throat.

They laugh. “Feisty.”

“Would you fuck a mudblood?” one asks the others.

“Maybe if—” another starts, but is quickly interrupted.

“Stop,” says Professor Riddle, and something in his tone makes Lily shiver.

The men freeze in place, some open-mouthed, staring blankly.

“Leave,” Professor Riddle tells them, in that same terrifying voice. “Go home and rot there.”

And, one by one, they clumsily turn and apparate away.

“What did you do to them?” whispers Lily, unable to manage louder.

“They were Death Eaters,” he says darkly, under his breath.

“What?” breathes Lily, shocked. They weren’t exactly threatening, though they did fit the demographic. She's suddenly less concerned with whatever hypnosis he did to them.

“Low-level grunts,” he says. “Idiots and thugs.”

He probably would’ve kept insulting them, but James suddenly appears, wand drawn and friends right behind.

“What did you do to them, Riddle?” James accuses.

“I asked them to leave,” Professor Riddle says between his teeth. “They were harassing Miss Evans, and I certainly didn't see you four do anything about that.”

“Lily can handle herself,” says James, which she appreciates.

“They were just being dicks,” reasons Sirius, which she appreciates less. “But you were doing dark magic.”

“I would think the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor knows more about that than you,” Professor Riddle says wryly.

“He just made them go home,” Lily explains, trying to de-escalate.

“You commanded them somehow,” says Remus, wary. “Wandlessly and strongly.”

The other boys nod in agreement. The underlying accusation of an Unforgivable is deafening. It probably was the actual Imperius Curse, wasn't it? If they were Death Eaters it was just a taste of their own medicine, but if Professor Riddle was lying to excuse himself…

“And I could do so to you,” snaps Professor Riddle. “Now all of you leave, before I give you detention.”

They seem to remember they've accosted their incredibly powerful professor in the middle of the street, and lower their wands. James sends Lily an imploring look.

“I'm fine, James,” she assures him. “I still need to talk to Professor Riddle, though. I'll see you in the common room?”

James doesn’t seem to find this reasonable.

“We had plans,” he says, eyes darting between her and Professor Riddle in a very clear urge to get her away from him.

“Can we raincheck?” she says desperately. “I've had a stressful day. I really just want to lie down.”

James wavers.

“Please leave,” Professor Riddle smiles politely at him, which doesn't help.

Lily shoots him a glare and turns back to James. “I promise I'll be fine,” she says. “Please don't turn this into a fight.”

James and Sirius look like they'd love if this turned into a fight, but Remus and Peter start uncomfortably tugging at their friends’ arms. Lily tries to smile encouragingly at them. Finally, after a long, studying look at the professor, they sulk away.

Lily’s relieved when the privacy charm surrounds her and Professor Riddle again. She adds a notice-me-not charm for good measure; she doesn’t want any more confrontations.

“You need to talk to me?” he grins, former annoyance easily wiped away. “Going to scold me for my nefarious usage of dark magic?"

“Aurors are authorized to use Unforgivables against Death Eaters,” she reasons, realizing as she says it that she really isn't upset. “You're better than most Aurors and this was self defense. I'd be a hypocrite to scold you.”

He smiles at her like she’s made some genius deduction. “If only your friends thought like that.”

“They're… enthusiastic,” she settles on. “Please don't make them targets.”

“They're not exactly Dumbledore’s best agents,” he observes mildly. “I don't care what they do.”

“They're not official members,” she defends, but she's relieved. “And if those were Death Eaters, they're not very impressive either.”

“Oh, who takes Death Eaters seriously?” he waves off, ignoring their hundreds of victims. “And those boys will be involved soon enough. How brutal of Dumbledore to draft schoolchildren into war.” He nods sadly.

“As if you're not recruiting while you're here,” she scoffs.

He puts a hand on his chest in exaggerated shock and offense. “I would never! You know you're the only student I talk to.”

She makes a face at that, but he blithely continues. “Besides, everyone's recruited at pureblood family events anyway. Or the Slytherin common room,” he allows, “But as you've seen, I'm merely the muggle-born professor.”

“I'm sorry,” she says automatically. And she is sorry he faces harassment, but he's also definitely doing something at Hogwarts.

“No need to be,” he says. “As you've also seen, I'm perfectly capable of defending myself.”

“Would you get in trouble for that?” she asks, suddenly worried. “With You-Know-Who, I mean.”

“Oh, he loves when the recruits fight among themselves. I'm more worried about Dumbledore,” he says, like he’s not worried at all about Dumbledore.

“Professor,” Lily starts, not sure how to ask this. “How are you so sure about what You-Know-Who thinks? He’s almost as horrible to his allies than enemies, right? Won't you be punished?”

“Just as horrible, I'd say,” he smiles. “Maybe more so. And I won't be punished, but again, I'm flattered you care.”

Lily frowns. “But how do you know?”

“I'm sure you'll work it out,” he says airily. “Shall we head back to the castle?”

“Yes, let's,” she says, tacitly agreeing to drop it for now. She's exhausted.

They head back down the road. Somewhere behind them, she knows, James and his friends are following.

Lily thinks as they walk side-by-side back to Hogwarts. It's a comfortable silence, or it should be, but Lily’s mind is churning with inescapable dread. Something isn't adding up.

She thinks back through their conversations, his opinions. She thinks of Professor Riddle's personal disdain for the Death Eaters, his insight into You-Know-Who, his clearly-stated desire for destruction, his immense skill. She thinks of little Tom Riddle, alone in Slytherin, of his preemptive strike against a sea of purebloods. She thinks of Dumbledore's insistence that he’s fundamentally power-hungry and unloving. She thinks of how he wants her to figure out why he’s not scared of You-Know-Who. She thinks of him wanting Wizarding Britain destroyed, and not even caring to build something in its place.

Professor Riddle is You-Know-Who.

You-Know-Who is a muggle-born who's trying to destroy Wizarding Britain out of revenge. He’s starting a civil war to do so. Dumbledore knows this. Dumbledore has been letting him teach here, to keep an eye on him. Dumbledore has been letting her joke around with You-Know-Who.

More, knowing his motive might make it easier to talk him down, subdue him. Lily needs to talk to Dumbledore to plan how she can use her position as his apprentice. She'll have to learn how to shield her mind, and she'll be in horrible danger, and who knows what he'd do if he found her to be more of a threat, but she has the real chance to make a difference…

She thinks she's hyperventilating. She trips over an irregularity in the dirt road, and Professor Riddle, You-Know-Who, steadies her with a hand on the arm. He's touching her arm. She stares at his pale fingers for a second, uncomprehending, before jumping away from him.

