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Chapter Text

July, 1940

Diagon Alley in July shimmered with heat and noise. Witches and wizards bustled through the cobbled street in bright robes, the air thick with the sounds of laughter and the smell of summer flowers wafting from nearby stalls. And there, slipping through the crowd with that same purposeful stride he used at school, was Tom Riddle.

He wore his only set of non-school robes, pressed to near perfection. They were still secondhand, but looked nearly new after a careful mending spell or two. He walked with the self-assurance of someone twice his age, chin high, expression composed.

Tom had already stopped at Gringotts, where a vault had been generously provided to him by the Hogwarts scholarship fund, and now carried a small pouch of coins in his pocket, which contained the remainder of his scholarship money from last summer, along with his earnings from his new job at Flourish and Blotts. 

He had boldly asked for work shortly after his arrival back in London, the way a respectable boy might. Madam Brindle had squinted down at him over her spectacles, listened to his precise speech and polite charm, and offered him a job with a faint, weary smile.

“I suppose we can find something for you to do,” she’d said, her voice too soft, too sympathetic. “No family in town, I take it?”

He had forced a modest smile and nodded. A part of Tom had bristled at the naked pity in her voice. The rest of him knew he needed the money and the opportunity to spend as much of his summer as possible surrounded by magic.

Inside the shop, he moved like a shadow as he reshelved titles, restacked displays, and answered a few customer questions with practiced charm. Madam Brindle watched him from behind her counter.

“Bright boy, that one,” she whispered to a customer. “Bit odd. Too polite for a lad his age. But I’ve never seen a child care so much about books.”

Tom, pretending not to hear, allowed himself the faintest curve of a smile.

In the evenings, after he’d finished his shift, he stayed. He curled into the same corner by the Transfiguration section and read until the lamps flickered low. Theory of Spell Weaving. Arithmantic Threads in Ancient Rune-Craft. Wands and Storytelling: An Introduction to Personalized Wandmaking. All beyond his year, all devoured in secret. He liked that no one interrupted him here. No mocking voices, no whispers, no stares. Only the quiet rustle of turning pages.

Every so often, a serpent would slither into the alley behind the shop, drawn to the strange warmth of the books and candles. Tom would crouch low and whisper to it, watching it coil around his arm with curious affection.

“You are quiet,” he told one, a pale adder that had lost its tail-tip to a particularly large and aggressive rat. “They’re all so loud. They don’t see what’s in front of them.”

The snake hissed back, tongue flicking. “They do not see because they do not want to.”

Tom nodded. “One day, they’ll have to.”

He stayed until the last light of day drained from the sky, walking back to the orphanage only when the lamps began to glow and the last books had been tucked away.

At Wool’s, he slept lightly, already counting the days until he could leave again.

August, 1940

The summer sun beat down hard on the courtyard behind Wool’s Orphanage, turning the cracked dirt pale and scorching to the touch. The air buzzed with heat and flies, but even then, no one wanted to be in the stifling indoors, least of all the older children, who lounged in the shade, bored and hungry for amusement.

Little Jane, still far too small for her age, had made the mistake of reading. She sat on the edge of a broken bench, a tattered book open in her lap, her knees pulled up, trying to stay small.

A boy with a pockmarked face snatched the book away.

“Look at her, always pretending she’s better than us.”

“I bet she can’t even read properly,” one of the girls chimed in, arms crossed.

“She’s not better. She just kisses up to the grown-ups. ‘Yes, Mrs. Cole, no Mrs. Cole.’ Pathetic.”

They surrounded her quickly. One girl tugged at Jane’s braids. Another boy mimicked her soft voice with exaggerated sweetness.

Jane didn’t respond. Her face flushed, but she kept her hands in her lap, jaw clenched. It appeared that, like Tom, she had learned that tears only made it worse.

That was when the group went quiet.

Tom stood at the edge of the yard, framed by the washed-out blue sky, his expression unreadable. The sun gleamed against the dark strands of his perfectly combed hair, and the shadows cast beneath his eyes gave him the look of someone older, colder.

No one had seen him come out.

“Is this what passes for fun around here?” he asked coolly.

The boy holding Jane’s book puffed up his chest. “She was being weird.”

“She was reading,” Tom replied, his voice like ice. “Hardly a crime.”

He stepped forward. The group parted instinctively.

“Why do you care?” a girl demanded, arms folded.

Tom turned his gaze on her, slow and deliberate.

“I think we all remember what it’s like,” he said sharply. “Being smaller. Quieter. Easier to hurt. Or maybe the rest of you have forgotten.”

Then he looked impassively at the boy holding the book. “Give it back.”

After a long pause, the boy shoved it into Jane’s hands. She flinched but took it quickly.

Tom didn’t say anything else to them. He simply stood there until they drifted away, one by one, until only Jane remained. She stayed on the bench, clutching her book to her chest.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

Tom glanced down at her. “Don’t thank me. They’ll remember this.”

She looked confused.

“They don’t understand kindness,” he said. “But they understand fear.”

He turned to go. Before he reached the door, she spoke again, softly, almost too quietly to hear.

“You talk different now.”

He paused, amused. “Do I?”

“You sound like someone else. Someone rich.”

A flicker of something almost melancholy passed through his expression.

“I’ve had practice,” he said simply, and walked inside, his polished shoes clicking sharply against the sunlit stone.

Chapter Text

1 September, 1940

The scarlet steam engine let out a low whistle, echoing across the crowded platform at King’s Cross. Luggage clattered, trunks were hoisted, and students hastily boarded the train. Somewhere behind Tom, a child was crying. He didn’t turn around.

He walked the length of the train with purposeful steps, dressed neatly in pressed secondhand robes that had been subtly adjusted to fit his growing frame. His shoes gleamed. His hair, styled with precision, shone in the morning light as he passed compartment after compartment. Eyes followed him.

This was his third time boarding the train, but it felt like the first time he’d done so on his own terms.

He was no longer the scrawny, overlooked boy with the guarded scowl and silent fury just beneath the surface. He wore his charm, honed and sharpened over the summer, like a well-tailored set of robes. He smiled, just enough. He nodded when someone greeted him and let his gaze linger long enough to make others blush or smile or squirm, depending on his aim.

He caught sight of a pair of Ravenclaw girls whispering behind their hands after he passed. Tom gave each girl a smile and nod, his smile widening as their faces broke into matching blushes.

When he reached an empty compartment near the back, he slid the door open and stepped inside. He sat by the window, crossing one leg over the other, hands folded neatly in his lap. Outside, parents fussed over younger children, and prefects barked directions. He watched them through the glass, thoughtful.

Someone slid the door open a few minutes later.

“Riddle,” said a voice. “Mind if we join?”

Tom turned. It was Christopher Nott, a second-year Slytherin whose father worked at the Ministry. His cousin, Livia, who stood behind him in the doorway, was in Tom’s year. Like his cousin, Christopher had never once spared Tom a kind word before last Christmas.

“Everywhere else is full,” Livia added, her cheeks red.

Tom offered a gracious nod. “Of course, you’re welcome to join me.”

The Notts entered, Christopher beside Tom while Livia settled across from him. A few moments later, another boy joined them: Paul Avery, from Agatha’s year, lanky and sharp-eyed. Then, Ruby Rosier and her younger sister Druella sauntered in, with the elder greeting Tom cheerfully before taking a seat across from him.

Tom spoke little during the journey, but when he did, it was with measured precision. He asked Nott about his family’s summer travels, made a well-placed comment about a recent article in the Daily Prophet that Avery had read, too, and engaged with Livia and Ruby in a discussion of the coming term’s electives with perfect poise.

He played the part effortlessly.

