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As a listed building (Grade II*) open to the (Muggle) public, Tom had to wait for a day that the Hangleton House was technically closed, as sending the archivist and security guard to sleep is a very different thing than contending with docents and visitors and whoever else might be on staff. He has an exhausting, pre-dawn few hours, when he takes a portkey to Crook Peak to undergo the painstaking process of removing the Resurrection Stone from a magical peat bog, then Apparates to the Hangleton House to Charm CCTV and edit the wards, then portkey back to Tuscany, where Sirius and Harry are awake with enough coffee for Tom to have another cup. 

Tom slides Sirius a folded piece of parchment. “Two hours,” he says. “We should be back by then, but if we’re not, this is to get in. Trigger world’s ‘rutabaga.’” 

“But we’ll be fine,” says Harry crossly. It’s easy for him to be cross, as the sun’s barely risen above the hills. On the stool beside him is his rucksack, which holds the Invisibility Cloak. “You said as much.” 

“Yes, yes,” Tom says, glancing over at him, but hardly what could be called down, so he’s inappropriately struck again by how unnatural it is that Harry’s just allowed to grow like that, “and by tomorrow, you’ll be teaching the wee weans how to fly. Sirius?”

“Two hours,” Sirius says, like he’s already counting down the minutes. He scans both their faces, sips his coffee, and adds, “Good luck.”

Harry shoulders his pack as he insists again they’ll be fine. Tom turns another bit of parchment into a portkey and holds it out to his cousin. “Two hours,” he says with a last glance at Sirius, as Harry takes the other end of the portkey. The moment his fingers make contact, they’re gone in a rush of sound and wind, until they find themselves in the disused undercroft-turned-wine-cellar. “Welcome, Harry, to my childhood home.”

Before Tom had taken the portkey back, he’d lit all the dusty old candles in this place, since most are, miraculously, still in their holders. The Muggles haven’t discovered this room, as they placed something to make it fire safe in front of its entrance, which already blended into the wall. Now, he’s just added an additional Muggle-repelling Charm to keep the curious away, and additional wards besides, which he designed after speaking with Dobby about how house elf magic bypasses wards, an idea brought about by the Parkinsons using theirs to contact to Pansy. It’s about to be the hiding place for the Elder Wand, after all. 

Well. If Tom survives. If not, it goes back to Dumbledore.

He crouches down over rucksack as Harry drifts around the room to inspect its contents. “I know wine is supposed to get better with age,” he says, pausing by one of the nooks, “but there must be a certain point when it just turns to vinegar, right? Nineteen eighteen? How old is this place?”

“My father was born in seventeen, you know,” Tom says, watching Harry make the circuit around the columns supporting the ribbed vaulted ceiling. “The age of the house is complicated. The oldest part, down here, predates the oldest part of the building, which is from the late fifteenth century. Thirteenth century, I think this is? The newest bit is Edwardian, so the early tens? Bit before? All right, come here and let me draw on you.” 

Immediately, Harry shoots over to his side and sits on the floor next to him. Tom removes a Sharpie from his pocket to start writing the runes and equations on his arms, similar to Curse Breaking. Everything he read pointed in this direction, though he needed to adapt it heavily. Though there are no records of a human horcrux, there are records of ghosts and spirits latching on to a young child and remaining with them, either entangled with their soul or stuck to something like a birthmark. There’s just nothing that can be done in the former instance, but in the latter, transferring the ghost or spirit to another living host is the only way to detach it. Between his readings in books on theory and history, and his trawling through St Mungo’s and other archives, he’s managed to gather that permanently riding the possessing entity after that tends to be the issue, as the new host always dies along with it in the attempt. 

Personally, Tom just reckons that no one with the right degree of Gryffindor stupidity read all these accounts of poisonings or immolations or other horrible forms of death, and thought, Well, it seems no other fool tried the Killing Curse.

“I’m going to put you to sleep,” he says, once he finishes writing the last rune over Harry’s scar. Understandably, he winced. “I’ll wake you when I’m done.” 

Rigid with determination, Harry just nods. Tom casts Bewitched Sleep, catching him before he hits the floor, and lays him down. Writing what he needs for the transfer on his scarred arm is a struggle, as Tom’s using his non-dominant hand, but he manages. With that done, he Summons the Elder Wand from where he’d temporarily tucked it between some frightfully old vintages, removes the stone from his pocket and the cloak from Harry’s bag, and arranges them so he’s sitting and his cousin’s lying on the cloak with the stone between them. Now, if what Tom read is accurate, the immorality bit is tosh, but the three together ought to help guide the fragment of Voldemort’s soul along the pathway Tom’s laid out for it. Or they’ll do nothing. Perhaps that. Either way, it certainly can’t hurt to have them here.

The spell itself takes half an hour. To jostle the soul fragment free, he uses his wand—similar enough cores to the wand that cast the Curse that created the scar that horcrux should recognise it as not a threat—but transfers the silvery broken flicker to the tip of the Elder Wand—an identical match to the wand responsible for his own scar—and before it gains any awareness of what’s happening, he transfers it into the healing cut on his arm. There’s a moment between when it slides from the wand tip into the scar it thinks it’s always occupied and when it settles in for good, a brief window of opportunity that Tom takes when he focuses on the unnatural sheen over the scar, and says, “Avada Kedvra.”

I usually do this in a train station, says an old woman, who sits beside Tom on the lakeside outside Hogwarts, with a baby swaddled in a blanket beside her. Train stations, waystations, stations of any sort. But you have a better grasp of time than that, don’t you, Tom?

Tom looks at her. She’s not just an old woman. This is Mia, the version of her that raised James Potter, and therefore has no business talking to him. By default, then, this isn’t Mia.

You’re Death, he says, as he takes in the missed details, like the freckle in Mia’s left eye. Am I dead?

You knew it could happen, says Death. Calculated risk, I think you’d call it? Such a bright boy, you are, Tom, but you’re also bloody stupid. You never once stopped to consider that perhaps the fairy tale could be real. Well, a bit. Now, Tom, you have three choices.

Three?

Interesting analogy you used, Death says, all those years ago for the boy. Time, death, water—more than one culture would agree with your assessment of the lake, while in others, the words for future and past, upriver and downriver are interchangeable. If you hadn’t created such ripples in the water when you appeared at Albus Dumbledore’s feet, it’s Harry Potter I would be having this conversation with instead, though not just yet. Sweet Harry, he always is. Miserable Harry, as he’d be. Innocent, darling Harry. Can you imagine how easy it would have been for a man like Albus to dance the boy from under the stairs on his puppet strings? He needed someone to tell him no, that Albus. And Harry. He’ll never understand you killed his fate as easily as you killed the bit of soul embedded in his scar. 

Tom glances further down the bank at the thing swaddled in the blankets. That’s it, he says, isn’t it?

Oh yes, says Death. Ephemeral things, soul fragments. In just a minute or two, it’ll fade into smoke carried off on the breeze. The man who calls himself Voldemort fought so hard to achieve immortality, but all he did was ensure he could never be—well, we needn’t get into all that philosophising, or we’ll be here all night. Now, Tom, you can choose to die, in which case, I’ll show you the way, though I won’t tell you what you’ll find there. You can dive into this lake, where the floor will become your world, and return to the moment when you left, but you’ll never forget the life you lived here. Or you can return to the boy and finish what you started. 

All right, he says. What’s the drawback to option three?

Death smiles. The expression is cold, ill-suited for Mia’s face. That would be telling, Tom, Death says. Are you ready to take the risk?

He should probably ask more questions, but time’s ticking on Sirius’ timer, so he just says, Send me back. 

When Tom wakes, his arm is bleeding. This makes sense, but it’s still frustrating. He stems the flow with a basic healing spell, Scours the mess and the writing, then turns his attention to Harry. Another Scouring spell to rid Harry of the writing, then a fourth to wake him. 

By the time he opens his eyes, the cloak’s back in his bag and the stone is in Tom’s pocket. “How do you feel?” he asks, helping Harry slowly to his feet. 

His cousin blinks slowly. “Lighter,” he says. “Like, after you’ve had a really bad cold and your head clears. That sort of lighter. Is that weird?”

“I would take it as a good sign,” Tom says, as he removes the paper from his pocket. “No pain? Odd aches?” No and no. All right. That’s good too. “This will bring you back to Sirius. I’ll join you when I’m done running errands.”

Naturally, Harry protests that he wants to stay and help. The only reason he agrees to leave, however reluctantly, is the realisation that he’s shaky on his feet, so should see Adrianna. Clearly, it was too much to hope there would be no side effects at all, though Tom had. He initiates the hug, rare as that is, before sending his cousin off, but he’s just so keenly aware of how close they came to losing each other. For a moment, Harry clings, as if he knows it, too.

When they separate, Tom hands Harry the rucksack. A second later, he’s gone.

Additionally warding the undercroft and writing out Harry is nearly two hours’ work. As it’s such a small space, Tom can more intricately defend against Apparition or portkeys than Hogwarts or the Ministry, particularly now that he’s added in adjustments based on what he learned from Dobby. Even non-humans aren’t getting through these. The wand itself he hides in a magically cleaned and emptied bottle of his father’s favourite wine, a reference Voldemort won’t understand, seeing as he murdered the man. Does Voldemort even drink wine? Tom can’t imagine his counterpart partaking in such an ordinary human vice. Or fun, for that matter.

Tom leaves through the door, though it’s a tight squeeze between that and the glass case holding the fire extinguisher, which he adjusts the position of slightly to avoid it being affected by his Notice Me Not Charm. Next: waking the Muggles. After that: Apparating to Crook Peak, where he sends the stone back to the bottom of the bog. The thing is sixteen feet deep, under layers of peat and water so affected by runoff it’s practically poison. Even if, somehow, Voldemort gets to Tom and breaks the Fidelius Charm, the likelihood of him dredging even a magical stone out of this mess without knowing where it is, is slim to none. 

When all that is done, he sleeps for an hour or so on one of the sofas on the back patio like a cat in the sun, and has weird, confused dreams that he doesn’t remember upon waking. It’s just about half one; the kids and teenagers will be eating, which means everyone else will be eating, which means he’ll be expected to eat, and though this shouldn’t be a problem, it is.  

But he promised himself he’d fix whatever this…thing is over the summer. Just because he probably died for a minute today doesn’t give him an excuse to mess that up any more than a mediwitch injecting him with the Draught permits him to relapse. 

He portkeys back to his bedroom, where he’s not going to run into any teenagers or the influx of pre-H students, but doesn’t mind finding Emmeline there flipping through a pamphlet of last season’s Quidditch statistics. Sunlight spills through the open doors leading to the balcony, perfectly illuminating her expression of relief before she’s on her feet, then on her toes, the only way she’s tall enough to wrap her arms around his neck. “Harry’s fine,” she says, predicting his first question as he returns the hug. She smells sweet, like the citrus that always laces the air and her apple blossom soap. “Just sleeping. What about you?”

“In desperate need of coffee,” he answers, pulling back enough to see her face. She’s doing the thing where her eyes seem twice their normal size, which must be magic. “Otherwise, perfectly fine. Doesn’t particularly matter if you know now—Harry was the last horcrux. Couldn’t rightly mention it until now, in case Voldemort decided another kidnapping was in order with a new contingency plan for your excellent Occlumency.” 

“Probably named Bellatrix Lestrange,” she says, without pretending it wasn’t a possibility, as they separate and she lowers herself back to the ground. “How did that happen? What did you do? Did it involve all those books on wandlore—all right, we’ll take coffee and food out on the balcony, and then you’ll tell me. You look like you need it.”

Well, he does need the coffee.

Ten minutes later, they do have coffee, as well as an assortment of food scavenged from the lunch leftovers, which mostly consists of fruit and the vegetables that could have gone into the sandwiches. He picks as he explains the situation: Voldemort’s soul being so fragmented a piece just broke off on its own to stick to Harry’s scar, that Dumbledore literally guessed this ages ago and part of the deal was that Tom figured out how to remove it, the roundabout way he came to the conclusion about the Hallows. “Reckon it wouldn’t have worked if I didn’t have a scar to mirror Harry’s,” he says, “but I needed the right wands, or at least the cores. The soul fragments in a horcrux are semi-sentient. Too much risk it would fight back without the right amount of sameness. Then the Hallows were meant to have some sort of control over souls, so I figured, in terms of a pure theoretical spell with no opportunity for me to practise prior, it was better to explore the most likely path to achieve success.” 

He thinks this is perfectly reasonable, but she still smacks him with a pillow. “I cannot believe,” she says, “you cast the Killing Curse on yourself, you prat.”

“Abraxas Malfoy once said I couldn’t fire off a Killing Curse worth a damn,” he says, “and I killed the horcrux in the snake, but not the snake. The risk was lower than if I’d used basilisk venom with the anti-venom on standby.”

She looks as if she’d like to smack him again, which is not reasonable. It all makes perfect sense. “But you’d never cast the Curse with the Elder Wand,” she says, “which sent you here. Did you consider that as a risk?”

“No,” he says, suitably chastened. “I didn’t, I suppose.”

“Well, don’t tell Harry,” she says. “He was just beside himself with worry, which really speaks to how exhausted he was that he was able to fall asleep. But that’s all he is. No lasting repercussions for you, then?”

“Er, well,” he says, and adds everything about his not-dream. He should probably tell someone, he figures, and that someone isn’t his fifteen-year-old cousin. 

For a moment, she sits in stunned silence. Then she leans across the small table and kisses him. “You’re very stupid,” she says bluntly, “but thank you for choosing here.”

Quite truthfully, he answers, “I’d never have chosen any differently,” so of course, she kisses him again. 

A few days into July, the Head of the Aurors and his wife are murdered in their beds. Rufus Scrimgeour takes over. 

Quietly, so none of the pre-H students who have an inkling about Wixen politics can hear, Sirius says, “You saw him, Tom, even if you didn’t meet him.”

Tom glances away from where Emmeline’s crouched down beside Demelza, one of the pre-H students, at the breakfast table, inspecting her drawing of yesterday’s Quidditch practice. It’s morning, the most chaotic time of day, and so early the sun’s barely kissing the tops of the citrus trees above the lake. Thankfully, Tom’s managed to wriggle out of breakfast, even if he, inevitably, can’t do the same with lunch and tea. Tired as he is, it takes a moment to draw his attention back to the conversation and ask, “Really? When?”

“He was the fourth person in front of the door,” Sirius says. He doesn’t need to get more specific than that. By now, Tom also knows this means Scrimgeour is the one who killed Yaxley. 

“I see,” Tom says. 

To make it worse, Sirius adds, “He’s angling to become Minister of Magic one day. Next, I’m guessing.” 

“How bad would that be?” says Hermione, who’s watching the going-ons around the long table set up in the centre of the portico with some amusement. She, Harry, and Draco managed to avoid helping this morning, though she minds that the alternative is talking politics far less than the boys do. Surely, though, it must be better than the with-the-sunrise tennis practice her mother and Narcissa favour lately. 

With the edge of a frown, the Temp says, “Bad enough. He’s not Fudge, so he wouldn’t deny anything, but if he pretended the conflict was going better than it is? That wouldn’t be a shock. He’s one of those purebloods so desperate to make up for the mistakes of his family’s past that he goes too far in the opposite direction. His father was a British supporter of Grindelwald.”

So that, Tom thinks, is why the name sounded familiar the first time he heard it. That was from his student, Kellah Yaxley, not Sirius. “They’re Scots, aren’t they, the Scrimgeours?” he says, trying to remember. “Not Hogsmeade, but somewhere in the Highlands.”

“Perthshire,” the Temp says. “We went to Hogwarts together, though he was a few years older than me. Our paths didn’t cross much, even when he was made Head Boy. You would’ve missed him by a year, Sirius.”

“Well, Percy’s finishing his Mastery this year,” Hermione says, “and no doubt Shacklebolt will poach him for the Office of the Minister of Magic. If Percy’s not Minister in ten years, the only reason is that Shacklebolt’s died too soon.” 

Without pause, Harry says, “And then you’re next, are you?” 

“It’s an option worth considering,” she answers, which is nothing less than Tom expected. He’s known she would be Minister of Magic one day for years. So must Harry, because he doesn’t roll his eyes.

“Who’s heading the investigation into your last boss?” Tom asks Sirius, because that’s equally relevant to this conversation.

“Donovan and Pugh,” Sirius answers. “They’re working with a couple others, all ‘senior members.’ Between the deaths and the promotions and the sackings, all it takes is ten years to be a senior member now. Tonks and I are still working to find the Muggle Studies professor, though we all know it’ll go nowhere, which is probably why we’ve not been given any resources. Heard yet if they’re looking for anyone to take over for her?”

Just last week, Charity Burbage left to deliver a letter to a Muggleborn student. Now Burbage is missing, the boy’s parents are exceedingly dead, and to everyone’s bemusement, Niles is student sixteen. Despite how awful the situation is, it’s become something of a joke that Felicia Zabini is now the Ministry’s solution for where to house wartime orphans.

When they first heard of this Draco’s answer was that this is proof that there needs to be a Wixen Cafcass. Tom needed the reference explained as much as the purebloods, because the term didn’t exist in the 50s, but that only makes it weirder that Draco Malfoy knew it. 

“Finding willing professors is difficult,” Tom says, “and without confirmation of her death, they’ll probably wait until August to start. Maybe if the situation’s dire enough, they’ll ask Arthur.”

Horrified, Draco says, “But they can’t. He still says ‘felly-phone.’ I learned the word the first time I heard it, and I was a git. But why can’t they hire a Squib or something? Filch is a Squib, so they can see the castle just fine.”

“No idea,” Tom says. “Though, if they’re forced to cut Muggle Studies, perhaps the school will finally exorcise Binns and hire a competent professor. The subject’s functionally useless by this point anyway.”

Everyone seems to think this is a grand idea, but soon peel apart, as they all, in some capacity, need to go to work. As Felicia’s whole plan had to be thrown together in something of a rush and continues evolving, it’s not as if she could hire everyone she needed. Narcissa’s the only one who took her NEWTs with the aim to handle pre-H education, so she’s doing the bulk of the work with little practical experience other than having homeschooled Draco. Then, Hermione, being Hermione, decided to teach the kids Muggle history; Harry, Draco, and Ron teach groups flying, with Emmeline supervising and Ginny typically joining for the fun of it; Felicia and Blaise teach Italian; Remus and Daphne handle magical creatures; when Tom’s around, he does non-magical science and writing, but sporadically (when he isn’t teaching the teenagers nonverbal magic), with Theo taking over writing when he isn’t there. Pansy helps Molly and Gwaine (and Rosie, when she’s feeling up to it) in the kitchen, proving why she’s good at potions when she has someone to help her with the maths. The Temp handles the grounds, which he’s always done, though Astoria tags along. All the adults trade out who follows Shay and Ben to work, or who supervises random “outings,” because the fussy purebloods refuse to use the term field trip. Cleaning’s as easy as ever thanks to magic, but it’s all that special brand of chaos that does nothing good for Tom’s already frayed nerves. 

Thank Merlin he’s back at his research.

In the past few years, he’s gotten very good at international portkeys, so has no qualms about travelling to different magical reserves and Muggle zoos to collect data. Some of it is for the conference in August, so he must be careful not to sully that with magic, but mainly, he’s started the first ever comprehensible research on Parseltongue, up to and including whether it can be taught to other people. That’s still tentative and purely theoretical, though Harry, who appears to have lost the skill along with the horcrux, Emmeline, Daphne, and Charlie are his early test subjects. Romania’s nice, because Tom can kip with his friend, and Slovenia is, because he’s always glad to see the basilisk, but the London Zoo—imperative for his Muggle research—is bittersweet. Every time he looks at his coworkers, the guilt he feels is overwhelming, but if Voldemort was ever going to involve Muggles, he’s likely to find them first. Unfortunately, it was just a safety precaution.

With how busy he is, he’s also so tired by the time he reaches home that he’s less likely to dream, which is necessary, as his dreams lately have all been fragmented, tattered, senseless things that seem intent on reminding him that he made the decision to stay without demanding to know what staying meant. Is the bit about immortality not a lie after all? Is it that when he dies, his soul will be like what remained of the horcrux, snuffed out to nothing and blown away like smoke? Rather than immortality, is it a shortened lifespan? Something else altogether? 

Whatever it is, he assumes he won’t like the answer. 

And he is, if he’s honest with himself, dodging the conversation that lurks between him and Sirius. It hasn’t happened yet, but Tom can feel it lying in wait, ready to spring. There are other conversations he’s dodging too, mostly with Harry, who Tom knows is desperate to ask what will happen now. How long will people keep dying, disappearing, need to be afraid, because Voldemort’s at large? They’d be fair questions, but the answers aren’t any his cousin will like. We don’t know where he is, and I can’t track him again, because using any biological component as the basis will just find myself, and to try his wand, I’ll have to admit I killed the bird the first time. That’s the problem with being the genetic counterpart to a Wix who posits magic based on cruelty and blood-puritism as the ultimate truth: Tom, by contrast, must be a paragon of fucking virtue who’s never seen to do anything dodgy, lest it be construed that he displays the same tendencies. 

 He successfully avoids Harry. Sirius, however, finds Tom on the cliff above the pond on another early morning, when he’s telling an asp viper to clear off from the grounds and to inform his friends to do the same, because biting two-legged creatures is bad, unless they attack first. “Is it safe for me to come close?” Sirius asks, eyeing the snake on Tom’s shoulders. The snake’s slender, just over two feet long with a zig-zag decorating his scales.

“Yeah,” Tom says, stretching out his arm so the snake can slither into the grass. “I was just explaining why snakes should stay away from and definitely never bite humans, but I’ll have to go out later and find all the traps the neighbour set out to disable them.” 

“Daphne’s painfully jealous of you, you know,” Sirius says, coming over to sit once he’s certain the snake’s slithered away, “and I don’t think she even thinks of reptiles as cute.”

“Depends on the reptile,” Tom says. “Ugliest animal I’ve ever seen is a hog badger.”

Though Sirius seems as if he wants to ask further questions, he ultimately decides against it. “You said a lot in June that you wouldn’t have if you weren’t on the Draught,” he says without preamble. “‘Eating disorder’ makes sense, now that I know. When did you go to hospital?”

“Before Emmy and I went to New York,” Tom says. “It’s why we went.”

“How long?” Sirius says. “I went over it in my head, and I know it’s been as long as I’ve known you.”

With a halfhearted shrug, Tom says, “I don’t know. Years?”

“Before you came here?” Sirius says, watching him warily, as if searching for a lie.

Tom fidgets. Shrugs again. “Hard to say,” he answers. “I was on rations as long as I could remember.”

“And how are you doing now?”

“Better,” Tom says. “I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s really not a concern.”

“I’d say it was decently important for me to know,” Sirius says, “if this woman said the issue was liable to kill you. Officially, unofficially, we’re both Harry’s guardians. Not to mention I would have told my department to back off from using you as the easy way out. What’s the chance now?”

“I’m better,” Tom says again, without mentioning that if he can survive the Killing Curse twice, a little Blood Magic and physical activity is fine. 

Though he hopes that’ll be the end of it, Sirius says, “Just to be clear—you do realise it’s a real issue, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Tom says. “Madam Pomfrey knows too.” Well, sort of. Even if Tom’s finally willing to admit Reiner’s assertion is a bit more than alleged, he doesn’t need the matron of the Hospital Wing and her distrust over his ability to take care of himself involved.

“Good,” Sirius says, a reaction that Tom tries not to resent. “Now, come on. I’m avoiding the real children. Theo’s distracting them for me. They all want to ask what being an Auror’s like, which they’re at liberty to do, since I’ve the day off, but I’m at liberty to ignore it, so wherever you’re going for research, I’m coming with you.”

“Sounds good,” Tom says as he stands. “Want to meet the basilisk?”

Sirius agrees without hesitation. Tom makes the portkey, holds out his arm for his friend to take, and says, “Amber.”

After a debate over issues involving safety vs necessity, everyone except the children, who have no say, agree they need wands. However, twelve eleven-year-olds—as four already have theirs—can’t just enter Ollivander’s without drawing unwanted attention. “We could ask Tonks for help,” Sirius says, when they all start running out of ideas. “Maybe Andy too. Do it over the course of a few days with the help of some Human Transfiguration, and why not?”

“Still,” says Emmeline, who sits on Tom’s other side on the usual sofa the three of them share on the portico, “there’s likely been someone watching since summer began, possibly before. What’s needed is a distraction, like, say, Emmeline Vance entering Quality Quidditch Supplies with her boyfriend?” 

“That’s dangerous,” Tom says, before he even thinks about it.

She smiles sunnily. “I know. Won’t it be fun?”

“Dear lord,” says Shay, glancing between them, “the pair of you deserve each other. Well, I say it’s rather stupid, as far as plans go, so—”

“Might have merit,” says Sirius. “Tom will agree in a moment once he thinks it through.”

It’s annoying how right he is.

“Can’t we help?” Harry says from further down the table. “We’re NEWT students now, and if Emmeline goes to Quality, and I head to, I don’t know—”

“Not Flourish and Blotts,” says Draco.

“Gringotts?” says Hermione.

“Floreans?” suggests Theo.

Harry settles with Ron’s suggestion, which is the twins’ joke shop. “Yeah, they’re on opposite ends of Diagon,” he says, like this is the most brilliant idea anyone has ever thought of. “Even if there are Death Eaters everywhere, they’ll have to separate, and they already learned their lesson about trying to enter the shop, the twins said, so it’d be interesting to see if they’d try.”

“Except that they would,” Molly says dryly, “and then you’d all be at risk. And any innocent customers in the store. Royston hid people back in the first war. No doubt he’d help if asked, but Fred and George will treat it as a laugh.”

Anyone who’s ever spent more than a minute with the twins knows that this is true, though the news about Royston is new. “If we’re clever about it,” Arthur says, offering no defence for his children, “I think we may be able to do it in one day, though we’ll need to ask for additional help. A couple people I know from work might be willing. Or from outside of work. I discovered, through rather suspicious means, that Fleur Delacour has moved to London. She could easily enter with Charlotte, just calling her Gabrielle and chattering on about Beauxbatons in French.”

“And why, Arthur,” Narcissa asks, so the rest of them don’t have to, “do you know about the comings and goings of Fleur Delacour?”

“Well,” he says, with a sideways glance at Molly, “I may have heard it from Bill.”

“Bill!” Molly says, turning to her husband. “What does Bill have to do—”

Arthur clears his throat. “Well,” he says again, “she’s working in Interspecies Relations at Gringotts to improve her English, isn’t she, and with him being home—”

“He’s home?”

As the two break into a furious, albeit quiet argument in the corner that Ginny decides she just must involve herself in, Felicia says to the rest of them, “Three can simply go with their parents. I’ll write to them when we settle on a day.”

The teenagers (including Ginny) protest, in their hive mind way, that it’s unfair they aren’t included. When the resulting row (spearheaded by Molly, who’s already angry) quietens, Sirius makes everything worse by saying, “You know, I could talk sense into the twins.”

“You cannot be considering this,” says Rosie, horrified. “They can’t even Apparate yet.”

“Even Voldemort himself wouldn’t attack Gringotts without provocation,” Sirius says. “Goblins would turn from a neutral party to an active enemy in a heartbeat, and he can’t risk that when British Wixen wealth is tied up in their hands. Now, if we use polyjuice—”

“It takes a month to brew!” Pansy says, as Gwaine points out that seeing Harry is a decent way to turn a conflict involving just Death Eaters into one also involving Voldemort, which they shouldn’t bring down upon the good people of Diagon Alley.

“You’re not about to run off and fight Voldemort, young lady,” Ben says, when Hermione tries to enter into the discussion with a counter-argument about a Potioneer’s shop in Rome. “You aren’t an adult until you’re eighteen—”

“Seventeen,” she says, but he just answers, “Eighteen by our standards, so—”

“Oh,” says Molly, suddenly keen. “Eighteen is the age of majority for Muggle society, is it? Maybe we should all be following the Muggle way—”

Which, of course, starts another row.

Tom calms everyone down in the end with the age-old practice of bribery. “Just accept your fate,” he says, “and I promise to teach everyone entering their sixth year how to Apparate.”

Though Ginny isn’t best pleased, she’s just one voice amongst many, and easy to drown out, which allows the rest of them to decide on a date.

Emmeline is careful to inspect the Firebolt in the window. “I wonder when the new model is coming out,” she says, leaning forward a bit to look at the finer details. Her hair, longer than it was when any Death Eater last saw her, is twirled back in a bun and Transfigured to be a few shades lighter than her normal dark brown. Her sunglasses seem to swallow half her face. Her robes are stunningly ordinary. 

His purposely bad disguise isn’t any better: fake glasses over Transfigured blue eyes, plain robes, his hair lightened to a drab brown. He pretends to hide without really hiding that he’s checking around him, careful not to linger anywhere too long. Already, he recognised Dalia Crabbe, who’s very deliberately not recognising him.

It does help to be the favourite professor.

They enter. The bell above the shop door jangles. It’s empty except for Royston. 

Royston beams and sweeps out from behind the counter. “Miss Vance,” he says, shaking her hand. “Mr—no, Professor Ryder now, isn’t it? All the stock you see is last year’s unsellables, merchandise with dates or names that just can’t carry over to a decent sales rack. No harm done, I thought, if it’s all—” 

He never finishes that thought, as the door opens and three Death Eaters swarm in. Tom blocks the first Stunner and flings out one of his own, striking the man in the front, but the one who looks suspiciously like the Pritchard brothers bursts the ceiling open with Reducto, so Emmeline’s Full-Body Locking Curse’s hits debris. Royston gets the tile about to fall on them with the same Curse, turning it to dust that clouds their vision. “What are you doing?” maybe-Pritchard says on the other side of the smoke screen. 