“Sorry!” she says, red-faced, staring at the ground.

“Not your fault,” he says, amused. “Blame the road.”

She chews on her cheek, carefully watching her feet.

“Evans?”

“I'm fine,” she says. She can't tip him off. She can't look at him.

“Something you're not telling me, or have you decided you're in love with me after all?” he jokes, but there’s a strange edge to his voice.

“I don't have to tell you all my secrets,” she says evenly. “Just like you're entitled to yours.”

“Yes,” he agrees. “That's why I'm not reading your mind.”

She realizes he's hurt, which dumbfounds her. Did he actually think she'd believe his promise to stay out of her head? Even before she knew who he was?

Then he says, “I could teach you occlumency if you're so worried.”

“Right,” she says, trying not to flinch. She doesn’t want him to have anything to do with her brain, but he’s watching her expectantly. She thinks of her former excitement for this apprenticeship, relives it in her mind, and then smiles at him, meeting his eyes. “Thanks.”

Chapter Text

Dumbledore is not in his office when Lily reaches it. The gargoyle won’t let her in. She waits next to it for a while, but in her agitation eventually wanders off to find McGonagall, who informs her that Dumbledore may be away all weekend.

“I really need to speak to him, professor,” says Lily. “Can you please let me know when he’ll be back?”

McGonagall’s stern face softens a little at her desperation. “I will,” she agrees. “Now why don’t you get down to the Great Hall, it’s almost dinner.”

Lily realizes she skipped lunch and, a little dazed, thanks her and obeys. James and his friends return as she listlessly shovels beef and potatoes in her mouth, and then she has to talk them down from launching an all-out attack against a professor during mealtime.

McGonagall finds her in the Gryffindor common room Sunday evening, monopolizing the comfiest chair to rush through the homework for her normal classes. It all seems dull, self-explanatory, and almost completely useless. If only more people cared about lesson planning than You-Know-Who, she's found herself lamenting.

She still hopes she's wrong, but it all makes such awful sense. He's making Dumbledore look ineffective and blood purists look like idiots until they all kill each other and wipe out Wizarding Britain. It's very him.

The past day was rough. It’s terrifying to realize that she has a personal relationship with a mass murderer, that she likes the man causing all of this death and suffering. She's been in denial that he could really be so bad, and this realization was her rude awakening. It makes her a little sick to think about him, though she can’t stop. The cold cruelty that sometimes flashes in his eyes is sharper than she could have imagined.

But he also likes her enough to train her and talk to her. She needs to leverage this, and her mind has been running in circles over just how to do so.

She thanks Professor McGonagall more than strictly necessary when she learns Dumbledore can see her now. Instead of letting Lily head off as soon as they're through Gryffindor's entrance, McGonagall walks with her towards the headmaster’s office.

“Are you alright, Miss Evans?” she asks eventually.

Lily forces a smile. “I'm fine, professor.”

McGonagall considers her for a second. “You know,” she says, uncharacteristically hesitant, “I sometimes disagree with the responsibilities Albus finds fit to assign students.”

This surprises Lily; she doesn’t know a lot about inter-Order politics, but she didn't expect McGonagall to question Dumbledore behind his back. How much does she know?

“If you find yourself overwhelmed, please remember there are plenty of adults who would be happy to ease the burden.”

“Thank you, professor,” Lily says, not ingenuine. You-Know-Who hasn't offered to mentor anyone else; she's the only one who can do this. “I appreciate it.”

McGonagall nods slowly. “I'm glad you're thinking about your postwar future,” she says in a lighter tone. “I’m sure you’ll learn a lot with Tom.”

Lily has to keep herself from laughing. McGonagall has no idea. He could decide on a whim to blow up Hogwarts and only Dumbledore and Lily would have any chance of knowing what happened.

“Yes, professor,” says Lily. “I'm excited about it.”

McGonagall smiles encouragingly at her. Then, having reached the gargoyle, she tells it, “Chocolate frog.”

Dumbledore studies Lily carefully when she enters his office. For a second, she thinks he might read her mind, see her realization and deny it, but he just gestures warmly to the seat before him.

“Good evening, Miss Evans,” he greets her as she sits. “I heard you had quite the adventure in Hogsmeade yesterday.”

Lily wonders if James told him, or if some unknown Order operative was watching them. Either way, Dumbledore met with somebody else about it before her.

“Yes sir,” she says. “Some men—Death Eaters, he said—were harassing us on the street. He used some type of command to make them leave.” She assumes he cares less about their shopping and magic lessons. She also assumes it would be redundant to say her cover's blown.

Dumbledore leans forward with a sharp look. “Tom specifically said they were Death Eaters?”

“Yes sir,” says Lily. “I know he could’ve been lying to seem more sympathetic, but they were the type. Calling us mudblood and such.”

“He’s getting us to waste resources on empty threats,” explains Dumbledore. “This lead will either take us in the wrong direction or towards a trap.”

“It didn’t seem planned,” says Lily. “He was really angry.”

“I’d like to examine the memory myself, if you don’t mind,” Dumbledore says, obviously not believing her. Well, he could set a trap after the fact.

“Of course, sir,” agrees Lily.

She extracts her memory of the day, both the conversation at the Three Broomsticks and their short-lived shopping trip. She doesn’t include the bit where James and Sirius accused him of seducing her, it’s too embarrassing, horrifying.

Dumbledore takes the memory from her and swirls it contemplatively in its vial. “I am afraid,” he starts, “That your closeness with Tom is preventing you from comprehending the very real danger he presents.”

Lily snorts in disbelief. “I take him very seriously, sir, he's—”

“Tom wants something from you,” Dumbledore interrupts her. “He is trying to convince you that he's some sort of revolutionary. That neither side of this war is worth supporting, but following his lead will bring you safety and power.”

“I assumed that was his normal pitch for muggle-borns,” Lily says.

“It isn’t,” says Dumbledore. “He has identified you as in some way helpful to his cause, and he is trying to forge and wield you like a sword.”

“He doesn’t seem to care about my involvement in the war,” Lily argues. “He’s preparing me for afterwards.”

Dumbledore looks unnerved, which is itself unnerving.

“I mean, sir,” Lily backtracks. “He just wants to destroy Wizarding Britain, right? After that, I think he wants us to travel around the world studying magic.”