But behind his dark eyes, thoughts clicked into place like pieces of a puzzle. He had returned stronger, smarter, and better prepared. 

This year, they would come to him.

The Slytherin common room gleamed with firelight and polished brass, shadows flickering along the floors. Students were scattered across leather armchairs and high-backed sofas, talking over one another in the post-feast haze of too much food and lingering summer heat. First and second years huddled together in corners, whispering excitedly about their timetables and speculating about who would make the Quidditch team.

Tom slipped inside with the others, and heads turned. Younger students greeted him with wide eyes and tentative smiles, already swept up by the myth of the boy who’d beaten Abraxas Malfoy in a duel and earned the professors’ praise. Even some of the older students, who had once scoffed or looked away, acknowledged him now with stiff nods. Not all, of course. Parkinson and Greengrass made a few snide comments under their breath, but they sounded almost bored, as if it was more habit than malice.

“Riddle,” Orion Black called smoothly from his usual perch near the fireplace. Several others stood clustered around him, all pale with noble features, all looking apprehensive but resolved. Orion stood and beckoned Tom closer, the hem of his robes falling just so. “Please allow me to formally introduce you to my relatives. This is Alphard, heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.” He gestured toward a poised fifth-year with striking grey eyes who inclined his head in acknowledgment.

Tom gave him a smile, trying not to let his confusion show on his face.

The hint of a smirk played at Orion’s lips as he continued. “And this is Walburga, my second cousin,” he added, gesturing to a fourth-year who had hexed Tom far too many times during his first year for him not to recognize her.

Walburga was tall and severe, her face pretty in a cold, unapproachable way, her wild hair pinned half-heartedly atop her head like she hadn’t bothered to tame it properly. She gave Tom a contemptuous smile that was more a baring of teeth.

She turned back to Orion. “I hardly see the point of introducing myself to this mudblood. It’s not like they have any proper manners.”

Orion, to his credit, ignored Walburga completely.

“This is Cygnus Black, my second cousin,” Orion continued smoothly.

A first-year boy with slightly lighter hair than his relatives but the same noble features gave Tom a tentative nod.

“And this is my sister, Lucretia.” 

An elegant fifth-year with gently curling hair gave Tom a hesitant smile, her face otherwise guarded.

“It is a pleasure to be formally introduced,” Tom said, offering a courteous smile as he shook each of their hands in turn. Walburga looked like she would rather touch a pile of dung than shake his hand, so she hovered hers beside his until Tom took the hint. 

Orion gave him a long look with the hint of approval. The exchange had a quiet weight to it, and it wasn’t until later that night that Tom realized what it had been: a public endorsement. A quiet claim.

Tom drifted through the room after that, exchanging greetings and pleasantries with those who approached him and sparing disarming smiles for those who didn’t. Several groups of girls began whispering in earnest. Ruby, Druella, Lavinia, and Livia sat in a loose circle by the staircase, giggling into their sleeves. Ruby flicked her hair over her shoulder and whispered something that made the rest of them dissolve into laughter.

“It’s just unfair! I mean, look at his smile,” Lavinia murmured dreamily, not softly enough.

“For Merlin’s sake, quit your disgraceful fawning over that mudblood,” Walburga Black snapped as she passed them, her voice low and sharp. 

None of the girls paid her any mind.

Tom met their stares and gave them a wink as he passed. Livia gasped. Lavinia clutched Ruby’s arm, and Ruby just laughed harder.

He was halfway down the hall to the boys’ dormitories when he heard the footsteps behind him.

“Still enjoying your little audience?” Abraxas Malfoy said.

Tom turned just in front of the third-year boys’ door, one brow lifting. “Should I not?”

Abraxas’s mouth curled into something like a smirk, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You’ve changed.”

“I’ve adapted.”

“You think you’re clever, don’t you?”

Tom tilted his head. “I think I’m learning how things work.”

A pause. The corridor behind them hummed faintly with the murmurs and footfalls of the common room. Abraxas looked down, jaw tight, as though weighing whether to speak again.

“You’ll never belong,” he said at last, but it lacked fire. The words had been said before, many times, but this time they hung in the air like something half-spoken and already fading.

Tom smiled coldly. “If you’re right,” he said, brushing past him, “then I’ll rise above.”

He didn’t wait for a reply.

In the quiet of his dormitory, the other boys still laughing and jostling in the common room, Tom drew the green bed curtains shut around himself and pulled out the small black diary. Its leather was smooth beneath his fingers, familiar.

He opened to a blank page, dipped his quill, and wrote:

1 September, 1940

The game begins again. But this time, the board is mine.

Chapter Text

6 September, 1940

The library was as empty as was to be expected the first week back; most students were still clinging to the last traces of summer and avoiding coursework like the plague. But Tom Riddle, of course, had taken up his usual post near the windows with a stack of Transfiguration texts and a fresh roll of parchment. He sat straighter than most, hands clasped loosely on the table, feigning idle study as he reread the same paragraph three times.

Agatha Malfoy arrived in a rustle of uniform skirts and cool air. She was still Agatha, of course, but somehow she was… different. Her blond hair was pinned up with the kind of carelessness that took time to perfect, a few curls escaping around her temples. The angles of her face had sharpened, and her lips looked fuller and softer than he remembered them. And she was taller, definitely taller. Her robes didn’t quite hide the fact that she was growing up. Unfortunately, Tom’s body noticed these changes before he could even understand what they meant, his heart beating faster, palms growing sweaty. What was this feeling?

“Move,” she said with a small smile, dropping her bag beside his chair and motioning at the empty spot across from him.

He blinked but acquiesced nonetheless. “I see France has done wonders for your manners,” he observed dryly as he moved his books out of her way, pulling out her chair for her.

She sat like a queen settling into her throne. “I see you’ve returned to Hogwarts with the same presumptuousness.” 

“Says the girl who demanded my seat upon arrival,” Tom retorted, folding his arms as he tried to decide whether he was offended or flustered.

They sat in silence for a moment. Tom glanced up under his lashes and caught her watching him. Her expression was unreadable, though the corner of her mouth twitched like she was fighting a smile.

“You look—” He caught himself. He’d meant to say she looked well, but something about the words caught in his throat. “—like you’ve been out in the sun.”

Agatha raised a single perfectly arched eyebrow. “Are you trying to charm me?”

“Would it work if I were?” Tom leaned back, feigning ease, though his heart had skipped a beat at the look in her eyes. Have they always been such a striking shade of blue? 

“It might,” she said, deadpan, flipping open her book, “if your delivery weren’t so tragically awkward.”

Tom’s eyes widened, the faintest hint of color rising in his cheeks. “I’m rarely accused of being awkward these days.”

“Maybe you should be. Your charm is clearly malfunctioning.”

“I wasn’t aware I was a machine.”

Agatha huffed a laugh, her own cheeks rosy with mirth. “If not a machine,” she answered thoughtfully, “then perhaps just a peacock, strutting proudly down the corridors.”

“A peacock?” Tom echoed, wincing as his voice cracked just a bit. That had been happening increasingly often lately.

“You’re the one who’s been flipping your hair at every passing girl since we got back,” Agatha said with an amused smile that made Tom’s stomach do a strange flip.

“I don’t flip my—” He ran a hand through his hair, realized what he was doing, and immediately dropped it.

Agatha laughed this time, and it felt like Tom had been given something exceedingly special. “Circe’s sake, Tom. Sit still.”

“I am sitting.”

“You’re twitching.”

“I’m getting comfortable.”

“You’re fidgeting.”

Tom frowned and turned pointedly back to his textbook. “I’m studying.”

Agatha leaned forward slightly, resting her chin on her hand, eyes dancing with amusement. “You’re… nervous.”