Dalia shouts out in alarm—there’s the the sound of broken glass—Tom clears the dust—

Emmeline’s Stupefy catches maybe-Pritchard in the side of the head. He tips forward over the other man, and smacks into the ground face first. His nose audibly breaks. 

Slowly and shakily, Dalia rises from her crouch. She must have tried to get maybe-Pritchard from behind, but missed or was seen, and dodged whatever he sent back in return, because his spell hit the door. Broken glass shimmers on the floor around her. There’s more in her hair. Shards have cut deep into her arms and, presumably, her back.

For good measure, Tom puts the others to sleep before addressing any of them. 

“Stay still,” he says as Vanishes the glass. Emmeline and Royston handle Episkey. Dalia’s in too much shock to do anything herself, but given she was just hurt trying to help them, it seems cold not to help her in return. 

Dalia’s eyes dart between the three of them. “Thank you,” she says, lowering her arms. “They—” She stops, takes a deep breath, and tries again. “They’re all out. Any follower left in Azkaban, though the worst are in foreign prisons. I don’t know how it isn’t in the papers. Only issue is they don’t have wands.”

“How many is that?” Royston asks as Tom tries and fails to accept that the situation was allowed to get so out of hand that, apparently, twelve more followers are out. Followers, she’s very clear on, though. Only a few have the Mark. 

 “And now he’s trying to recruit from the few students left at home,” she continues in a rush. “Those in their sixth and seventh years—having us, you know, the parents do it—but none of them are interested, and my husband and I, we’re not trying with Vin.”

It doesn’t matter overly much what Dalia believes, Tom thinks. If she was on their side of the conflict, she’d panic just as much about her son joining the Order, because he’s not cut out for combat. The boy’s not stupid. He just has very poor impulse control and doesn’t always think things through, so if anything, the lack of stupidity is more of a hindrance than a help.

“Fix your clothes,” Emmeline says, ignoring the prone figures on the ground. “Just walk out. Say they didn’t come and find you.”

As if only now noticing the state of her robes, Dalia curses, then goes through the motions of clearing the blood and fixing the tears. “I’m rubbish at Occlumency,” Dalia says when she’s done. “He’ll know I’m lying in an instant. I hate to ask, but are any of you good at memory modification?”

Actually requesting to have your own memory modified is mad, but Royston both claims to be exceptional at it, and treats it as if it’s perfectly normal. Tom pretends not to notice what’s going on there as he sends the men to Sardinia. Merlin forbid Voldemort has his eye on expanding beyond Britain’s borders, because Tom doesn’t want to encounter any of these people again, except at trial. 

He stands to join Emmeline as Royston shoves Dalia out the broken door. It jingles behind her, a sound at odds with all that broken glass. 

“Glad you came?” Tom asks Emmeline, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, as if he can shield her from the Tornadoes merchandise staring her in the face. She hasn’t looked so insulted since she relayed the tale of Caulfield asking her not to play for Ireland. 

“I was hoping for more of a fight, if I’m honest, but what else can we expect when these Death Eaters just insist on helping us?” she says, before gesturing at last year’s unsellables. “This cannot be allowed to stand.”

“I promise, Emmy,” he says, not entirely joking, “you’ll be back in the air by this time next year.”

She looks up at him and quirks a brow. “You promise?” she says, also like it’s not entirely a joke. He nods solemnly. “Well, love, I’ll hold you to that.” 

Chapter Text

The day before Harry’s birthday, all the OWL students receive their scores. Tom and Sirius are around long enough to learn Harry managed mostly Os, except for his Es in Potions and History of Magic, and an A in Divinations, before Tonks mirrors Sirius. “And bring Tom” is the last thing she says, as if it can just be assumed he’ll be around. This is incredibly presumptuous, particularly since Tom actually does have research planned today, even if it was only to find some invasive iguanas in South Florida and have a chat. 

Instead, he finds himself in Wiltshire.

“So I discovered something this morning,” Tonks says, when they join her on the road outside Malfoy Manor, which looks to be in better condition than Tom expected. In her irritation, she’s aged twenty years older than she actually is. “Apparently, this place is only warded with a Muggle-repelling Charm—some interdepartmental issues mean they’re still clearing anything dangerous, even if it’s been just yonks since they started, when I say burn the place to the ground and be done with it—but then you’d think that would mean it would be watched all the time, wouldn’t you? But no, it’s only random sweeps a few times a day, apparently with the idea being if they’re unpredictable, that’s good enough. So I had a thought. We’ve looked for Burbage just about everywhere else. What if they squirrelled her somewhere they’ve used before?”

It takes longer than it should for either Tom or Sirius to fully accept this level of incompetence, though accept might not be the right word for it. Tonks still seems to be struggling herself, for how her colouring keeps shifting, so Tom has to focus on the hedgerows and pastures beyond her to gather his thoughts. Sirius, though, says first, “How did you find this out? What’s the excuse?”

“Scrimgeour found out,” she says, folding her arms. “I went into the office early today to finish paperwork, ran into him, and he updated me like he might’ve said the weather report. ‘Understaffing.’ Not that he told me to come. No, just wanted to know if I had any opinion on the incoming applicants, ‘as I’d overlapped with them in Hogwarts.’ ‘Sorry, sir,’ I said, ‘but they were fourth years when I was in seventh, so we didn’t speak,’ and he hadn’t liked that, but point is, I thought it sounded just a mite suspicious, so here we are. Shall we?”

“We can’t just enter,” Tom says, before she leaves the safety of their hiding spot within the hedges and makes for the front gate. “Wait, let’s see if anyone’s inside.”

The answer he receives is odd. One person, but faint. 

Dying, he thinks.

“Burbage,” Sirius says, when Tom offers up his suspicions. “Think it’s a trap?”

“Probably,” he says. “Ready to spring it?”

They enter through the front door, just as they had last time, but inside, they find a house stripped bare: whole sections of wallpaper gone, portraits missing, the decorative washstand in the entrance hall turned redundant without its unused basin. It’s hard to imagine a carved stone basin was a dark artefact. He’ll have to ask Narcissa. If not, he doubts it’ll be long before it appears at auction somewhere, if it hasn’t already. 

But the dining room table is where it’s always been. This time, there aren’t five bodies occupying the chairs, but Burbage is in the Unspeakable’s place. Somehow, she’s alive.

Given the state of her, it might’ve been better if she was dead.

Everything anyone needed to know about Tonks, Sirius, and Tom as a team could be encapsulated in their reactions to the scene in front of them. Tom’s turns away, unable to look; Tonks says she’ll Apparate to St Mungo’s; Sirius says no, what the fuck, they have to counter the inevitable Imperius Curse she’s under first.

Sirius is right. Obviously. He’s the sensible one.

“Not St Mungo’s,” Tom says, as he removes a folded CarreFour receipt from his pocket. “Madam Pomfrey. This will take you there, no need for one back—it’s her home address, so don’t be shocked if she wants to murder you at first.” With a shaking hand, Tonks accepts the receipt. “Trigger word’s ‘Poppy.’”

“Poppy,” she says, and disappears. 

“We should search the rest of the house again,” Tom says, reluctantly nearing Burbage, who Sirius is essentially Curse Breaking. It’s awful work; no one wants to search for a trap on a human body before stabilising the person, but it can be necessary. “Oh fuck, is she awake?”

“Barely,” Sirius says, as Tom watches Burbage’s eyes rove, unfocused. She doesn’t seem aware of them. He’s seen this before—Grindelwald’s attack on Hogwarts, when more than one person had been hit by a particularly nasty curse or was pinned beneath collapsed rubble. But not Kate. When the stairwell collapsed, he thought, At least it was instant, because even Fiendfyre, he’d learnt, left its victims with time to scream.

He jumps when Sirius claps, just as Tom had done the day in the Atrium. “Start the search of the rest of the house,” Sirius says. “I’ll—”

With two pops, one after the other, Madam Pomfrey and Tonks reappear. The mediwitch’s face is lily-white even before she sees the damage. “Back, back,” she says, shooing Tom and Sirius out of the way. “I’ll stabilise her here before taking her to school. I only need one of you with me, but Tom, I’d like a sweep for Curses before I’ve done that.”

“I already did that,” says Sirius, indignant. 

Madam Pomfrey doesn’t look up from her patient as she answers, “I mean no offence, Mr Black, but I would still like the Defence professor to have a look. Now clear off. I’ll give a shout when I’m done.”

There’s no discussion about who should stay when Tonks remains behind, and Sirius and Tom leave to search the rest of the house. Despite Tom’s unofficial status, they’ve become an accepted unit, which works well for him; he likes the others well enough, but the only person he fully trusts is Sirius. 

What they find are wards. 

“It’s a test,” Tom says, crossing his arms and leaning against the corner that turns into the corridor leading to the three bedrooms: Narcissa and Lucius’, Draco’s, and the guest one that hasn’t been in use since Bellatrix and her husband got themselves thrown into Azkaban. Sunlight floods the room through the large window at the end of the hall. “He’s not certain we’re related, but he’s checking. You have a blood replenisher on you?” 

Sirius glances at him. “Always do when you’re involved,” he says unhappily. “I assume you can tell what’s his and what’s not? They’re just wards to me.”

“That’s his,” says Tom, pointing to Narcissa’s door, “or mine, depending on how you look at it. Can’t be specific on whose the two in front of the other doors are, but I assume they’re different people’s, because otherwise, why have three doors? Adapting rather than Breaking blood wards that aren’t your own isn’t easy, but it is doable. Unfortunately, this probably means someone leaked the information about the lack of security to Scrimgeour on purpose.”

“And the problem there,” Sirius says, more unhappily yet, “is whether the person who did the leaking understood the timing, or if whoever told that person, on and on. Like the espionage version of game of the ear.”

“What?”

“You know, when you all make a line, and one person whispers a message in the ear of the person behind them, and the point is to see if it’s the same at the end?”

“Is that what Wix call it?” Tom says, unaware Wix even had a version. “Muggles—well, it is, or was, right racist, but in France it’s téléphone sans fil, I think—”

Abruptly, Madam Pomfrey’s voice rises from the ground floor, calling his name. Well, probably best he handles the Curse-checking before he cuts himself up any. 

It’s good that Tom makes a check, in the end; Sirius’ family libraries might have prepared him for more Curses than the average Auror, but Parseltongue reveals the real, live adder Transfigured as a knoll in the wooden tabletop, set to animate and attack the moment anyone tried to remove Burbage from the surface. Tom counters the enchantment, coaxes the snake up his arm and away from the others, and offers a brief talking-to on how the adder should never listen to any two-legged creature that treats him that way. Those two-legged creatures are for biting, not ones who only want to help. 

“He won’t attack,” Tom says, as the adder climbs the back of his neck to rest his head on top of his. “Sirius already countered the Imperius Burbage was under. She’s, well. Fine’s not the word, but not a danger.”

“You would think a Parselmouth would at least treat snakes well,” says Madam Pomfrey in distaste, watching the adder try to burrow in Tom’s hair, as if seeking safety. “Thank you for your help. I’ll owl you when I can tell you more of her condition.”

She creates her own Hogwarts portkey, places a hand on Burbage’s uninjured knee, and disappears. The blood left on the table is a puddle, the deep red of a fatal wound offset against the old mahogany. 

As Sirius fills Tonks in on what they discovered, Tom casts a diagnostic spell on the blood. B+. Not the rarest, but far from the most common. Is that still true of purebloods or halfboods? It occurs to him that he has no idea, but given that most are related in some capacity, they may not follow Muggle demographics. But they don’t know how long she’s been here. They don’t know why she was under the Imperius Curse. It’s not so unlikely, he would argue, that one of those wards is technically hers. 

He might be right, he finds once they’re upstairs. The one over the guest room is made of B+ blood; the one over Draco’s is O-. Just in case, he checks the one over Narcissa’s door, but the answer’s as he expected: his. 

“This’ll be gross and take a while,” he says, turning to face the other two. “An hour and a half, perhaps? No, closer to two. No need for you to stick around.”

“What do you think is behind the doors?” Tonks says, as Sirius removes the vial of potion from his pocket, not about to argue with the logic of speeding up their retreat from this place. 

“More snakes?” Tom says. 

Nodding at the one who still refuses to leave him be, Sirius says, “What about him?”

“I’ll let him out the window if it’s dangerous,” Tom says. “Never good, though, when a predator’s acting like prey. Once he calms down, he can go outside. Reptiles don’t perceive emotion the same way humans do, but they still feel things like anxiety when they’ve been Transfigured into wood.”

By now, Sirius is willing to accept Tom’s idiosyncrasies, but Tonks just looks at him like he’s mad before they leave.

Breaking blood wards is less work, though it takes longer, because there’s nothing delicate in the process. It’s probably for this reason that the creator of the original wards feels when it happens. But adapting requires what Merrythought once called “the real thief’s touch.” What Tom does can’t be found in any book; she taught them from her unpublished research, which wasn’t published here, either, because she didn’t study the subject at all. 

He starts with the one over the guest room, just to make sure he can adapt a ward that isn’t his own in practice, not just in theory. Yes, he discovers, but it’s hard fucking work, and takes nearly twice as long as doing Voldemort’s, likely because he’s on the outside. The one over Draco’s door is next—he takes the blood replenisher midway through—and finally, the ward over Narcissa’s. He doesn’t open any door without the others, because he isn’t willing to find himself caught in a trap without help.

When Sirius and Tonks return, Tom’s just finishing up the last one. Even with the potion, he’s lightheaded. If this wasn’t meant as a test, then it was surely meant to kill him. 

“One door at a time?” he says, after he stops the bleeding. 

“Someone should wait outside,” Sirius says, helping him to his feet. “You know, in case opening the door blows up the house. I nominate Tonks, because she can turn into Bellatrix in a pinch if any Death Eaters show up.” 

“Not a bad thought,” Tom says, though she isn’t pleased by the reminder. “We’ll send a Patronus if we need help. Mine’s changed shape. It’s a bluejay.” What a nightmare it would be if he sent a distress call, and she didn’t answer because she was expecting a dog or a fox.

 Abruptly, her hair turns a cherry red, which is the Tonks equivalent to a blush. “Mine’s changed too,” she says, as if it’s hard for her to get the words out. “It’s a wolf.”

“We’ll discuss that later,” Sirius says, staring at her, so her hair turns even redder. “See you in a bit.”

She Disapparates without another word. There’s quite a bit Tom and Sirius could say to this startling news, but they have more important concerns than learning Tonks has just given her mother due cause to murder Remus Lupin. 

As the room behind Voldemort’s door is the one most likely to have a trap, they save it for last, starting with Draco’s room. Tom somehow managed to forget about the adder on his shoulders until the snake rears up, like it means to attack the—the—is that a corpse?—that launches itself at them the moment the door opens. Too quick for the snake to act on the instinctual stupidity, Sirius casts a rope of fire to ensnare the…thing, which dies, or is ended, or something, with a sound that’s worse than screaming, until whatever’s keeping it semi-sentient leaves it, and it slumps, burnt and unmoving at Sirius’ feet. 

“Inferius,” he says, shaken. “Dead bodies reanimated by magic. Voldemort killed homeless Muggles and turned them into Inferi in the first war.” He crouches down and inspects the dead man’s face. “You know Niles?”

“Don’t tell me that’s his father.” Niles Hanley is the last minute addition to the household, the newly orphaned Muggleborn Burbage was on her way to visit when Voldemort stole her. His parents were murdered at the travel agency where they both worked, along with a Muggle secretary.

Standing, Sirius says, “How much do you bet the mother is behind Door Number Two? Stay back. It’ll be easier if I can cast the spell right away.”

The guest room is next, as they figure something particularly special must be saved for Narcissa’s. Unsurprisingly, Sirius is right, but having expected as much, he dispatches of the Inferius with the ease of someone who’s done it enough times he’s learnt not to see the figure as anything human. Between the two burnt corpses and Tom’s own blood, the small space smells horrendous. As Tonks probably has about as much experience with this as he does, it’s good that Sirius is here. 

“Sirius,” Tom says, “about what percentage of the Aurors now wouldn’t know how to handle an Inferius?”

They pause in front of Door #3, the most damning of them all, but Sirius pauses to glance at him. “Easily more than half,” he says. “Too many members my age and older have been demoted to glorified tea-wix or sacked altogether or killed. Wouldn’t be too difficult to guess you’ve no idea, either because of your age or that Grindelwald wasn’t known for them, if he knows about the dollhouse story. If you’re thinking it was a gamble that you, or whoever else—if there is someone else—who managed to Break the ward would die once the door opened, I’d say it’s likely. Doesn’t that make you excited to find out what’s in here?”

“No,” says Tom, sighing, before he turns the knob, opens the door, and finds—

Charity Burbage’s body?

“This is a trick,” Sirius says. “I checked if the last one was really her.”

Sometimes Tom hates the Wixen world, because it allows sentences like that to exist. “Wait here,” he says, resigned to the fact that something worse than a reanimated corpse is likely about to attack. “If anything makes a run for it, you’re stopping it from making it out the door.”

But there’s no need to worry about it, because, impossibly, what comes slithering out of the fake Charity Burbage’s slack mouth is the third python. 

 Whatever adrenaline was keeping Tom upright leaves him so quickly he sinks to the floor beside Narcissa’s martial bed. “Hey,” he says, over the python’s exclamations of recognition of him as a Parselmouth. He asks why she’s there; she explains. “Give me just a minute, and I’ll take you home, and you’ll never have to deal with awful two-legged creatures who stick you inside fake dead bodies again.” 

“Home?” says the python. “With the talking trees and the heat?”

Yes, that home, Tom says as he pets the python’s head, then reminds her again to give him a minute, and walks back to Sirius. “Her orders were to eat whoever came through the door,” he says as casually as he can manage, before lifting the adder from his neck. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Watch him?”

“Did we just acquire a new pet?” Sirius asks as Tom tells the adder to treat Sirius nicely. 

“Merlin, no,” Tom says. “This type of adder is in Northern Italy, but not ordinarily Tuscany, and I’d never expect a snake to live peacefully with that many people running around. Even a Parselmouth can be bitten if you step on one’s tail. Just let him on your shoulders for a bit. I’ll figure out what to do later, possibly after leaving Voldemort a trap to match this one, because he deserves it. Will you contact your new boss?”

“Yeah,” Sirius says, as the adder discovers it quite likes the hood of his jacket. “Reckon he might have some questions about this one, but I’ll be sure to blame you. If you’re serious about that trap, I’m helping.”

“Good,” Tom says, as he creates a portkey to the Island, before he crosses the room back to the python, who partly coils her massive body around him. He takes them to the relatively dry uplands, assuming this is low risk, as there’s less of a chance that they’ll find themselves in a flooded area. 

Because his luck is shite, this lands them face to face with a tiger.

What saves at least him is that the cat’s as shocked by their presence as they are by its, so Tom reacts the way he once did to Hagrid’s pet—a wandless, wordless Stupefy right in its eye. It’s not enough to bring down a creature that massive when it’s been born and raised on an island imbued with magic, but the Stunning Spell slows the cat enough that Tom has time to Disapparate. His last view is the sun dappling on the orange and black fur as a mouth far larger than any python’s creaks open. 

Then he’s at the first place he could think of: the banyan where Karkaroff died. 

Their arrival sends sleeping flying foxes rising from where they’d been roosting in the branches, but Tom doesn’t have time to care about bats. “Stay away from tigers,” he says as the snake uncoils from him. “You don’t eat them. They eat you.” 

“Thank you, Speaker,” says the python, who must have been taught such human manners, before slithering through the gap Tom used to enter last time. Without waiting to watch all twenty feet of her leave, he turns his pen back into a portkey and returns to find a fight underway in the front garden. 

Bellatrix isn’t there, but even from here, Tom can recognise Snyde as one of the four Death Eaters keeping Sirius, Tonks, and Scrimgeour pinned behind the shrubbery they seem to have strengthened to act as a shield. As Tom Silences himself, he hears a man suddenly shriek, before he starts kicking out his leg without a care to spellwork. Snyde, who’s beside him, stops to figure out what’s wrong. Figuring the adder attack is his cue, Tom Apparates to appear behind the Death Eaters, and manages to Summon Snyde’s and the other woman’s wand before the man who isn’t being attacked wises up and tries to Stun him. 

The spell doesn’t connect, because Sirius’ Bewitched Sleep hits him first. Two identical spells hit Snyde and the other woman, leaving them slumped on the grass.

“Professor Ryder!” Scrimgeour says, popping out from behind the shrubbery. Somehow, he looks as if he’d just gone on a garden stroll, unlike Sirius or Tonks, who’re both mud-splattered and frazzled. Blood leaks from a cut on her forehead. He walks gingerly, not quite limping but close. They all ignore the second man, who’s fallen to the ground. “Your assistance is as indelible as ever. What did you do to him?”

“Nothing,” Tom says, crouching down. The moment his hand is on the earth, the adder slithers free to come back to him. Standing is a careful process; between back-to-back portkeys, Apparition, and the blood loss, he feels like he might float away. “This is just a real snake, no magic involved. Even if an adder’s venom yield is small, well—how many bites did you give? Yeah, seven bites will do the trick. He’s a lost cause, but the others should go to Sardinia.” 

“France wants Snyde,” Scrimgeour says, removing premade portkeys from his robes so that for once, Tom doesn’t have to make one. As he places one of each Death Eater’s chest, he goes on, “It seems that now that Italy has agreed to offer their assistance, our French allies have realised that they were remiss in not doing the same. Can’t risk receiving a negative portrayal in history books, can they? You can always trust that the human desire to be seen as helpful will triumph, even when the desire to truly be fails. Is it worth it to send that one to hospital?”

It’s not a real question; all four of them know St Mungo’s as much of a sieve as Azkaban. “If we want to say we have the moral high ground,” Tonks says, watching the man, “we could send him to the local Muggle A-and-E. Though, I suppose he’d attack the staff. Wait, Tom, didn’t you invent a spell to block a person’s magic for your Mastery?”

“Yeah,” Tom says, surprised and discomforted she knows about it, “but Professor Kettering and I agreed it was barely a step above—”

He stops when Scrimgeour holds up his hand. “You invented a spell,” he says, “to block magic, and you’ve not used it? Is there not a counter?”

“Of course there is,” says Tom. “It was for my Mastery. It’s why—” He glances at Tonks. “—well, I already ended as the highest performing student that year because of it. But to use it on a real person is ill-advised—”

“But why?”

All three of them are looking at him now. The adder, sensing the shift in interaction, tenses on his shoulders, while the Death Eater on the ground writhes. Awkwardly, Tom answers, “It’s not Dark Magic, but I adapted and combined the principles of genuine Dark Magic and the antithetical nature of the Patronus, so it’s a—well, Professor Kettering’s term was ‘a parallel to the Unforgivables,’ because it targets a person on all levels. Very exciting, she said, but likely shouldn’t see the light of day.” 

“You invented a non-Dark Unforgivable,” Tonks says flatly. 

“How do you even know about it?” he says, reaching up to pet the adder before he attacks any perceived threat. He is not, as Tom had been hoping, calming down.

“It’s the professors’ top example for what they’re expecting,” she says. “You know, when they talk about that level of ingenuity they want. Thomas Ryder’s Spellbinding Curse. Never demonstrated, not to my knowledge.” 

“Well,” says Scrimgeour, stepping back. “I’d like a demonstration. Come now, the man’s dying anyway. No, don’t look at Black, Professor.”

Tom shifts. Donovan, he could tell no. Even Shacklebolt, the Minister of Magic, Tom could tell to wait until he was at least healed, but probably never, and the man wouldn’t argue. But something warns him that Scrimgeour won’t allow any answer except yes.

Cautiously, he takes out his wand and points it at the man’s chest. It takes a moment to sink into the mindset, as he’s rotten at clearing his head, but manages with Occlumency. There’s a spoken incarnation as there needed to be to pass the midterm (it was the part that took the longest to design, and the bit that resulted in his first March panic attack), but Tom avoids saying it. No wand movement, either, so there’s no indication to outside parties about what must be done before a silver ribbon shoots out to wind around the man’s steadily swelling body. He whimpers as it sinks into his skin, but does not die. 

“Fascinating,” Scrimgeour says, lowering himself beside the man to inspect the marks on his skin. “How long does it last?”

“On Kettering it lasted ten minutes,” Tom says. “Even if it’s not Dark Magic, she said between this and ten minutes of Crucio, she’d choose the latter, though it’s painless—I designed it as, I don’t know, a humane Curse, but I didn’t realise we can feel when we’re cut off from our magic. ‘Conceptually genius, practically, a night terror,’ she said. Not great in combat, as it can’t be used when Shielding, and you can’t focus on anything else, so you need time, and no distractions, and perfect Occlumency, and the reason it doesn’t last is that, like the Patronus, the ribbon’s formed from your own soul. It shouldn’t see the light of day.” 

To his relief, Scrimgeour seems to accept that. “See to it that snake’s brought somewhere it won’t hurt anyone else,” he says, already turning back to the adder’s victim, “and Black, do make sure your friend doesn’t die in the process. He looks ready to drop.”  

The manor is silent when Voldemort enters. Though he expects his arrival to spring a trap, nothing of the sort occurs.

Burbage, the blood-traitor, is gone, but her pool of blood remains. Gone, too, is the adder he left in the table to kill the Wix who came to collect her, as completely as the four of his Death Eaters he sent to see how things here were progressing. It’s as if they’d simply vanished—his followers, the blood-traitor, the adder. Even the blood. But what of the wards?

Warily, he makes his way up the stairs to the first floor. How wrong this is, this feeling of caution! Over what, a boy? Even if the boy is a relation—well, if he is, it would explain his skill, as he’s treated Voldemort’s blood wards in a markedly different way than he has others. Whilst Voldemort would never admit such a thing aloud, he hasn’t the faintest notion of what the boy does. It’s as if he has a skeleton key that allows him to open any door, and the knowledge that Voldemort doesn’t have it himself rankles.

He was hardly twelve when he determined he would be the greatest Wix who has ever lived. Better than Dumbledore, than Grindelwald, than—well, no one’s better than Merlin, but if he has to play second fiddle to anyone, let it be to a Wix rumoured to have been a demigod. But Voldemort has accomplished this feat. He did the moment he completed his first horcrux, when he was just sixteen. Given that, it makes little sense that he stands alone in front of three perfectly warded bedrooms, all with the doors behind slightly ajar when they shouldn’t be possible with the protections still raised. A rare sense of foreboding rising in him at the sight; impossibly, inanely, a small, disused voice inside him seems to whisper that he should not have come alone.

The smell worsens it. Something overwhelmingly floral. 

When Voldemort began this experiment, he imagined three choices: the boy would back away from doing any, simply Break all to disguise their relation, or reveal it in the way he treated the wards. He hadn’t expected to find them all in this state of being there, but utterly useless. It seems, too, that none of his own traps were successful, so where is his python?

Other than Nagini, his late horcrux, he never bothered to name them; they’re tools, not pets. But two have already been killed, Nagini that day in Godric’s Hollow and a second in the Ministry. Should this python also be gone, only one remains to him. It will not leave his side.

This, he finds, to be the case. Even the Conjured parody of Burbage’s corpse has been removed, and in its place is a Muggle book on the pet ownership of reptiles. There’s no note, but such a strong compulsion on it that he puts it in his pocket against his will. 

In the room across the hall, he discovers it filled with lilies, and in the last one, there’s a book for Muggle tourists on how titles work amongst the British peerage, which he throws out the window in a fit of pique. He steps back through into the hall, and notices, for the first time, a card propped against the window. It’s also Muggle. On the front is a stag remarkably similar to James Potter’s Patronus. According to the stamp at the bottom, it was bought at a bloody Oxfam. 

Dear Mr Voldemort, it reads in magicked handwriting. I hope you appreciate the time and effort we took in selecting your summer reading. It was an unprecedented kindness, particularly after the mess you left for us. Take your time. Do the readings. You’ll have the opportunity, now that you’re on—

It says something else, but a few flecks of dust block the work. Irritated, Voldemort brushes it away, only to feel the sharp sting of glass, followed by white-hot, immeasurable agony.

“You two poisoned Voldemort,” Harry says, when Tom explains the day’s events. He’s with Tom in Rome, having just delivered the adder he rescued to the zoo, as the poor boy’s too traumatised to return to the wild. “Do you think it worked?”

Unfortunately, Tom sighs. “I reckon he has unicorn blood on standby somewhere,” he says. “He’ll just Apparate there. That’s enough to stop basilisk venom, especially for a Parselmouth at so low a dose. But the chaos should give the others enough time to buy everyone’s school books, which is what matters.”

Though Harry’s disappointed, it’s not so severe that Tom buying him gelato won’t cheer him up. It’s from a stand in the park that the zoo’s in, though they’re making their way to the river. Rome, so far, is the furthest Harry can Apparate from the house on his own without it feeling uncomfortable. Ron and Theo are both still struggling, but the rest of them have learnt the basics, so despite the other boys’ pride, they generously allow someone else to side-along them for now. It’s only been a couple of weekends, as they are trying to be responsible individuals during the week, but if one good thing had to come out of Voldemort being a prick, at least it’s this newfound freedom. He’s spent nearly every minute of it with his friends; this afternoon is the first few hours he’s had in weeks without at least Draco beside him. 

Harry selects chocolate and strawberry, his usual flavours, on a small cone. As always, Tom selects none. He’s been less weird about food lately, but that doesn’t mean he’s normal. Though Harry wants to ask, he understands, without knowing why, that it’s something Tom will never tell him.

“If he does die,” Harry says, once they peel away from the mix of tourists and locals in a poor excuse for a queue, “people will be well confused. Angry, possibly, like you cheated them of a show, but I love it. Voldemort, poisoned by the same basilisk he once used to terrorise Hogwarts.”