“You know that Tom Marvolo Riddle is Lord Voldemort,” says Dumbledore, and his easy confirmation makes Lily’s heart sink. “But you think he wants to spend his time gallivanting around with you rather than gathering power to feed his ego?”

Lily frowns, chewing on the inside of her cheek. She suddenly feels very silly.

“Knowledge is power?” she tries.

Dumbledore seems unimpressed. “I think, my dear,” he says, “That your view of the war has significantly narrowed in these past weeks. The promise of that power—that knowledge—can be alluring, and those who make such promises even more so. It can be easy to allow yourself to be seduced.”

Lily is dumbfounded. “Headmaster, I was just pretending to be in love with him,” she explains, trying not to sound frantic. “It was the easiest explanation for why I was avoiding eye contact. I haven’t been seduced by—by his power!”

He looks deeply sad for her. “You may find it helpful to speak with your friends about your situation, to remind yourself of what truly matters.”

“You mean James?” she asks. She doesn’t think Dumbledore would mean anyone else. “I don’t think I should tell James that he’s You-Know-Who.” James would charge up to him and get killed.

“Oh, no,” agrees Dumbledore. “But it’s no longer necessary to keep confidential the facts that Tom is working against us and that you are watching him. The boys could provide important support.”

Lily isn’t sure if he means in a fight or emotionally. “Thank you, sir,” she says.

He smiles. “Though I’d appreciate it if you tried to dissuade them from causing a commotion in class.”

“Yes, sir,” says Lily, already dreading it. Then she finally asks: “But why is he allowed to teach here in the first place? If he is You-Know-Who?”

“He is most certainly Lord Voldemort now,” says Dumbledore. “Though at the time he was merely a burgeoning dark wizard with a chip on his shoulder. I thought he might settle down with permanent employment under my observation. As you can see, I was overly optimistic.” He smiles wryly at her, like being unable to prevent the war is only a matter of dramatic irony.

“As Voldemort increased his activities, anonymous besides his Slytherin heritage, I knew it was Tom,” Dumbledore continues. “I had, however, no proof. He adapted very quickly to ruling his Death Eaters from the shadows.”

Lily thinks that he just doesn't care very much about the Death Eaters, and is fine leaving them to their own devices as long as they're terrorizing people.

“Why let him stay?” she asks. “Why not stop him, like you stopped Grindelwald?”

Dumbledore’s face tightens, eyes losing their twinkle. “Permanently ending a life, Miss Evans, is no small decision. Grindelwald could be imprisoned, but Tom is not so easily restrained.”

And Grindelwald spent years raising hell before Dumbledore did anything, didn’t he? Permanently ending hundreds of lives.

“And I thought it best not to dismiss him; it would only grant him free time to conduct his machinations. As it is, he doesn’t have an easy time sneaking around my wards and protections,” Dumbledore smiles encouragingly again, moroseness mostly wiped away. “I admit, we seem to have made a game of one-upping one another.”

Is this entire war just a pissing contest?

“Professor,” Lily says, “How can we stop him, then? Can I help somehow, can we leverage my apprenticeship against him? Should I try to poison him or… or talk him out of it?”

Dumbledore folds his hands on his desk and studies her for a long moment.

“I think it might be useful,” he says, “For you to know more of Tom’s past so you may better understand his goals. More than anything else, he fears death, and he seeks to transcend it both literally and figuratively—to be both the world’s greatest sorcerer and forever undying. He will sacrifice anything, or anyone—” he looks at her sharply “—to achieve this aim. Even if he truly wants you as his apprentice, he will use you for those ends. This mission remains one of reconnaissance; do not endanger yourself further.”

“I see,” says Lily. “Professor, should I learn occlumency then? For protection?”

“That shouldn't be necessary,” he says. “Nothing you know would endanger the Order.”

“Alright,” she says, preventing herself from frowning.

“Have you wondered why Lord Voldemort values only pure blood when Tom Riddle himself does not have it?”

“It’s the Wizarding World’s largest social issue, sir” Lily says. She’s thought about this a lot over the past day. “It didn’t take much work to get everyone killing each other over it. The status of magical creatures is probably the second biggest issue, and he’s recruiting them all too.”

“My dear,” Dumbledore scolds. “Tom has no intention of wiping out the Wizarding World. Who would acknowledge him if he did? No, he seeks to be recognized as a wizard of great power and importance. Who better than the descendant of Salazar Slytherin himself to save the Wizarding World from the dilution of magical blood?”

“What?” asks Lily. He’d said that before, but it didn’t process. It still isn’t processing.

“When I first met Tom, I learned he was a Parselmouth,” Dumbledore explains. “A hereditary trait found only in descendants of Slytherin. Voldemort, of course, makes great use of this fact with his followers, but Professor Riddle tends to hide it.”

“He’s not a muggle-born?” Lily asks, stunned. For some reason, this feels like almost as much of a betrayal as learning he’s You-Know-Who.

“Yes, though he wasn’t aware until later in his education,” says Dumbledore, meaning he never told him. “When he learned of his heritage, he fully disavowed his muggle family.

“He then sought out and opened the Chamber of Secrets,” Dumbledore continues mildly. “So that he could cleanse the school of muggle-borns and claim the glory of being Heir of Slytherin.”

“The Chamber of Secrets is real?” Lily asks. She always thought it was a metaphor for how the oppression of muggle-borns was foundational to the school. Though she should stop being surprised by anything Dumbledore tells her.

“Yes,” says Dumbledore. “And though he made multiple attempts to control the monster sealed within it, he thankfully only caused the death of a single student. He finally stopped when he realized the school might be shut down.”

Lily is frozen in her seat. She knew he was You-Know-Who, she knew he killed people. Learning he targeted fellow muggle-born students at Hogwarts is almost too much. It hits closer to home than his endless anonymous acts of terror.

“How did he get away with it?” she asks dully.

“Charm and trickery,” says Dumbledore. “He framed another student.”

Of course.

“In fact,” Dumbledore continues, “I was in attendance when he was presented an award for apprehending said student.”

“How awful,” says Lily. She’s sure You-Know-Who found it hilarious.

“Indeed,” agrees Dumbledore. “In viewing this memory, I think you’ll gain some appreciation for the extent to which Tom resents muggles and will twist the truth to his own ends.”

“Oh,” says Lily.

She didn’t think he hated muggles, not really. He doesn’t care about them, will let them die for his goals, but she didn’t think he truly loathes them. Not like he loathes wizards. Maybe he did fool her, maybe he’s been a blood purist the whole time, laughing at the stupid mudblood girl.