“I am not.”

“You’re absolutely nervous.”

“I have no reason to be nervous,” Tom muttered.

Agatha’s smirk returned. “Didn’t say you did.”

19 September, 1940

The corridor outside the Charms classroom hummed with the late-afternoon chatter of students making their way to the Great Hall for dinner. Tom fell into step beside Orion Black, Livia Nott, and Ruby Rosier, all of them grumbling about the essay Professor Raspin had just assigned.

“Honestly,” Livia sighed, slinging her bag higher on her shoulder. “A thousand words comparing color and shape charms to basic transfiguration spells? As if we don’t have enough to revise already.”

Ruby rolled her eyes. “She said it’s fundamental. I’d rather be practicing than merely writing about it.”

Orion, hands in his pockets as he walked with his usual casual grace, turned to Tom with a crooked smile. “Well, Riddle. You’re the golden boy. What do you think? Is she being ridiculous, or is the essay actually worth real thought?”

Tom was quiet for a moment, thoughtful. “They’re more different than people assume. Charms alter perception and appearance, while transfiguration restructures the object entirely. If you charm an ordinary stone green and shiny, and it’s intrinsically still the same stone. If you transfigure it into an emerald, however, it becomes something else altogether: a transfigured emerald, which is still different from a naturally occurring emerald in that it isn’t magically inert and is therefore magically distinguishable from its ordinary counterpart, but that’s a completely different issue, transfiguration versus transmutation, which bleeds into the study of alchemy.

“For the sake of Professor Raspin’s essay, though, I believe the concept she is looking for us to explore is that of perception versus essential structure, which is the primary distinction between Charms and Transformation.”

Orion blinked. “Wow, Riddle. That was…actually helpful.”

“I think I’m going to steal that explanation,” Livia said, sounding impressed.

“Say it again, will you? I’ll be sure to write it down this time, Professor Riddle,” Ruby added, batting her eyelashes.

“Professor, really?”

Ruby grinned, her amber eyes dancing with mirth as she counted off her points on her fingers. “You practically lecture like a teacher, you help us grasp complex topics, you take red ink to our essays, and you criticize our study habits daily. So yes, really, Professor!”

Orion, Livia, and Ruby laughed at Tom’s scandalized expression.

They reached the junction just outside the stairwell when the air shifted. A sharp, cold silence fell over the hallway as three older Slytherin girls appeared from around the corner like specters, led by none other than Walburga Black. She stood with her usual air of aloofness, wild dark hair cascading down her back, lips curled in a sneer that could curdle milk.

“Well, well,” she drawled, eyes locking on Tom, “if it isn’t the uppity little mudblood. Still basking in the attention of little hangers on, I see, Riddle.”

Ruby stiffened. Livia took a half-step back, drawing in a sharp breath. Tom held his ground, but every nerve in his body braced, fingers on his left hand twitching just slightly, ready to draw his wand. The last time Walburga had crossed paths with him, he’d barely managed to block a nasty freezing hex to the ribs (“To freeze that nasty blood in your veins so you stop polluting Slytherin with your filth!”). The fourth-year girls flanking her, Goyle, Selwyn and Carrow, were smirking.

But before anyone could react, Orion stepped forward.

With a lazy toss of his head and a voice thick with aristocratic boredom, he said, “Careful, Walburga. I should think Alphard would like to know if you’re still planning any attacks on Riddle after our discussion in the common room.”

The change was instant. Walburga’s eyes narrowed, her jaw clenching just enough to betray a flicker of hesitation.

“You’re protecting him now?” she hissed, venom coiled in every syllable.

“I’m not protecting anyone,” Orion said coolly. “Just reminding you of the importance of family reputation and unity. Alphard’s watching. So are others.” He let his eyes travel across the corridor, where a few bystanders had gathered to witness the drama unfold.

For a beat, no one moved. Then Walburga gave a contemptuous little laugh, tossing her hair.

“Family reputation?” she echoed disdainfully. “You make a mockery of our family name, hanging around with scum.”

“We discussed this, Walburga, if you recall,” Orion drawled with mock patience, though Tom noticed that his wand had slid into his hand.

The cousins stared each other down, wands drawn, the tension palpable, before Walburga huffed and slipped her own wand back up her sleeve and turned to leave.

“Fine! Enjoy your little pet mudblood, then, cousin,” she growled over her shoulder. “See how long it lasts.”

The girls swept past, their footsteps fading into the echo of silence they left behind.

Livia let out a breath. “That was…”

“Brave?” Ruby offered.

“Utterly mad,” Livia finished.

Tom, who had been watching Walburga’s exit, turned to Orion. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Orion shrugged, brushing a bit of lint off his sleeve like it was nothing. “Don’t mention it. Really. I’d prefer if you didn’t, in fact, lest my parents catch wind of it.”

Tom smiled at him in thanks but said nothing more. He was already filing it away as their conversation resumed. Another shift, another new loyalty, another person to watch with interest.

Chapter Text

20 September, 1940

The Great Hall was awash in golden evening light, the enchanted ceiling burnished with the hues of a fading September sunset. Tom sat in his usual spot at the Slytherin table, flanked by Orion Black, Ruby Rosier, and Livia Nott, his pumpkin pudding untouched in front of him. The smell of roast chicken and roasted root vegetables lingered in the air, but the four were far more animated by a different subject.

“Alphard’s not the worst choice for captain,” Livia said, swirling a spoon absently in her pudding. “He’s fast, and he doesn’t cheat nearly as much as Noreen Yaxley did.”

“He’s also not as terrifying,” Orion added with a smirk. “But he keeps assigning me double practice. Thinks I need ‘refining.’”

“That’s because you do,” Ruby quipped, straight-faced, but mirth danced in her amber eyes. “You fly like a show-off and hog the Quaffle like a Gryffindor.”

Orion mock-clutched his chest, then glanced at Tom. “And you, Riddle? Any Quidditch insight to offer from the stands?”

“I’m not sure I understand why anyone wants to get knocked off a broomstick at sixty feet in the air,” Tom said mildly, “but I think Alphard will make a fine captain. He knows how to read people, how to predict their moves. It’s what makes him such a formidable Beater.”

“Spoken like someone who prefers chess,” Orion said, chuckling.

Tom smirked in acknowledgment, not denying it. 

As the others launched into an analysis of Gryffindor’s common strategies, Tom let his attention drift briefly across the Great Hall. The chatter of his newfound companions was pleasant enough, easy, part of a rhythm he’d built over the last few weeks. He’d learned the cadence of their conversations, how to speak just enough, when to defer with charm, when to lean in with a clever quip. With these three, it felt almost… natural.

Abraxas Malfoy sat farther down the table, laughing too loudly at something Parkinson said. Tom noticed the slight tension on his face when he lifted his goblet, probably still fuming over ruining his Shrinking Solution earlier. Professor Slughorn had been generous with Malfoy in light of the Quidditch match tomorrow, allowing him to make up the points lost with an essay he could submit Monday, but the embarrassment lingered. Tom didn’t miss the way Malfoy kept darting glances toward him.

He will ask for my help, Tom thought with satisfied certainty. And I will make him beg for it.

A clatter of movement drew his attention back to the table as a new figure slid into the seat across from him.

Agatha.

She sat stiff-backed and poised, chin lifted as though daring anyone to question her presence. Her expression was unreadable, but her cheeks were a little flushed. Tom stared at her, uncertain for just a moment.

“Good evening,” she said, in that refined, precise tone of hers.

“Agatha,” Tom returned, too quickly.

Ruby arched an eyebrow at the girl’s sudden appearance, then shared a quick look with Livia. Orion only raised his goblet in greeting.