“And you won’t mind that you lost your chance to be the distraction in Diagon Alley?” Tom says, as he takes Harry’s arm to lead him around something unpleasant on the pavement. Abruptly, Harry remembers being nine, and walking up Byer’s Rd with his hand tucked in Tom’s, because his cousin was afraid they’d be separated.

There’s no need for that today. Harry’s still shorter than Tom, but he can look him in the eye. Now that there can’t be more than two inches between them, Harry thinks he has full right to say, “We could’ve done it. And I do want to help, since, you know, you’re probably not wrong about the stash of unicorn blood.”

“You are helping,” Tom says. “Help isn’t all fighting, like the Aurors do—even I mostly just work with wards. From the very first year, the fact that none of you allowed societal expectations dictate whether you could be friends has created a more complex ripple effect than I think you understand. With NPS, you essentially brought about a partisan force. Even what you’ve done this summer, you know, is helping the incoming students, some of whom will probably be Slytherins interacting with the next batch of Death Eaters in training, see inter-House relationships and those between purebloods or halfbloods and Muggleborns or even Muggles as normalised, which directly undermines Voldemort’s mission. That’s what creates lasting social change, not killing someone.”

Laid out like that, everything Tom says makes sense, but all the stories end when the villain dies, don’t they? There’s never much talk about lasting social change or what it takes to get there. “But isn’t that what I’m supposed to do?” Harry says, looking out at the parkgoers entering from the street, all enjoying the sunshine without any need to worry over scary Dark Lords and his followers who can murder them with a flick of his wand. “Like it’s my fate or something.”

“Fate’s nonsense,” Tom says, as they weave around a pack of tourists not bothering to look where they’re going, and step out onto the street. “Listen, you don’t want to know what it’s like, even if the person on the other end of your wand is Voldemort, especially at your age.”

“Will he attack Hogwarts?” Harry asks, figuring that maybe he should. “He made a mess of the Ministry twice. Doesn’t seem to make much sense for him to try a third, now that he knows what he wants isn’t there.”

“And there’s an Auror in office,” says Tom. “One with ties to the Order. Shacklebolt won’t make the same mistakes as his predecessors, so attacking the Ministry is nearly as pointless as attacking Hogwarts, except that Hogwarts has you, who Voldemort can’t let live as a point of pride, and Dumbledore, who he rather despises. The hope is to head him off before he has the chance, but it’s likely that yes, he’ll attack Hogwarts, which will mean the NEWT students’ first order of business will be to see that the rest of the students are safely hidden away in the Room of Requirements.”

Exasperated, or maybe just frustrated by how overprotective Tom can be, Harry says, “The fifth year prefects can handle it—Gin’s one now, and you know she can—it makes more sense to have—”

“You’ve tutored a fair number of them through NPS,” Tom says, his frustration matching Harry, “and you’re popular enough by virtue of being a Quidditch prodigy, even without being famous. They’d defer to you quicker than just about anyone. Believe me, the worst thing in the world is seeing a first year die before you can do anything to stop it.”

Guilt floods Harry just as quickly as his irritation leaves him. “You’ve never really talked about it,” he says after a moment, as they finally reach the Tiber.

By unspoken agreement, they pause to lean against the wall that stops pedestrians from tumbling down into the greyish brown water. Muggles offer them a wide breadth, though they don’t notice. “Not a very nice story, this,” Tom says, looking out across the water to the city on the other side, “though I suppose you’re not a year younger than I was at the time. There was no indication that there’d be an attack on Hogwarts. None. So we were unprepared, as you might imagine, when the doors suddenly broke open when everyone was in the Entrance Hall with their luggage, preparing to meet the carriages to return to Hogsmeade Station. What saved the three of us—Flea and Mia, you know, we were always together—from that first attack, before the smoke cleared, was that fragments from the door knocked us down. Spells went straight over heads. Hit the owls at that point, mostly, and we got ourselves to our feet, and the smoke was gone, and his fucking acolytes were in, and—well, the best analogy I have for it won’t make much sense to you, but none of us—I hadn’t slept from the morning of the thirtieth until I found myself here on the morning of the second. There were so many people dead on either side it was impossible to keep count, and for Hogwarts students, well, most can’t cast the Killing Curse, can they? We had to get creative. Doing any less wasn’t worth it when they could just counter any form of immobilisation on each other.”

That’s still not much by way of details, but Harry suspects he doesn’t want to know the rest. Tom said enough to leave what remains to inference. Though Harry expects that to be the end of it, his cousin abruptly goes on, “I’m good at warding because Grindelwald was better. Or was, anyway. I might be a match for him for now. But point is, that’s why it was on the curriculum. He was able to slip onto the Hogwarts grounds in a way Voldemort never could. Entirely unobtrusive. Any ward the staff tried to raise in a rush once he was already inside to protect students, he or one of his followers was able to strip away in half the time. Even the Great Hall. Wasn’t one of Merrythought’s, because Merrythought was well dead by then, which was the main issue, as she’s likely the only one who might’ve kept him out. It’d been made into a field hospital. Underclassmen, mostly. I was standing behind him when he burnt it, and all my attempt at a Killing Curse did was give him a nosebleed. He was simply so offended he killed Mia. It was the worst two days of my life.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry says, fiddling with the useless napkin that had come with the gelato. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

Tom shakes his head. “You have the right to know,” he says, finally glancing Harry’s way again. “The fewer people it’s necessary to actively protect, the easier it is to engage in active combat. A castle can be rebuilt, but you can’t bring the dead back to life, even if Voldemort’s proved you can reanimate a corpse.” 

Harry shudders. He’s heard already about the Inferius, which he and Hermione instantly agreed was just a magical zombie. How long does the spell take? he wonders suddenly. If, say, little Dennis Creevey died, would Voldemort—

No. Tom’s right. The first thing anyone needs to do is see that the younger students are safe, because that’s not happening. Harry won’t let it. “Hopefully it won’t come to it,” he says, “but if it does, I’ll make sure everyone’s hidden. We will.” 

“Good,” Tom says, as he moves away from the wall, “though if we’re very lucky, none of it matters, because he’s already dead.”

On the day before term begins, Tom receives a letter. It’s laced with the sort of Curse that has no counter, so only the caster can get past it without undergoing a lengthy Breaking process. Bad luck for Voldemort, as this just means Tom can open it without issue. Worse luck, really, because the tiny fake snake with the real venom that bites him when he does is an adder, as he’s immune to anything weaker than the basilisk (and even if he wasn’t, it’s an adder, so how much was one bite really going to do?).

Sirius and Narcissa, the only other two awake, stare at him with identical expressions of bewilderment as he Vanishes the letter, snake and all. “Very short, as far as letters go,” he says, reaching his coffee, which he’d abandoned when the eagle-owl swooped down to drop the letter on his lap. “Just the snake attacking from the Dark Mark. Hadn’t even bothered to sign his name, the git.”

Sighing, Narcissa leans back in her chair and says, “I was hoping it would work, slim as the possibility was.”

“The idea of him dying in his bed is nice,” Sirius says, looking off in the direction of the hills, as it amongst lies a world of missed chances. “No one can martyr an old man dying sick in his bed. Doubt he admitted to any follower that Tom and I caught him in a trap and poisoned him with basilisk venom.”

“I just want to know if he opened the book on snakes yet,” Tom says. “Tonks says it was missing, so I assume he took it.”

With a sigh of his own, Sirius turns his attention back to them and his coffee and says, “Oh Tonks. Been avoiding me, that one. What will happen if he does?”

“It turns into a rabbit,” Tom says, inordinately pleased with himself over the trick. “My first day here, Dumbledore told me how they met, and that Voldemort, a fucking eleven-year-old, just casually admitted he used wandless magic to hang a boy’s rabbit.”

Narcissa gasps. “No,” she says. “Hurting people is one thing, but what did the bunny ever do to him?”

“No idea,” Tom says. “If Dumbledore knew, he decided not to tell me. Suppose I was looking a bit seedy by then. Why don’t you corner Remus?”

“Well,” says Sirius, taking the shift in conversation in stride, “what if he doesn’t know?”

“Know what?” she asks. She sits a little straighter, sensing gossip.

They probably shouldn’t tell her, Tom thinks, but Sirius displays no second thoughts when he details the short exchange about the change in Tonks’ Patronus. “It’ll be honest,” he says, “I wouldn’t have thought anything of it if it wasn’t for her hair, so it’s all her own fault.”

“This explains a lot,” Narcissa says, lowering her voice. “Andy wrote to ask if Remus was acting odd at all, particularly when he received post, so I said no, not that I’d noticed, but promised to observe. But the girl could do worse. Now he has steady employment, no tattoos, no piercings, a perfectly respectable haircut—all already better than Bill, I mean, what is Fleur Delacour thinking—not to mention an immaculate school record, and who cares if he has a monthly problem, when so do all of us witches—”

She cuts herself off when Emmeline, who still seems half-asleep, enters with an even sleepier Harry at her heels. “Good morning,” she says when she slots herself onto the cushion next to him, then kisses his cheek, and unashamedly steals his second cup of coffee straight from his hands. “Thanks. What were you talking about?”

“Tom received a letter,” Sirius says, as he passes Harry coffee. “It seems Voldemort is, rather tragically, still alive.”

“He sent you a letter?” Harry says, horrified, so he misses the coffee and grabs at empty air. “Sorry. Thanks. But, a letter?”

“And it didn’t kill you?” Emmeline adds.

Shrugging, Tom says, “It wasn’t for a lack of trying. Harry, are you finished packing?”

“Why should I be finished? We leave tomorrow.”

“Because—“

“Don’t listen to him,” Sirius says. “Tom doesn’t understand the sanctity of last-minute-ing, though it’s an important life skill.”

“No it’s not,” says Narcissa. “Oh, reinforcements. Shay, what are your opinions on procrastination?”

By the time Harry’s friends emerge, he already regrets admitting not to have finished packing, and Sirius regrets calling procrastination a life skill. Tom and Emmeline leave once all the first years appear, and retreat to their bedroom’s balcony. “I want you,” she says, “to teach me how to make an international portkey.” 

“All right,” he says, surprised. “Why?”

She looks out across the garden, toward the same hills that house Sirius’ missed chances. “Dead complicated, they are, I know,” she says, “which is why none of us have bothered to ask you or Felicia how to do it. But a Patronus can deliver a message at any distance, so if there is an attack on Hogwarts or elsewhere, any of us who are here can come to help, even if Felicia’s out. No point in it being a Hogwarts portkey—the wards blocking travel would be down.”

As much as he would quite like her nowhere near Voldemort, it would be good to have assistance from the outside, and at this point, enough people are here to probably count as an attack force. “That would be useful,” Tom says, as she turns back to him. “Do you know how to make a normal portkey?”

“No,” she says. “Sirius does, because he’s an Auror and Aurors are legally allowed to do it, but we civilians are never taught the skill. It’s a fineable offence.” 

“Then how does Felicia know?”

“The Europeans don’t care apparently. She learnt from her father.”

Though the twenty-first century is almost uniformly better than his childhood, he does miss when there weren’t so many bloody laws. As he Summons a notebook from his room, he says, “We’ll start with individual sheets of paper, since if you make a mistake, you’ll destroy the object. Ready? Let’s begin.”

A fucking rabbit stares at Voldemort from beside his breakfast when Darius Bulstrode enters the conservatory where he takes his meals. Though Darius glances very briefly at the animal, he displays his usual candor in electing to ignore it, focusing instead on Voldemort when he inclines his head into a bow and lays an envelope on the other side of the tray. “Thomas Ryder, My Lord,” he says. “We’re no closer to figuring out how he tracked us, but I thought perhaps, Muggle-like as Skeeter claimed him to be, that it wouldn’t be remiss to have my sources look into his life on that end.”

By sources, of course, he means his mudblood wife.

“That’s forward-thinking, Darius,” Voldemort says, as he picks up the envelope. “You may leave now.”

The envelope is parchment, but inside, he finds ordinary Muggle paper, which he extracts as Darius exits the way he came. There’s more than he expects, but that’s not unusual; all Wixen stationary comes with an Enlargement Charm. A small, still, coloured photo shows the boy near a glass case with a small lizard, not a snake, on his head. Beside it reads: Thomas Ryder, PhD candidate, Herpetology. Under: Thomas Ryder is a PhD candidate in herpetology at the University of St Andrews. His doctoral thesis engages with current discussions on animal cognition and sentience, and asks to what extent, if any, does a life in captivity affect emotional and intellectual development in monitor lizards.

So the boy is not, Voldemort thinks, a Parselmouth, just someone interested in reptiles. Certainly, it makes his decision to save the basilisk easier to understand.

The other bit of intelligence Darius’ mudblood wife uncovered is one of the two articles noted under List of Publications (the other being listed as forthcoming). This one is about a snake, though not in any magical context. To Voldemort’s irritation, it’s so overwhelmingly Muggle that he can hardly follow whole portions. Why would anyone care that a pit viper demonstrates signs that it can feel positive and negative emotion? It’s several thousand words of the most well-written drivel he’s ever had the displeasure to read. 

But what is interesting comes at the end, in the clipping of the Prophet that falls out last. Darius’ mudblood wife is a credit to her species for having uncovered this, as it’s so old by this point Voldemort assumed it was lost. Though there’s a picture of “The Dollhouse Boy,” he isn’t present in the frame. The article itself presents its lie so beautifully Voldemort could almost consider it the truth, if only he wasn’t always inclined to believe everything Dumbledore said to be false. Seventeen in 1956, says the article. Turned into a doll in Shanghai, says the article, but born in London. Most importantly, it claims he never attended Hogwarts, but is pleased to announce he has now been Sorted into Gryffindor, of course. Only a Gryffindor would be so bold as to look Lord Voldemort in the face and brazenly call him a legal bastard after experimentally Apparating through anti-Apparition wards. It is, after all, the House known for its boundless stupidity disguised as bravery.

If the dates are right, then he’s two years Voldemort’s junior, though he cannot see how. The article he just read wasn’t simply Muggle, but too decidedly of this time for someone from the past. Before fully integrating into the Wixen world, Voldemort read the scientific textbooks found on similarly-aged orphans’ desks, and none of them cared about what animals were feeling. Is it the opposite? Is he from the future, so they lied to protect whatever he might know? As forward time travel isn’t possible, that would be more reasonable than a boy turning into a doll for decades. Or is it that outlandish just because it is, unbelievably, true? 

Whatever the case, the boy is a concern. He’s already brought Voldemort the lowest he’s ever been whilst in a body of his own. Horcruxes mightn’t be enough, but uniting the Hallows will be. 

He lowers the papers and discovers the Conjured rabbit nibbling at his roasted tomatoes. In his frustration, he grabs the knife and stabs it, forgetting momentarily that animals made of magic rarely bleed. The blade sinks through the body with no resistance, easy as water. 

When the rabbit screams, the sound is an air raid siren.

Chapter Text

Marietta Edgecomb is the new Head Girl. 

“For my display of admirable integrity in face of adversity,” she says when she and Cho stop by the compartment. Cho, to stay, and Marietta, only long enough to tell the news. “Thank you. If you hadn’t believed me about the Veritaserum, I wouldn’t have this.”

“Of course we believed you,” Harry says, in that casual way of his that blows all doubt to the wind. Yes, there could be two Triwizard Champions, if only there hadn’t been that dastardly spider. Sure, it’s perfectly normal for cousins to have nearly identical wands. Why can’t a future Gryffindor and future Slytherin be friends? “You said you wouldn’t tell, so you wouldn’t. Any idea who the Head Boy is?”

“Not yet,” Marietta says, “but I’ll report back when I can.”

She shuts the compartment door behind her.

“Shouldn’t you be with the prefects?” Cho says, looking at Draco, who’s decidedly present in the compartment, occupying the space between Harry and the window. 

“I’m skiving off,” Draco says, covering his eyes with his hand. “Just the worst of all migraines, you know, I daren’t undergo such an ordeal when even the sunlight pains me. Hermione will just have to go on without me.” Lowering his hand, he adds, “But Harry’s Quidditch captain.”

This is thrilling news, as Cho is also the new Ravenclaw captain. “We must put all teams on the pitch again,” she says. “That was so much fun. Who’s the new Slytherin captain?”

“Probably Cowley,” Daphne says. Cowley is one of the Chasers, the most annoying of the lot because he’s the best, and everyone only calls him by his surname because his first is Fergus. “He’s now the oldest on the team, which is a nightmare, because we need to open tryouts. If I need to play with some of the little snots—” 

“Daphne!” Ron says, scandalised that Daphne Greengrass would so openly insult children. “Did you just—”

“I debated on calling them flobberworms,” she says primly, “but that seems like an insult to the flobberworms themselves.”

Bold words coming from Daphne. Everyone hated the flobberworm unit, but none more so than her. 

“Vincent and Greg,” Theo says, even as he colours pink slightly because Cho just took his hand. “Convince them to try out as Beaters. Oh, and I have a present for you, Cho.”

As Theo rises to extract the Tornado scarf Tom and Emmeline found for him to gift to Cho, the rest of them turn their attention away from the two in the corner to offer at least the illusion of privacy. This, though, just gives Ron and Daphne permission to be RonandDaphne, leaving Draco and Harry to entertain themselves. Draco doesn’t mind. Though Ron was also teaching Quidditch this summer, he flitted away to Daphne whenever the chance arose, which meant Draco and Harry spent the most time alone together they had since they started Hogwarts. It was interesting. Draco wasted far too much of it contemplating all the ways that Harry’s changed since then, and all the ways that he’d changed himself, and wondering what might have happened to them both if they hadn’t met that day outside Quality Quidditch Supplies. 

Draco’s conclusion is that Pansy is never allowed to call Quidditch silly again. 

He rests his head against the window and watches the countryside streak by in a blur of green farmland and grey sky. “I swear,” he says, as an endless mass of white joins the green and green, “the number of sheep doubles every year. How many sheep are in this country?”

“No idea,” Harry says, “though the answer’s probably ‘too many.’”

“There were sheep everywhere around the manor,” Draco says, though doesn’t like thinking about his childhood home much these days. Too many people have died there, left at the table where he ate his every silent meal. “An enchantment kept them from coming too close, lest they disturb the peacocks.”

“Peacocks are the worst,” Harry says, as outside, a line of trees pulls itself across the meadows to hide whatever ill-intended mischief the sheep are plotting. “You just wouldn’t know because yours don’t scream. Didn’t? What happened to them?”

“No one’s told me,” Draco says, “but Merlin, I hope they didn’t try to do the economical thing and kill them for game stew or something. My father probably had them all Cursed.” 

“I’m not sure you need to Curse peacocks,” Harry says. “Look, when Voldemort’s well and truly dead, and we can all rest easy, I’ll take you to the zoo so you can hear them shriek their heads off and finally understand what you didn’t miss.” 

Draco rolls his eyes. “It can’t be that terrible.”

“Oh, it is,” his friend says. “Yeah, we’ll make a day of it. Doubt you’ve ever seen a red panda or koala.”

“Never,” he says, though Harry’s perfectly aware. “Will I get to meet your boa constrictor?”

“If you ask nicely,” he answers, as the door opens and the prefects enter. Hermione has Crookshanks in her arms, as the cat refused to be parted her, even when she tried to leave her with Daphne. “What’s wrong?”

Even Blaise looks mildly murderous, and he very rarely expresses such outwardly negative emotion, unless he’s purposely dramatising it. “One of Luna’s old dorm mates is the fifth-year Ravenclaw prefect,” he says, taking the seat closest to the door, as the last one available. “Ginny’s fuming. A miracle, really, that she managed to stay civil.”

“Honestly,” Hermione says, as Crookshanks flows off her lap onto Daphne’s, like he never rejected her earlier, “I expected it to go to Luna by default, as the only girl in her year who isn’t quite possibly evil.” 

“Marietta will keep them in line,” Cho says. “She’s the new Head Girl.” 

“Really? That’s wonderful—”

“It’s Zacharias Smith for Hufflepuff, which is just as bad,” Pansy says, as a knock comes on the door and the trolley lady calls in, which distracts them all for a few minutes while they make their selections. As always, this results in an abundance of chocolate frogs. “Oh!” she says, once she opens hers. “These must be the new additions. I have Shacklebolt. Listen to this bit: ‘successor to Cornelius Fudge, the most incompetent Minister of Magic in modern times.’”

Every two years, chocolate frogs add five new cards, but when they open all the rest, the others are familiar. Naturally, Dumbledore and Morgana are amongst the lot. Harry unearths Armando Dippet. “I had him the first time we rode the train,” he says, flashing the card to Ron and Hermione. That must have been while Draco was still with their Slytherin friends, back when they were separate entities determined to make their parents proud. “Ridiculous he even has a card, mind, when he was losing his marbles way before the Governors voted him out.”

“How do you know that?” Daphne says, looking up from the suspiciously coloured Bernie Botts bean in her hand. “Wasn’t he the last headmaster?”

“Tom’s friends had him,” Harry says, tossing the card into the large reject pile. “Completely useless apparently, at least by forty-seven.”

Draco catches Hermione’s eye right before she shifts her attention to Harry and asks, “Did Tom ever meet him?”

Blankly, Harry answers, “Why would Tom have met him?”

Because, Draco thinks, Tom went to Hogwarts. 

It makes little sense, and yet, all the sense in the world. Ever since the day at the dragon reserve, he and Hermione have been gathering evidence. As bemused as Pansy and Blaise were at first, they never complained about helping, though the others denied the idea outright. No one’s mentioned it to Harry or one of the adults, and certainly not to Tom. It would have to be to Tom first, they decided, but that just wasn’t worth doing without a decent theory to back their claim. There’s enough of one now that Pansy and Blaise are convinced, but it’s hard to explain it other than that it’s a feeling.

The main issue (according to Hermione) is that forward time travel isn’t possible, but Tom is so undeniably of 40s/50s. What else could it be, though, if the dollhouse story is a lie? Draco thinks that if Tom had managed it, the fact that he (or, more likely, Dumbledore) concocted some over the top lie makes sense. Further proof: he had an “allergic reaction” to time-turner dust. But the more pressing issue (according to Draco) is that there wasn’t a Thomas Ryder at Hogwarts during that time. It was easy enough to look up; prefects can access old school records in the trophy room.

In answer to all this conflicting information, Pansy floated the idea that maybe Tom came from a different world. While this would fit the disparate pieces together, the rest of them dismissed the theory, as the concept of other worlds is simply too fairy tale to be true.

But they’ll figure it out, Draco thinks, as Cho leaves to join her friends, and conversation turns to speculation on what the year’ll bring. After all, they always do.

Tom regrets accepting E-scoring OWL students for his sixth year class. Do all of these people really need Defence for their future careers? Somehow, he doubts it, but when the Heads of House informed him of the number of students who decided to stay on, they all did so chortling at his expense.

Finally, he understands. 

Every Gryffindor. Every Slytherin but Crabbe (a disappointment if there ever was one, as Tom would have liked to keep an eye on him). Then he’s down all of the Ravenclaw girls but Padma (the others are the only sixth years taking History of Magic, which clashes with his course), and Neville and Justin from Hufflepuff, but that still leaves him with an unprecedented twenty-six students. Even in uni, he never taught more than eighteen. 

But he’ll be fine. Uniformly, the sixth years like him, so they tend to behave for him. “So our first unit,” he says, as he tries not to freak out and let the teenagers sense his fear, “is nonverbal magic. This requires a fair amount of moving around, but our space is…limited. With the weather as nice as it is, how do you feel about having class outside?”

“We’re allowed to do that?” Anthony says, as the others process the outlandish suggestion, as if it’s impossible to believe. 

“It’s not in the rules that we can’t,” Tom says, “so we’ll either start a trend or do it just the once before someone writes it in. Shall we?”

There’s a great rush as everyone gathers their bags. As he learned as an undergrad himself in St Andrews, no student ever turns down the opportunity to have class outside. Even when it’s not against the rules, it still feels oddly illicit, and that’s enough for them.

He leads them away from both Hagrid’s and the greenhouses, so they’re near enough to the Quidditch pitch that students can choose whether they want to be in the shade or the sun. It’s unusually hot, nearly forty degrees; he’s quick to cast a Cooling Charm before anyone complains. “If this goes well,” he says, “and no one tells me it’s against the rules, we can just meet here whenever it isn’t raining, since it’s more comfortable than the classroom. Sit on the grass so you can take notes. All right, so the theory of nonverbal magic is—”

For ten minutes, he lectures them, before having them count off so they’re split into twos. He starts them with Expelliarmus, as that’s what Merrythought did with his sixth year class, and has it so that they both try for the first round, then once person manages, they trade off so it’s their partner’s turn. While they aren’t allowed to wander off, it would help if they weren’t too close to one another, as it wouldn’t be too difficult to hit someone else otherwise.

For the remaining class time, he wanders through the groups to offer advice and encouragement where he can. To his relief, the eight he taught over the summer pretend they haven’t already learnt this, so it isn’t blatantly obvious he set them ahead of their classmates. It’s not his fault, really. It’s entirely theirs for pestering him when they knew he didn’t have the patience to say no. Ginny is equally to blame for pestering him into teaching her to make an ordinary portkey, but she definitely knew that he wouldn’t have thought twice about teaching her to Apparate if he wasn’t so certain Molly would kill him. 

If only he could teach the skill to his students. Not everyone can Apparate, and he thoroughly believes that shouldn’t be a deterrent to a person having the ability to flee at a moment’s notice. Voldemort has nothing to do with it; back before it was a fineable offence, he knows parents would hand their kids portkeys all the time so they felt safe letting them play without constant supervision. 

 But that’s just wishful thinking. By the end of class, the only students who can manage a nonverbal spell (other than the ones he taught over the summer) are Anthony and Oliver from Ravenclaw, Susan from Hufflepuff, and Dean. “Keep practicing,” Tom says as they gather their belongings, “starting with Expelliarmus. If you’ve mastered that, move on the Levitation Charm. Nothing too hard at first. Stick to feathers.” 

“When will we know if we can do this again?” Parvati asks, gesturing broadly at the outside world. Most of the rest of the class looks up too, keen. 

“Hopefully by tomorrow,” Tom says. “Now come on, back to the castle.”

The majority head back to the castle with him, except those taking Care of Magical Creatures, an eight-student cohort that includes Daphne and Ron (though he is, Tom suspects, only taking it because of her). Then the few taking Divinations need to make a run for it to reach the tower on time, but the rest stick to him, all desiring to chat about how their high scores on their OWLs were all thanks to NPS, and oh thank you, Professor, for encouraging them. Is there a single sixth year who wasn’t in the group? he wonders. Asks it, even. Until now, he hadn’t bothered, because he’d simply assumed that at least one must’ve fallen through the cracks. 

But no, he learns. Every sixth year was a member from the very first day. Same with the current seventh years, as well as the last ones, though they’ve all graduated. Most current fifth years were, except a few stragglers here and there, and after that, and same with the fourth years, but membership drops off in second and third years. A couple Slytherins joined in each once NPS became common knowledge, but just that. A couple.

Hopefully the first years will change that. Three of the pre-H students ended up in Slytherin, including Niles, though Tom isn’t too worried about him. Really, he’s much more worried about the punishment little Philomena Coleridge, who might be the smallest in her year but quick enough for that not to matter, will receive for defending him. Bastien Queensbury, the other from the group, is a wilier.

He has them next. Somehow, word’s already gotten around them that he had class outside, and any potential distrust he was expecting to have to contend with pales in comparison to their demands to know why they can’t have the same privilege. Well, he decides, why not? Before leaving, he sets a sign on the door for future classes letting them know where to meet, so he doesn’t need to deal with the same outrage. It’s the Ginny situation all over again, the idea that if the older ones can have such and such, then the younger ones deserve it too. 

“Why doesn’t any other professor do this, Professor?” one of the girls asks, near the end of class. She’s a Nettlebolt, just like one of Ginny’s friends, which might spell further disaster Common Room. “Not for Potions, but any of the others could.”

“I don’t know,” Tom says honestly. “It’s just not what’s done in Hogwarts, I suppose, but professors do it in Muggle uni—like a Mastery, but for Muggle—yeah, all the time.” 

He’s already given his personal accountability speech. Unsurprisingly, this sparks the “artificial divisions in society” bit that has more than one leaving with a furrow between their brows. As if to prove a point, the three summer students march off to castle together, linked arm-in-arm like togetherness will protect them against the world. 

Only once the Slytherins reach the doors does he leave for his daytime office hours. Halfway there, Slughorn cuts him, smiling like he’s in on a joke Tom’s not allowed to know. “We wondered if you could solve your little issue of overpopulation,” he says. “Of course, Minerva and I never doubted you, Tom, never doubted you at all! Enjoy your year outdoors.”

Then he walks away. Chortling. 

As always, Gryffindor Quidditch tryouts are on a Friday. They have one Chaser to replace and two Beaters, though in the name of fairness, anyone can try out for any position. 

All four Quidditch teams are, by and large, decently transparent with one another, so the tryouts aren’t closed. This is good for several reasons, the first being that Ron always plays better when Daphne’s near, either on or off the pitch, and Harry would just hate to have to play with Cormac, who was the close second. The other is that a depressing number of students show up, not even all of which are Gryffindors, and none of which listen to Harry’s orders to clear off, yet allow Monkleigh and Cho to shepherd them away as if they’d been Confounded. It’s masterful. He wants to know how they did it, but suspects he’ll just never have the skill. 

Like Ron, Draco and Katie remain on the team, but that’s no surprise—anyone else would be hard pressed to match the level of teamwork the three of them have established over the years—and Ginny outflies everyone so definitively that it can’t possibly be called favouritism when Harry selects her. Jimmy Peakes, a fourth year, and Ritchie Coote, a fifth year, become Beaters after Harry, Draco, and Katie spend a frustrating amount of time deliberating, because they’re good, but they’re not great. Still, they’re the best of everything who tried out. It’s just disappointing, because Beaters are important. Between injuries from Cursed Bludgers and accidents with Bludgers in rainstorms, Harry’s well aware of how integral they are to a team. But there’s no doing this time. All Harry can do is hope that they improve, even without pep talks and flying lessons from Emmeline Vance.