Dumbledore waves his arm, and the Pensieve appears between them on his desk, already filled with a swirling mass of recollections.

“After you,” he says, and Lily awkwardly lowers her face to the cloudy surface.

She finds herself in the same office, though empty of the whirring gadgets that currently occupy its space. An old, balding wizard stands behind the desk, as if pulled down from his portrait that hangs in the present version of the room. Beside him is a shockingly young Dumbledore whose orange hair clashes horribly with his periwinkle robes.

“I was deputy headmaster at the time,” the Dumbledore of the present explains. “Next to me is Headmaster Dippet.”

“I don't see what you have against the boy, Albus,” Headmaster Dippet is saying. “You know, he told me he's actually a half-blood. It makes sense, given his talent.”

Lily frowns.

The young Dumbledore also frowns. “Headmaster, don’t you find that odd? He must have recently learned of his heritage.”

“He isn't the Heir of Slytherin, I’m sick of hearing it,” Dippet says. “The attacks have stopped, Albus, what more do you need?”

Young Dumbledore, evidently needing a lot more, opens his mouth to argue but is interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Enter,” Dippet calls.

Next to her, present-day Dumbledore turns expectantly. “Here he is.”

Teenage Tom Riddle steps into the room. He’s younger than Lily is, with an intensity in his expression that he’s since learned to hide. He looks very much the same, but hasn’t fully grown into his handsome features. A prefect’s badge shines on his chest, and for a moment Lily imagines patrolling hallways with him. 16-year-old You-Know-Who may have actually been less annoying than 16-year-old James Potter. More deadly, though.

“Riddle, my boy, thank you for coming,” Dippet says.

The young Tom Riddle smiles charmingly. “Of course, professor. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“You’ve done a great deal already,” Dippet praises, “You have prevented the dissolution of this school itself.”

“I’m just glad I could find the culprit before anyone else got hurt,” young Tom Riddle says, eyes wide and sincere. Lily almost laughs at how shameless he is. It's awful.

“Yes, yes, and he will be punished accordingly,” Dippet waves off.

The young Dumbledore’s mouth twitches, and teenage Tom Riddle turns his placid smile towards him.

“I was thankfully able to reduce that punishment to a simple expulsion,” the present-day Dumbledore informs Lily.

“Oh, good,” she says.

“To business,” Dippet is saying. “Riddle, it is our utmost honor to present you with an award for special services to the school.”

He waves his hand to conjure a small golden shield engraved with “T.M. Riddle.”

“Please accept this token of our appreciation for your hard work in making Hogwarts safe for all students,” Dippet intones by rote. “We are most grateful.”

“Thank you, professor!” The young Tom Riddle is wearing an expression of polite excitement, but his eyes are gleaming. He glances at Dumbledore, and the corner of his mouth turns up in a nearly unnoticeable smirk.

“Congratulations,” the young Dumbledore offers flatly.

“Thank you, professor,” he says again, more smug.

“Now, Riddle,” Dippet says, “All of this has caused a terrible commotion at the Ministry, and the last thing we need is more government interference. I think it would be best for everyone if the Chamber of Secrets was unrelated to these accidents—the monster was found and disposed of after all. No need to comment on any of the circulating rumors.”

Lily can’t believe he's sweeping this under the rug, but neither Dumbledore seems to have a problem with it.

“Of course, professor!” young Tom Riddle easily agrees. “I wouldn’t want to cause some sort of panic.”

Both Dumbledores frown at this.

“Very good, Riddle,” Dippet says. “Your award will be placed in the trophy room. Keep up the good work.”

He nods at the boy in dismissal. The young Tom Riddle does not leave.

“Headmaster,” he says instead, almost hesitantly, “Is there any possibility I could stay at Hogwarts this summer after all? Seeing as the school is safe now.”

Dippet looks somewhat annoyed. “I apologize, my dear boy, but such special arrangements take time… perhaps next summer. Your muggle orphanage should have no trouble hosting.”

Young Tom Riddle seems to know as well as Lily that Dippet has no plans to make those arrangements. His expression sours.

“I can't stay in that—” he cuts himself off when Dippet looks profoundly unimpressed.

Lily had no idea he grew up in an orphanage. It was the 1940s, she realizes, World War II hadn’t even ended yet. Muggle London was a bomb crater and doubtlessly overflowing with orphans; no wonder he wanted to stay at Hogwarts. Wizards don’t even talk about World War II, they just talk about Grindelwald.

“I understand, sir,” he says.

“Thank you, Riddle,” says Dippet, an obvious dismissal.

Tom Riddle leaves stiffly, fists clenched.

“See?” Dippet tells the young Dumbledore. “No trouble at all.”

And Lily is once more in the familiar, crowded headmaster’s office of the present, now thinking about how horrible Dippet was.

“As you saw,” Dumbledore starts immediately, “Tom was happy to pin the blame on another student, and very pleased with himself when it worked.”

Lily nods. “And he was goading you, sir.”

“Yes he was,” agrees Dumbledore. “And he does so to this day.” He makes no comment on the effectiveness of said goading.

“He was also loath to return to the muggle world,” he continues.

“It was the Blitz!” Lily blurts out. Her parents have horror stories. “Sir.”

“Do not mistake the forest for trees, my dear girl,” Dumbledore scolds. “I should imagine Tom’s circumstances went a long way in informing his outlook. However, do not doubt he found muggles to be a violent and uncivilized lot, fit for service at best and slaughter at worst. It was a great relief to him, learning he was in fact a descendant of the great Salazar Slytherin.”

“Sir,” says Lily, “He mostly targets muggle-borns, half-bloods and ‘blood traitor’ families, not really muggles. It seems like he only cares about wizarding society, about punishing them.”

“He cares about the impact of muggles on wizarding society,” Dumbledore corrects. “And he finds it to be a negative one.”

“But he’s interested in all sorts of muggle philosophies and sciences,” says Lily, trying to make him understand. “Wizards are the ones he finds regressive, that's why he's making purebloods look like fools.”

Dumbledore regards her with annoyed sympathy. “Tom is very good at constructing believable personas. The perfect student, the harmless muggle-born professor, the powerful dark lord. He will reflect your expectations back at you until you trust him.”

“Right,” agrees Lily, thankful to be back on familiar ground. “He’s using his dark lord persona to turn wizarding society on itself! All this hatred was already here; he’s just stirring the pot. He doesn’t actually believe it.”

“I hope, my dear,” says Dumbledore, “That one day you will have the distance from this situation to view it for what it truly is.”