Agatha ignored them, reaching for a fresh goblet of pumpkin juice with pointed calm. Tom watched her movements, though he had been trying not to. Her hair was pulled half back from her face while the rest cascaded down her back in silvery waves, and her robes had the same neatness they always possessed, but they looked different on her somehow, and Tom found himself unable to look away from her. He’d noticed the way some of the other boys glanced at her in the halls lately, so it was something of a relief to realize Tom wasn’t the only one. 

But I’m usually so different from the rest of them, so why do we have this in common? What are these feelings?

Every time one of those good pureblood boys would give Agatha a smile in the corridor or speak charmingly to her in the common room, Tom would feel a surge of something he’d never felt before, this poisonous heat starting in in his chest. It wasn’t a feeling he liked. He especially didn’t like the realization that struck him that Agatha had so many qualities others found desirable (like her blood so blue it was practically liquid sapphires, or her incredible intellect, or her pretty porcelain skin, or her immaculate robes that accentuated her long limbs) that she could truly sit beside whomever she pleased and be accepted with open arms…

And yet she’d chosen to sit here, with them. With him.

“I trust you’ll be in the library tomorrow, after the match,” she said coolly, interrupting Tom’s dangerously swirling thoughts.

Tom tilted his head, hoping beyond hope that she wouldn’t be able to tell he was flustered. “Of course. You know where to find me,” he replied with a winning smile that felt a touch too genuine.

Her lips twitched. Not quite a smile, but almost.

Across the table, Ruby was trying very hard not to look entertained. Orion elbowed her. Livia rolled her eyes.

Tom’s hand brushed the side of his goblet, and he realized, absurdly, that his palms were damp.

Agatha Malfoy didn’t stomp. She didn’t flounce or slam doors or fling herself into chairs. Her movements were deliberate and measured and befitting a Malfoy, always. But tonight, there was a tightness in her shoulders that hadn’t eased since she’d walked away from the far end of the Slytherin table, the sound of shrill laughter still ringing in her ears.

“Honestly, I would fancy him quite a bit if he weren’t a mudblood,” Sylvia Selwyn had said, all wide eyes and false sweetness.

Ophelia Greengrass nodded in agreement, giggling. “He is so awfully handsome, isn’t he? And intelligent, too. A real pity about his lack of a pedigree.”

“It’s easy to forget about it sometimes,” Grace admitted, round cheeks flushing.

Fifth year Lydia Carrow’s voice had followed, sharp and amused: “Oh, please. Do you really think Riddle doesn’t remember what he is? The charm’s all an act. Underneath, he’s still a no-good mudblood street urchin with a pretty face.”

“And what a pretty face it is,” sighed Ophelia, resting her cheek on her palm and sneaking a glance at where he sat with his third-year friends.

“Don’t you think he’s demonstrated that he’s become more than that?” Agatha interjected lightly, keeping her expression impassive.

The trio all turned to look at her, wearing matching frowns, heads tilted, eyes narrowing.

It had been Ophelia Greengrass who’d turned the conversation gleefully teasing. “You know, Aggie’s always defending him. Maybe she’s the one with a crush.”

Agatha’s cheeks had flushed them. Internally cursing them for noticing, she had quietly, precisely, stood up without another word.

Now, sitting across from Tom Riddle with three of his year’s most watchful eyes flicking between her and him, she kept her chin high and hands folded neatly in her lap. She could feel Ruby Rosier’s amusement, the speculative gleam in Livia Nott’s gaze, and Orion Black’s smirk that said he understood everything before she did.

Tom’s dark eyes had flicked up when she sat down, then lingered.

“Good evening,” she had said. She made her voice as calm as still water.

He responded too quickly, breathing her name as though she had caught him off guard. It had been a while since that had happened.

Now he was looking at her again, like he was trying to read her and wasn’t sure which page he’d opened to. She didn’t know why it pleased her.

She reached for a fresh goblet, carefully not glancing at Ruby, whose smirk was just a touch too knowing. “I trust you’ll be in the library tomorrow, after the Quidditch match.”

“Of course. You know where to find me.”

A smooth answer. A Tom Riddle answer. She fought back the twitch of a smile and instead reached for her goblet.

His hair was longer than it had been the last time she’d really looked at him. It had a slight wave at this length, worn parted elegantly to the side, and lent him an almost princely look that clearly suited him. He didn’t look quite so young anymore. He didn’t look like the strange, quiet orphan who had come to Hogwarts with all sharp cheekbones and sharper wariness. Now he looked—well. She’d noticed the other girls in her year and below noticing him. She had heard the kinds of comments the others made. And she’d seen how he smiled when he noticed them noticing.

Something twisted uncomfortably in her stomach at the thought.

“Dumbledore set a three-foot essay for us due Monday,” she said abruptly, almost without thinking.

Tom hummed and shot her a dazzling smile. “I’m sure yours is ready to turn in already.”

“Of course it is,” she said. 

He blinked at her, and this time her smile escaped, fleeting but real.

Ruby elbowed Livia under the table. Orion grinned into his pumpkin juice.

Agatha ignored them all.

Let them whisper. Let them wonder. She had a right to sit where she liked.

And if her pulse was high and her face warm, well, no one else needed to know.

21 September, 1940

The sky was a clear, pristine blue, the kind that hinted at the first chill of oncoming winter despite the lingering warmth in the air. A breeze stirred the banners hanging high above the Quidditch pitch, each House’s colors snapping crisply against the sky. The Slytherin section had begun to fill early, students donning green scarves and charmed badges adorned with serpents in motion. Tom sat between Livia and Ruby, the former eagerly dissecting the betting odds and the latter craning her neck for a better view of the pitch.

“Ignatius Prewett is Gryffindor’s captain again this year, isn’t he?” Livia asked, shielding her eyes against the bright sunlight with a hand.

“Yes, I believe so,” Tom replied, watching the teams begin to emerge onto the pitch. 

“Prewett’s courting Orion’s sister, Lucretia. Managed to convince Orion’s parents to make it official. He’s quite formidable,” Livia continued excitedly.

“Formidable and sneaky, especially for a Gryffindor,” Ruby added. 

Livia nodded, eyes eager and bright. “This match will be a good one.”

The Gryffindor team came first, robed in scarlet and already buzzing with confidence. At their head was Prewett himself, standing tall, freckled, and sure as he mounted his broom to cheers from the Gryffindor section. He was followed by Richard Rakepick, a sharp-eyed sixth year, and Sophie Macmillan, a wiry fourth year girl who Ruby told Tom had an aggressive flying style. Behind them, adjusting his gloves with quiet focus, trailed second-year Derwent Brown, Gryffindor’s new Keeper.

The Beaters, Hugo Pierce, a hulking fifth year, and Quentin Robins, a sixth year, who was smaller than a typical Beater but a fast flyer, brought up the rear with bats slung over their shoulders. And overhead already hovered the tiniest player, Elaine Bishop, the Seeker from Tom’s year, her chestnut brown plaits streaming behind her as she circled once, fast and low.

The referee, Mr. Wynn, an elderly former Quidditch star, stood in the center of the pitch. The Slytherin team filed out next.

Alphard and Walburga Black led the way, both clad in emerald green, brooms balanced over their shoulders and bats in hand. Alphard offered a lazy grin to the crowd, while Walburga simply narrowed her eyes and scanned the sky, already calculating angles.

Orion Black received the loudest cheer from the Slytherin section as he strode out, broom under his arm. He gave a brief wave before falling into line with Alexia Flint and Cyril Mulciber, the two older Chasers. Flint looked sharp and determined, while Mulciber glowered at the crowd.