When all that’s done, he meets Cho, Monkleigh, and Cadwallader, the seventh year Hufflepuff Captain, in the centre of the pitch to make a standard practice schedule for weeks when the weather miraculously behaves. This is partly because everyone wants to keep up NPS, which just has too many people to comfortably schedule, and partly because it’s easier than fighting over the slots, as Oliver had to do during Harry’s first two years. With the other three all taking their NEWTs this year, the thought of stability is obviously a comfort. 

Once they negotiate a schedule they’re all happy with, Monkleigh looks up from the scheduling sheet to ask, “To be honest, I’ve never liked that we only play three games a year. Dreadfully boring, isn’t it, just to do practice with our own team for the rest of it. I know last year the scrimmaging was because of Umbridge, but shall we standardise it? Perhaps every Sunday that there isn’t a game that Saturday, weather depending?”

A grand idea! Harry and the others say, and by the time they finish that, it’s just about dark. “Can you imagine doing this if we needed Snape’s approval?” he says as Cadwallader rolls the parchment up to return to the locker room. 

“Oh, he’d never grant it,” Monkleigh says, standing. The rest of them follow suit. “I thought he was just the most wonderful professor for years, until I realised how monstrously unfair it was that he’d Vanish Katie’s potions for being so disastrous when mine were worse. Makes sense that I’m terrible, I’ve now realised—I heard Slughorn compare it to cooking, and I should never be trusted in a kitchen. I thought I’d try my hand once. Do you know how rare it is to have an elf ban you, the human, from a part of the house?”

“That happened to my mam,” says Cadwallader, suddenly very solemn. “Muggleborn, she is. Felt uncomfortable with a house elf doing all the cleaning, so she thought she’d help, but she’s shite at cleaning spells, as it happens, so Toodles went to my dad to tell her to stop.” 

Cho appears to be struggling not to laugh. She catches Harry’s eye and rolls hers as they head toward the exit, the other two chattering about house elf drama ahead of them. It’s a good evening to end an overall good week, since he doesn’t have to deal with any of the classes he doesn’t like anymore. Weekends tend to be at least decent, barring detentions with sadistic Death Eaters pretending to be professors, and the weather’s meant to be gorgeous, so he and his friends planned to spend as much of it as possible on the grounds. Of course, this will probably include Hermione forcing them to do homework (dating Pansy has not, as the rest of them hoped, made her anymore willing to prioritise fun over work), but even that’s acceptable in the sunshine. There’s no reason his five foot Charms essay needs to ruin his good mood.

The Prophet article the next morning does that well enough on its own.

Within minutes, even students who don’t have subscriptions to the paper know that Ollivander’s been kidnapped. The reaction is so intense, that for the first time in Harry’s experience at Hogwarts, Dumbledore stands at breakfast and calls for order. “I know this is unsettling news,” he says, though this is, Harry thinks, an understatement. Several people who were in the process of standing sit back down. “I must urge you not to panic. Now, I understand that many of you will want to write to home to learn more, but you cannot all enter the owlery at once. Whoever would like to send a letter, stay after you’ve finished your breakfast. The Heads of Houses will pass out parchment, then assign you and group and time.”

As he sits back down, Ron says, “Blimey, this is a mess. We should find Ginny, Draco. If she wants to write anything to ask Dad, we should all just do it together.”

“Sirius must be on the case,” Hermione says as the boys leave, turning her paper around so Harry can have a look. “The man he typically works with is called Donovan, isn’t he? It says a ‘team’ led by him is searching, which is awfully irresponsible, if you think about it.”

The tight knot that formed in Harry’s chest marginally eases. “Then Tom’s probably with them,” he says, glancing at the sentence. The photo is of Ollivander’s shop, still and empty. “They already poisoned Voldemort. If anyone can find Ollivander, it’s them.”

By the time Tom meets with the usual team, they’ve already been searching all night. They’ve also, he finds, replaced Sayre.

“Josephine Abbott,” says a woman maybe Narcissa’s age, which must make her one of the senior members. She’s short and Irish, with her daughter’s pale hair, though it’s laced with grey. “Call me Jo. You’re Hannah’s professor?”

“Tom,” he says, shaking her hand. “Lovely student, Hannah. Always so well-behaved.” 

Jo beams. Behind her, the other four exchange a series of pointed looks that all seem to indicate they know he would have a way to compliment her daughter even if she was as annoying of a student as Zacharias Smith. 

But he’s not back in Malfoy Manor’s front gardens to talk about lovely, well-behaved Hannah Abbott. When all this is done, he hopes Draco burns this place. There’s nothing here this time, but after finding five bodies and one tortured Muggle Studies professor, Tom understands the impulse to check. Being here makes him itch, though. It never felt like much of home, but now it feels like a monument to this fucking war. That the sky above it is a sheet of grey doesn’t help the imagine.

“Our trail’s dead,” Donovan says as Tom sidles over to take his usual spot next to Sirius. He and Pugh had noticeably and tellingly left a space between them. “We checked any land connected to the newest round of escapees—it’s because of them Ollivander’s been taken, we assume—and they’re empty. Most have been watched anyway since Royston passed on the news. But it’s not that we’ve no idea where to go, just that there are too many possibilities, and they’re all locked behind the need for a warrant. Well, unless we go with Sirius’ suggestion and get the Office of the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts involved.”

“Arthur’s office?” Tom says, surprised. “Why?”

“See, people never pay attention to his office,” Sirius says, with a smile that might be categorised as a smirk, “so they all forget that he can enter a property without a warrant as long as there’s a suspicion of a Muggle object imbued with inappropriately with magic. Written into the rules as an error, maybe, but no one ever bothered to correct it.”

“But,” Pugh says, “he or whoever he sent couldn’t bring Aurors with them, not from the beginning. Only once they had confirmation of a threat.”

Pointing at Tom, Tonks says, “He’s not an Auror.” 

It’s difficult to tell what Jo thinks of this suggestion; her expression is inscrutable. Ignoring the way she’s watching him, Tom says, “The problem there is that Molly would react poorly if she found out we recommended placing her husband in danger, and then he wouldn’t do it again, because he wouldn’t want her to worry, so we’d only have the one chance. Can we get into wherever Ollivander was living?”

“Easily,” Jo says. “It was the back rooms of his shop. The evidence we collected, though, is being processed back at the office, so there’s not much left to see.”

“Was there a hairbrush or anything there?” he asks Sirius, because his friend will understand what he intends to do.

With a shrug, Sirius says, “Never saw one. There’s enough hair on the floor that you won’t have trouble finding any. No surprise a man with a shop that dusty didn’t believe in a broom, I suppose. What else do you need? A map?”

“Just one of the UK,” Tom says. “The type you have would be good, you know, that shows the estates—”

“Could be one here, if we Summon it—”

“Already used it, remember—”

“What’s going on?” Jo says warily, but Donovan, who’s cottoned on, points out, “You think Ollivander didn’t have his own map?” 

“True,” Tom says, before adding to Jo, “I know a tracking spell. Not sure if it’ll work. I used a snake’s skin last time, though, so I reckon human hair’ll do. Privacy’s the last thing. Can’t risk making a mistake because I’m distracted if one of you lot decides to sneeze.”

Though everyone else knows this means Tom’s about to do something dodgy, Hannah Abbott’s mother is apparently as well-behaved as her daughter (he wasn’t lying), because she says, “It’s not illegal, I hope.”

At once, the rest of them turn to her. Tom’s certain it’s disconcerting, this display of team dynamics including someone who isn’t an Auror, but can’t bring himself to care. Finding Ollivander, or at least making decent headway toward that aim, before Monday is more important. “Well,” he says, “it wasn’t in fifty-four, so I assume it isn’t now.”

“Fifty-four?” she repeats, confused. “You mean—”

“Tom’s the Dollhouse Boy,” Pugh says, gesturing at the whole of him. “You’re fine, Ryder. Report back when you have an answer.”

After reviewing a few more details, he Apparates to what he estimates to be the back rooms of Ollivander’s shop. 

Where finds himself is not the living space, but room with the stock. There are little labels everywhere: loose #1005, box #2, box/wand #765, broken wand #27, etc. The number of broken wands listed isn’t comforting, but as there are labels, Tom can at least assume it means the Aurors removed the contents of the room, not the Death Eaters. Kidnapping Ollivander to make new wands for them seems extreme, given the last bout of escaped prisoners didn’t get the privilege. No, that might be a benefit, but if Tom had to guess, Voldemort’s after news of the Elder Wand. So what of the wandlore library?

Tom means to find that before he searches for the bedroom, but he ultimately discovers the two together, as Ollivander’s room is the library. Most of the books appear to be here, but a full shelf is empty. A category, he assumes. When he casts a Searching Spell for the one Ollivander gave him last time, it reveals nothing. 

Later, Tom decides. He’ll worry about this when he has the time.

For now, he Summons a map as easily as predicted, as well as enough hair for the spell to work. Once he finishes writing the runes, he also Summons and Stuns a rat. And then he starts. 

“The Notts’ residence,” Tom says ten minutes later, when he Apparates back to the front garden, where the proper Aurors are snacking on sandwiches and pouring over very boring-looking law texts. In the time he’d been gone, they’d Conjured tall tables to use, so they could continue to work standing. “Don’t ask me for proof. When you took his wands in for evidence, did you take any books?”

Only Jo is startled by the question, though not for the reason he assumes. “Evidence?” she repeats. “They were taken in for safekeeping. Well, and future repair.”

“Can’t be evidence of any real value,” Donovan says, by way of explanation. “Daft old bugger doesn’t have a proper inventory, so we can’t say if any wands are missing. That might’ve given us an idea of who staged the attack, since Wix who need second wands try to match their first. The Notts? Didn’t you arrest the wife?”

“And helped the son run away from home,” Tonks says. “Oh, Mr Nott will not be best pleased to see these two, believe you me.” 

Sirius closes the book, which seems to be for Arthur’s department. “And I look forward to arresting him,” he says. “He’s taken to sending Theo letters about what a disappointment he is since his mother was arrested.”

After everything Sirius has said about his horrid family over the years, it’s understandable that he and Theo bonded over the summer. Though there’s little Wix can’t guard against, no one’s ever figured out how to block specific owls, so whether in Hogwarts or the Zabinis’, the letters had no trouble finding him. 

But that can’t happen if his father is locked away in a prison in Sardinia.

“What’s the plan?” Tom asks. “Arthur?”

“That’s Plan B,” Pugh says. “Plan A is talking to Amelia Bones to see how long it’ll take to get a warrant. Don was just about to leave.”

While they wait for Donovan to return, Tom manages to eat most of the tasteless cheese and tomato sandwich Sirius nudges his way, though it takes forever. For some reason, Tom’s the most nervous he’s been since first official day teaching and he had to navigate the landmine politics of his second-year Slytherin class. Worse, Sirius seems to realise something is wrong. Why wouldn’t he, though, when Tom’s been so good lately? Even at school, he’s been good. Most days, he doesn’t even think about it.

At least he’s been so fucking weird about food that by the time Donovan Apparates with his update, the only person looking at Tom oddly is Jo. Not that this is helping—nor were her questions about her daughter, who’s a decent student, but not stellar. Excellent at practicals, pretty shite at written assignments and exams. High A, mainly. Average. 

Donovan puts an end to the interrogation when he tells them all to have a rest at home for twelve hours, then meet at the provided Apparition point a mile from the Nott residence. “Turns out there’s some archaic law saying you can raid a ‘domicile’ on suspicion of fraud if the head of house ever defaulted on their dues before. Nott did once. He was tried for his participation in the first war the day his property taxes were up for payment, so didn’t get around to it until a week later. Warrant will take twelve hours to write up. Once we’re through the door, shouldn’t take long before we see something that’ll let us search the property on suspicion of Dark activity. Sleep. This’ll be the middle of the night.”

As twelve hours isn’t much time, Tom and Sirius Apparate to Crook Peak. “Jo’s intense” is the first thing Sirius says as they head indoors from the balcony. Though the distance between Wiltshire and Somerset isn’t much, the sky here isn’t content with greyneed, but decided that a rainstorm was in order. “She was Head Girl when I was a third year. Made troublemaking very difficult. Hasn’t changed much now that she’s older.”

“Her daughter’s a prefect,” Tom says. “Should we get that sleep?”

“Yeah,” Sirius says. “Then we’ll be awake in time for coffee. Always important.” 

Though Tom doubts he’ll sleep in the middle of day, as he wasn’t awake all night, he drifts off immediately. His last thought is that it would be awfully nice of Voldemort to die tomorrow, but unfortunately, he doubts any of them will be so lucky.

With a legal warrant, the team should be able to announce themselves, as Nott will be obliged to allow them through the wards. As they’d rather not allow anyone time to flee, however, they all decided that it’s perfectly fine for Tom, who’s not an Auror, to simply allow his hand to slip, and accidentally make a mess of the several-hundred-year-old protections guarding the house. There are two layers, one blood-based and the other spell-based. The first he adapts; the second he tears down. No one will be able to feel it, as whoever made it is long dead. It’s so fragile it shatters with hardly any effort at all. Had Bill Weasley been here, he likely could have done it in a minute. 

They Apparate to the front door—no point in letting anyone see them strolling up the carriageway—and Donovan announces them with a knock. A human butler answers, as is the pureblood way. In a moment, Donovan flashes the man the warrant and shoves his way through the door.

Someone who is clearly, depressingly Selwyn Apparates behind them—behind Tom, the last of the procession—as Nott and another presumed Death Eater appear at the end of the hall. Cursing the fact that these people obviously had a plan in case of a raid, Tom blocks Selwyn’s Stupefy while striking out with his own; Selwyn Shields, but Tom, irritated, bursts that with a force that sends the man careening unconscious to the wall. At the same time, Pugh screams, a sound not quite loud enough to drown out the snap of a breaking bone. 

Without pausing to check what just happened, he Apparates behind the other two. No, other four. Nott’s asleep at Sirius’ feet, but there are reinforcements, leaving too little space in the hall. Tom hits a woman with a Knockback Jinx in the back, sending flying forward into the man in front of her, so neither can protect against the Aurors. Then he glances to his left and realises, to his delight, that the woman is Pansy’s mother.

Tom Disarms her. “Where’s Mr Ollivander?” he asks politely, ignoring the fight in front of them. 

“I can’t tell you,” she says, though she so clearly thinks, In the undercroft, and adds just the most perfect image of it’s nothing short of deliberate. It’s a good guess—even if Pansy hadn’t mentioned he’s good at Legilimency, the fact that he puts books about it on his suggested reading lists is proof enough. 

When he turns her robes into a portkey, he sends her a hundred miles north of the prison, which will place her on Corsico. A distance that small is reasonable enough to be a mistake, so the likelihood that she’ll find herself tied to a chair at Malfoy Manor with the word traitor carved into her head seems slim. 

The final Death Eater falls. As Donovan orders Tonks to get Pugh out, Tom says, “I know where we need to go. Who’s coming with me?”

As always, it’s just Sirius. That they’re splitting up so Donovan and Jo can explore the rest of the house leaves Tom feeling nervy, though he can’t place why; they separate all the time. You can’t do everything, he reminds himself firmly, as he takes Sirius’ hand and Apparates them to the undercroft with the image Maeve Parkinson projected. 

They land a hair’s breadth from the nearest column, which Tom stumbles directly into, as Sirius capitalises on their surprise advantage to strike one of the two guards with a Stunning Spell to the back. A second later, he ducks with Tom behind the column and presses close to avoid the tertiary Avada Kedavra; it sails past in a flash of green light to hit the brick wall instead. Tom angles himself into view as he hears the man revive his companion, and Disarms them too fast for either to react in the same moment Sirius Stuns his original victim. The second guard falls to the same spell a heartbeat later. 

All in all, the process couldn’t have taken more than a minute and a half.

Ollivander has his back to them. Whatever magic keeps him bound to the chair in front of the work table is so strong he can’t even turn his head, though he’s struggling. He hasn’t made a sound. Though Tom had expected to find dragon heart strings and phoenix feathers and wood from at least ten different species surrounding, it’s all hair of pure black and wood of the same shade, which happens to match the wand now hidden in the empty bottle of Négrette. 

Well, that’s…unexpected. 

Tom leaves Sirius to deal with saving the wandmaker while he sends Voldemort’s mediocre followers to Sardinia. Thank Merlin some Ministry lawyer discovered another archaic law stating the government could seize a convicted criminal’s assets, as Wixen Britain would probably be in debt to Wixen Italy already for housing all these escaped prisoners if most weren’t essentially paying for themselves. 

“He isn’t here,” Ollivander is saying as Tom turns back to the situation at hand. Carefully, Sirius helps the old man rise from the chair. His legs quiver, as if he’ll fall without support. “Left to question Gregorovitch, I believe. My books were not good enough for him, it seems.”

“And your replica of the Elder Wand?” Tom asks, glancing at the partly done work on the table. If Ollivander knows the proper length, this isn’t even a quarter done.

“Slow-going,” says Ollivander, “as with all wands. Vanish it. Burn it. Even a replica should never find its way into the wrong hands.” 

Before Tom does anything, he says, “What did you tell Emmeline about her wand?” After Crouch, he’s never trusting anyone to just be themselves. 

Ollivander actually dares blink, so startled he gives into the human need. “That when it’s time for her to die,” he says mildly, “it would be best for her to have her wand in hand.”

Deciding that’s good enough, Tom wastes no time in Vanishing even the table and chair. It’s almost too easy, but he tries not to think about lakes and rivers, and that Death, perhaps, likes the thought of more than the one person having a wand of such particular make as much as he does. 

When Sirius asks for a pen, Tom hands it over without question and peers around the rest of the space. Not as old as his own family’s undercroft, he notes with a shameful degree of satisfaction. About twice the size. Empty but for what looks depressingly like holiday decorations, a reminder of happy childhood, before Theo went and made some choices his parents didn’t like. 

As Sirius wipes whatever he wrote off his palm, he draws Tom’s attention back to him by saying, “Take him to Kreacher’s last place of residence. Don and I, we agreed it made a decent safe house. Food’s there. Here’s your pen.”

“I’ll be back,” Tom says, as he takes Ollivander by the elbow and, without warning, Apparates them to 12 Grimmauld Place. 

Chapter Text

One week after Ollivander’s very publicised rescue and the seven arrests that resulted because of it, McGonagall suddenly appears to pull Hannah Abbott out of Herbology. Hermione and Pansy, who had been working with her, abruptly find themselves holding a stem of the sopophorous plant in place with no one to harvest the beans. 

“I hope Hannah’s all right,” Pansy says, once they all leave to head to Tom’s class, also to be held outside. Everyone in their group but Blaise, who’s decided he wants to go into law, is taking the course. “McGonagall always looks a bit like the world is ending, so it’s so hard to tell when something’s serious.”

During the Age of the Conspiracy, Hannah was one of the few who never believed it, though she’s so naturally quiet that McMillan just talked right over her every protest that maybe the Gryffindors and Slytherins who claimed to be friends really were just friends. It’s difficult to imagine anything terrible has happened involving her. “Maybe there’s drama with some girls in her House,” Hermione says. “She and the seventh year prefect could be asked to intervene.” 

“Like that would do anything,” says Daphne, presumably also remembering how little prefect intervention helped the Luna Situation. 

Though a prefect herself, Hermione’s willing to admit there’s not much they can actually do, other than send curfew-breakers back to bed.

When they reach the grassy area where they usually have class, Tom isn’t there. Lavender, Parvati, Padma, and Millie, who arrived first, crowd around the side of the Quidditch pitch. “Class is canceled,” Millie says, noticing them first. 

“What?” Harry says, even more startled than the rest of them. Tom’s never cancelled class before, and it’s difficult to believe he would without sending his cousin some sort of message. “Is that a note? Does it say why?”

“We were hoping you’d know,” Lavender says, in a tone that implies it’s very rude of Harry that he doesn’t.

For a moment, neither he nor Hermione nor any of their friends respond. Are they undergoing the same realisation? The creeping dread? It’s touched a cold finger to the nape of her neck. 

Draco swears a curse he definitely learned from Ron. “Are all the classes for today cancelled?” he asks. “Or just this one?”

“All of them,” Padma says, sighing, which leaves her sister to finish, “And they’ve been moved to Saturday. Hopefully the weather’s better than today.”  

“Why do you all look like someone’s died?” Millie asks, which, horribly, makes Hermione want to laugh.

Though all of them but her start to answer, it’s the Hufflepuffs who come bearing the news. None of them seem surprised to find Tom missing. As the rest of the oversized class arrives, Ernie’s already saying, “It’s Hannah. Her father’s withdrawn her from school, at least for now—came home to find her mother, well, dead, he did, and Professor Ryder, well, it’s no secret he’s the one solving the Aurors’ problems these days, is it?”

Probably, one of them should explain that it’s not like that, but the shock has set in so deeply no one moves. It’s one thing to read about Azkaban breakouts or a shopkeeper’s kidnapping or even experience an attack themselves, and an entirely different matter to hear about a classmate’s parent being killed in their own home. This isn’t Lucius Malfoy or another known Death Eater or even an Auror lost in a fight. Those are casualties; this is murder. 

Rather than separate, the sixth years sits on the grass, the way they would in class, to talk about the recent development. Surprisingly, it’s Goyle who asks, “Why Mrs Abbott?” Given his father is one of the other parents who’ve died, Hermione thought he would’ve disappeared rather than participate in any speculative discussion.

“Well, she’s an Auror, isn’t she?” Susan says. “She was telling us her mother was part of Ollivander’s rescue mission. Maybe one of the Death Eaters who got away recognised her and followed her home. But McGonagall, she never actually used the word dead. Oh, don’t look at us like that. Wouldn’t you have eavesdropped if you heard something like this?”

No one denies that they would have. Hogwarts students, Hermione finds, are a naturally inquisitive bunch. 

“What did she say?” Anthony asks, as a crease forms between his brow. 

The Hufflepuffs all exchange a series of glances before Susan answers, “Just that her father had found her mother. If it had been Sprout, I’d say she was trying to spare Hannah’s feelings, but McGonagall’s not the sort who would avoid saying ‘dead,’ is she?”

“Mustn’t help that she’s Muggleborn,” says Ernie, after everyone decides no, McGonagall is certainly not the type. “For whatever it was. Was anyone else involved in rescuing Ollivander? Could be why they picked her.”

With a frown, Neville says, “That doesn’t always matter. The Abbotts are blood-traitors.”

“Ernie might have a point,” Harry says, as if the words pain him. “I think one of the others is a Muggleborn, but I could be wrong—haven’t actually met her—but she’s in hospital, so it’s not like she’s available.”

It could also be, Hermione thinks, that Mrs Abbot was the only person available, depending on Donovan’s situation. Tom went straight back here; Sirius would have mostly been in Tuscany; Pugh was in hospital in France. Even if Tonks went home, Hermione’s picked up enough from Narcissa to figure there’s a decent possibility that the Death Eaters might attempt to minimise the likelihood that Andromeda will die. Bellatrix Lestrange is unpredictable. She probably cares about Tonks about as much as she cares about Draco, but it seems like her feelings towards her sisters are mercurial. 

As someone who is, categorically, Bellatrix Lestrange’s enemy, she can understand why someone who’s not might like to keep it that way.

A rare, distant rumble of thunder sends them back indoors, though it hasn’t started raining yet. There’s no point in returning to the tower when Ron and Daphne have Care of Magical Creatures next, and Hermione, Draco, and Pansy have Ancient Runes on the first floor, so they drift into the Great Hall for an early lunch. None of them are particularly hungry, but picking at a plate gives them something to do. 

Theo, who’s barely spoken since Tom passed on the news that his father’s also been arrested, says, “Seven people were caught. They lost Ollivander. The protection of—of—of where they were staying. If McGonagall didn’t say the word ‘dead,’ it’s because whatever they thought up in retribution was worse.” 

The Prophet never listed the Nott residence as “where they were staying,” but someone decided it was Tom’s responsibility to explain to Theo the reason why he received a very confusing letter from Gringotts informing him that they would be unable to pass access to the property to him until the investigation was done. Despite both their and Cho’s best efforts, he hasn’t discussed it at all. Any of it. 

Now that he’s suddenly brought it up, it takes a moment before any of them react. Blaise shifts, so he’s angled more toward their friend, and says, “Probably. We’ll know by the end of the week, I bet. No one will keep this a secret.”

Theo doesn’t answer. Neither does anyone else. 

Earlier than necessary, Hermione stands to leave for Ancient Runes. The quiet of the Great Hall is just too oppressive for her to stay any longer; she finds it disconcerting that no staff members are at the table. Clearly, the news has gotten around. This isn’t the first time that something’s happened to a student’s family member, but something about it feels different. Like this is a turning point, though of what, she can’t say.

Whatever it is, she dreads finding out. 

By the next morning, the whole school knows Josephine Abbott isn’t dead, but she might as well be. The Dementor’s Kiss, after all, is worse than death. In reaction, Hannah’s father didn’t withdraw her because he thinks the house where his wife was attacked is safer than the heavily warded school, but because he shipped her off to her aunt in Canada, where she’ll finish her education with a private tutor.

The news reaches Harry and his friends—except Theo and Daphne—long before he has the opportunity to search out Tom, because Ernie carries it with him from the Hufflepuff table to the Potions classroom. “Seems they found themselves bored with random attacks,” he says dryly, as they wait for the door to open. “Did you ever think there’d come a day when the Dementors were acting the part of assassins?”

There are fourteen students in total taking Potions, most Wix-raised; their resounding “no” is so emphatic Harry, Hermione, and Justin all jump.

If Slughorn hears, he shows no sign when he opens the door to usher them in. “Good to see you all present and accounted for,” he says. “Very exciting morning planned! Now, before you sit, tour around these cauldrons and consider what they are. I would normally do this the first day of your sixth day, but a rather heated debate rose over the summer about the continued inclusion of two on the curriculum. We’ll discuss the reasons why later in the semester when we reach the unit on each.”

Though Harry can’t know for certain yet, he suspects the two were Veritamerum and the love potion. He recognises it from pictures he’s seen, not the smell, which catches him so off guard that the only reason he doesn’t blush is because he’s just never been the sort who can. Oil from a broom-servicing kit, that high altitude fresh air that always seems to stick, soap so expensive he can never put a name to a scent. Everything he associates with Draco, though he’s never actively realised it before.

In horror, he zips to his seat, and barely pays attention to anything Slughorn says other than that they’re working alone in competition for Liquid Luck. Harry doesn’t care a jolt about any competition, just that they’re working alone.

He cannot possibly have…feelings for Draco. Simply can’t! They’re just best friends. It’s why they and Blaise decided they’d all stay single until they graduated. Also, they’re cousins. Everyone might say it doesn’t matter, but it does, except, now that Harry thinks about it, are they blood related? No, they’re not. Harry’s related to Dorea Black Potter through marriage, not genetics.

Not that he’s rationalising this, of course. Obviously even love potions can be wrong. It must just be confused, because he spent nearly every waking minute with Draco this summer, and all right, that hasn’t changed much since they returned to school, and isn’t even too different than last year, but they’re on the Quidditch team together and all the same classes but one and share a dormitory and aren’t dating anyone, not to mention the added complication of Draco being Harry’s first ever friend, and Harry being Draco’s first ever, well, something, so it’s perfectly reasonable that the love potion made a mistake, and also that Harry’s brain makes a mistake sometimes, which is the only reason he has the occasional sort of dream that friends aren’t meant to have about friends, or—

“Splendid!” Slughorn says, so close to Harry’s ear that he startles. “Yes, yes. Just perfect, Harry. I believe we have a winner.” 

“Thank you, sir,” he says automatically, as he glances from the perfect potion he hardly remembers making to Hermione, who glowers at him murderously. Ever since Slughorn replaced Snape, they’ve swapped almost class by class for who finishes as the best. For the most part, it depends on whether the potion needs to be exact to the instructions, or if Harry can figure out a better way to use the ingredients. Hermione, he suspects, is not someone he would want puttering about a kitchen. 

“How did you do it?” she snaps as they leave, once he has the vial of Liquid Luck tucked safely in his back. “You even stirred incorrectly.”

He blinks. “I did?” 

“Yeah,” says Draco, equally put-out. For some reason, when Harry looks at him, he flushes a light pink, then clears his throat and finishes, “You stirred anti-clockwise at one point.”

Awkwardly, Harry says, “It was an accident,” without elaborating that the reason is entirely Draco’s fault. Before anyone can add anything further, Harry adds, “I’m going to go find Tom,” and flees.

Today’s Tom’s morning office hours, so he’s technically available, though Harry has to wait until his cousin manages to shoo a remarkably upset Hufflepuff out the door before he can enter. “What was that about?” Harry asks, throwing himself into Tom’s spiny chair, so he has to do his half-sit, half-lean thing on the desk. 

“Teacher-student confidentiality,” Tom answers, which, Harry translates, means the younger student received a bad mark. “How are you?” 

“I just won Slughorn’s Felix Felicis competition,” Harry says. 

“Brilliant,” Tom says, as pleased as ever to hear about one of Harry’s accomplishments, whether it’s academic or on the pitch. Though his friends are always mortified when their parents do the same, Harry’s never stopped appreciating that Tom and Sirius care about how well he does. 

But even Tom’s reaction can’t dull Harry’s lingering discomfort over his reaction to the love potion, nor his burning desire to learn what happened. “Thanks,” he says, before going on, “Was class cancelled because you were at the Abbotts’?”