They’re at a stalemate, Lily realizes. Dumbledore will never believe that You-Know-Who is a false flag, and Lily will never believe he actually agrees with his Death Eaters.

“He talked about it yesterday,” she says, indicating the memory, but she knows Dumbledore will only see him using Unforgivables on harmless nuisances. “He talks about wanting to wipe out and then leave Wizarding Britain all the time.”

“And I’m sure it’s very convincing,” says Dumbledore, who has seen it and obviously finds it in no way convincing. “But he sees you as only a tool and will not divulge to you his true intentions. For a glimpse of his best intentions for your future, you need look no further than Bellatrix Lestrange. To him, you are no more important than that poor girl he killed or the boy he framed for it.”

“Sir,” starts Lily, but halts when his eyes slightly narrow.

“My dear girl,” he says frankly. “Tom does not care for relationships or knowledge unless they gain him power. Any warmth he has shown you was ultimately for his own gain. You do not understand his goals and you will not be able to influence him.”

Lily isn’t sure Dumbledore understands Tom Riddle at all. He's an academic, a lonely and selfish one, with hugely destructive misplaced rage. He's not some megalomaniac set on killing all the muggles and ruling the world. Obviously, Dumbledore is the key to righting his wrongs, but Lily has more insight into his motivations.

With significant horror, she realizes that it’s up to her to convince You-Know-Who that his mad revenge scheme isn’t worth it. That if he hates everything so much, he can just leave. She should talk to him soon, she thinks. Reveal what she knows to build trust and visibly distance herself from Dumbledore. Maybe she can convince him that researching magic will be more fun than killing people, maybe she can appeal to the centuries of knowledge that could be lost. Maybe, if she could make him like her enough, he’d stop if she asked. Though that’s a long shot.

An assassination attempt would be her last resort. Dumbledore’s right; it would be too dangerous. If it was premeditated he'd see it in her mind, and if it was spontaneous he'd easily stop her. She doesn’t think he’d want to keep her around after that, and she’d lose her influence.

She needs to talk to him without giving Dumbledore the memory. This means Dumbledore can’t know at all; they can neither speak nor arrange a later meeting during a scheduled lesson. To be honest, she wants to talk to him tonight, though she doesn’t know if he’s in his office or quarters or off being You-Know-Who and killing people.

And then she remembers James’ map.

When she returns to Gryffindor Tower, the common room is still filled with older students, chatting and frantically trying to complete assignments. There's a fluster of activity in one corner to hide bottles of something, and it takes a second for Lily to remember that she's Head Girl. She's supposed to care about things like underage drinking.

James is lounging in one of the larger chairs with Sirius, neglected parchment strewn over their laps. Remus is in a smaller chair next to them, actually working, and Peter is sitting on the floor to feel included. James brightens when Lily walks up to them.

“James,” Lily starts, shifting from foot to foot. “I have to talk to you about something.”

James takes in her uncomfortable expression and solemnly stands. “Anything,” he says.

A little off-put, she leads him away from his friends and surrounds them with the privacy charm.

“What was that?” he asks.

“It’s for privacy,” she explains. “I know you’ll tell your friends later, but I just want to talk to you.”

He waits expectantly, worriedly.

“It’s about Professor Riddle,” she says.

“Lily, did he—” James starts, horribly pained.

“No!” she says. “No, he didn’t do anything. It’s just… my ongoing mission from Dumbledore is to spy on him. I know he’s working for You-Know-Who, and I’m really not in any danger.”

James gapes at her.

“I’m sorry, he told me not to tell you.”

“Lily, that puts you in more danger!” James says. “If he knew you were spying on him—”

“He does know,” explains Lily. “Dumbledore told him. This whole thing is just a big stalemate, he can’t make a move against us.”

James looks furious. “This isn’t alright!” he insists. “If Riddle is a spy for You-Know-Who he needs to be removed from Hogwarts.”

Lily shrugs. “That’s up to Dumbledore. I’m just keeping an eye on him.”

“You’re much too calm about all this,” he frowns.

“I thought you wanted us to contribute to the Order,” she says. “We could all die at any time, I’m not going to run from an actually useful mission. I’m the only one who can do this, it’s my responsibility.”

James continues frowning.

“Look,” she says, “James, this is really important for the war and to me. I won't get hurt.”

“Okay, I get it,” he says, still frowning. “At least you don’t even like him—I knew he was bad news.”

“Right,” she says, not correcting him. “This apprenticeship is for the war effort.”

He forces a smile. “I'm really glad you're a part of the Order. If you ever need help, just ask.”

“Thanks, James, really,” she says, beaming at him. “And, actually, I was interested in learning more about that map you mentioned. It sounds really impressive.”

He blinks. “Oh. Yeah, it’s pretty useful. You know, we've been tracking nights Riddle leaves the castle, and Death Eater attacks are usually a couple days after…”

Half an hour later, she’s in her bed, curtains pulled closed around her, watching the little dot labeled “Tom Riddle” pace around its office. One by one, her fellow Gryffindors head to their beds and clear the common room. The only sound is the soft breathing of her roommates.

Lily creeps out of the room, back down the tower, through the Fat Lady’s portrait, watching the dot labeled “Lily Evans” inch closer and closer to his.

Chapter Text

For a long few minutes, Lily stares frozen at his office door. He won’t kill her, she tells herself, he can’t. Then she switches it up and reminds herself he won’t protect her either.

The problem is that she isn’t afraid of him. Oh, she’s scared of the spectre of You-Know-Who, she’s scared for her safety and that of her friends, but when she’s talking to him face-to-face she doesn’t feel any danger at all. Like she could say anything, and the worst he'd do is laugh.

Still, it’s nerve-wracking to prepare to stare down You-Know-Who himself and hold her ground. He’s been dropping hints, she tells herself, he probably wants her to know. He’ll just try harder to convince her that destroying Wizarding Britain is really for the best.

Eventually she knocks on his office door.

“Come in,” calls a distracted voice from inside.

His office is small and cluttered, a desk taking up the majority of the space and bookshelves the rest. The mess is even worse here than in his classroom. He’s hunched over his desk, scribbling listlessly at something, but when he sees her he straightens.

“Evans,” he says in happy surprise as she closes the door behind her.

“You’re You-Know-Who,” she says, getting it out of the way immediately. She doesn’t want to play coy this time. She's too tired.