Then came Druella Rosier, cutting a sharp figure as she followed the rest of her teammates, her long hair twisted into a severe braid, her expression nervous but determined. A second-year making it onto the House team and not the reserves was unusual, but she’d earned her spot.

“You can do it, Ella!” cheered Ruby as her sister took to the air.

Abraxas Malfoy brought up the rear, his pale hair gleaming. He held his chin high, but his jaw was visibly clenched. He took to the air and quickly settled into position at the goalposts, muttering to himself as he tested his grip. Even from the stands, Tom could see the tension in his shoulders.

Tom’s eyes left the pitch. They settled instead on the stands opposite, where the staff were seated alongside two figures in elegant robes: Brutus and Ambrosia Malfoy. Agatha’s parents.

Ambrosia Malfoy was tall and imperious, with features as impassive as though carved from old stone and an air of constant, cold evaluation. Brutus Malfoy, equally as pale and blond, sat beside his wife and wore a stiff smile that never touched his eyes. Between them, Agatha sat straight-backed, her pale blond hair pinned neatly beneath a green velvet beret.

Mr. Wynn’s whistle shrieked, and the game began.

The Quaffle shot into the air, and the Chasers exploded into motion. Orion darted forward immediately, snatching the ball with smooth precision and weaving past Macmillan. Cheers erupted from the Slytherin stands.

“Come on, Orion!” Livia cried, cupping her hands.

“Go Slytherin!” shouted Ruby.

The Bludgers shot free with a terrifying clang. Alphard Black intercepted one midair and sent it spiraling toward Rakepick, who narrowly ducked. Walburga followed with a faster strike, her grin fierce beneath windswept hair.

Slytherin pressed hard in the first minutes, with Orion and Flint executing tight passes and Mulciber barreling toward the goalposts. Brown blocked the first two shots, but a feint from Orion followed by a no-look pass to Flint earned Slytherin the first goal of the match. The green stands erupted in cheers.

Tom clapped politely, but his eyes never left Abraxas, who seemed to be keeping half an eye on the Quaffle and half an eye on the Bludgers hurtling across the pitch, as he circled the Slytherin goalposts.

The next goal came quickly, for Gryffindor. Prewett rolled to avoid a Bludger Alphard had sent his way, ducked under Mulciber’s attempt to block, and launched the Quaffle past Abraxas, who hesitated a second too long. His gloved hands closed around nothing. Tom narrowed his eyes. That didn’t look like a tricky shot.

“Malfoy’s off his game,” Ruby muttered, clearly angrier about the potential loss for Slytherin than concerned about Malfoy.

“I’m sure he’ll recover,” Tom said, though privately he was unsure.

From high above, Druella Rosier circled like a hawk, her eyes scanning the pitch while chaos unfolded below. Elaine Bishop mirrored her at the opposite end, both Seekers waiting, watching, searching for a glimpse of the Snitch.

As the match continued, it became clear: Slytherin’s Chasers were slightly better. Gryffindor’s Keeper was having a much better day than Slytherin’s was. The game would likely come down to the Seekers, or perhaps whether either team’s Beaters could land a good hit at an opportune moment.

Walburga Black sent another Bludger screaming toward the Gryffindor side, and Pierce intercepted it midair, the resulting clang echoing across the stands.

Tom leaned forward, chin resting on his knuckles. “This,” he murmured, “is getting interesting.”

The air seemed heavier now, the excitement in the stands more frenetic. A win was within reach for both sides, and everyone knew it.

Alphard Black soared upward, looping behind a Gryffindor Chaser and hammering a Bludger away from Cyril Mulciber, who shouted a thanks over the wind. Mulciber tucked the Quaffle under one arm and arrowed down the pitch, weaving between players, feinting left—

But Derwent Brown was waiting. The Gryffindor Keeper launched upward and batted the ball away with a swift, graceful arc of his arm. The Quaffle shot back into open air and was caught deftly by Richard Rakepick, who reversed the play before Slytherin could react.

“Rakepick’s fast,” Ruby said, barely audible over the roaring crowd. “Too fast.”

“He makes too many clean plays,” Livia agreed, hands clenched into fists at her sides.

Tom, for his part, was starting to see why everyone seemed to find Quidditch so exciting.

Back in the sky, Walburga Black was circling like a hunting hawk, her long hair streaming behind her. She spotted a Bludger hurtling toward Orion and intercepted it with a ruthless crack of her bat. The blow sent it ricocheting across the field, aiming for Rakepick. He dodged it deftly, passing the Quaffle to Prewett in one smooth maneuver, and the Bludger flew straight into a distracted Abraxas Malfoy. 

Tom winced, almost pitying Malfoy; the impact was audible even from the stands. There was a gasp from the Slytherin stands as their Keeper flailed and nearly fell from his broom, followed by groans as he missed the incoming Quaffle entirely. Gryffindor scored again.

Malfoy clutched his ribcage as he righted himself, flushed and furious, but no one said anything. Not even the Gryffindor supporters seemed inclined to jeer. It was too close a game, and Abraxas’s decline in form was already punishment enough.

From the staff stands, Brutus and Ambrosia Malfoy sat in high-backed chairs beside Professor Slughorn. Tom noticed Brutus’s knuckles white on the arm of his chair, his mouth a grim line. Ambrosia, by contrast, sipped tea with impeccable serenity, but her eyes never left the pitch.

Back in the game, the Quaffle passed rapidly between Prewett and Rakepick, the pair working in eerie synchronicity. Prewett dove under Alphard’s broom and flipped the Quaffle upward with a twist of his wrist. Rakepick caught it mid-spiral and hurled it toward the goalpost—

This time, Abraxas deflected it.

The Slytherin stands erupted. Tom clapped once, as he leaned over to Livia Nott. “That should help his father’s blood pressure.”

Livia snorted. “Doubtful.”

Above them, Druella Rosier narrowed her eyes, circling ever tighter overhead. Her posture had shifted, more predatory now. Elaine Bishop, the third-year Gryffindor Seeker, was also moving fast, scanning the sky.

Then, Druella dove.

A flicker of gold danced low over the pitch, just above the turf. Bishop shot after her, neck and neck. The whole stadium stood.

Tom held his breath.

Druella leaned forward, blond hair streaming behind her, her broom humming under the strain. Bishop reached first, but Druella twisted, angled, and, with a final desperate lurch—

Snatched the Snitch from the air.

The whistle blew.

Slytherin had won.

The dungeon corridors on the way to the Slytherin common room echoed with distant cheers and stomping feet as the Slytherin team returned triumphantly from the pitch. By the time Tom reached the common room, it was already brimming with noise and green-and-silver confetti, trailing through the air like enchanted snowflakes. Someone had conjured glowing banners across the ceiling that read: Victory! Slytherin 250 – Gryffindor 110. And as the confetti swirled through the common room, it would occasionally take the shape of a great hissing snake, much to the delight of the younger students. Tom shook his head as he tried to decipher the hisses; they sounded as comprehensible to him as Gobbledygook. He supposed that whoever had enchanted the confetti probably hadn’t known what to make the snake say.

Druella Rosier was perched on the arm of a velvet-backed sofa, the golden Snitch still clutched in her hand like a trophy, wings fluttering weakly between her fingers. Her usually sharp expression was softened by triumph; a rare, genuine smile lit her face as her teammates took turns thumping her on the back. Alphard was beside her, soaking up the congratulations like a cat in sunlight, the captain’s pin gleaming proudly on his robes.

Abraxas Malfoy, however, stood off to one side, half in shadow. Though technically victorious, he wore the tight, brittle smile of someone who knew he hadn’t earned it. Tom caught his eye briefly from across the room, but Malfoy turned away.