Tom folds his arms, a clear sign that he doesn’t want to talk about this, but will anyway, just because Harry asked. “Yeah,” he says. “My teaching duties come first, but Scrimgeour sent Dumbledore a Patronus essentially demanding I be there, and it’s a bit difficult to turn down the Head of the Aurors. Their understaffing issue is officially an emergency. Tonks is one dead or sacked Auror away from becoming a senior member, and she’s only been fully employed for three years. Apparently, that should be considered a step above novice, but not right now.”

“Is that why Mrs Abbott was attacked?” Harry asks. “To weaken the Aurors?”

“Potentially,” his cousin says. “That’s one of the theories anyway. A raid like the one the other day would have been dangerous if there had been anyone terribly new included in the team. Or it could be less calculated than that, and it’s just that they wanted to make a statement in the aftermath of the raid, and started with her because she was rubbish at casting the Patronus Charm. There’s no evidence there was more than one Dementor, and anyone else could have taken care of that easily.”

“What’ll happen to her? Mrs Abbot, I mean.”

With a one-shoulder shrug, Tom says, “She’ll be in hospital, presumably, but whether it’s here or by her sister-in-law, I don’t know. There’s always the chance that her husband will keep her with them, slim as it is. It’s not the same as a coma, having a soul removed. The body and the brain still function as normal, so anything external that can trigger the chemicals that create emotion in anyone will still work, but anything internal that helps make a person who they are, like their interests, is gone. And for a Wix, our souls fuel our magic, so someone who’s been administered the Kiss loses theirs.” 

Harry takes a moment to think all that through. In comparison to what Hannah’s going through, realising he might have more than friendly feelings for his best friend suddenly isn’t such a big deal. “Will this start happening more often?” he says, because if so, he thinks he deserves to be prepared.

Again, Tom shrugs. “Hard to say,” he answers. “More than one Wixen family’s hidden their house with a Fidelius Charm over the last few days, though. If this keeps up, there’ll come a point when Voldemort finds most corners of Wixen Britain barred to him. The alternative, though, will be open warfare, or as open as it can be without alerting Muggles. For the most part, it does seem like he tries to avoid that. Speaking from experience, though, that’s worse. Now,” he says, turning his gaze from the middle distance back to Harry, “what do you plan on using your winnings for?”

Taken aback by the sudden shift in conversation, Harry’s silent for a beat before he says, “Well, he said it’s not allowed for exams and competitions and things, and using it on a normal day seems stupid, so I figured why not save it for if Voldemort attacks the castle? Seems a good an excuse as any.” 

“Fair point,” Tom says, as someone knocks on the door. “Sorry,” he adds, as Harry stands, knowing that’s his cue to leave. “Send whoever’s there in, please.” 

It’s a Gryffindor underclassmen, a boy Harry thinks might be called Euan Abercrombie, who’s teary-eyed even before he darts through the door. Just before he leaves, Harry glances back at his cousin and mouths, Good luck.

The next student to go is Eloise Midgen. 

“But why?” Hermione says, before Ron or any of the rest of them can. It’s a Tuesday, late in the evening, but at the start of the latest NPS meeting, and the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, for which Midgen was Chaser, brings the news. “Isn’t she a Muggleborn? How will her parents find a tutor? And what about her OWLs?” 

“She said she’d let us know,” Sue Li, another Chaser, says. Rather than practising, everyone’s just standing around the Room in nervous groups, exactly like how Mum and Dad said people did during the war, which is now the first war. 

“It can’t be impossible,” Daphne points out, “since Tom’s father was able to find him one, and he was a Muggle. That was a thousand years ago, I know, but Grindelwald was active then, so it wasn’t too different.”

Hermione and Draco exchange one of their annoying glances, but before they can start asking any pointed comments meant to trick Harry into “tripping up,” Ron cuts in, “Are you holding tryouts again?” It’s an important question; all of Ravenclaw’s Chasers this year were returning players, which Cho and the others said was good, because everyone who tried out for the position was awful. Even their new Beater is so middling Cho apparently asked the other captains’ advice on who they thought was the least bad of the lot.

This is disappointing. Winning isn’t fun when it feels like the opposite team is playing one-handed and blindfolded.

Unenthusiastically, she says, “Tragically,” and adds quietly, “Wish us luck.” 

“Lupin might know a private tutor,” Theo says, sending a glance at Harry, who nods. “That’s what he does, since the Wizengamot still has repealed the stupid Anti-Werewolf Legislation.” 

“You think they would on principle,” says Draco, folding his arms, “considering it was Umbridge who made it. Has anyone else mentioned being withdrawn? We’ve not heard anything.”

Shrugging, Sue says, “Neither have I, but someone could be keeping mum about it. I’m just surprised no Slytherin’s been withdrawn. I mean, now with the war on and all, and so many of the House being ‘blood-traitors,’ you’d think at least a few would be out just preserve their sensibilities or something.” 

“Oh never,” says Pansy, sounding, somehow, even less enthused than Cho. “They’re all spying on the rest of us. The fifth year girls are convinced someone went through their rooms—”

“What?” says just about everyone in attendance, including Theo and Blaise, so Pansy goes on, “Why do you think Ginny’s room is suddenly so cluttered? Hers can’t be the only one. There must be belongings in the fifth year Hufflepuff dormitory too. It’s a disaster. Nothing had actually been taken, though, so Slughorn basically said it’s the girl prefects’ problem and left us to it.”

Daphne rolls her eyes. “And I still say he would have put more effort into it if it had happened to the boys. He just doesn’t want to deal with girls.”

“Do you think they’ll come back?” Blaise asks. “Hannah and Eloise, I mean. You know, if the war ends before the start of next year.” 

Of course, no one has an answer to that. “I know it just started,” Cho says, “but I can’t imagine it’ll be over that fast. That would be quick, wouldn’t it, as far as wars go?”

Shrugging, Harry says, “Don’t think that matters particularly. Tom promised his girlfriend it would be over by summer, so it must be.”

Even to Ron, this news. The only person who seems unsurprised by it is Draco, but that’s been happening a lot recently (Ron doesn’t know particularly how he feels about that, torn between the knowledge that it’s his own fault for him and Daphne stealing moments of alone time, and not wanting to be left out). “It must,” Draco says. “Emmeline will do the assassinating herself it isn’t, probably.”

“Why?” Cho says, looking from Harry and Draco to Theo. 

“Well,” Harry says, “she’s not allowed to play until Voldemort’s dead, right, and she’s so offended that the Tornadoes beat the Harpies—”

And that successfully ends all discussion of the war. 

Ron crawls into bed that night still smarting from his girlfriend’s not all true statement that the Cannons never would have defeated the Harpies, either, if they hadn’t played all their games with a noticeable lacklustre energy, and wakes the next morning with a brilliant counter-argument fixed firmly in mind. If the Tornadoes could win the season, why can’t the Cannons? It’s Quidditch! Anything is possible! As a Quidditch player herself, Daphne should be well aware of it, so surely, she’ll listen to reason when he lays out exactly why he thinks the Cannons will finally break the curse of their semi-final loss, and come out the other end of this season victorious.

Except, when he, Harry, Draco, and Hermione descend for breakfast, they can tell immediately that it’s not the sort of morning for Quidditch talk. Even Goyle and Millie are present at the Gryffindor table, though not Crabbe. None of the boys look as if they’ve slept. Then up at the staff table, Slughorn, who’s typically present for the first breakfast hour, is missing. So are half of the rest of the faculty, and those that are there look about as cheery as they might at a funeral.

“What’s wrong?” Ron asks, as he slides into the empty seat next to his girlfriend. Harry, Draco, and Hermione file onto the bench across from him, with Hermione next to Pansy, as always. “Where’s Crabbe?”

“Gone,” Goyle says. His eyes are focused on his empty plate. “Slughorn showed up in the middle of the night to collect him. Hattie—that’s the family house elf—she was there packing before he was even out of bed.”

“Why the middle of the night?” Harry says. “Are his parents—”

“Running away from You-Know-Who?” Millie finishes with an arched brow. “We think maybe. My father spent all summer encouraging me to…join. Greg’s mother too, but then she disowned him, so—”

“When did that happen?” Draco says, turning to Goyle. “Why didn’t you mention it?”

With a shrug, Goyle says, “It doesn’t mean anything. Mother sent a long letter about how I’m a horrible son who isn’t allowed back home until I see sense the first day of term, but she just doesn’t want me involved.” 

“My father would never,” Millie says, “and Mother just goes along with it. If You-Know-Who encouraged them to encourage us, I can see Vin’s parents not wanting him anywhere near that. Probably doesn’t help that it seems like they’re going to lose. Everyone knows it.”

Shocked, Ron says, “They do? What’ve they been saying?”

Millie waves her hand in a vague gesture that doesn’t seem to mean anything in particular. “Oh you know,” she says, even though none of them, in fact, know, “just that Professor Ryder’s is giving them sleepless nights. Supposedly he’s found a way to track them, but no one can figure out how, so they never feel safe. Serves them all right, I say. Mother’s hardly slept at all since You-Know-Who came back. A Muggleborn, she is. Terrified all the time.”

“It doesn’t help that Ryder’s always working with Sirius Black,” Goyle adds, before Ron or his friends can ask any follow up questions, like why the bloody hell aren’t Millie’s parents divorced. “No one’s pleased he went back to being an Auror. Father said he was bothersome enough as a Mastery student, because he’s the only one who understands how they all think, and he can actually throw a decent Curse. The two of them together are the stuff of nightmares.”

If Ron’s honest with himself, he can’t imagine either Sirius or Tom as ever deserving the title the stuff of nightmares. It’s not a matter of which side they’re on or anything of the sort, but more that it’s hard to think of anyone as terribly scary once you’ve witnessed them so bleary-eyed they’ve poured water instead of milk into their coffee (Sirius), or canoodle with his girlfriend (Tom). At the same time, though, if Tom says the war will end in a year, Ron believes it.

In the meantime, though, he has the same question about Crabbe as he did about Hannah and Midgen: will he be back for whatever’s left of his Hogwarts education? If he’s in hiding, it’ll be even more impossible for his parents to find a private tutor than Midgen’s, though maybe since they have the textbooks, they’d just teach him themselves. That’s what Mum would do if Ron and Ginny had to leave, which it won’t, because the only way that would happen would be if Voldemort took over the school, and that’s unthinkable. 

He banishes the thought from his head. There’s enough to worry about without considering particularly terrible hypothetical futures, and even these concrete horrors, he decides, will be easier to face with a spot of toast.

September slides into October without another student leaving, though concerns over this have no time to fade before it’s replaced by the anxiety of three members of the Wizengamot disappearing, one after the next. On the day the news arrives that Amelia Bones, the third victim, vanished while heading to an Apparition point in Diagon Alley, Tom announces that he’ll be teaching the class wandless magic.

“You’ve all managed nonverbal magic at this point,” he says, as Draco despairs. He’s tried wandless magic for years, and the most he’s ever been able to accomplish is shoving aside people who stand too close to him in queues. “Wandless magic is a natural progression. It’s not as hard as it seems, though it might take a few lessons before you’re able to cast Expelliarmus, which is as far as we’re formally getting for now. Wix don’t need wands, strictly speaking. They help a Wix focus and channel their magic, but they aren’t required, and can sometimes weaken a spell, as they don’t come directly from the source, with the source being you.”

Easy enough for Tom to say, when he’s been doing magic wandlessly for almost as long as he can remember. In pureblood families—and this is as true for the Weasleys as it is for Malfoys—once a child starts showing signs of underage magic, their parent is more likely to hand them their own wand and shoot some sparks around to decrease the chance of further incidents. Accidental magic in underage Wix is considered healthy, but something to be managed. When Draco was younger, Mother had Tom teach him to control his accidental magic so it wasn’t so disruptive, but that was mostly about tempering it, not casting. That didn’t start until over the summer, once he and Harry had their wands, and they were spending so much time together that Tom caught Draco up on a second year’s standard because he was already doing that for Harry. 

Draco had assumed that his tragic inability to wandlessly cast would never be a true issue, because in real life, he’d never be without his wand, and in school, it’s not like it was ever on the curriculum. He knows it’s not on the NEWTs. But Tom wouldn’t teach something like this just for the fun of it.

Tom demonstrates by reinforcing the Warming Charm that surrounds their “classroom.” Another blocks the rain, which has been coming down for the last week without indication that it plans to break any time soon. The lecture on theory lasts another half hour before he has them split into pairs to practice. Automatically, Draco turns to Harry first, who turns to him. It’s so instinctive that, not for the first time since the Potions lessons, Draco hates himself for it. Just a bit.

It’s not as if Draco wasn’t aware, though he hadn’t been willing to admit it, that his feelings for Harry were less than platonic. Maybe they’d never been; certainly, they weren’t by the fourth year, when he was jealous of how much time Harry spent with Cedric (the two still exchange letters, which doesn’t help matters). But for a number of reasons, fancying his best friend is a bad idea, not the least of which is his discomfort with the fact that pureblood or halfblood couples are often distantly related. Still, it was probably inevitable from the moment Harry crash landed into Draco’s life and decided there was no good reason why the boy who didn’t understand the superiority of trousers couldn’t don a pair and kick around a ball. There’s a part of him he can trace a straight line to these rubbish feelings directly back to the moment he realised a Muggle-raised kid who’d never touched a broom before already flew like the one he borrowed was an extension of his body, but he didn’t need didn’t need a fucking love potion to prove it.

Everything about it was what Draco had associated with Harry for years: that high altitude fresh air that always smells just a bit like rain, the oil from the broom-servicing kit, summertime grass stains. Now he’s had it in his head for days—weeks, despite all the upheaval of Crabbe and Hannah and Midgen being withdrawn, and the members of the Wizengamot disappearing. It’s so trivial. How ordinary it is, fancying his best friend. In comparison to the going-ons outside Hogwarts’ walls, it’s such a stupid reminder that they’re all still teenagers. 

He’s looping on that thought when Tom suddenly says, “Neither of you are trying that hard,” and startles him so severely he almost trips over his own too feet. “Merlin, Draco, you’ll never manage if you’re thinking about something else.”

Bitingly, Harry says, “You never concentrate,” as Tom appears on Draco’s left. How unfair! Even if he was paying attention, it would be understandable for him to jump when Tom, who’s always so quiet on his feet, approached from behind. 

“I’ve been doing it for years,” he says. “You’re trying for the first time now.”

“That’s different,” says Hermione, who’s trying and failing with Pansy a few feet away. It’s so rare to see Hermione fail even without the prior practice the rest of them usually have that Draco thinks it should be proof of how impossibly hard this is. “How old were you, three?”

“Something like that,” he answers, with no sense of self-awareness that he’s some stupid prodigy that shouldn’t exist. 

Pansy, who seems to have given up entirely, asks, “Why are we learning anyway? It’s not as if any of us leave our wands in our rooms, Tom.”

To Draco’s annoyance, Tom doesn’t even have the grace to blush. “All worked out in the end,” he says. “Trust me, wandless magic is excellent to know if you’re ever disarmed, or drop or wand, or have it snapped.”

Exasperated, Draco says, “Well, maybe, but how long does it take normal people to learn?”

“An average of three weeks, I assume,” Tom says. “That was how long Merrythought’s unit on wandless magic was, but she taught it to seventh years. It was on the NEWTs back then, but since it isn’t now, I thought it best to teach your year.” 

“Why do you know the seventh year curriculum from back then?” Hermione says, narrowing her eyes suspiciously, as Draco tries in vain to catch Harry’s eye. “Your friends were sixth years.”

“That doesn’t mean I only talked to them,” Tom says with a shrug. “Walburga demanded my help, essentially, when I was fifteen, and then there was Kate a year later, though she asked politely. Kate I helped. Walburga I didn’t, of course. Oh, it looks like Michael has his hand raised. See you later.” 

After a beat of just watching him scurry off, Draco and his friends round on Harry, who appears to be practising with sudden, great concentration, which the rest of them just cannot stand for. “Harry,” Draco says, so the other boy stops and looks up at him, expression the picture of innocence. “What in Merlin’s name—”

Before he can finish, Tom dismisses them. “And remember to practise!” he says, as everyone collects their things, then casts their Umbrella Charms, which was their last unit in Flitwick’s class. As always, at least half the class dawdles to talk to him, so the rest of them wave goodbye before making their way back to the castle (or, in Ron and Daphne’s case, Care of Magical Creatures). 

Rather than confront Harry there and then, Draco and the others bide their time until Tom’s office hours. Pansy and Blaise, they decide, will discuss the matter with Harry while Draco and Hermione corner Tom, the trickier opponent. With the seemingly imminent end to this mystery in sight, neither Draco’s silly desire to snog his best friend senseless nor his dismal failure at wandless casting matters. Or, they do, but this is an excellent excuse to shove those issues aside until later.

They arrive at the tail end of when Tom’s officially available, in that brief period between when he tends not to have a student and he’s packing up to leave. “Hey,” he says, as Hermione shuts the door. When he asks, “Do you have questions about wandless casting?” his expression is every bit as guileless as Harry’s earlier.

Without waiting for an invitation (none of them ever do), they plop themselves down in the two seats across the desk. It’s always nicer to speak to him alone, because he surrenders the spiny chair, but needs must. 

“No,” Hermione says, as Draco watches Tom fiddle with a pen. Not anxiously. Just absently. “You went to Hogwarts, Tom.”

Though Draco—and Hermione, he knows, from lengthy discussion on the matter—expect denial, Tom just says, mild as can be, “I did wonder when you’d figure it out. Harry said you started putting it together last year, so really, you two, it took you long enough.”

“It did not!” Draco says, incredibly insulted on all of their behalfs, except Ron, Daphne, and Theo, who refused to believe it. “We were just waiting for the evidence. Mind, we still don’t have it particularly, but what rot, that thing about knowing NEWT curriculum because you talked to people.”

“Technically, it is true,” Tom says. “I did my seventh year here.”

“But why lie?” Hermione says, staring at him. “And there was no Thomas Ryder back then. We did check.”

Tom leans back in his chair and appraises them both. “Think it through,” he says. “You’re both bright. If you need a hint, just—well, this will only make sense to Hermione, but think of Sherlock Holmes—”

“‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth,’” she says, almost more to herself than to them. Draco doesn’t need to hear it twice, though, to understand the point, so knows what to expect even before she says, “Oh my god. It’s an alternate universe, isn’t it?”

Pansy, Draco thinks, will never, ever let them live this down. 

Far too casually, Tom says, “Apparently it’s a relatively well known theory, though I didn’t know it when I first showed up. Dumbledore came up with the story, because Unspeakables are bloody terrifying, and if they ever found out, they’d likely murder me to dissect me, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone. Want the visual explanation I gave Harry?”

“Obviously,” Draco says, without having to think about it. Tom’s explanations are always so fucking complicated that he needs visuals to follow along. 

He does the whole thing with wandless magic, the casting done with such ease that Draco despairs more than ever, but not so much that he can’t be offended about how right Pansy was. If Harry hasn’t told her and Blaise yet, Draco’s leaving Hermione to break the news. She’s the girlfriend, after all, and therefore, is the one who should have to deal with the first round of I told you sos. 

When Tom finishes, he waves away all the lines and lights and things with a flick of his hand, like they were never there at all. Neither Draco nor Hermione say anything right away, but he ever so kindly allows them to process it.

Finally, Draco says, “So why isn’t there a Thomas Ryder here?”

“Could be that another version of me doesn’t exist,” he says, “like my parents never got together here, or the Thomas Ryder who should have gone to Hogwarts died before he ever received his letter. As I said, things were different. Corban Yaxley—you knew Yaxley, I assume, at least peripherally, Draco—he never would have existed because his father died of a Wide Awake overdose as a sixth year. About half the school was killed the day I came here thanks to fucking Grindelwald, including your grandfather. But for whatever reason, I’m here, and I’m a Peverell, so I was able to remove Harry from the Dursleys and actually learned about blood wards in Defence, so can torment Voldemort into complete confusion, so it all worked out in the end, didn’t it?”

He’s far too nonchalant about this, which Draco takes as their cue to leave, but not Hermione. No, never Hermione. Hermione, alternatively, feels the need to say, “I can’t even imagine what it was like for you to find out Grindelwald never made it to Britain here.”

“Not quite as terrible as finding out he’s still alive,” Tom says bluntly. “Honestly, though, the weirdest thing about this place is that there was ever an extreme division between Slytherin and Gryffindor. It was the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs with the issues back home, and even that wasn’t terribly severe. While it wasn’t quite as unified as here, no one from a traditionally Slytherin family was getting blasted off the tree, if you know what I mean.”

“But what House were you?” Draco asks, realising he hadn’t said it. “You were a Ravenclaw, weren’t you? That’s why you knew to tell Harry you have to answer riddles to enter the Common Room.”

“Yeah,” Tom says, “and Ravenclaw was still Ravenclaw, so I spent most of my time with the Gryffindors anyway.”

“I see,” says Hermione. “You were Luna.”

“Not quite as bad,” he says, “as my actual dorm mates were decent blokes, but yes. There are books on the theory in the library, but if you want to read up on it, just use Harry’s cloak and steal the books, all right? Can’t have anyone else growing suspicious, can we?”

Chapter Text

“Tom’s from a different world?” Ron says, once Hermione shepherds all of them into the Room of Requirements for a private chat. This is not what he had in mind. “You’re serious?”

“Yes!” says Pansy, before anyone else. She spent the whole explanation looking exceedingly put out. “And I predicted it ages ago, I’ll have you know, but they all said it was daft, and I was right—”

“And we acknowledge that,” Hermione says, patting her girlfriend’s hand. “We’ll never doubt you again. But the real issue here is Harry,” she adds, turning to him, who sits alone on an armchair, “who never saw fit to tell us, even though he’s known for even longer than he’s known any of us, including Draco—”

Askance, Harry says, “You can’t expect me to risk Tom like that. Look, I trust all of you. You know I do. But if you heard Sirius describe the way the Unspeakables were looking at him when he had that reaction to the dust in the time-turners, you’d understand.”

“That’s all well and good,” says Ron, who understands about things like wanting to protect brothers, “but this means Charlie knows. Why does he get to know, and we don’t?”

Daphne rolls her eyes. “Because they’re best friends,” she says, like that’s a good enough excuse for Ron’s best friend and his brother knowing a secret this mindblowing and not feeling the need to share. Which, he supposes, is the point behind a secret. “But Emmeline knows, too, I guess.” 

“Er, yeah,” Harry says, “but I think that’s it. You can’t tell anyone. I mean it.”

Of course, they all swear that they won’t. And they mean it—no need to sign a dodgy piece of paper with a curse stuck to it. But Ron has so many questions he wants to ask! Did Tom know all the various Prewetts and Weasleys he’s never mentioned? What were they like? Yeah, it’s a different world but it doesn’t sound too far removed. If there were any major changes in Quidditch, unfortunately, he doubts Tom would know, considering his feelings on the matter.

Still, there’s a half-formed memory niggling at the back of Ron’s head, warning him that something isn’t right, but he doesn’t put it together until Daphne comments that the fact that Tom’s from a literal different world makes what he did to Umbridge at Hagrid’s even funnier. 

“Hagrid!” he says, a little louder than necessary. “If there was no Thomas Ryder in this world, how come Hagrid seemed to hate him on principle?”

Harry shifts. “Well,” he says, “he might’ve been reacting to Tom’s feelings toward him, honestly. Remember the giant spider I told you about?”

“Yes?” Ron says, with great trepidation. All his friends seem to lean in just that much closer.

“I still don’t know the whole story,” Harry says, “but it mostly came out after he Stunned the book Hagrid assigned in third year. Apparently in Tom’s fifth year, Hagrid was still expelled there, but because the spider killed at least one person and tried to kill others. Tom saw it.”

In horror, Draco says, “What happened to the one here? You said you saw it escape in the memory.”

“That’s the thing that attacked Cedric and me in the maze,” Harry says, just to make it worse. How Ron’s friends don’t all share his boggart is a bloody mystery. “Yeah, so I asked where the hell it came from, because I thought we had the right to know, and Madam Pomfrey just said, ‘Oh, the forest, I reckon. There’s a colony of them out there in those woods.’”

Blaise shudders. “All the more reason to never enter there ever again,” he says. “But Pansy, I owe you my sincerest apologies.”

“Apology accepted,” she says, as if granting great favour. “It was just obvious! The rest of you have no imagination, being unable to put it together like that.”

Hermione looks like she might argue, but Draco steps on her foot. Ron’s glad he wasn’t involved in the drama that’ll result from this, even if he does hate feeling like he’s learning anything a day late. “So is the reason why Tom knows how to teach Defence,” he says, not quite changing the subject, but at least veering it in a new direction, “because he actually had the same professor for six years?”

“Yeah,” Harry says. “Amazing, isn’t it?”

“Well, we’ve officially had him more than any other professor,” Theo says, “including second year and not including any time he temped for Hagrid. If there are all these multiple worlds or whatever, do you think there’s one out there where none of this blood purity bullshit exists and we all could have been friends since childhood?”

“Not me,” Hermione says dryly, “but I don’t see why it couldn’t be true for the rest of you.”

And not Ron either, he thinks, as Pansy tries to figure out how to fit Hermione in. If blood purity wasn’t the issue, then class would be more of a problem than it already is, and the Weasleys would still be poor. There just can’t possibly be a place where all the stars align and everything works out right, after all.

Three more Slytherins are gone by Samhain. The morning of the holiday itself, the remaining fifth year Slytherins sit down at the Gryffindor table to announce Millie’s the fourth to go. “Her mother finally did the smart thing,” Daphne says, as the roasted tomato on Harry’s fork falls off to drop back to his plate, “and made a run for it. She left us Lady Whiskers.”

“She left the cat?” Hermione says, aghast. It’s a fair question; Harry can’t imagine ever leaving behind Hedwig.

“Left almost everything,” Pansy says, stealing a bit of toast from Hermione’s plate. “Turns out even male professors can’t enter the female side of the dormitories, which explains so much, honestly, but it meant Slughorn had to wait at the end of the hall while her mother stood in the room with us for five minutes with a kitchen elf so she could pack essentials only. Then we hugged her goodbye and that was that.”

“Her mother was actually here?” Harry says. 

Daphne nods. “Her shoes and the ends of her trousers were all muddy, right?” she says. “She was dressed like a Muggle and brought Millie Muggle clothes, so we guess they must be heading to a Muggle town. But with all the mud, maybe she Apparated to Hogsmeade and walked in?”

“With the gates closed?” Draco says sceptically. “In the middle of the night? She might’ve Floo’d in. Molly’s taken the Floo to the Hospital Wing before.”

As Blaise reaches for an orange, he says, “What about a portkey? Tom does it all the time. Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean he’s the only one.”

 “Or a house elf could Apparated her in,” Theo points out. “Are you sure that was a kitchen elf?”

Both Daphne and Pansy start to say something, before Pansy says, “She had a hat on her head, so I assumed.”

“Well,” Ron says between sips of coffee, “reckon she’s at least a kitchen elf now, if she wasn’t before.”

No one has an answer to that. 

The day feels oddly muted, with the only bright spot being that Tom says they can actually go back to using their wands, oh wonder of wonders. After three weeks, everyone can manage at least Expelliarmus, which he says is the most important—if something happens to your own wand, steal someone else’s—but the amount of mental effort involved is exhausting. The advantage to that amount of mental effort is that it stops him from wondering what Draco’s love potion smelled like, or hoping he waits before he trims his hair again, because he no longer looks like such a perfect model for Eton; however, the disadvantage is that by the time Harry makes it to lunch, all he wants to do is nap. No, he’d much rather use his wand. 

After class, Harry hangs around until everyone leaves. “How many more students are going to withdraw?” he asks, as Tom strengthens the Warming Charm keeping the outside classroom a reasonable temperature. He looks knackered, like he hasn’t slept in weeks.

“I don’t know,” he says, looking off toward the forest, not at Harry. “Things are—well, they aren’t settling into shape the way they normally do at the start of a conflict. Voldemort isn’t proving to be the pillar of strength the myth of his reputation makes him out to be, while the children aren’t falling into line. And on the scale of cruelty, what happened to Josephine Abbott may have pushed things too far. Then for anyone against Voldemort,” he adds, turning his attention back to Harry, “or neutral, whether because they aren’t Wix or another reason, it wouldn’t be shocking if halfbloods or Muggleborns were withdrawn because their parents don’t realise how bloody stupid it is their kids from Hogwarts’ well-protected grounds in exchange for an unprotected house, which creates extra work and unhappiness for everyone. It took days for the Aurors to set up the necessary protections on Eloise Midgen’s place. But in significantly better news, I’m officially Dr Ryder as of yesterday.”

If Tom was hoping to distract him, he succeeded; they talk about the PhD and reptiles until the students for his next class appear, and Harry leaves (though not before saying hello to the kids from over the summer). When he makes it back to the castle, all but Ron and Daphne are waiting for him in the Great Hall, where he updates them on the news and what Tom said about the students. Hermione and Pansy beam at each other at the last bit, and claim all the credit for the school getting along so well, though really, Harry would like to say he and Draco started it. 

Draco points this out; Pansy throws a grape at him. For a moment, things almost feel normal.

The feeling does not carry over into the next day, which is the first match of the season, Gryffindor vs Slytherin. Crabbe and Goyle had become Beaters, so Crabbe needed to be replaced; so did the Keeper. The new Beater’s a sixth year, and the Keeper the third year. Both are middling in skill, but at least the Beater isn’t a twat (according to Daphne).

Monkleigh is not happy when she steps into the circle where the captains meet on the pitch. Though they scrimmaged against each other, it was when Slytherin was playing with the team she chose, not one she retrofitted around absences. “At least the weather’s good,” she says under her breath. 

“Yeah,” he answers, just as quietly. “Less opportunity for the Beaters to hit us instead.” Let it be said: he’s not happy with his either.