He leans back in his chair. “Yes, I am,” he agrees with a smile. “I thought you might have noticed yesterday. Is Dumbledore ramping up your responsibilities then? Checking my office for dark artifacts?” He gestures to his piles of parchment and stacks of books, only intimidating in the hours of work they represent.

“No. I want to have a private conversation with you.” She meets his eyes so he can see she's being honest. There's no point in hiding her plan, such as it is.

“Will Potter be seeing us on his map and running to Dumbledore?” he asks unworriedly, like he's sure she's planned around it. “Given he apparently spends his nights watching me for suspicious activities.”

“No,” she says, not displeased with herself. “I've borrowed it for the night.”

“So you can decide for yourself just how suspicious my nightly activities are?” he grins. “I'd be interested in seeing it, actually.”

“Maybe later,” she evades. “I just wanted to ask a couple questions without you worrying about Dumbledore listening in”

“Oh, he misinterprets everything I say,” he waves off. “I don't care what he hears.”

“My memories could be court evidence,” she says.

He laughs. “I’d like to see them try to arrest me.”

Lily bites her lip. “Look, you aren’t going to hurt me, right? Or James and his friends?”

His eyes widen. “Of course not! Have I been doing that bad of a job as your teacher?”

“I mean,” she says, “You are You-Know-Who.”

“Evans, I've never lied to you.”

She raises an eyebrow.

“Well, not really,” he amends, shameless. “The plan has always been to bring you up to speed on magic theory so we can conduct our own research.”

“And the rest of Wizarding Britain?”

“I imagine everyone will finish killing each other off at about the same time we’re ready to leave,” he smiles.

“What if we leave before then?” she asks hopefully.

“Oh, they'll all kill each other anyway. It's self-perpetuating at this point,” he shrugs. “I really don't need to do much at all, it's quite boring.”

Lily gapes at him. “Killing muggle-borns is boring?”

“My Death Eaters doing so is,” he says, and it truly hits Lily that he doesn't care at all. “The most fun they are is when one messes up.”

Because he tortures them, Lily realizes.

“I'm not a very nice person,” he says.

“At least they're getting some retribution,” Lily says instead of anything else. She understands the game he's playing even if she hates it.

He smiles at her, vicious. “Exactly.”

The Order will need to have a plan to deal with the Death Eaters even if Lily can get You-Know-Who out of the picture. Dumbledore should be able to handle a lot of it, but rooting out spies in the Ministry could take ages. They'd have to prevent Death Eater recruitment, too.

“I admit,” he says, “I’m excited to speak with you frankly about this. It’s very inconvenient to talk around everything.”

“I can imagine,” she replies, though he's still using euphemisms every other word. “Is that why you wanted me to figure it out?”

“If you’re spying on me, you should at least know who I am,” he points out.

“How chivalrous,” deadpans Lily, unconvinced of his benevolence.

He laughs. “You’d have to learn sooner or later. This way gives you more time to get used to it.”

“…Get used to being You-Know-Who’s apprentice?”

“Yes,” he smiles. “You can rationalize it however you want—spying on me or trying to kill me or whatever else.”

“That really helps with my weighty conscience,” she says, forcing a joking tone, and he grins. “Can I ask you about something?”

“This does seem to be our conversation where we reveal secrets,” he says, and then he leans forward to conjure a chair for her. “Have a seat, I’ll ask you one after.”

Lily frowns, but figures it’s fair. She doesn’t really have any secrets in the first place.

“Thanks,” she says, sitting down. The cushion is more comfortable than she usually manages; she wonders how he gets the elasticity to hold. “Speaking of Secrets, I heard you opened a Chamber of them.”

His smile freezes. “Dumbledore complained about that?”

“You killed another student!” she snaps. She shouldn't be surprised by his callousness.

“I wasn’t having the best year,” he admits, like killing someone is on par with failing an exam. Then he brightens. “But did you know there's a basilisk in there? I still can't believe everyone bought that a spider did it.”

“And you just had it go around attacking muggle-borns?”

“I was very excited about the basilisk,” he explains, “Obviously I would try commanding it. I barely hurt anyone, the only death was a complete accident!”

Lily is unimpressed.

“It was sort of a Voldemort trial run,” he continues, “Though it worked too well. The school was almost shut down.”

Was that the only reason he stopped?

“But why open it in the first place?” she asks. “Why take up the mantle of the Heir of Slytherin?”

“I'd been living in a bombed-out orphanage the past couple summers,” he said with forced flippancy. “I'd just learned my wealthy muggle father left my mother to die, her pure blood useless. I'd thought I was in Slytherin for my cunning and ambition but it was nepotism all along! Both sides of my family disgusted me but only one of them offered me power.”

His expression turns wry. “Well, maybe I bought into it a little, a way to escape being the penniless muggle-born. Embarrassing in retrospect.”

Lily wasn't expecting this level of emotional openness from him, no matter how much he's justifying bigotry and violence. She only had to push him a couple times. Maybe this really can work. It’s promising that he finds blood supremacy an embarrassing belief.

“I'm not going to condone it,” she says stiffly. “But I can understand why you'd be driven to send a giant snake after classmates.”

“Thank you,” he says, and for a second it sounds like he means it. Then he grins and leans over his desk towards her. “Now it's my question. What has Dumbledore told you about me?”

Lily isn’t sure why she's both surprised and relieved. She barely had time to be nervous over what he’d ask.

“Well, he showed me his memory of you getting an award for framing some poor student,” she says. “Headmaster Dippet was awful.”

“He was, wasn't he? Only cared about optics,” he reminisces. “And what did Dumbledore make of my very polite award acceptance?”

“You were there,” she says. “He thinks you're a heartless and remorseless muggle-hater.”

“I am remorseless,” he accepts, and she frowns. “What else does he say about me?”

“That you charm people into doing your bidding. You only care about power and would sacrifice anyone in a second to keep it,” Lily says. “And that you fear death more than anything.”

He frowns. “I hate when he's perceptive. Luckily I have no need to fear death anymore. And I'd really prefer not to sacrifice you,” he assures her.

Lily, somehow, finds it assuring. He would sacrifice anyone, but she'd be close to last in line. Death Eaters would kill her long before he’d try.

“Why does he think you're incapable of love or affection?” she asks.

“Why does he do anything?” he asks in response. “Why does he let me teach here? Why did he deny the position of Minister for Magic when he could easily leverage it to stop me? Why has he antagonized me my entire life? The man is simply mad.”

Lily pauses, unsure how to address most of that. Dumbledore has reasons for everything he does, but tends not to share them. It benefits him if You-Know-Who can’t anticipate his actions.