Tom didn’t press. Unlike Malfoy, Tom had no interest in kicking someone who was already stewing in humiliation. Instead, he let the joy of the room wash over him. There were laughter, shouts, Cygnus Black trying to sneak sips from a levitating bottle of butterbeer that Ruby Rosier had charmed to dance in the air. During his previous two years at Hogwarts, Tom had hidden in the library during Quidditch matches, thinking the whole affair trivial and a waste of valuable time. Then again, during his previous two years, no one in Slytherin would talk to him unless it was to call him a mudblood or try to hex him.

A call of his given name interrupted his thoughts.

Orion Black, still in his grass-streaked Quidditch gear, came bounding over, cheeks flushed and hair windswept. “You saw that last pass, didn’t you? I thought Flint was going to drop it, but she managed!”

“You lot worked like one organism,” Tom said with a grin, patting him on the back. “It was beautiful. Except for Malfoy nearly flying off his broom, of course.”

Orion snorted. “Don’t say that too loud. He’s been in a dreadful mood.”

Tom hummed, thoughtful. “I imagine his parents aren’t terribly pleased.”

Orion followed Tom’s glance to the far corner of the common room, where Abraxas now sat miserably in a corner, being offered a drink by Lavinia Yaxley, which he declined stiffly. 

“They left without speaking to him after the match,” Orion muttered. “Mrs. Malfoy kept a smile plastered on. But Mr. Malfoy…He looked like he’d swallowed a Bludger.”

Tom stored that away without comment.

From across the room, Walburga Black threw Tom a disdainful glare as she stalked past in her dark, high-collared robes. She did not linger for the celebration, nor did she acknowledge Orion. The girls she usually led had scattered throughout the room, most too caught up in the victory to worry about appearances. Ruby and Livia were raving about Druella’s daring dive to a group of wide-eyed first-years.

Tom let himself bask in the moment. This was what he’d cultivated: influence, admiration, belonging. Even those who still whispered about him (namely Parkinson, Greengrass, and a few hangers-on of Malfoy’s) couldn’t deny his place now. He stood with the victors. They were the ones left scowling in corners.

He wandered toward the table where someone had set out some drinks, exchanging idle compliments with older students he once wouldn’t have dared approach. Halfway through pouring himself a cup of pumpkin juice, he heard a quiet voice behind him:

“You were right about the score. I suppose I owe you two sickles.”

Agatha.

She stood there with her arms crossed, her cloak slung loosely around her shoulders. Her hair was loose now, and the faintest flush still clung to her cheeks from sitting in the sun.

“I’ll let you off the hook this once,” Tom said, offering her a sly smile. “You were defending my honor not long ago, after all.”

Her eyes narrowed, and her cheeks flushed further. “You heard about that?”

“I think you’ll find that I hear most things.” He handed her a drink, fingers brushing hers for just a second longer than necessary.

They stood in companionable silence, the noise of the celebration swelling around them.

Eventually, Agatha looked toward the team and the others gathered near the fire. “They’re still talking, you know.”

“About the match?”

“About you,” she replied, flicking a glance at him. “There are rumors again.”

“Let them talk,” Tom said, not unkindly. “They always do.”

Her mouth quirked. “Do you suppose they’ll ever tire of it?” 

“I’m not sure.” 

She tilted her head, gaze searching out his. “Do you want them to?”

A long pause. “No.”

Before she could respond, Orion appeared again, dragging Tom into a reenactment of the final play involving enchanted gobstones as makeshift players. Agatha returned to her friends, and Tom was left smiling faintly, his fingers still tingling where they had brushed hers.

Later that night, after the cheering had dulled and the fire was dying low, Tom slipped into the dormitory. Most of his roommates were still in the common room, finishing off the last of the butterbeer.

He drew the curtains around his bed and opened his diary, fingers moving over the spine like greeting an old friend.

He dipped his quill into the inkwell he carefully hovered over the bed, making a mental note to buy a second set of self-inking quills in Hogsmeade tomorrow.

They admire me now. Even Malfoy knows he needs me. Alphard was brilliant today, but Orion’s the one to watch. Agatha… She keeps surprising me.

They’ll all be mine in the end. Every last one of them.

Chapter Text

22 September, 1940

The morning air carried the kind of chill that nipped the ears and curled the breath into ghostly ribbons, but the sun was out and the sky was the rich, royal blue of a storybook. Autumn had woven itself into every corner of the Scottish Highlands; flames of orange and gold blazed in the trees, and brittle leaves crunched underfoot. The long road from the castle to Hogsmeade shimmered faintly with the morning frost and teemed with excited students heading to their first trip of the year to the wizarding village.

Tom Riddle stood at the crest of the hill overlooking the village, hands buried in the pockets of his cloak, and allowed himself a moment of silent wonder. Even crowded with Hogwarts students, Hogsmeade was far quieter than Diagon Alley, less theatrical in its displays of magic, but there was something about it that felt more real. The air was thick with the scent of warm pastries, cinnamon, and chimney smoke. A tawny owl wheeled overhead. The sharp sound of laughter from a group of fourth years rang out as they hurried down the hill, but Tom lingered a little longer, letting the sight of the crooked rooftops and glittering shop signs anchor him to the moment.

He’d charmed Mrs. Cole with calculated earnestness that summer, convincing her he needed the permission form signed to further his education. She had wavered for a day or two, perhaps suspecting that the boy before her had grown sharper, more careful with his words, but in the end she had signed. And now here he was.

The first stop was, naturally, Honeydukes.

It was almost too much to take in at once. Shelves were loaded with a plethora of colorful boxes and enchanted jars, some of them floating just above reach. Peppermint newts swam in a tank near the window, and a barrel of fizzing whizzbees sparked golden light every few seconds. Tom wandered slowly through the chaos, gaze lingering on the rows of chocolate frog boxes, the spinning trays of toffees and lemon drops, the massive slabs of enchanted rock candy that blinked and shifted color in response to touch.

Deciding he deserved a special treat, Tom bought a generous bag of cauldron cakes, jelly slugs, and sumptuous-looking fudge that promised sweet dreams and tucked it all away in his coat. He didn’t want to appear greedy, but he also didn’t want to leave empty-handed. As he stepped back out into the street, the door shut behind him, and he breathed in deeply.

It was so satisfying not to just be Tom the orphan, Tom the freak. He was Tom Riddle, third year Slytherin, top of his year, well-dressed and confident, strolling through a village older than some kingdoms.

He wandered aimlessly after that, following the cobblestone path past a joke shop, where a group of third-years was crowding around the window display, and past the Three Broomsticks, where a rising hum of laughter floated through the open doorway. He spotted Livia and Ruby just outside Scrivenshaft’s, waving their arms dramatically as they reenacted something for Orion and a sallow-faced fourth-year boy named Amadeus Prince, and called out to Tom as he passed.

“Tom! There you are! You missed the great ink debate. Of course, you’re welcome to join in.”

Tom slowed just enough to smile. “You’re too kind. I trust you to regale me with the details later, Ruby.”

“Suit yourself,” she said with a grin.

“Go on then, Tom. We’ll see you later,” Livia interrupted, looking half amused and half distracted as she tried to explain the difference between iron gall ink and oak-based dye to a wholly uninterested Orion.

Tom gave a final nod and slipped away. He wanted to be alone a little longer. Hogsmeade deserved that.

A quiet little bookshop sat near the end of the lane, nestled between a teahouse and an apothecary. There was a cart out front selling enchanted lamps which promised a superior reading experience. Its windows were smudged and dusty, its front sign hand-carved and slightly crooked. It was perfect.