She snorts, but doesn’t respond as Madam Hooch calls that she expects a good game and blows her whistle.

He shoots into the air, flying higher and faster than everyone else. It’s sunny today, one of those gorgeous autumn days when the light’s the right shade of gold to candy the treetops, and, in Quidditch terms, make the Snitch gleam. A little below him is Daphne, flying anti-clockwise to his clockwise, and below her, the other players. Even at a glance, it’s clear to see that Slytherin’s just no match for them. Ginny, Draco, and Katie fly tricks around the new Keeper; Ron, though not as good as Wood, would have trouble if the third Chaser, a second year, worked together with Cowley and Monkleigh, but he can’t seem to keep to a play. Of the four Beaters, Goyle’s probably the best, but he’s playing more as a favour than out of any intense love of flying, and definitely didn’t just hit that Bludger away from Draco by accident.

Being a Beater when you’re friends with the other team, Harry thinks, must be a nightmare.

Within fifteen minutes, Gryffindor is up by fifty points. Cowley made one goal, and that’s 90% Cootes’ fault, who tried to hit a Bludger at the Chaser and almost hit Ron instead, even without the excuse of a rainstorm. Why did the twins have to graduate and start up a successful joke shop? They should be here, helping the Gryffindor Quidditch team win without injury until Harry graduates.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he sees a flash of gold hovering above the stands. So does Daphne, who’s closer, but his broom is faster and his dive smoother, so he glides right past her, only to discover it was the trick of the light on a student’s wristwatch. At the last second, they both veer away, avoiding both the boy and each other, and Daphne calls, “Then don’t wear gold to a Quidditch match!” in response to the student’s shouted abuse. 

For a moment, Harry and Daphne hover level with each other, and roll their eyes, then fly off in separate directions.

By the time the Snitch decides to make an appearance, Gryffindor is up by so many points it’s almost unfair to catch it, though obviously, Harry will. He pelts past Daphne, who’s forced out of a straight path by the Quaffle, only narrowly avoids two Bludgers, and swerves around Slytherin’s useless Keeper to catch the Snitch. So what if he also hits his side against the goal post when he tries to stop? It only hurts a little.

The crowd cheers, but the victory still feels hollow. Down on the grass, he watches the Chaser gesturing emphatically to Monkleigh; she just holds up her hand and pivots on her heel before walking away. 

“Well,” says Daphne, when she comes up beside him, so they can fly down together, “at least we’ll beat Ravenclaw.”

All Tom wants is a weekend with his girlfriend, but this is, it seems, too much to ask. 

“Once this war is done,” Emmeline says, sighing, as she reaches for her wand. Her philosophy has been that if she’s stuck here, then she might as well stay sharp, so she practice-duels with Narcissa. “Venice isn’t going anywhere.”

“Yes, it is,” he says, grabbing his own wand. “It’s sinking.” 

“Always so negative,” she says, and kisses him. Part of him wishes she was coming; the rest of him is glad she’ll be far, far away. It doesn’t help that even Sirius has no idea what they’re about to walk into, other than it involves a high street in London, which could mean just about anything.

Reluctantly, Tom leaves Emmeline in the bedroom, half-dressed for a day out in the museum of a city that is Venice, and joins Sirius in the hall. The Patronus had woken him up; he still has one of Felicia’s takeaway coffee mugs in one hand. “And I had plans to sleep in,” he says, sighing, as he reaches for the word-activated international portkey his office finally saw fit to offer him. It’s an old-fashioned key, much more conspicuous than a pen. 

 “So inconsiderate,” Tom says, taking one end while his friend takes the other. “Cabbage,” he adds, and with a hard tug, and sends them to Sirius’ office. 

Tonks is waiting for them, looking both like herself and utterly knackered. There’s coffee in her hand, too. “Cheers,” she says, raising the paper cup. “It’s six in the bloody morning, Tom. Why are you so awake?”

“Because I had plans,” he says irritably, not wanting to get into the fact that Emmeline likes to see a city so taken over by tourists, even during the off-season, when it’s sleepy and quiet, so she can appreciate the architecture without feeling hurried. He never noticed how interesting doors could be until they began dating. “Any idea what this is about?”

No, of course, Tonks does not. She starts to say they’re waiting on Donovan and Pugh, presumably, when the two appear, one after the next. “Amelia Bones,” he says, after they all exchange their hellos, “has been spotted at a cafe on Kensington High Street. Obviously, this is a trap, but not one we can ignore. The whole area is crowded by Muggles. We can also assume she’s under the Imperius Curse, so we can’t be sure how she’ll react.” 

Tom thinks of Susan, who Hermione said disappeared into the second-floor loo to have a cry with Myrtle when she found out about her aunt, and decides missing out on Venice is acceptable after all. 

The plan is very simple: Disillusion and Silence themselves, which Tom’s proven can carry through Apparition, and arrive as close as they can to Amelia Bones’ location. Whoever can get nearest the quickest will either counter the Curse or put her to sleep—whatever’s easiest—while someone else casts a Notice Me Not Charm, so they can Apparate her out. The others will stay behind to deal with the consequences, because there will, inevitably, be consequences. The first order of business for whoever removes her will be to check she’s really Amelia Bones. 

There’s no doubt this will go wrong, but at least they have something resembling a plan. Before they leave, though, Tom asks, “Why Kensington?” 

With a shrug, Donovan says, “More than one Wix with a Muggle spouse lives in the area. We circulated the photo enough that she was bound to be recognised. You think it could be something else?”

It sounds too arrogant to say because Voldemort cannot possibly know I’m from Kensington, but by now, he must know I’m from London, and from when, so Tom just answers, “Maybe. I don’t know.” 

Only Sirius, who does know Tom’s from Kensington, sends him a look that seems to say he understands where his thoughts have wandered. The others just accept he’s taken on the usual Auror’s twitchiness, and forget all about it by the time they Disillusion and Silence themselves, and Apparate to an alley deserted of anything but rubbish bins and rats. 

Tom hasn’t been in twenty-first century Kensington—has rather avoided it on purpose, in fact—so between that and how they entered and the fact that they’re approaching from the same side of the street, it takes him far too long to realise exactly where on High Street they are. At first, he’s too preoccupied with Susan’s aunt, and the fact that he can’t reach her before the others, as he lacks the skill to counter the Imperius Curse, so he’s mainly focused on looking out for any Death Eaters. They don’t necessarily need to look like themselves, but purebloods are notoriously bad at pretending to be Muggles, so it shouldn’t be difficult, he assumes. They’re at the metal barrier separating the cafe’s outdoor seating from the pavement when he clocks a likely suspect, but a movement above him to his right catches his eye. Instinctively, he looks up. 

It was just a pigeon, entirely unnoteworthy. What’s important is the Barker’s sign still visible above the empty House of Fraser on the building beside them. 

He reaches out to catch Sirius’ arm, knowing, even if they can’t see each other, that his friend is beside him, but doesn’t have time to signal Pugh, who’s not good enough to turn herself fully invisible, to stop before setting a hand on the barrier. Tom has a second to come to a decision—Summon Pugh or Disarm Bones—and chooses to rip Bones’ wand away from her. This does not, however, stop a Blasting Curse from hitting the building that was once the Barkers of Kensington, so it erupts into debris and slabs of stone, just as it had one night in February, 1944.

Of course, he thinks, in a distant sort of way, as he freezes so abruptly that he shocks the Disillusionment Charm right off himself, Voldemort would choose a bombing from the Baby Blitz when he’d think I’m too young to remember the first one. And none of these purebloods will even understand the reference.

Fiendfyre rips down High Street in the first display of open warfare, hotter than an incendiary bomb, as a hand touches Tom’s shoulder. Even before he turns his head, he knows it’s not Sirius, because he froze up as instantly as Tom at the first Blasting Curse. 

Who he finds is Bellatrix Lestrange. “The Dark Lord would like a word with you,” she says with a grin, and steals Tom out of one nightmare to drop in another.

There’s a saying, of course, about frying pans and fires. When Tom finds himself seated in a chair, alone in a room but for Voldemort and a python, he decides that, in fact, what he left was the fire. This is the frying pan.

He can work with this.

His wand is back in Kensington, potentially burning to ash, but whatever; Ollivander can presumably make him another (Fawkes has a lot of feathers). The Charm keeping Tom in the chair is the same used on the wandmaker, perfectly Breakable even if it wasn’t bypassable for the caster. And Voldemort might have his wand and the python and the advantage of knowing where the fuck they are (Tom certainly doesn’t), but in the end, Tom knows him, and blatant curiosity will keep him alive long enough to get himself out of this mess. Whether he can return to Kensington in time can make a difference, though, is a question he’s not ready to consider.

Voldemort leans back in his chair, and appraises Tom with his inexplicable red eyes. “I thought it best we talked,” he says, “before I have my python eat you.” 

“Good luck there, mate,” Tom says. “The average snake likes me better than you, I reckon.”

“That matters little,” Voldemort says, reaching out to pet the python’s scales, “when you’re in a room with a Parselmouth.”

Which means, Tom thinks, that the python won’t attack him. Snakes don’t have facial recognition, but like all animals, they smell souls; if the python’s told to lunge, it won’t be at the whole one. 

But he can’t worry about that yet. “Fair enough,” he says, with a shrug that only moves his shoulders a twitch—to his memory, Ollivander could move his hands, but not his arms where they rested on the chair. “But I get a question first. How’d you know to bomb Kensington?”

He watches Voldemort weigh the chance to gloat against the potential disadvantage of allowing a hostage the power of a question of interrogation. Like his sixteen-year-old self, the need to gloat wins out. “Your accent and your age,” he says, steepling his fingers. “You were born in thirty-eight or thirty-nine, I assume, so it’s unlikely that you would have remembered the Blitz, but the later bombings? Perhaps. Then both your accent and your dialect slip between working-class London and Received Pronunciation, a trait common to those families who lost all but their homes in the Depression. Even if you hadn’t lived in Kensington, I thought, you would have been familiar with it. Was I correct?”

“Yes,” Tom says. He figures he should give Voldemort this credit now, if Tom’s to wrong-foot him later. “Paying me back for the air raid siren, were you?”

Voldemort doesn’t answer, but his slit-like nostrils flair. “Are you a relation?” he asks bluntly.

“Probably,” Tom says. “We are both Wix from Cornwall, but that would mean you’re related to Harry, too, and I doubt you want that.”

As expected, Voldemort ignores this. “How do you Break the wards?”

“My private tutor taught me,” says Tom. “Perfectly legal to learn blood magic outside of the UK in the fifties. You know, before he turned me into a doll. And that’s the most you’re getting out of me. Anything else would be telling.”

There it is again, that calculation. Torture him for answers now or later? Later, it seems, because Voldemort just says, “I find it interesting that Dumbledore so fortuitously found Harry Potter’s cousin in an attic in Shanghai, yet you are, it would appear, a child of the forties. How did you come to be here? How did Dumbledore trick the Ministry and Gringotts into allowing you custody of the boy?”

“I came here as a bloody doll,” Tom says, exasperated. “No idea how I ended up in Shanghai, mind, because last I remember, I was in New York—the article got that wrong. But Dumbledore didn’t trick anything. Honestly, the man’s a fucking twat.” Voldemort’s nonexistent brows raise. The indignation in Tom’s voice is not faked, and it’s difficult to gesture without actually raising his hands. The gesturing’s important; he needs it to be reasonable that he used wandless magic. “Yeah, he wanted to leave Harry with his mother’s horrid sister and her worse husband, but I felt a moral imperative to take him, seventeen though I was. Didn’t even know I was a Peverell at the time. Just dumb luck that, really. No, I was shagging both his grandparents when I was in Britain for the summers, so it only felt right.”

The long pause that follows this is even better than Tom could have anticipated, but he had suspected Voldemort was a prude. Finally, the man says, “If you’re against Dumbledore—”

“We all hate Dumbledore,” Tom cuts in. “All right, maybe not all, but everyone I work with, anyway. I understand why you hate him. He uses people like chess pieces. It’s impossible to guess his agenda. If you don’t fall in line, he’s suspicious. You think this is you against Dumbledore, but it’s really just people with a moral code against your buggered political agenda.”

“He told you of our first meeting,” Voldemort says, as a fact, not a question.

Even so, Tom says, “Oh yes. He told me quite a bit about you.”

“How much does he know?”

“Not as much as he’d like.”

Voldemort leans forward suddenly in a movement disconcertingly reminiscent of a snake. The python opens one orange eye. “And how much,” he says, “do you know, Mr Ryder?”

“Dr Ryder,” Tom says. “Herpetology. What I know is that your retic’s overweight, Mr Voldemort. Better start varying that diet.”

Finally fed up, Voldemort raises his wand. “It can eat you alive or dead,” he says. “You have one chance for the latter. How do—”

“Because I’m brilliant,” Tom says, and promptly Disapparates.

When he reappears in the spot he left, it’s to a twisted image of his childhood: crumbled buildings and dead bodies and screaming and smoke, but all in broad daylight. No Sirius. No wand. There are shapes moving through the smoke, but he can’t tell who anyone is. In the distance is the orange glow of a fire.

He’s hardly a step in that direction when a voice calls out, “Tom?”

“Tonks!” he calls back, only to have her slam into him a moment later in such a tight hug he doesn’t know what to do. She might be crying. Every inch of her is covered in ash.

“I have your wand,” she says when she releases him, and pushes it into his hand. “I stayed behind hoping you—Sirius and Don were injured, and Pugh’s with them, and it’s been such a fucking mess—”

“What’s wrong with them?” he says, stopping her before she starts on a ramble she can’t stop. “Where are they?”

“They’ll be all right,” Tonks says, as she takes him by the arm. “Sirius—”

There’s a crash as the building behind them starts to collapse in on itself. Sirens screech. Down the street, that fire’s growing. 

“Is that Fiendfyre?” he says.

“No,” she says, raising her voice over the noise. “A car exploded. Look, the Muggles are handling this now. Let’s go.”

Numbly, he nods. Her grip on arm tightens, and with a familiar rush, she side-alongs him. They don’t land, as he expects, in St Mungo’s, but Crook Peak’s upstairs parlour.

Pugh, who was lying on one of the fainting sofas, springs to her feet at the sound of her arrival, but relaxes at the sight of them. “Merlin,” she says, glancing between them. “You were right. He really did come back. Where were you?”

“Where’s Sirius?” he says, at the same time she asks her question. “And Donovan? Why are we here?”

“Snap judgement,” Pugh says, before Scouring them both clean. “I sent a Patronus to Dumbledore, and he sent along Madam Pomfrey. Sirius was an easy fix. Just resting now. He splinched himself trying to Apparate in a panic. Donovan’s trickier, but he’ll live. Fiendfyre caught his arm. Amelia’s the worst off, but she’s already with the family mediwizard at the holiday estate on the French Riviera, so I reckon she’ll be fine. So. Where were you?”

Whatever energy was keeping Tom upright leeches out of him at the news that Sirius is out of danger, so he has to sit before answering. The image of Fiendfyre tearing down High Street won’t leave his head. “I just had a chat with Voldemort,” Tom says, once he’s sufficiently calmed himself. Neither of the women are terribly surprised. “I regret to say he’s still alive.”

His hands are shaking, though he can’t seem to get them to stop. I’m in shock, he thinks, as Pugh says, “How are you still alive?”

“Voldemort’s curiosity over how I’m Breaking the wards,” he says, “seems to outweigh his desire to simply kill me and be done with it, so I was a remarkable nuisance until I managed to counter the Charm keeping me there. Who was involved? How many casualties?”

“We don’t know,” Tonks says, sitting beside him. “Answer’s the same for both. No Aurors or Death Eaters dead, but the number of Muggles dead or injured won’t be a small one. Well, and we know Bellatrix Lestrange, but it’s easy to guess she’s there even if you can’t spot her.”

“I thought Voldemort didn’t do open warfare,” Tom says. Nearly everyone’s told him this over the last few years.

Pugh reassumes her seat on the fainting sofa. “Not in the first war,” she says, “but he wasn’t losing followers left and right. The Ministry of Magic was in his pocket. Isn’t now. Our team’s done well running his Death Eaters into the ground. And he’s fixated on you. Annoyingly clever of them, using the Blasting Curse. Caused the right amount of chaos to distract the rest of us, probably wasn’t too difficult to guess Black would react badly after what Pettigrew did, and for some reason, he knew it would get to you too, didn’t he?”

“Wasn’t a difficult conclusion for him to come to,” Tom says. “Someone found him that ridiculous Dollhouse Boy article. Did Bones say anything?”

Though he half expects at least Pugh to ask more questions, all she does is sigh. “A bit,” she says. “Amelia’s bad off, and everything from the last few weeks’re murky, but she thinks the other members of the Wizengamot who’ve been kidnapped might be used for similar attacks. If you hadn’t Disarmed her, the attack would’ve just come from her. Whoever was there was Plan B. I think catching you was secondary. He’s running low on Marked followers. He won’t want to risk them more than necessary.”

If there’s any consolation to be had here, it’s that Kensington High Street wasn’t blown up in 2006 because of Tom. “All in London?” he says.

“Amelia’s been living in London for years,” Pugh says. “Not that area, but very close. The one with a B.” Belgravia, he assumes. “If it’s based on where they’re from, then the other places will be Leeds and Godric’s Hollow. Otherwise, I’d say, yeah, probably London.”

Before Tom can ask why she thinks it might be the former, Madam Pomfrey appears in the entrance to the room from the hall. She starts at the sight of him and Tonks. “Are either of you injured?” she says. They shake their heads. “Well, I’m off. Mr Donovan’s potions and the timetable for taking them is on the bedside table. Mr Black is resting, but should be fine with the Pepper-up I left him. I’ll see you Monday, Tom. Do try not to become grievously injured in the meanwhile.”

They all politely thank her for her assistant and promise that no, there will be no new injuries by Monday. It’s gratifying to see Pugh appear just as chastened under the force of that glare; clearly, a person never outgrows their fear of Madam Pomfrey.

“I’m going to go check on Sirius,” he says when she’s gone. When he stands, his legs are steady. “Where is he?”

The room with the exceptionally hideous blue wallpaper, apparently, which is all the description Tom needs to turn right down the hall.

In a moment of blind panic, Sirius simultaneously tried to Apparate both away and after Tom, without a concrete place in mind for either, and found himself still in Kensington, but now in excruciating pain. Rather graciously, he chooses to spare Tom the details.

“I couldn’t tell what was worse,” he says, in a voice so hoarse Tom has to wonder if part of what he splinched was his vocal cords, “feeling like I was back on the street with Peter, or watching Bella kidnap you.”

It’s probably for the best that it was Sirius who was beside him, frozen stiff from remembered terror. Anyone else would have tried to attack Bellatrix, and even if they hadn’t, she probably would have killed them on principle. But he must already know that, even if it only took Tom until now to realise it himself. “Well,” he says, “all’s well that ends well or whatever. How do you feel?”

“Tired,” Sirius says, as he runs a hand through his hair. He sits upright on the bed, atop a duvet so cleaned of blood it can only have been done by magic. “Like I’d like to be somewhere not related to my fucking family. But Pomfrey said I shouldn’t portkey until nightfall if I want everything to stay in place.”

“Gross,” Tom says. There’s nowhere to sit but the bed, so he’s on the other end of it, back against the headboard. “Donovan will be here for a few days. Pugh said she’ll stay with him, and Tonks and your cousin will come by to check.”

Sirius nods, the movement a slow bob of the head. “I saw it happen,” he says. “The spell caught his left arm, and his wand was in his right. Must’ve been in agony, but still countered the Fiendfyre. Just didn’t catch it before it reached the cars.”

“How soon after did it stop?”

“That was it. A Blasting Curse to the two buildings, then the Fiendfyre, and the destruction just built on itself. The first building was empty, but the second with the cafe wasn’t.” 

If the Muggles aren’t already decrying this incident as a terrorist attack, Tom’ll be shocked. While they wouldn’t technically be wrong, their useless search for a culprit will likely just cause more problems than it solves. “Pugh said there might be more of these,” he says, as Sirius reaches for the water on his bedside table. 

“Not next weekend,” Sirius says, as if he can determine the date of Voldemort’s attacks. “I’m inviting myself along on yours and Emmy’s romantic daytrip. No, I don’t care what you say. If you want to save Venice for the two of you, fine, but I’m bloody sick of the UK and death and misery, and just want to look at some paintings of flowers or whatever shite it is you two do.”

Tom rolls his eyes. “You’re the one telling her,” he says, before, miserably, adding, “And I’ll be telling her Voldemort kidnapped me.”

“She’ll take it well,” Sirius says. “It’s Cissy’ll want to smack you for it.” He’s quiet for a beat before adding, “So that’s what it was like then? Your London?”

“Almost,” Tom says, “but they really only came at night. And it wasn’t every day for six years, but there were a couple periods were it was almost nightly. When it happened, it wasn’t quick. Is that what it was like with Pettigrew?”

With a shrug, Sirius says, “It was different. A busy street in the Muggle section of Godric’s Hollow isn’t the same as one in London, but he spotted me when I was trying to get around these Muggles walking three-abreast on the pavement. When he shot the Curse between us, it hit them first. They were teenagers, maybe Harry’s age. Always found it odd that fact never ended up in the papers. All any retelling of the event has ever said is just ‘Muggles.’”

But is that not the Wixen way? After the riot at the World Cup, Rita Skeeter only added the detail that there were Muggle children involved as a way to criticise the Ministry’s response, as if prioritising their safety was bad. “Speaking of Harry,” Tom says, deciding to change the subject rather than say any of that out loud, “what am I telling him? There’ll be an article about this on the front page by tomorrow morning. They’ll all have questions.” 

“That we’re both fine,” Sirius says. “It’s up to you if you tell him Voldemort invited you to tea, though knowing Harry, he’ll find out on his own somehow.”

There’s also the fact that Tom doesn’t like to lie to Harry, but his cousin’s reaction to this will not be good. “You’re right,” he says, as he slips off the bed. “Get some sleep, Sirius. I’ll take us back to Tuscany at nightfall.”

Chapter Text

The news about the attack on Kensington shocks everyone. Even the pro-Voldemort Slytherins are, according to Pansy and Blaise, uncharacteristically subdued. Yet somehow, this doesn’t stop Slughorn from sending out invitations to his Yule Party. Each invitation includes a Plus One.

And for some reason, people care.

Harry kicks a box of chocolates Romila Vane handed him with a giggle under his bed, and collapses on the duvet. A moment later, Draco collapses beside him. “Why aren’t Hermione and Pansy getting inundated?” Draco says. He didn’t receive a box of chocolates, but a fifth year did corner him in the library stacks to tell him how pretty his eyes are. Draco’s eyes are nice to look at, but since someone tried the same tactic on Harry yesterday, the compliment is suspect.

“Because everyone knows they’re dating,” Harry says, “so neither of them are using a Plus One.” Blaise is also suffering, but the Slytherins are currently in Herbology, so he can’t commiserate. They strategised from the moment they received the invitations, though, so they were all meant to take alone Ron, Daphne, and Theo, but then Theo had to drop out of this arrangement to have a date with Cho, and Luna’s already going with Ginny, so he invited Goyle instead. Problem solved.

Or so they thought.

Sighing, Draco says, “It probably helps Hermione’s terrifying.”

“Probably,” Harry says, inordinately glum. “Couldn’t he have waited, you know, like one more week?”

“Oh Harry,” Draco says. “This is we purebloods call a happy distraction. The timing’s deliberate. It wouldn’t do to focus on a horrid mess like Death Eaters blowing up London high streets when such stress could bring about early wrinkles. Otherwise, it just doesn’t make sense to send these out a month early. As you can see, it’s working extraordinarily well.”

Though it’s the answer Harry expected, it’s not the one he wanted. There’s a guilty part of him that also acknowledges his problem with the event itself is that it’ll ultimately turn into him and Draco and Blaise (and Goyle), but he might just want it to be him and Draco. Maybe. Maybe it’s what Harry’s really wanted since the Yule Ball, though he hopes this time, there’s no dancing.

Probably, this means Sluhgorn’s distraction efforts are working on Harry, too, but he isn’t happy about it.

Nor is any of it his primary concern. “Well, it’s stupid,” he says, because that’s true. “He’s trying to convince Tom to come along too.”

Draco turns his head to glance at the door before asking quietly, “Did Tom have to care about the Plus One bullshit back there?”

Rolling his eyes, Harry answers,  “If he did, he never said. He had exactly two and a half friends, and they were all in it too, so he’s never coming to this one.”

For a moment, Draco doesn’t say anything, as if this was such an important statement, so the two of them just stare up at the canopy of the bed curtains in silence. “The distraction won’t matter if there’s another attack before the party,” he says finally. “I’m surprised no one else was withdrawn.”

“Me too,” Harry says. “At least Susan.” She mentioned her aunt was at the Bones’ home in France, but her parents obviously didn’t agree with Mr Abbott’s logic. “Think the next one will be in London?”

“If not London,” Draco says, “maybe, I don’t know, Birmingham or Edinburgh or something. Seems a waste if it’s somewhere like Swindon.”

“What about Swindon?” asks Dean, whose grandparents live in Swindon, as he enters.

Harry and Draco raise themselves on their elbows to watch Dean rummage through his bedside drawer. “That You-Know-Who’s attack wouldn’t mean much if he blew up, I don’t know, those museum fossils,” Draco says. “What’re doing?”

“Looking for new socks,” Dean says as he liberates a mismatched pair. “Peeves’ having a lark in the Entrance Hall. How’d you know about the museum?”

“Because I’m from Wiltshire,” says Draco, though really, it’s because Hermione made a confusing joke once about Dorset’s fossils being superior that Harry didn’t understand much either. 

As Dean sits on his bed, he says, “Well, as long as it’s not Stratford. The man can leave my mum and London Stadium well enough alone.”

“I doubt Voldemort understands the cultural significance of footie,” says Harry, who mostly keeps up with the sport through Dean. “No, it’ll be King’s Cross or Westminster Abbey or something.”

“Downing Street,” Dean suggests.

“Charing Cross?” says Draco. “Right across from Diagon.”

Without even asking what they’re talking about, Seamus, who’s just entering with Ron, says, “Why is it always fecking London?”

“Well,” Dean says, “we know it’s not Swindon.”

“Where’s Swindon?” Ron says, coming over to sit with Harry and Draco, as Seamus sits with Dean.

“Wiltshire,” the rest of them say together, before Harry says, “You know, he’s a dramatic fuck, Voldemort. Could be wherever he was raised.”

Immediately, everyone turns to him. “Know where that was?” Ron says, like Harry is the be all and end all of Voldemort facts.

“No idea,” Harry says honestly, “other than it was London.”

Sighing, Seamus, “Course it was. It’s always fecking London.” 

“I resent that,” Dean says, squaring his shoulders. His fresh socks are still in his hands with the wet ones crumpled on the floor. “There’s no better place in the world than London.”

“What about Hogwarts?” Harry says, so Dean concedes, that all right, except Hogwarts, but won’t agree that anywhere along the coast of County Clare could ever be better, Seamus, because it’s not a city.

The rest of them resent that. Within minutes, Dean clearly regrets having voiced his opinion. 

“But Tom and my godfather would agree with you,” Harry says as a sort of olive branch, which cheers Dean considerably, even as it draws Harry back to thoughts about Tom and Kensington and Sirius being hurt and Voldemort. Tom refused to describe what happened; it was the papers that did that. There were pictures too, so Hermione’s probably right about the refusal being a trauma thing and not because Tom thinks Harry is too young, considering the images looked like the ones in Harry’s old Muggle textbooks.

After classes and dinner, he meanders toward Tom’s office, where he figures his cousin will be marking the latest batch of papers. The door’s ajar, so Harry enters without invitation, to find Tom doing exactly as expected. When he looks up, he’s resigned, but not surprised. “You want the spiny chair?” he says, as Harry shuts the door behind him.

“Obviously,” Harry says, so Tom, being the amazing person that he is, just covers the papers with a book, shoves them aside, and offers up the seat.  

“Are you here about all the people desperate to attend Slughorn’s party with you?” Tom says, leaning back against the desk.

Harry rotates in not-quite-180 turns. “No,” he says, “though it’s really annoying. I don’t know why no one believes we already have dates.”

“Probably because everyone can guess who your dates are,” Tom says, “and they’re dating each other.”

“Did you ever deal with this?”

“Oh, never. I was much too awkward.” He straightens the papers on his desk, focusing pointedly at the book on top. “Why’re you here, Harry?”

Reluctantly, Harry answers, “When you told me about, well, how you came here, you said students had to get creative. Get creative how?”

Tom’s quiet. He doesn’t look up. Eventually, he says, “Why’re you asking?”

“Because what happened in London,” Harry says. “That’s what would happen if Hogwarts was attacked, isn’t it, but worse.” It’s not a question.

“Depends on how you classify worse,” his cousin says, finally looking at him, “but at least then, yeah, it was a bit like that. Quite a lot of rubble and fire and people dying. But the point in Kensington was to create a sort of…parody, almost, of Muggle history. Wixen killing wouldn’t do. Use of the Killing Curse, when wielded by the right caster, will lead to a greater number of casualties, because it’s quick, it’s efficient, and it’s mostly unblockable. The irony, however, is that it’s painless, unlike the Curse used on Hermione or Emmeline, or splinching oneself, or only catching Fiendfyre on one limb. But that’s not what you’re asking.” He pauses again, then says, “The Blasting Curse or Reducto were easiest, even for students, so there was just a lot of collapsing the stonework on people from both sides. Get a person with enough Stunning Curses or Knockback Jinxes at once, and you’re liable to stop their body from functioning beyond the point they can be revived, so teamwork was paramount. Even the underclassmen could manage that. But me? Well, I happened to read a book on medical magic the week before when I had nothing better to do. There was a spell in it for restarting a heart once it’s been stopped, so I decided to see if I could reverse it in the spur of the moment, and created a spell for near-instanteous cardiac arrest.”