“Your whole life?” she asks. “Since before Hogwarts?”

“You know,” he starts, smiling meanly, “He was the one who came to tell me I was a wizard and give me my letter. He hated me instantly—burned down my wardrobe.”

“What?”

“Well, it was an illusion,” he amends, “But he was so condescending about it. Tried to turn it into a moral lesson about the things I stole from other boys, as if everyone wasn’t stealing and fighting in there. It was a madhouse.”

Lily… could see Dumbledore doing that. Teaching a mean lesson to a mean child. She imagines an even younger Tom Riddle than his teenage self annoying Dumbledore with his false smile and blatant disrespect.

“I don't think Hogwarts has the best disciplinary measures in general,” Lily muses. Then she remembers who she's talking to: “Obviously straightforward torture would be worse.”

“It would be bad for brain development,” he agrees, like that's the only thing wrong with torturing children. “That's probably why Dumbledore doesn’t make me oversee detentions. I'm sure he thinks I'll kill or corrupt any student left alone in my presence.”

She hadn't fully noticed that he wasn't allowed to be alone with other students. She’d thought he sent James and his friends to other staff members for detention because he found them annoying.

“Except me,” she says, feeling presumptuous.

“Except you,” he affirms. “Though I don’t think he believes it. He may just find you convenient and expendable.”

Lily frowns. Dumbledore doesn't think about people that way—if he did, she'd be attempting an assassination instead of having this talk. And she'd probably be dead.

“I think you may be projecting your feelings about your own subordinates,” she says.

He laughs. “I think Dumbledore is the one projecting. Calling me heartless and manipulative like he isn’t.”

“I think both of you are used to being in charge,” Lily says generously.

He grins. “I can’t argue with that.”

“Was all of that your question?” Lily asks, not wanting to talk about Dumbledore anymore.

“No, I think you asked something in there,” he says. “It’s my turn.”

“Alright,” she allows.

He leans forward over his desk. “I would very much like to see that map now.”

Lily hesitates.

“Worried about losing a strategic advantage?” he asks. “I’m sure I already know about any secret passages it shows.”

“Okay,” says Lily. “Name them.”

It's a pointless test; he could have already seen them in her mind. Still, she doesn’t want to just give him useful information as soon as he asks. He easily rattles them off, plus an extra entrance through the lake into the Slytherin common room—“It’s awful,” he tells her, “Completely useless unless you want to be covered in algae.”

Satisfied enough, she removes the map from her pocket and slides it over his desk to him. It’s currently a blank piece of parchment; she wants to see the security measure James mentioned.

“Tap it with your wand,” she says.

He raises an eyebrow and, at her encouraging smile, taps it.

Words begin writing themselves across the page. Lily reads upside-down:

“They’re very pleased with themselves,” he says, eyebrows raised.

She laughs, somewhat mortified. “Don't kill them,” she says, though she's not really worried.

“I'm sure they'll have no trouble dying all by themselves,” he assures her.

“Sorry, here,” she says, and taps the map again. “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”

He smirks a bit at the passcode, but watches with interest as the map appears over the page. Rooms and hallways resolve into floors, little labeled dots clumping in the dormitories. Her eyes go to the small square of his office, two dots nestled inside.

“This is actually impressive,” he says, scrutinizing the map. “I didn't know Potter had it in him.”

“It was all four of them,” says Lily.

He looks at her sidelong. “I thought you were supposed to defend him.”

“I—” starts Lily, and blinks. “I’m defending his choice in friends. But he is a lot cleverer than he seems in your class.”

“I’m sure,” he says obligingly. “You know, Dumbledore only wants his money. Pity for him Black was disinherited.”

Lily frowns; she’d always gotten the impression Dumbledore was genuinely fond of James. She doesn’t correct him, though. Underestimating the bonds between the Order could prove deadly to his movement.

“Funding is important,” she says instead.

“Yes, the trait Dumbledore constantly emphasizes is pragmatism,” he says sarcastically. “He’s as fake as Voldemort.”

“Are you comparing conning a violent group of fascists into self-destruction with maintaining a resistance group?”

“My Death Eaters see themselves as a very important resistance group,” he says. “And they love to give me money.”

Lily crosses her arms. “This false equivalency will get you nowhere.”

He raises his hands in surrender. “I’m just warning you. I wouldn't put all my stock in Dumbledore.”

“If I did, we wouldn't be having this conversation,” she reminds him.

He grins conspiratorially at her for a second, like she’s become a part of his secret. Lily hesitantly returns the smile. This will work, she can do this.

“You can have this back,” he eventually says, pushing the map towards her. “The magic isn’t very interesting; you could easily replicate it. I am surprised they mapped most of Hogwarts, though.”

“Thanks,” she says. “What did they miss?”

“I’ll show you sometime,” he smiles. “I'm sure I haven't found everything either.”

“Thanks,” she says again, pleased despite herself. “Mischief managed,” she tells the map, hiding her smile, and tucks it back in her pocket.

He watches her patiently, and she realizes he’s waiting for her question. He’s being very fair about it.

“Why did you decide to do all this?” she finally asks him. “You could’ve stayed out of the country, tried to change things for the better, only killed blood supremacists, anything.”

“I was bored,” he shrugs.

“That’s all?” she asks. If she distracts him with something more interesting than revenge, will that be all it takes to stop him?

“Everywhere is pretty much the same,” he says. “Wizards won’t change, they’ll just keep fighting each other over diminishing returns and blaming muggles when they forget fields of magic. I got sick of it.”

Lily wishes again for wizarding universities, for well-funded research.

“So you turned the country into a warzone?”

“This barely counts as a warzone,” he dismisses. He considers her for a second. “I suppose I’m doing it because I can.”

Lily frowns at his complete disregard for human suffering, but this really is the best case scenario. He’s not ideologically driven, he’s just disaffected and overly powerful.

“And this is less boring than traveling abroad?” she pushes.

“Yes,” he says simply. “The benefit of having two jobs.”

“I guess being a dark lord pays better than teaching.”

“Ridiculously so,” he affirms. “And it’s much less effort.”

“Don’t you teach them dark magic?” she asks. She doesn’t have a good idea of just how deadly the average Death Eater is; she's never encountered one in full uniform. Rumors tend towards wild hyperbole, even ones from James.

“I would if they wanted to learn,” he shakes his head in exaggerated dismay. “People graduate Hogwarts and think they know everything—all they want from me is Avada Kedavra.”