He stepped inside and was immediately met with the comforting scents of aged leather bindings and old parchment. The floor creaked underfoot, and the fireplace in the corner crackled softly. Shelves towered high, cluttered and uneven, packed with obscure titles: Runic Structures for Inanimate Enchantments, Artificing for Left-Handed Duellers, The Ethics of the Classification of Dangerous Magical Creatures (Revised Ed.).

Tom felt his shoulders relax as he picked a book at random from the shelf. Diamond Brew: An Introduction to the Applications of Gemstones in Potionmaking by Eusabia Braithwaite.

He didn’t look up from the book (an intriguing topic, though the prose was incredibly dense) when the bell above the door rang to announce a newcomer to the shop. Not until he heard her voice.

“Fabian, really, I just want to—”

Agatha.

Tom turned, the fine hairs on the back of his neck rising. She stood in the doorway, framed by a spill of golden autumn light, cheeks flushed from the brisk air, her blond hair loose and gently waving around her shoulders. She looked like something half-dreamt, wrapped in a soft plum-colored cloak, a richly patterned scarf knotted neatly at her throat. For a second, she didn’t see him; her gaze drifted across the stacks, to the fire crackling softly in the hearth.

Then Tom saw him.

Fabian Lestrange entered just behind her. He wore a smug smile, like he usually did, but it was the sight of her arm in Fabian’s that made Tom’s throat go tight. Lestrange was speaking to her in that arrogant drawl of his, saying something about how “charming” it was for her to enjoy places like this, “even if the company is sometimes beneath you.”

Tom slipped the book back onto the shelf.

When Agatha looked up and saw him, her step faltered. Something flickered in her expression—guilt? Surprise? Hope? But before she could speak, Lestrange noticed her staring and followed her gaze.

“Riddle,” said Lestrange, tone already soaked in disdain. “Fancy finding you here. I wouldn’t have thought a shop like this was quite your speed. Not enough shadows to sulk in.”

Tom’s smile was practiced and polite. “Lestrange,” he said smoothly. “What a pleasure.”

Agatha took a breath, but Fabian gave her arm a light tug and stepped forward, cutting in front of her.

“I suppose you’ve come to browse the picture books?” Lestrange continued, voice louder now. “Or are you here on assignment from one of your professors? I hear even the most promising mudbloods need a bit of extra coaching now and again.”

Tom’s smile didn’t waver, though his jaw tensed slightly. “Well, I imagine you don’t know how it is. Some of us have to work twice as hard to be taken half as seriously,” he said airily.

Agatha’s lips parted, but again, Lestrange barrelled past her.

“True, I’ll never know what it’s like,” Fabian said with mock thoughtfulness. “It must be exhausting. All that smiling. All that groveling. If I were you, I think I’d simply accept what I am.”

“Oh? And what’s that?” Tom asked, still perfectly pleasant.

Lestrange’s gaze narrowed. “Worthless. Utterly out of place.”

The words hung in the air like a hex, sharp and cold, worse than any slur he could throw at Tom. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t heard every nasty name in the book by now, after all.

Tom let the silence stretch, just long enough for it to become uncomfortable. Then he chuckled softly, too softly.

“And yet,” he said, voice silky, “I seem to keep turning up in all the right places, don’t I?”

Fabian’s expression soured, but before he could fire back, Agatha finally pulled her arm free.

“That’s enough,” she said quietly.

Fabian glanced at her, surprised. “Agatha—”

“I said that’s enough.”

Tom looked at her then, eyes wide. Her icy blue eyes were a storm of things: confusion, guilt, frustration. Tom realized, with a painful clarity, that he would be turning this little exchange over in his mind like a pebble in hand. Not because of what Lestrange said, but because of the look on Agatha’s face, because she had come here with him at all.

Lestrange looked between them, his mouth twisting. Then, with a smirk, he leaned in toward Tom. “Don’t take it too hard,” he murmured, low and cruel. “She might find you interesting, in the way one finds a flea-bitten stray crup interesting. But she knows better than to bring you home.”

Then he straightened and turned to Agatha. “I’ll wait for you outside, Aggie,” he said, flashing her a smile he probably thought was charming. “Don’t dawdle.”

And with that, he swept out of the shop, leaving a ringing silence behind.

Agatha stood still for a long moment, then turned back to Tom. “I didn’t—he asked me,” she said, voice tight. “My parents told me he would, yesterday. I didn’t have a choice.”

“You always have a choice,” Tom said, but it came out too fast, too sharp.

She looked down, biting her lip in an uncharacteristic display of vulnerability. “I don’t know why I’m justifying this to you.”

“Neither do I,” Tom said, forcing the words to come light and flippant. “But I’m flattered. Really. That someone like you could deem someone like me worthy of defending.”

Agatha looked like she wanted to say more, but then her shoulders drooped. “I should go.”

“Of course,” Tom said. “Wouldn’t want to keep the pureblood peacock waiting.”

She hesitated again at the threshold. Something in her expression flickered, as though she might say something more, but then she turned, the bell chimed, and she was gone.

Tom stood among the shelves, the taste of bitterness in his mouth.

He didn’t know what he had expected—what right he thought he had to be upset. He hadn’t asked her to Hogsmeade. Hadn’t even hinted. He’d smiled politely when girls and even a few boys from every House had asked him, always with that same maddening blend of shyness and curiosity. Livia. Florentia Smith. Lavinia Yaxley. Amelia Bulstrode. Even that Gryffindor boy from the year above who said Tom had “eyes you could get lost in.”

He’d turned them all down, kindly, graciously. Not because he thought himself above it.

Because when he imagined holding someone’s hand, he could only see hers.

Now she was walking with someone else.

Tom turned back to the nearest shelf, running his fingers over the spines without seeing a single title. The fire crackled behind him. Outside, the wind shook gold and copper leaves from the trees.

Somehow, this hurt worse the bullying.

A gust of wind bit at Agatha’s cheeks the moment she stepped out of the bookshop. Somewhere behind the clouds, the sun still glowed, casting soft gold light through the misty veil of autumn. The cobbled street shimmered with a fine sheen of damp from where frost had melted in the morning sun. It was beautiful. She hated it.

Fabian was waiting just a few paces away with his hands in the pockets of his immaculate cloak and wearing a sneer flimsily disguised as a smile.

“You didn’t need to say anything back there,” he said lightly, as if they’d just emerged from a polite conversation and not a slow, spiraling humiliation. “That self-important mudblood’s already insufferable enough without your pity feeding him.”

Agatha didn’t answer right away. Her heart was still hammering against her ribs, her hands clenched at her sides. She was angry, though she couldn’t decide if it was more at Fabian or at herself. She had meant to walk past the bookshop. Just walk past it.

But she’d seen Tom through the window, alone, his dark head bent over a book, the warm lamplight casting his unfairly handsome features in a soft glow. He looked focused. Peaceful. He always did, when he was reading.

And for one impossible second, she’d wanted to go inside, just to stand beside him in that quiet, weighty calm. Maybe make some glib comment about how he was always hiding among dusty bookshelves. Maybe ask what he was reading, and then pretend she wasn’t envious that she hadn’t thought to pick up that book first, if only for a chance to discuss theory with someone as interested in it as she was. Maybe just sit across from him like they had in the library so many times before, when everything had been easier. When she hadn’t had to explain herself.

She hadn’t expected Fabian to follow her in. She hadn’t expected Tom to look up at all.

But Fabian had. And Tom had. And everything had fallen apart after that.

“Agatha,” Fabian prompted again, his voice cool now.

“I didn’t say anything for his sake,” she said, folding her arms tightly. “I said something because you were embarrassing yourself.”

Fabian’s jaw twitched.