“Have you done it to anyone here?” Harry says, though he thinks he probably shouldn’t. It’s just not what he was expecting, though he can’t be certain about what he was expecting at all.

“Rodolphus Lestrange,” Tom says without hesitation, as if he, at least, anticipated the follow-up question. “It was an accident. I sent him to hospital quick enough that he went to prison instead.”

He’s looking down at the desk again, though he’s moved on to fiddling with the quill. Harry shifts in the chair. It creaks. “You get a pass when it’s self-defence, I’m pretty sure,” he says. “Is there a way to knock someone out so only you can wake them up?”

“No,” Tom says, “but you can knock them out and use a portkey to send them to a prison in Sardinia.” 

“You could,” Harry says. “Not the rest of us.”

After a brief consideration, Tom meets his eye again and asks, “Well, Harry, want to learn something illegal?”

As if Harry would ever say no to that.

“I can’t believe you’re teaching Harry to make international portkeys,” Emmeline says, as she and Tom and Sirius take a seat on the bench in front of a seascape titled Eaton’s Neck, Long Island. Despite their best efforts, this return trip to the Met still has not offered up the Impressionists, but the Hudson River School in the paintings part of the American Wing is Impressionistish. Still, she’s never seen a Monet or Degas, and everyone deserves the experience.

“I already taught Ginny local ones,” Tom says, though he’s distracted by the painting. Is Long Island New York City’s fifth borough? Maybe. There’s Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Something Island anyway, but none of that’s important. “And he was just so distraught—and I mean, rightly so—about potentially murdering anyone that I felt justified in furthering his knowledge of illegal activity.”

Sirius snorts. “The rest of what you taught him won’t be illegal in a year,” he says. “Less than a year.” He sighs. “They grow so fast.”

“When I met you,” Emmeline says, sounding just as wistful, “he was shorter than me. And now you only have an inch on him, love.” 

“He’s not growing past that inch,” Tom says. “I mean it.”

“If he doesn’t,” Sirius says, suddenly not joking, “I blame the Dursleys. Petunia’s about that height, and Lily nearly was. James was yours. Monty was mine.”

“And Euphemia,” says Tom, “was shorter than Emmy. Her mother was shorter than that, and her father not much taller. I had his blood work done when I first adopted him. Everything was normal. Mind, the way they fed him was still buggered, and it might’ve been different if Petunia understood proper portion sizes for Dudley, since their philosophy appears to have been ‘less than Duddykins.’ Or are humans like goldfish and the cupboard did something? Or can intense stress?”

“What do you mean, like goldfish?” Sirius says.

“A goldish’s growth is affected by the size of the container it’s in. I think,” Tom adds as an afterthought. “I did learn that fact in the forties.”

As Emmeline rests her head on his shoulder, she says, “Thank Merlin for Notice Me Not Charms. Can you imagine what the Muggles would think if they could hear this?”

They triple-layered the Charm when they decided to come here, both to avoid any Death Eater Voldemort might send to scope out the city now that Tom claimed this is where he was turned into a doll, and the Dursleys. But mostly the Dursleys. Harry might’ve come away from them with vitals better than a child who lived through the War Years, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t abusive pricks. A real bed to sleep on and no thrashings is far better than three meals a day to be eaten before or after the rest of the family. 

But Dursleys and Death Eaters aside, here they are, because Venice is experiencing flooding, and Emmeline wanted to try out her own international portkey ability anyway. Why not New York, they’d figured? Sirius had mentioned paintings of flowers, and Tom and Emmeline had never managed to find the European Portrait Gallery, so heading back to the Met seemed like as good a plan as any, except now their feet ache and they’re once again lost in the warren of the American Wing. At least this time, they did see the Egyptian Art and the weird Nile room with the walk-in model pyramid thing. 

Despite its overwhelming Muggleness, the Met is, they’ve all decided, somehow imbued with magic.

“Even without the Charm,” Sirius says, as he stands, “think anyone would notice? More than half these people have audio-guides. Come on, I’m stealing that bloke’s map.”

“You’re a terrible Auror, you are,” Emmeline says with real affection as they follow him. As they pass the indicated bloke, who stares at the seascape with his audio-guide without a care to his surroundings, Sirius nicks the map from his back pocket. “Really, you’re still the same troublemaker you were in school.”

Sirius grins as he unfurls the pamphlet, and they press themselves against the wall between two paintings of the same waterfall. “No I’m not,” he says. “I’m much cleverer about it. And weren’t you the one who turned Delaney’s skin blue?”

“Well, he was mean to Dorcas,” she says loftily, “so I was just doing my civic duty, I’d say. Tom, were you always so ready to break the law, or was that Sirius’ bad influence?”

“I rarely do anything that wasn’t perfectly legal where I’m from,” he says, “but no, I was right little book thief when I was younger. Much worse than I am now. Are we really just three rooms and a door away?”

Emmeline traces it with her finger. “If we turn right,” she says, “then right again. But that’s just the gallery. What’s this numbering system? Are we meant to divine which one holds the Impressionist? And why aren’t they in order?”

“All excellent questions,” Sirius says, as he folds the map back up, “and I reckon we’ll have none of them answered. Whoever designed this place is a lunatic.”

That much is obvious, even if the numbering system isn’t. Hopefully their cataloguing system for their collections storage is better.

Somehow, they do locate the doors leading to the necessary gallery. They’re oddly heavy. What they find is a long corridor of nineteenth-century fake Renaissance and also real Renaissance statues, with rooms on either side, all of which hold paintings. Overwhelmed by options, Tom says, “You know, we could lower the Charms and ask one of the workers?” There’s a person stationed at each entrance.

“And risk them noticing we don’t have stickers?” Sirius says, as he takes Tom by one elbow and Emmeline slips her hand into his, so they can lead him into a room on the left. “I’ve already nicked this map and that water—”

“I thought you paid for those,” Emmeline says.

“—and I won’t be thrown out by some security guard with a perm better left to the eighties.”

“That was only one of them,” Tom says, “but true.”

Steadily, they make their way through the various rooms, which have no sense of chronological or geographical logic to their placement. Though they find Sirius’ paintings of flowers in the Renaissance still lifes, he claims he likes the portraits of people better. There’s far too much Christain art, or art that isn’t meant to be Christain but manages to be anyway. Some are hard to see because the lighting creates a glare on the paint itself, which frustrates all the Muggles; they cheat and use a spell to get around that. And finally, after an age, when it seems all hope is lost, they find the bloody Impressionists.

That these are the most crowded rooms is not surprising, but the force of the Notice Me Not Charms shoves people aside. It’s not fair in the slightest, but Tom doesn’t care. It’s been a journey getting here, and Emmeline deserves to see her first Monet unobstructed. 

She snakes her arm around his and laces their fingers as she leans against him and takes in the bridge stretching over the lily pond. “It’s lovely,” she says. “You two have been there?”

“With the Grangers,” says Sirius.

“It was important to Harry’s lessons in Muggle culture,” adds Tom.

“Well, I’m the French one,” she says, “and never have, so if you’re willing to go back, we should.”

“When Voldemort’s dead,” Tom says. “I’d hate to cut the day short because he chose that Saturday to attack, I don’t know, Paddington Station. He always cuts our Saturdays short. I think it’s just deliberate at this point.”

As they move on to the next painting (this one of haystacks), Sirius says, “While you're correct about timing, you’re wrong about the location. Not interesting enough. It would be King’s Cross or Victoria if he wanted a station. Any idea where he’s from? He already hit your neighbourhood. Might do his own next.”

“Somewhere in the East End, according to Dumbledore,” Tom says, “which means he had no right to comment on my accent as working-class when his must’ve Cockney.”

With a sigh, Emmeline says, “But you do sound so terribly working-class. It’s just a fact, as much as I’d rather not agree with the man about literally anything.”

Though she’s right, that’s not the point. Pots and kettles and all that, and anyway, Tom’s grammar is conventionally perfect, which is a miracle by the standards of the time he was raised. They just don’t understand. “I just want to know if he’ll take my advice about the python,” he says. “Classic case of what happens to large snakes in captivity, is what it is. They don’t move about as much as they should, and have a diet of too many calories. The obesity rate—”

“And on that note,” Sirius says, “I’m thinking lunch. It’s about one. And in honour of Sayre’s memory, I say let’s go to Queens.”

“You mean,” Emmeline asks, “leave Manhattan?”

“Yeah,” says Tom. “People do it all the time. How hard could it be?”

In the end, they look at a metro map and dare to Apparate. Whether it’s hard leaving Manhattan is debatable, but it would take a longer time than any of them feel like devoting to a train. As Queens is enormous, Sirius closes his eyes and points at random, landing on Flushing. What sort of name is Flushing? Tom guesses Dutch, based on the demographics and chronology of colonialism (the Met mightn’t have cared about such things, but he does). Emmeline says English Muggle settlers did it, since it’s an English word. Sirius withholds his opinion, but does handle the side-alonging.

They land on the corner of a busy street in the borough’s Chinatown. With the Charms intact, the mass of people simply parts around them, unaware that they’re doing it. A cold, weak rain just strong enough to pass beyond a drizzle started up while they were in the museum, so everyone has an umbrella. They aren’t wet, at least, thanks to the scaffolding above them. Across the street is some sort of mall, according to the name. Nearly every sign is in Chinese and English or just Chinese, with the occasional Korean dotted here or there. 

It’s not what any of them are expecting.

With the rain, none of them particularly want to explore, so they turn down the street they’re on, and select a restaurant with an awning, because they pause long under it to read the menu posted in the window. “Have either of you had dimsum before?” Tom asks, to which they both say no, but they’re willing to try it.

This, bizarrely, places Tom in the position to handle decisions about the food for once. He had that group of acquaintances in Shanghai. They did drag him out to eat more than once. And it was good, but he’s himself, and never appreciated it as much as he should have.

Still, he thinks as the waitress sits them down and he orders them hot tea in his elementary Mandarin, if Voldemort could see him now, he probably would believe that Dumbledore so fortuitously found Harry Potter’s cousin in an attic in Shanghai. He comments on this after they receive the last of the bamboo baskets and the waitress silently, shamefully, hands Sirius a fork, which means they can at last Silence the table. “I figure he’s a bit obsessed,” Tom says, pouring them all more tea. “He just doesn’t know what to make of me.”

Emmeline leans back in her chair, cradling the small cup close to her for warmth. “Well, you aren’t him,” she says. “Not speaking about genetic material, but just in the ways that matter, and maybe things would’ve been different if he saw you at seventeen, but he didn’t. But, of course, that means what you can do makes very little sense, even if he doesn’t know you’re a Parselmouth.”

“And,” Sirius says, “he mightn’t know the Multi-World Theory. People didn’t start noticing it until the last war had already started. How much was he really out there reading barely formed theories that had nothing to do with him when he was busying himself ruling his puppet government? Even if he had, they all claimed only objects could get through at the time.”

That is a good point, Tom figures. When he turns down the last of the shrimp dumplings, both of them send him A Look, but don’t say anything before Sirius spears it with his fork. Ignoring their uncalled for judgement, Tom says, “What do you reckon he thinks now then?”

Neither of them have any better idea about this than he does, other than whatever it is, it’s probably wrong.

A fortnight after Voldemort’s encounter with the boy, the hypothesis he finds most reasonable is that Thomas Ryder is a relation on his Riddle side. Voldemort never did a thorough check of that family tree. Who’s to say his Muggle grandfather hadn’t a bastard son or daughter living in a posh flat in Kensington who happened to meet a Peverell? Ryder, Riddle. Ryder could be a fake name, if it had been a second son, not a daughter. Or the Peverell may have been a halfblood. We are both Wix from Cornwall, the boy said, but hadn’t specified if it was his Wixen or Muggle side that was Cornish. With that accent, he clearly didn’t mean he was born in the place.

But could Dumbledore truly be that lucky? Voldemort wonders, as he enters the English-language section of the archives in the Wixen neighbourhood of Shanghai’s French Concession. He wears Darius’ face, thanks to the polyjuice potion Bellatrix purchased in Dublin, and when he smiles at the librarian, she has no issue smiling back. “I’m looking for old newspapers,” he tells her. “Particularly a story that would have happened in July or August of ninety-eight.”

As the woman says, “That should be stack one hundred seven, sir,” she slides over a sign-in sheet. “I need your name and time of arrival, sir.”

He signs Darius’ name. The time, according to the clock, is just past midday. She does not ask to see any form of identification.

The shelves are largely deserted, except for what seems to be a Mastery student seated on the floor surrounded by boxes. Though the lights that line the ceiling aren’t electric, they release a similar ambient glow, so the shadows are stagnant and layered in shades of grey and black. Did Ryder ever come here when he was stuck with the old bat in a time he didn’t know, whether that’s because he was, impossibly, exactly what he says or, just as impossibly, a future time-traveller? Even more than the unexpected escape, what Voldemort cannot scour from his head was the sincerity in which the boy claimed no one was fighting for Dumbledore. Naivety on Ryder’s part? Or have even Black and the Weasleys seen the error of their ways? Voldemort always believed that anyone who saw Dumbledore as the prick that he is, yet could not understand the worthiness of the Death Eaters’ agenda, remained bystanders in this conflict. He never considered that, perhaps, there may be those against Dumbledore who actively continue to posit themselves as opponents.

Is this, he wonders as he finds the stack, why he’s been losing his followers? His followers’ children? Is it not that they were loyal to him, but only that their hatred of Dumbledore was so great they saw Voldemort as the lesser evil, and they now they believe they have a third option? He never predicted this as a concern. He thought his enemy would be Harry Potter, who was always to be Dumbledore’s beacon of light, but even the Boy Who Lived isn’t that. A troublemaker, just like his father, who took the glory of Slytherin House and ruined it. 

Soon enough, the cousins will suffer for their crimes.

Voldemort Summons the boxes for July and August, and Conjures a chair rather than waste time searching for a seating area, which may be occupied by other people. For a moment, he’s simply distracted by the magic used to create the newspapers, which can only be read after pressing your wandtip to a language option, before he focuses and delves into the search. It’s not quick work, though when he finds what he’s looking for, it’s barely halfway into July. The story is not on the first page, but the fifth; it’s so unremarkable that the paper didn’t spare it a picture. 

Details are sparse: Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts of Witchcraft and Wizardry, discovered the boy, Thomas Malcolm Ryder (even the initials are the same!), as a doll in a dollhouse while in Shanghai for research. All it says of his mother is that she was English and she was called Margaret, and all it says of him is that he went missing in 1956, though it fails to name where. It doesn’t mention a father, other than he was an American (unexpected, yet tallies with Ryder’s claim that he had been in New York). There’s a quote from Dumbledore that says nothing, and none from Ryder, who was “recuperating” and “adjusting” before starting his seventh year at Hogwarts in September.

Slowly, Voldemort lowers the paper. He had not been expecting to find anything. What does it mean, for Dumbledore to have been so lucky that the boy with the skeleton key to any ward, who happens to be Harry Potter’s cousin, who might be Voldemort’s half-brother, landed at his feet? Something like dread runs a cold finger down Voldemort’s spine. For so long, he’s been preoccupied with discovering the truth that he missed what it all meant. He should have known something was wrong from the moment Harry Potter, at eleven, defeated Quirrell—Hogwarts certainly hadn’t taught the boy that—or at the very least, once he discovered the Riddle House barred to him. Ryder’s been wrapping rope around Voldemort’s neck for longer than he’s had his body, and now the stool’s starting to wobble beneath his feet. There’s no other reason for him to be here, in a nearly deserted archive on foreign soil wearing another man’s face. If he doesn’t intend to swing—to again become a disembodied spirit in some hollow tree in Albania—he needs to act soon. 

But it’s easy to see what that action will be. Ryder, Potter, Dumbledore. They’re all at Hogwarts. Nothing can be rushed, but before spring term’s end, he’ll have that castle crumble. 

Still, he sees no reason he can’t have fun first.

As he leaves to return to the international portkey station, the librarian behind the desk reminds him to sign out. She smiles when she says it. He smiles back and, because he can, kills her.

“Darius Bulstrode murdered a woman in Shanghai,” Narcissa says, when Tom finally pulls himself out of bed at the oh so late hour of eight in the morning on the last Saturday before winter hols. For once, he portkeyed here Friday night out of a desire to fall asleep with Emmeline, but it was nearly one when he arrived, so he missed the usual morning Prophet reading. “Here’s coffee for you. It looks as if they’re fact-checking your story.”

“Good for them,” he says, and thanks her for the mug she hands him. She’s dressed for a day of joining the Grangers in their office: Transfigured hair, glasses, that jumper from New York. “What’s on the agenda today?”

Narcissa smiles as she lifts what must be her second cup of coffee. “They can’t decide what colour to paint the office,” she says. “I reminded them I’m a witch. We plan to experiment.”

“And what are you angling for?” he says, knowing that through gentle suggestions and playing devil’s advocate, it’ll be what she wants in the end.

“On the colour strip thing,” she says, “there was just the loveliest shade of blue. Morning, Siri. Coffee?”

“Ah, yes,” Sirius says, his eyes barely open as he catches the mug. “You, Cissy, are the best of all cousins.”

With nothing short of a smirk, she says, “I know.”

“Don’t tell that to Tonks,” Tom says, sipping his coffee. 

“Tonks prefers to pretend she isn’t one of us until it’s convenient for her,” Sirius says, “and anyway, she’s a second cousin. Have I managed to miss anything?” 

Though she hadn’t shown Tom the paper, she hands it over to Sirius. “He’s so obsessed he sent someone to Shanghai,” she says. 

“What about Shanghai?” Emmeline asks, emerging from the direction of the portico with her hair all gorgeously windswept and looking not a bit knackered, because she went for a morning flight. “Oh, coffee. Any left?”

There’s not, so Tom shares what’s left of his with her, the two of them passing it back and forth while Narcissa explains what she, the Grangers, and the Temp discovered that morning: that Darius Bulstrode is suspected in the murder of an archivist in Wixen Shanghai. “The archives,” she says at the end, “hold newspapers.”

Tom knows where she means, though he never entered the place himself. “Well, he’ll find what he’s looking for,” he says. “Dumbledore was thorough. It’s Dumbledore. Why murder someone?”

“Maybe she asked too many questions,” Narcissa says, “and he’s still feeling tetchy about his wife absconding with their daughter.”

Tragically, Emmeline finishes the coffee, but at least takes that to mean she’s the one who has to make more. “I never would have expected this of him when we were students,” she says, as she Scours out the used coffee grinds. “Mind, not that he wasn’t a prat, but he had that whole forbidden love thing going on with wife—well, ex-wife—and she was a Muggleborn, and then the way I figured, anyone had to be decent if Crouch murdered their owl and left it in their bed.”

“‘That whole forbidden love thing,’” Narcissa says, as she cleans her empty mug with a spell, “stops being cute when it ends in a seventh year pregnancy. They married in July. She was showing by August.” 

Sirius and Emmeline act like this is the most scandalous thing they’ve ever heard, which means they really don’t know what went on in Hogwarts in the fifties. 

Somehow, they’re still on the topic of Hogwarts scandals—with Tom adding his uninformed opinion, naturally—when Sirius’ mirror lets out its familiar trill. On the other end is Scrimgeour, who says something about one of London’s financial districts and Bonneheur, another kidnapped Wizengamot member, and would Professor Ryder happen to be there with Sirius? Tom drinks his coffee just that much faster as Sirius points out that, sir, last time Professor Ryder was the target, and Scrimgeour just says yes, that’s the point, so as he assumes the Professor is there, bring him! Ten minutes! And then ends the connection. He hadn’t even waited for Sirius to say yes.

“If you’d come at your normal time,” he has the audacity to say, after draining the rest of his coffee, “then this never would have happened. It’s your own fault, Riddle. Ready?”

“Not on your life,” says Tom, who’s still in his pyjamas, “but no one really says no Scrimgeour, do they?” It’s a rhetorical question. Glancing at Emmeline, he adds, “Forgive me?”

She raises herself on her toes to kiss his cheek. “I’m going with Felicia to the Italian Ministry anyway,” she says. “Discussions over what to do if the prison’s suddenly and unexpectedly flooded with unconscious Death Eaters, you know? The man in charge of funding used to play for Italy. He likes to reminisce.”

Is there anywhere in the Wixen world where Quidditch isn’t currency? Probably not. “Well, have fun,” he says. 

“Stay safe,” she answers, and kisses him before he flits off to change.

Again, Tom and Sirius meet the others in the Aurors office. This time, Donovan isn’t there, nor Tonks, but Scrimgeour is. He has a map of London spread out on the desk. Also, he claims he’s coming. 

Tom is not best pleased.

With a bony finger, Scrimgeour points to a street on the border of the City of London and the East End. “He was last spotted here,” he says. “The last alert we sent out about the missing persons was to follow, but not approach. He passed a first year Mastery student in Westminster and walked to a shopping centre here, on a pedestrianised bit of street. Mr Elliot decided against entering, which I suspect was the right thing to do.”

“That’s Cheap,” Tom says, leaning over the map. The indicated spot is the corner Wool’s Lane, which connects the thoroughfares of Cheapside and King Street. “It’s not the East End.”

 “What?” Pugh says, looking up from the map. She’s allowed not to know; she’s a little village in Northern Wales, after all.

Irritated, he says, “Dumbledore mentioned that Voldemort was raised in this orphanage in the East End, but Cheapside is a thoroughfare connecting the two areas of the city. ‘Working-class’—I knew his accent would’ve Cockney, the hypocrite.” 

There’s never been a point Tom’s minded how he speaks. It’s the sheer hypocrisy of the insult that niggles at him.

Only Sirius turns away, hiding a smile. Scrimgeour, so patiently it might be called indulgent, asks, “And why is it, Professor Ryder, you think the man has decided to attack his childhood home?”

“Because the Cheap doesn’t make much sense otherwise,” Tom says, “and he’s a sentimental bastard. His first attempt at a hidey hole was his father’s house, his second his mother’s. Why not fake-bomb the miserable hovel where he was raised? Here, may I see that map please? Thanks.” Despite asking, he slides it over without waiting for Scrimgeour to grant permission. After a moment, he locates what he’s looking for, and goes on, “All right. As the last attack was triggered by some sort of ward, not timed, it should be fine if you allow me half an hour to figure out the exact address where we need to be.”

“And how do you intend to do that?” Scrimgeour asks, taken aback.

“By being a Muggle,” he says. “If anyone would like to come, they can, but don’t touch anything.” There’s no point in adding to stay Disillusioned; that’s just a given at this point.

For all that the Head of Aurors is put out about this unforeseen turn of events, even he’s too curious to turn down the opportunity, so begrudgingly says where they’ll come. This is for safety reasons, clearly. But where? The University College of London’s library, Tom says, but doesn’t elaborate. If Pugh wasn’t one of those Muggleborns who so thoroughly gave up any ties to her childhood, and Sirius didn’t know him well enough to guess, Tom might’ve explained what he’s about to do, but he just casts a Notice Me Not Charm on himself while the others do their Disillusioning, then side-alongs them all to the library. 

Helpful signs point them to the section with the computers. As he lacks a log-in, he sidles close enough to someone with their screen already open that his Charm forces the girl from her seat. It’s quick work after that: using one of the humanities databases to search “twentieth-century and Cheapside and orphanages,” deciding of the two, it was the one that both remained “blessedly” untouched during the Blitz and was famous for turning out an unusually high number of adder bite patients (obviously this was blamed on the devil at the time), and then typing the old address into GoogleMaps, a programme so helpfully launched just last year. Wool’s Orphanage on Wool Lane, which connects Cheapside to St Paul’s Churchyard through some square, is now a back entrance to the fucking London Stock Exchange. 

If Voldemort’s decided to borrow from Grindelwald’s tactics and terrify the Muggles, he couldn’t have been luckier.

In total, it can’t be more than fifteen minutes before Tom has the history wiped and they’re back in the office, though then he has to waste another fifteen minutes explaining what a computer is. Sirius knows all this, but doesn’t try to help. This is terrible, because like so many things, Tom suspects even Pugh would accept this explanation at face value if it was coming from a pureblood.

Finally, Scrimgeour turns back to the paper map and taps Wool’s approximate location. “It’s so narrow a lane,” he says, “that I must wonder if the ward or whatever it was that acted as a trigger for the trap is at its entrance or that of the building. And then you can see the size of the building itself. It could be difficult to find him. So I also must wonder if the attack will still happen without our intervention, and if this is, perhaps, a distraction for another event meant to take place today.”

“If no one shows up,” Pugh says, a crease forming between her brows, “whatever Death Eaters are in the area might still attack, even if it is a distraction.”

“And distraction for what?” Sirius says, as he folds his arms. “More kidnappings? Something else with the Registry?”

Scrimgeour glances at him. “Unlikely to be the second,” he says, “now that there are so many safeguards in place. The first option is a possibility, but who would be the target?” He pauses, then asks them all, “If you were the man, what would you do now?”

“Genuinely blow up the Stock Exchange,” Pugh says immediately.

“Murder Aberforth Dumbledore?” Sirius says. “Repopulate his ranks with more politicians under the Imperius Curse?”

When Tom doesn’t say anything, they all turn to look at him. Even Scrimgeour. After a moment, Tom says, “He murdered an archivist in Shanghai.” 

“Bulstrode did,” Scrimgeour says, leaning his weight on his cane. 

Tom shakes his head. “No,” he says. “It was Polyjuice or Transfiguration or something. Now Voldemort, he wasn’t leaving fact-checking my background to a follower. That would mean admitting how much I bother him. No, there’ll be an attack in Cheapside tonight if we don’t trigger anything. I don’t doubt there’ll be something else with it, but that I’m not certain about. Everything I can think of, he can’t access. But the first, well. He asked how much about him I knew.”

There’s a beat when no one speaks before Scrimgeour starts, but defers to Pugh saying, “Well, it’s not as if he didn’t know he had an interest in you. Can’t risk showing how much, though, can he? Not like your cousin or Dumbledore. They’re part of the narrative. Defeating them’s necessary to gain control of the country. Death of hope and what have you.”

“At least that means he can’t attack the zoo,” Sirius says, guessing perfectly the direction in which Tom’s thoughts have wandered. “They’d definitely have questions then. Harry’s at school. He’s well protected. So’s your girlfriend.”

“You’re here,” Tom says, understanding where he’s going with this. Everyone else is also locked up tight behind a Fidelius Charm and about a thousand other protections. “Anything of sentimental value is just warded empty sheepfolds at this point, and even if the Potters or Peverells left much else lying about—”

“Godric’s Hollow,” Sirius cuts in. Tom glances at him. Sirius lifts a brow. “What? Doesn’t matter much if he’s spotted now.” 

Pugh leans her hip against the desk and shifts the image on the map west toward Godric’s Hollow. “Could be,” she says, as Scrimgeour glances between the three of them, assessing how they work together. “Hits several points at once, really. Never been myself, but the number of Ministry employees who live there is staggering, if I’ve heard right. Death Eaters have always had a particular love of tearing down families until even the legacies are dust. That you and Harry are related must be awfully convenient, if you think about it. He can attack the idea of the Boy Who Lived, and the last physical tie you have to your Wixen family at the same time. James Potter’s final home address. Didn’t the Dumbledores live in the Hollow at some point too? Might even attack there for good measure.”

Before Tom can respond that, if Bagshot’s to be believed, it was on the very same street, Scrimgeour finally says, “Well, that’s me convinced. Pugh and Professor Ryder will attend to the matter in London. Black, I recommend you and I ferret out any potential trouble in Godric’s Hollow. Oh, don’t give me those looks, the pair of you. We need a real Londoner in London, and someone familiar with Godric’s Hollow. Pugh and I are neither. Pugh, do see to it he doesn’t lose his head if the buildings start crumbling. I’ll do the same.”

Chapter Text

There is no ward guarding the entrances to Wool Lane, but the building is layered in two: one for anti-Apparition, and another for anti-theft, which alerts the caster through a vibration in their wand. The foundation of both is the door that was once for the orphanage, but now leads to some offices at the London Stock Exchange, according to what Tom and Pugh can see through the windows. On the wall next to the door is a plaque commemorating the orphanage, which had opened in 1914 to house war orphans in affiliation with the local church. It closed in 1961. 

“I can do the anti-theft wards,” Pugh says, pleased. This is good, because Tom can’t. “Worked in Theft and Bulgarly starting out, me. You pick up some bits and bobs doing that.”

Somehow, he’s not surprised to hear this. “I can get us through the anti-Apparition,” he says. “No need to tear it down. Can you handle the anti-theft without touching it?”

“Should be able to,” she says and starts. He leans back against the wall of the opposite building, which seems to be yet more offices, and waits. 

It hardly takes her ten minutes, a time he spends wondering what Sirius is doing right now, and if he’s all right, and if he’ll be all right, should his prediction be correct, because Scrimgeour is a prick. That Tom is working with Pugh is different; they trust each other, and once they’re inside, they won’t have much trouble collaborating without speaking. Also, she’s not his boss. Even if he was an official Auror, this would be true, so they can be dodgy together without fear of consequences.

Scrimgeour is an unknown entity. 

When she turns back to him, it’s with a grin. “An informant taught me that,” she says. It’s good she can’t see his expression, Tom thinks, or she’d probably make some follow up comment about how he needn’t worry over Sirius. As it is, that she continues, “Whichever one of us reaches Bonneheur first will counter the Imperius,” isn’t much better. 

“I can’t,” he says, knowing it’s not something he can fake-accidentally dodge when it’s just the two of them. “You’ll have to cast the counter.”

There’s a pause before she says, “And no one can cast it on you either, can they?” without bothering to check if he simply hadn’t learnt how to do it. He gets it; by now, he’s helped out enough that Sirius would have taught him.