Lily is very proud of herself for not flinching at that.

“What about Bellatrix Lestrange?” she asks. “Isn’t she already your apprentice?”

“Is that what Dumbledore thinks?” he asks, considering. “I suppose. She's Lord Voldemort's protege, and I've been very pleased with her work on that front. Horribly draining to actually be in a room with her, though.” He grins at Lily. “That's where you come in.”

Lily blinks. She supposes that this isn't the worst compliment he could give her.

“I'm flattered to be the personable version of Lestrange,” she says.

“That might be underselling you,” he allows. “She doesn’t really care about research.”

“Do the Death Eaters know you're such a nerd?” she asks. “Does it impress them?” She temporarily ignores that it impresses her.

“Most of them don't even know what I look like,” he says. “Though it's always funny when one gets high enough in the ranks to learn I was their least favorite professor the whole time.”

“I can imagine,” she says, glad she managed to mostly hide her own revelation from him.

She wonders how Severus would react. If he really joins the Death Eaters like his friend group suggests, would he realize upon seeing Professor Riddle that it’s all a scam? Or would he feel vindicated that another half-blood hates himself as much as he does?

“Why did you lie to me about being muggle-born?” she asks. She can't meet his eyes. “Why did you try to—relate to me?”

His jaw clenches, as if he's hurt. “For all intents and purposes, I am muggle-born. I had relevant advice.”

“It's not the same!” Lily snaps. At his raised eyebrows she scrambles to continue: “You’re using your bloodline for recruitment!”

“Voldemort is,” he corrects. “Tom Riddle quickly learned that any claims of Slytherin heritage would be laughed off.”

“You’re proving my point,” she says. “You can only be You-Know-Who and have all this power because of your heritage.”

He opens his mouth, then stops himself from saying whatever awful thing he was going to say.

“Were you really so hurt?” he asks instead, after a second, “When I withheld details about my blood status?”

“Yes!” she blurts out in frustration, “I thought we were—that we were on the same team.”

“Of course we’re on the same team,” he says, and it sounds genuine.

“I think,” she says slowly, “That we have different ideas of what the teams are.”

“Give it time,” he smiles.

You give it time, she thinks to herself. Discovering his wizarding heritage late isn’t the same thing as being muggle-born, but he seems to truly dislike blood purism, to take it personally. And he does seem sympathetic to muggle-borns, or at least to her. She can convince him.

“I don’t know what to call you now,” she admits after a few long breaths. “It feels weird to just go back to ‘Professor Riddle’ like nothing’s happened, but it’s also weird to call someone I know ‘You-Know-Who.’”

He smiles, amused. “You could call me Tom,” he offers. He looks even more amused by her horrified reaction.

“I’ll stick to ‘Professor Riddle,’” she decides. “At least until I graduate.”

He grins. “You’ll be continuing your apprenticeship, then?”

“What if I refuse unless you end the war?” she asks.

“I would be quite disappointed, and Dumbledore would lose a source of information. Though I think you’d come around eventually,” he smiles. “I imagine you find the rest of your classes incredibly dull, even mine.”

Lily doesn’t confirm or deny his suspicions.

“I'm not leaving the Order,” she tells him, though she’s still unsure if she counts as an official member. Of course, the war continuing is what he wants, but that doesn’t mean she'll let the Death Eaters win.

“I didn't expect you to. I said you could run around with them and I meant it,” he shrugs. “I don't think you'll get hurt, but I'll step in if necessary.”

“To defend me?” she boggles. “Against your minions?”

“You easily pick up everything you set your mind to and I like talking to you,” he says, like it’s simple. “You would be very hard to replace.”

She flushes, and he grins brilliantly at her.

“I won’t learn dark magic,” she blurts out.

“Well, it's all very arbitrary, isn’t it?” he says, smile turning smug. “Any magic can be labeled as dark if enough people think it is. Not like there's an actual line where magic becomes evil, it's just a legal classification.”

“It’s a useful categorization system for which magic is used primarily to cause harm,” Lily argues. “A bone-breaking curse is used by Healers to reset badly-healed breaks, but the Cruciatus Curse is only used for torture.”

“They’re both curses,” he says, incredulous. “Most of the Wizarding World would call them both dark for that alone! Half the population calls jinxes and hexes dark magic. And don't get me started on how fuzzy the distinctions between those are.”

“Obviously I’m not talking about that,” says Lily, realizing external categorization won’t be steady ground for an argument. “How about this: I reserve the right to refuse to learn anything.”

“Of course,” he easily agrees. “I wouldn’t want to bore you.”

“I don't think that will be a problem,” she says slowly. He grins again, pleased as can be.

She can’t defeat him in a duel, not even if he let his guard down around her, not even if she took him by surprise. Maybe she could poison him, but even if he didn’t see it in her mind he probably checks his food. Her best chance at stopping him is through manipulation, and to manipulate him she’ll need to get close. Obviously, influencing him may prove impossible, but he seems willing to humor her to an extent. She just needs to push at that boundary.

“You realize I'll try to talk you out of this war, right?” she says.

“You’re the only one I'd let do so,” he replies fondly.

It’s surreal, the Dark Lord politely laughing at her pleas for clemency, not even annoyed. He doesn’t care if she argues with him or insults him to his face. His course is set; he doesn’t believe she could sway him.

“We can change the Wizarding World,” she tries. “Drastically, completely for the better, without killing all the muggle-borns. You could even take out the worst purebloods,” she adds.

“You still don't seem to understand,” he says. “I don't want to change the world. I want them all to die.”

Lily frowns. “I do understand that. I just think it's very childish and short-sighted.”

“Resorting to insults?” he asks, amused.

“It’s embarrassing,” she continues. “It’s beneath you.”

He sighs with a wry smile, “Yes, well. I’ve already committed to the name ‘Lord Voldemort.’”

Though delighted he’s apparently embarrassed by the name the country fears, she changes tactics.

“I don't want you to destroy Wizarding Britain,” she says. Feeling inspired, she pouts a little. “It would make me upset.”

He laughs. “That's your most compelling argument yet. I'll think on it.”

He won't, but he also won't get mad at her for pushing back against him. She might be in one of the most influential positions regarding the war save him and Dumbledore themselves. The responsibility is staggering.

“Why make me your apprentice at all?” she asks. “Why deal with the trouble?”

“I keep telling you,” he says. “You’ll do great things, and I’d like to see them. I think you’re severely overestimating the amount of interesting people in the world.”

The problem is that she isn’t overestimating—right now she can only count one.