“No,” he says. 

“Well,” she says, leaving it at that, “then at least that’s not a worry. Shall we?” 

Relieved, he takes her hand, breathes in, out, and with immense difficulty, side-alongs them through the anti-Apparition wards to land just on the other side of the door. They both stumble, but don’t encounter any secondary protection. 

Yet, anyway.

Functional invisibility intact, they creep down the desert hall. Some of the doors are open, but most aren’t. Though they hardly expect Bonneheur to be so conveniently placed, they peek inside the ones that they can, and crack open the ones that are closed to do the same. If they have to do this with every office, it’ll take a lifetime, considering the building is multi-storey and enormous. Moreover, as Bones was in a public space, it begs to reason that Bonneheur will be the same, but they can’t predict where those spaces might be without a map. And how to avoid security tossing him out? Tom suggested a Muggle-repelling Charm; Pugh sighed at that, said he was such an innocent, and floated the possibility that everyone in the vicinity would be under the Imperius Curse instead.

What they agree on, however, is that it’s unlikely Bonneheur will be alone. Not in a place this large. They both just hope the person with him isn’t Bellatrix Lestrange. 

There are enough clocks in the random conference rooms they’re forced to check that they can safely say it’s been two hours by the time they enter what must be the public part of the building, where kiosk things dot the ground floor. Unconsciously, people move aside to let them through. It’s loud enough that Pugh risks saying, under her breath, “How much do you bet there’s a cafe? No reason even Death Eaters can’t have a preferred sort of meeting place.” 

“True,” he says, as they weave around a family with two very bored children trailing behind chattering parents who haven’t seemed to realise their idea for a fun daytrip isn’t a success. “And even Death Eaters must drink coffee.”

“Or tea,” says Pugh. Tom concedes the point. Yes, or tea.

Within minutes, they discover that even here, the signage is atrocious, so it takes nearly another hour before they stumble across a generic cafe. Every table is full, but no one walking past glances in its direction. None of the workers behind the counter appear to be doing anything. None of the patrons are either, except the woman in pink, who’s reading a book. The man across from her, the one facing them, the one who Tom recognises to be Bonneheur, has his hands wrapped around a mug, but stares as vacantly off into the middle distance as the rest.

That woman—she of the pink cardigan and the steel grey curls—can only be Dolores Umbridge.

Pugh taps Tom’s arm. On the back of his hand, she traces with her finger, 2w? Second ward, he assumes. Though he suspects not, he still writes the runes to check, and comes up with nothing. After a moment’s hesitation, he takes Pugh by the elbow and leads her into the (shockingly clean) accessible loo across the hall. “I’ll distract her,” he says, once he douses the space is such a strong Silencing Charm even someone attempting to preemptively counter one won’t be able to break it. “Just grab Bonneheur and get him out of here. Worry about countering the Imperius then.”

Warily, Pugh says, “Don’t you think she’ll expect that?”

“Umbridge rather despises me,” he answers, leaning back against the door. “From her perspective, I can only assume I destroyed her life. The issue—” 

“Is the Muggles?” 

“Yes.”

Inevitably, the others in the cafe are also under the Imperius Curse. The patrons, the works. Altogether, there must be under thirty. Even if Tom had the capability to distract Umbridge long enough to start freeing everyone from its influence, they won’t understand to act as if nothing’s changed until it’s safe to do otherwise. 

After a brief hesitation, Pugh says, “I’ve no proof this is true, but I’ve heard you can break the Imperius Curse if you snap the caster’s wand.”

No one intentionally snaps another Wix’s wand, not with expulsion from school or an arrest. It’s just about the worst taboo a person can break. “Is there no other option?” he says, because he’ll do it in the same way he would have incinerated his father’s bones, but that doesn’t mean he’ll enjoy it.

“Stopping the caster’s heart is the other option,” she says, “but there’s no spell that can intentionally do that quick enough that won’t kill her.”

“Oh,” he says, relieved. “Well, perhaps we’ll have a stroke of luck that will happen on its own.”

As they’re both still Disillusioned, he can’t see Pugh’s expression, but he imagines it’s as bemused as it ever is when he says something as odd as that. Still, she doesn’t question him, and turns instead to the final details. Where will she take him? The Shrieking Shack, she says, as it’ll be empty, and he’ll have no issue following her there when he’s done. Good, great, but, they agree, depending on the man’s condition, she should probably move on to a hospital abroad without waiting for Tom to arrive, especially since it might make more sense for him to Apparate to Godric’s Hollow, depending on what happens here. Neither of them are thrilled with that, but they can’t think of a better solution on such short notice, so leave it there before they slip out of the toilet. 

Once they’re within the limits of the Muggle-repelling Charm, he makes himself visible and enters the cafe. There are two empty chairs at Umbridge and Bonneheur’s table; he approaches from behind, Silenced, and slides into the one on her left. That she startles is gratifying. 

“Hello, Dolores,” he says, slipping again into RP, just to see her unsettled. At the same time she shuts the book, so he catches the title out of the corner of his eye. It’s a history of the codes of law Grindelwald enacted in his territories during the war. “Who’s the second chair for? Sirius?”

“It seemed impolite not to have it at the ready,” she says, with her most toad-like smile. “Everyone knows where one of you is, the other follows. When might we expect him?”

“Not today,” Tom says. “The new Head of the Aurors is a bastard of exceptional character and decided we required time apart.”

“Well, he’s liable to miss a reunion with his friends from Azkaban,” she says, as if scripted. “I was just about to leave myself. It’s nearly sundown.” 

Where the hell is Pugh? Ignoring Umbridge’s attempts to raise the suspense, Tom says, “How is life on the run treating you, Dolores?”

“Quite well,” she lies, though her Occlumency is such shite that he has no trouble gleaning from her all that she misses, from her bed to her preferred brand of Muggle teas. Her hatred for him is a wriggling, poisonous thing, so intense it might be alive. “How have you found having to cope with the consequences—”

She never does get to finish her question about the Registry; within a matter of seconds, Bonneheur disappears, she turns her head in the direction of the newly empty chair in astonishment, and he strikes her with the reversed Heart Resuscitation Charm. With a wheeze and a gasp, she slumps over onto the table. All around him, the Muggles coming free of the curse break into a panic. Ignoring them, he sends Umbridge to St Mungo’s A&E, guessing she’ll live if someone restarts her heart within the next five minutes, before he turns around, spots the fire alarm above the espresso machine, and sets it off with a streak of red sparks.

If he thought the public area was chaotic before, it’s nothing compared to the madness it turns into once the lights start flashing and alarm wails and the voice on the loudspeaker asks that everyone remains calm. As everyone rushes for the emergency exits or the front doors, Tom tries to fight his way across the hall toward the loo, where he should be able to Apparate safety, but a man twice his width grabs his arm almost immediately and says, “No, nearest exit’s this way, lad,” and half drags him along in the opposite direction of easy escape, so he’s still trapped inside when something stronger than a single Blasting Curse breaks the roof open over his head. 

At the same time Tom finds himself stuck inside yet another collapsing building, Ron comes back from getting Daphne spiked pumpkin juice to find his girlfriend dragging Blaise out to dance. “But I thought she wanted juice,” he says, coming to stand by Hermione and Pansy, the latter of whom has no trouble liberating his hand of the glasses he had not, let it be said, obtained for them. 

“She probably does,” Pansy says, handing the second glass to Hermione, which at least stops her from trying to fix her dress from sliding down. “But Daph and I are committed to the mission of forcing Draco and Harry into admitting they so ardently love each other, which means they need alone time.”

Though Pansy has yet to partake in the firewhiskey lacing the pumpkin juice, that statement is so far out of the realm of reality Ron fears she might somehow be drunk. “Draco and Harry?” he says doubtfully, before glancing at Hermione. “Did you know about this?”

“God no,” she says, shoving the glass back at him. “I don’t like it. There was something wrong with the pumpkins.”

Pansy turns her laugh into a cough. Ron, who’s not the girlfriend, doesn’t try to cover his. “Pumpkins were fine, I reckon,” he says. “That’s the whisky. But they don’t fancy each other, Pan. The idea’s daft. Mad.”

“That’s what I said,” says Hermione, who acknowledges neither her inability to recognise the whisky nor their laughter, though she holds herself a little stiffly. “They’re just…I don’t know. Like that, I suppose. Always have been.”

“No,” Pansy says, as she sets her glass down and steps behind Hermione. Ron can’t see what Pansy’s doing, but it keeps Hermione’s dress in place. “I mean, they’ve always been close, but so have all of us. But it changed this summer.”

“The only thing that changed this summer,” Hermione says, “is that we all kept abandoning them to snog in the bedrooms or the bushes, and Blaise, to being a real, responsible adult. Look, all they’re doing is talking to those Quidditch people.”

Ron turns and spots Draco and Harry standing across the room with Slughorn, Emmeline’s captain, and the head of the National League. And they didn’t think to find him and Ginny and Daphne? But they all play Quidditch too! 

Before he can make his way over, Hermione grabs his arm. At the same moment, Draco drapes his arm over Harry’s shoulder. “You don’t want to play professionally,” she says as Ron turns back. “He does. Let Draco tell the cute story of how they met outside the Quidditch shop, and maybe they’ll come back for Gryffindor’s last game.”

“They never draft from the sixth years,” Ron says. 

With a shrug, Hermione says, “Viktor told me they don’t for national leagues, but they do for international.”

There’s a major difference between someone getting drafted for Puddlemere United, and for bloody England, but Hermione, who doesn’t care a whit about professional Quidditch, is right. The next World Cup is in ‘08. “Well,” he says, as he tries not to think about what a big deal the papers would make over Harry Potter playing for England, “then it wouldn’t matter if they fancy—”

“So ardently love,” Pansy corrects. 

He ignores her. “—each other if that happened, considering Harry’d never have any free time at all.”

“But it’s love, Ron,” Pansy says, frowning. “If they overcome hardship within the first year—”

“We’ve not needed to overcome hardship,” Hermione says, as Daphne and Blaise finally appear to salvage this situation. 

As Ron hands Daphne the pre-sampled pumpkin juice, she says, “Overcome what hardship?”

“In relationships,” Pansy says, reaching for Hermione’s hand. “We don’t need any, darling, because we’re women, and we’re just better at conflict resolution.”

“That is true, I suppose,” she says, which Ron thinks is massively unfair, but when he tries to voice this, even Blaise shuts him down. “But, Blaise, it all came up because Pansy and Daphne are convinced Draco and Harry fancy each other, which is patently ridiculous.”

Blaise glances between Hermione and Ron like they’re the barmy ones, not Pansy and Daphne. “Oh, I’ve no doubt they do,” he says, to Ron’s shock, “and I dread the day they realise it. Greg decided not to come tonight to read. What in Merlin’s name will I do once all of you’re dating each other?”

“They do not!” Ron says. “Where’s your proof?”

“That,” Daphne says, placing a finger below his chin and guiding his head to look around, where Slughorn and the Quidditch people are gone, and Harry and Draco are standing together in a darkened corner, laughing. 

At a loss, Ron says, “All I’m seeing is that the two of them haven’t realised the rest of us aren’t doing whatever you’re supposed to do at these things, so they can come over and join us.”

“But don’t you see how adoringly they look at each other?” Daphne asks. 

“No.”

“Oh, you’re hopeless.” She lets him turn his head back. Completely without shame, Hermione, Pansy, and Blaise stare across the room. “Hermione?”

Sounding just as doubtful as he feels, Hermione says, “Well, possibly.”

Pansy rolls her eyes and takes Hermione’s hand. “We’re dancing,” she says, leading her away. 

“The music here’s awful,” Blaise says, as he folds his arm and leans against a column. “This summer, if we’re still in Italy—well, even if we’re not in Italy by necessity, we should portkey, and find that club in Wixen Rome.”

When Tom taught Harry how to make long-distance portkeys, Harry, as was his duty, went on to teach the rest of them. “For better music or better dancing?” Ron says, though really, he’s trying to figure out what he can bribe Charlie with to convince him not to tell their parents, should Ron bring Daphne to the reserve as a first date of the summer. He’ll be bored to tears but she’ll love it.

“Both,” Blaise says. “Oh, they’re leaving?”

“Harry and Draco?” Daphne says, as she and Ron turn in time to see the others slip out. “Well, if we’re fortunate, perhaps they’re going off to declare their undenying love for each other, and they can save us from the pining.”

“Fortunate for you maybe,” Blaise says, as Ron answers, “No, I put my foot down. Er, you know what I mean. But Theo and Cho, you called that ‘pining,’ and I agree, because it was pathetic, but these are two friends looking at each other.” 

Glancing from Ron to Daphne, Blaise asks, “How is he so innocent? You’ve been dating longer than anyone.”

“Because I’m the only one he’s ever loved,” Daphne says, as she wraps her arms around him. 

“And the only one I ever will,” Ron says, as he wraps his arms around her. “How many kneazles do you want?”

“Two,” she says seriously. “No more, no less.” 

Blaise rolls his eyes. “I hate both of you,” he says, then pauses, and adds suddenly, “I don’t think I’ll stay here after graduation.”

Startled, Ron says, “Britain, you mean? Why?”

“Italy has its own Mastery programmes,” Blaise says, looking out towards the other guests rather than them, “and, I don’t know. Just can’t imagine living my whole life in a country with weather this shite, I suppose.”

Ron and Daphne exchange a glance, silently checking if the other knew their friend was considering this, but he finds she’s just as clueless as he is. “Are you homesick?” she asks.

“Homesick?” Blaise repeats. He wrinkles his nose. “What a plebian concept. As if I’ll ever surrender myself to a weakness so ordinary. Does anyone want more whisky? Sorry, pumpkin juice.”

Really, the answer is no—pumpkin juice and firewhiskey should not mix—but even Ron can’t miss a subject change that artless, so he says yes. Daphne, who’s still working her way through her first glass, says no. With a nod, Blaise disappears in the general direction of the refreshments table. 

Whether he’ll return remains to be seen.

For a moment, neither Ron nor Daphne say anything. Then he looks down and she looks up, and he says, “Two kneazles then?”

“Well,” she says, “you can’t have just one. They’ll get lonely when we’re at work. And more than that’s a disaster.”

Even one kneazle sounds like a disaster if they end up in a flat in—where was Dean’s grandparents from again, Swindon? Yeah, Swindon or something. But, Ron figures, the Greengrasses would never allow that, and he’ll just have to accept it. “Suppose we know our first stop after graduation then,” he says and hopes, privately, that whatever they find is cuter than Crookshanks.

“Second,” Daphne says, “since we should probably find the house first.”

In a panic, Tom Apparates to the street. He doesn’t splinch himself. He does, however, bring the Muggle with him.

“What?” the man says, forgetting all about the push of the crowd around them and the collapsing building and the fire. “How—we were and then—”

 Let someone else handle this man, Tom decides, as he starts to walk away without explanation. John, the pocket of the uniform had said. It looked like a cleaner’s, probably the daily custodian’s. Proper London, he sounded like, the sort who means North London when he refers to something as being from or in the “North,” not Yorkshire. For the Ministry, that should be enough to find him. 

But what about the others, the ones under Umbridge’s Imperius Curse? Or maybe it doesn’t matter that Tom hadn’t gotten their names and addresses when they’re still trapped in there, in the building where the dust and debris blooms from what was the roof as more and more of it caves in without the aid of additional magic. A couple Death Eaters must’ve flown up there with brooms. How confusing it’ll be when the Muggles investigate it and start crying terrorism. Inevitably, they’ll pick someone to blame it on, even if they lack the proof. 

Wixen Britain gets their proof, though. Tom stumbles across Darius Bulstrode just as the man casts the Dark Mark into the sky. 

Tom tries to hit him with Bewitched Sleep, but a fleeing Muggle barrels into him at the same moment with a force that unbalances him and sends the spell wide of its target. As he starts to fall, Bulstrode shifts his raised wand in the direction of the attack like it’s instinct and fires off a Killing Curse; it misses Tom, who catches himself with the hand not holding his wand, but finds a mark in a Muggle. The woman—a girl, really—she collapses beside him, so terribly, terribly dead. 

Bulstrode’s second Killing Curse strikes a man unfortunate enough to run between him and Tom at the wrong moment. The woman half a step behind shrieks and trips over his body. Behind Tom, there’s a muffled boom. Before Bulstrode has the opportunity to try again, Tom Apparates to directly left of him, and gets him with a Memory Charm so strong he’ll forget his own name. Certainly, he’ll forget magic ever existed, but he’ll always know there’s something missing. 

It is, Tom figures as he grabs the wand from Bulstrode’s hand, a punishment worse than death for someone like him. 

Slowly, he turns to Tom. Neither Bulstrode nor the Muggles around them, the crowd of which seems to be thinning, notice when Tom Transfigures his robes into Muggle clothing. “What’s happening?” Bulstrode says, in a similar way that his daughter would ask about a concept she struggled to understand in Care of Magical Creatures. “Who are you?” He pauses, and glances at the sky. “Who am I?”

“I suggest you make yourself scarce, mate,” Tom says, already turning away. “It’s not safe here.”

Leaving Bulstrode on there on pavement, Tom walks a few feet until he finds a deserted lane. He slips in, checks no one’s in sight, and Apparates to Godric’s Hollow.

 “They won’t notice we left, will they?” Harry asks, flopping onto the frosted grass beside Draco. It should be bitterly cold, but that’s what Warming Charms are for. Well, Warming Charms and spiked pumpkin juice. 

Draco snorts. “Never,” he says, as he tries to focus on how silly it is that anyone could think otherwise and that the Warming Charm’s turning the frosted earth to mud rather than the fact that Harry’s lying so close their arms are touching. “Not now that Daph has Blaise dancing. If they’d noticed, Ron or Ginny would’ve come over when we were speaking with Hedley and ruined everything.”

“There was nothing to ruin,” Harry says, exasperated. Draco turns his head to look at him, only to find Harry looking back. My, are his eyes so green, Draco thinks, as Harry goes on, “Between Slughorn and Lloyd, Hedley just said the thing about coming to the final match to be polite, probably.”

Sometimes Draco could throttle Harry, honestly, no matter how nice his eyes are. “The Qualifiers are in July,” he says. “You went to the French ones, didn’t you? Teams for the World Cup always try to get Seekers who’re in school or recent graduates. Think about Krum. Seekers are the most commonly injured players, and the younger you are, the more likely you are to recover without losing your ability to play forever. If it’s not you, it’ll be Cedric, I bet.”

“Cedric’s brilliant,” Harry says, to Draco’s chagrin. He’d like to hear just about anything right now rather than Harry complimenting Cedric Diggory. “He’d deserve it.”

“Well, so maybe he’ll play for England,” Draco says, “and you’ll play for Scotland or Wales or something, and you can beat him again. It’ll be grand. And you can get me free tickets to every game.”

Sighing, but not like he means it, Harry says, “That’s the real reason you want me to play. That all I am to you, is it? A means to an end?” 

“Obviously,” Draco says. “You would’ve had the same with Emmeline if Tom understood what a glorious opportunity he had.”

“Has,” Harry says. “She’ll play again. Course, so will I, and then Tom’ll have to choose a team. What’s more important, cousin or girlfriend?”

With a shrug that squelches the mud beneath him, Draco says, “Can’t say. If you’re a pureblood, that can be the same thing.”

Harry laughs, the sound peeling out into the night to be carried away on a breeze. In the wake of it, there’s a beat of silence before he, now not looking at Draco at all, says, “We’re cousins, but we’re not blood related, you know. I figured that out.”

“What?” Draco says, confused.

“It’s all through the Blacks,” Harry says. “We’re related through my great-uncle’s wife.” 

Though Draco is far from drunk, and not even really tipsy, he thinks he might have had just enough alcohol that he can’t quite come to any conclusion about why Harry might be bringing this up now, or at all. Why does it matter if they’re blood related or not? Is that good or bad? Merlin, people raised by Muggles are weird.

Vaguely, he wonders if Pansy ever encounters this problem, then decides she probably doesn’t. Hermione’s so straightforward she could do with being a little more obtuse.

Unsure what else to do, he just says, “Oh.”

With the worst squelching yet, Harry suddenly turns on his side. Though he tries to keep the side of his head out of the mud by pillowing his head with his hands, it’s a lost cause. “What’ll you do this summer?” he asks. “You know, if Voldemort really is dead by then.”

Part of Draco can’t believe it’ll ever happen, but the rest can feel how everything seems to be so frantically drawing to a close. The consequences of both will be dire, he suspects, but inevitably, the conflict dragging out will be worse. “I don’t know,” he says. “Probably live with Mother. What about you?”

Shrugging the shoulder not pressed to the ground, Harry says, “Maybe we’ll find somewhere in Glasgow again. I miss Glasgow. But it’ll be weird not all being together.”

“We could do it after graduation,” Draco says. The moment the words leave him, he feels himself flush, but he doesn’t take it back. 

“Anywhere but fucking Surrey,” Harry says. “And you know it’ll only last long enough for Ron and Daph to have their first baby.”

“But they’ll at least finish their Masteries first,” Draco says, before he realises that he doesn’t know if that’s true, but at least he hopes. Mostly, he’s just glad Harry didn’t laugh it off. 

After another brief pause, where Harry just looks at him, his friend says, “It’d be weird not spending the summer with you.” 

 Draco rolls over in a mirror of Harry’s expression. “That’d happen anyway,” he says, “if you’re drafted for the World Cup. You’ll have to get permission to leave school for some evenings and at least a day per weekend, too, if I had to guess.”

All that and work for the NEWTs. Any time they have together—that Harry has with any of them, Draco thinks, would be spent studying. And suddenly, selfishly, he wants the opportunity to pass his friend by after all.  

“Emmeline still had time to date Tom,” Harry says, “and they weren’t even really dating yet.”

“True,” Draco says, before he pushes himself up and stands. “I need a Scouring Charm and a shower. Gross, is this. Why couldn’t it’ve been snow?”

“Because snow turns into slush,” Harry says, holding out his hand for Draco to help him to his feet. 

After they Scour each other, they turn back to the castle. There’s no question returning to the party, though it’s not over for another two hours; instead, they meander toward the Common Room and the showers and their beds, and pass by no one in the deserted halls. 

By the time Tom reaches Godric’s Hollow, three of Voldemort’s followers are custody, Bathilda Bagshot’s street is on fire with the oak tree growing through the foundation of what was the Potters’ house the epicentre of the blaze, and the Dark Mark shimmers so high in the sky no Muggle in the area can fail to notice it. Scrimgeour’s arm is the sort of mess Tom can’t bring himself to look at, but at least Sirius came away without any injury worse than a bump on the head. 

It’s the Muggle paramedic who puts it like that. She deals with Tom and Sirius while a team bundles Scrimgeour into an ambulance, heedless of his protests that proper help is on the way, while the local fire department douses the flames. Mary, says the paramedic. Her name is Mary. She looks to be about Tom’s age, but she calls him “dearie” like he’s a child when she drapes a blanket over his shoulders. “You’re in shock,” she says, “but you don’t seem injured. Can I have your name?”

“Tom Riddle,” he says numbly, as over her shoulder, he watches the waterhouse defeat the fire burning the tree. A branch, sodden and blackened, cracks free and crashes to ground. 

“Like the word?” she says. He nods. “And where are you from, Mr Riddle?”

“Doctor,” he says, which reminds him that he probably shouldn’t say London. “Cardiff currently.” If she pushes, he can always give Emmeline’s address.

Before Mary can ask, though, the first of the Ministry employees arrive, here to modify every Muggle’s memory. Along with them are the mediwizard Scrimgeour requested, easily recognisable for his St Mungo’s robes. 

Once they take charge of the mess, and they explain to the mediwizard that he may need to liberate Scrimgeour from the depths of the local hospital, Tom and Sirius Apparate to Crook Peak. Too lazy to move much further than the Warmed patio, Sirius Summons all the necessary equipment for coffee and has it start making itself. “We’ll know the full extent of the damage tomorrow,” he says without waiting for Tom to ask, as he sinks into the chair. Tom lies on the sofa across the coffee table, staring up at a sky so cloudless he can almost trick himself into thinking he can still see as many stars as he could in his childhood. “Just bad luck, really. We tripped an anti-theft ward the moment we Apparated in. Scrimgeour wanted to warn the locals about prospective kidnappings, but there was never the chance. What about London?”

Briefly, Tom recaps. He does not leave out what he did to Umbridge or to Bulstrode, nor does he offer an apology for either. 

“That’s genius, the thing with his memory,” Sirius says, as he mixes milk into his coffee. “Mad, but brilliant. Why’ve I not thought of it?”

“Because you,” Tom says, sitting upright to reach for his own mug, “are bound by law to make arrests. I’m bound by morals, but my hand slipped.”

The coffee’s a bit rubbish, but it always is if magic determines the amount. Still, Tom thinks as he sips it. At least it’s warm. 

Perhaps Sirius doesn’t share these sentiments, because somehow, he’s already finished half. “The man who lit the oak on fire,” he says. “I Transfigured him into a rat. He ran at the nearest of his allies, but pity for him. That was Bella. She killed him the moment he skittered over her foot. Revenge, I suppose, for all the fucking rats in Azkaban. Everyone’s hand slips. You and I, we’re just not allowed to admit it.”

“Then at least we’re clever about it, I suppose,” Tom says, setting down the coffee and running a hand through his hair. “Why cast the Dark Mark this time, but not last time? What’s the logic?”

“No idea,” Sirius says, “but whatever it is, I reckon we’ll find out tomorrow.” 

“They burned the remains of my parent’s house?” Harry says, before Hermione can read any further than the second sentence. They’re in the Great Hall at breakfast, as they usually are when they receive bad news, and already, other students are turning to look in his direction. 

Without reading any more, Hermione rolls up the paper. “Bring the tea and the toast,” she says. “Let’s not do this here.”

In a rush, they, Draco, and Ron leave. None of their friends from Slytherin have arrived yet, but they’ll understand the unexpected absence at the Gryffindor table once they see the article. This isn’t terrible, though, as Goyle’s been informally absorbed into their group by virtue of having no one else to spend time with, and sometimes Cho comes along (on the days Theo doesn’t abandon them for her). Whatever reaction Harry has, it’s likely that the fewer people who see it, the better. 

When they reach the Room, it turns into their usual cozy space, complete with a fire in the hearth, which they’re quick to congregate around. The boys set down the tea and toast, as Hermione unfurls the paper and starts to read. With each sentence, it grows worse. A dual attack on London and Godric’s Hollow, the former considered random by location but the latter centred around the Potter Memorial. There are before and after photos of both streets. Someone saved another kidnapped member of the Wizengamot in London, but the Death Eaters stole four more high ranking Ministry officials from their beds in Godric’s Hollow. In the initial attack, two Wix died there—the current residence of the house where Dumbledore once lived, it says—and and no Muggles, while in London, an ambiguous number of Muggles were killed, and the only Wixen casualty was, potentially, Dolores Umbridge, who appeared in A&E at approximately the same time, and died seven hours of unexplained “complications.”

At this point, Ron breaks in to say a mediwix must’ve murdered her. Hermione shushes him, and finishes the final paragraphs, which may be the worst yet. In the second attack on both locations, they learn, the Death Eaters returned to scene once the employees from the Ministry arrived to start modifying Muggles’ memories, and successfully murdered five additional Wix.

Finally, Hermione lowers the paper. When Draco reaches for the paper, she doesn’t stop him.

As Draco starts leafing through the pages, Harry says, “Back where Tom’s from, that’s what Grindelwald did, commit some obviously Wixen crime, then kill whoever showed up to modify Muggle memories. Did he do that here?”

“I don’t know, mate,” Ron says, clearly at as much of a loss as Hermione. “Grindelwald never made it to Britain, not here, so no one really talks about it.”

“Well, he’s done Muggle history,” Harry says, “so why not Wixen history? You know, to make up for the bit of it he destroyed.”

Hermione almost says it takes twenty years for an event to become history, then thinks better of it. His point’s a good one. “I’ll check the library later,” she says, “but if it happened where Tom’s from, I see no reason why it wouldn’t have happened here. Why would he only have tried that tactic in Britain?”

Before either Harry or Ron can respond, Draco tosses the paper aside and says, “If there’s anything else, it’s not in the papers.”

“You mean that wasn’t enough?” Harry says, turning to him. “They destroyed my parent’s house. Again.”

“Yeah,” Draco says. “A mite theatrical, isn’t it?” 

“And the London Stock Exchange,” Hermione says. “The article mightn’t name it, but I recognise the picture. Something else is going on here. We just don’t know enough to say what.” To Harry, she adds, “This must’ve been just the most awful shock. I’m sorry.” 

Though Harry tries to shrug it off, he’s so transparent that there’s no hiding how bothered he is about the whole thing, which is entirely fair. There’s something particularly low about attacking what is essentially a grave. “Tom and Sirius will know,” he says. “Who else sent Umbridge to St Mungo’s? He’ll be here tomorrow.”

“And we’ll see Sirius Wednesday,” Draco says. “Merlin, I’m looking forward to winter hols. Let’s just hope there’s no attack on the Ministry this time.” 

Harry shoves him in a move shockingly reminiscent of when they were children. “Don’t tempt fate,” he says, even as Draco shoves back. It’s all so childish, so familiar, that it draws Hermione right back to her girlfriend’s ludicrous claim last night. That these two fancy each other! She can’t see it. They’re just Harry and Draco, as they’ve always been, in the same way they’re Draco and Ron or Harry and Hermione, or all other combinations their group of four has to offer. 

Well, unless the two of them have always fancied each other. That’s a different story altogether.

And also, in the grand scheme of things, remarkably unimportant. “Well, in case there is,” she says to Harry, “you better keep your wand on you. We can’t trust Tom won’t forget about his.”