He recovered quickly, his voice oozing condescension. “Oh, of course. I’d forgotten how fond you are of taking in strays. It’s a charming habit, my dear, very noble of you.”

She turned sharply, fixing him with a glare. “Don’t mistake me, Fabian. I’m not fond of anyone who looks down on people simply because it makes them feel bigger.”

His eyes flickered with surprise. Then anger. He took a step toward her, and for a moment, she tensed, her wand slipping into her waiting hand.

But he stopped just short of her, straightening the cuffs of his cloak with exaggerated calm.

“You’ll see sense eventually,” he said with a self-assured grin. “Your parents know what’s best. They’ve chosen wisely. You won’t find your place among gutter whelps like Riddle, no matter how clever and charming he plays at being.”

He didn’t wait for a reply. He walked off toward the Three Broomsticks, his shoulders stiff.

Agatha remained where she was.

She didn’t want to follow. She didn’t want to see him again today—maybe not ever.

But she also didn’t want to go back to the castle alone, with the memory of Tom’s voice echoing in her mind, low and wounded:

“You always have a choice.”

And she had. Hadn’t she? Maybe she could have refused, but she’d been too afraid of disappointing her parents to try.

She closed her eyes briefly. She didn’t know anymore.

The Slytherin common room was almost warm with firelight that evening, the stone hearth roaring as if in celebration of the first Hogsmeade weekend of the term. The chill from the lake didn’t seem to reach inside tonight; students were draped across armchairs, bent over chess boards, trading sweets, or unwrapping purchases from the various shops with flushed faces and excited voices.

Tom sat on the curved green velvet settee near the fire, legs crossed, posture elegant, a book on alchemy on his lap that he had read several times already.

Orion, perched beside him with a mug of warm cider, was laughing at something Ruby said. Livia Nott was tucked into an armchair a short distance away, a fashion magazine detailing upcoming winter styles forgotten on her lap.

Tom was nodding along, smiling in all the right places.

No one would have guessed what he felt beneath the surface, that low, vibrating tightness in his chest. He had buried it. Deep. Agatha’s voice, her eyes, Fabian’s sneer… It was all tamped down like kindling in a hearth, hidden under ash.

Let it burn in private.

“I still can’t believe you bought that sugar quill,” Orion was saying, shaking his head at Ruby. “It’s bigger than your head.”

She grinned. “I have expensive taste. What can I say?”

Then, her gaze flicked to Tom—too quick, too clever.

“And what about you, Tom?” she asked, nudging his knee with hers. “Did you spend all day in that little bookshop like an old professor? Or did some pretty thing catch your eye?”

Tom blinked.

The smile he gave her was smooth. Practiced. “Nothing worth mentioning,” he said lightly, running a hand over a snake embroidered on the sofa.

Ruby raised a brow, unconvinced. “So you did talk to someone.”

Tom’s fingers toyed absently with the corner of the book in his lap. “If you must know,” he said, voice dry, “I was very nearly cursed by Fabian Lestrange. That counts for something, I suppose.”

That got Orion’s attention. “Fabian Lestrange?” he echoed. “That swaggering prat?”

“The very same,” Tom replied, scanning the common room and turning away quickly when he spotted Lestrange and his friends sitting in a corner, laughing about something. He hadn’t been looking for Agatha—No, really, he hadn’t been!—but some part of him was relieved that she wasn’t in the common room.

“What happened?” Ruby asked, sitting forward, clearly thrilled. “Did you hex him? Tell me you hexed him.”

“No hexing.” Tom’s smile sharpened. “But he said something impolite. I said something clever. Then we both moved on with our lives.”

Livia narrowed her eyes. “You definitely hexed him.”

Tom laughed under his breath. “I didn’t. Though I wish I had.”

He leaned back against the velvet cushions, letting his head tip slightly to one side as the fire crackled.

He didn’t want to talk about it anymore. He didn’t want to think about Agatha’s eyes flicking away from his, or the way she looked like she wanted to say something but never did. Or how her hand had been in Leatrange’s.

Or how he’d said no to everyone else because he had been waiting—stupidly, silently, pathetically waiting.

So instead he tilted his chin, offered Livia a charming smile, and said, “Next time, I’ll be sure to bring someone along. Maybe you?”

Livia raised both brows, surprised. “Careful, Riddle. Flatter me like that and I just might.”

Orion chuckled. “He’d be a fool not to take you!”

“He was a fool to say ‘no’ in the first place!” Ruby added, settling down beside Orion with a grin.

Tom let them laugh. He leaned back into the warmth and watched the fire dance.

Outside, the Black Lake stretched ahead, fathomless and impossibly dark. Inside, he wore his mask like it had never cracked.

But when he went up to bed that night, long after the others had gone, and closed his curtains tight, he didn’t open his diary.

He stared at the leather cover in silence, as if it might say something first.

It didn’t.

Chapter Text

9 December, 1940

The library was as full as could be expected for an afternoon this late in the term, its energized quiet broken only by the scratch of quills and the occasional sigh of academic despair. The great stained-glass windows were half-fogged with winter chill, and dying December light poured across the tables in the center of the main reading room, catching the dust motes and highlighting the weariness etched into the faces of its young occupants.

At one such table sat four third-year Slytherins, hunched over rolls of parchment and reference books stacked like barricades. 

Tom’s handwriting was as neat and measured as always, the ink gliding fluidly across the page. After several hours of wearing him down, Ruby had finally convinced Tom to take a break from quizzing Livia on Arithmancy to help Ruby revise her Defense essay, which was due the very next morning. It was probably a good thing she gave it to him to look over, because it was lousy with careless mistakes. Ruby watched over his shoulder as he worked, her Herbology notes spread out in front of her as she half-heartedly revised for their upcoming exam. 

“I feel like I’m drowning in essays,” Livia lamented, scribbling frantically on a spare sheet of parchment as she scanned her Herbology textbook.

“You wouldn’t be drowning if you had used the schedules I so generously provided,” Tom half-heartedly scolded, frowning at a particularly egregious mischaracterization of Stainwright’s definition of a rebounding hex. He circled the paragraph, writing, This is completely wrong; see Stainwright’s An Introduction to Concepts in Duelling Dark Wizards, chapter four.

“Those schedules were ridiculous!” Ruby complained. “How many hours do you expect us to spend in the library?”

“As many as it takes,” Tom retorted with a raised brow.

“And this is why you’re at the top of our year, Tom,” Livia said, tossing her dark hair. Easily the most bookish out of the three, she had nearly finished her last essay and was comfortably prepared for the first few days of exams.

Beside her, Orion Black let out a dramatic groan and dropped his head onto the table with a soft thud. “I swear, if Professor Merrythought gives us one more essay on hexes and counter hexes,” he mumbled into the wood, “I’ll just let the Grindylow take me.”

Tom didn’t look up from Ruby’s essay. “You could’ve started on these a week ago, like I suggested.”

Orion lifted his head just enough to glare. “You did suggest it. Twice. And then followed it with a suggested reading list.”

“How ever does he do it?” Livia asked with a mock sigh as she underlined a section of her Herbology notes.

“Discipline and proper time management,” Tom offered with a teasing smile. “I don’t spend nearly as long as Orion does thinking about Quidditch, for one.”

“Oi, without my careful preparations, we never would have beaten Ravenclaw!” retorted Orion in his fiercest whisper.

Livia snorted. “Please, Ravenclaw’s terrible this year since Radford graduated. She was the only thing keeping that mess of a team together.”

“Perhaps it isn’t just Quidditch occupying so much of Orion’s already limited focus,” Tom said absently as he scanned the final paragraph of Ruby’s essay. Weak conclusion, he wrote. This needs to wrap up your analysis rather than end on an irrelevant question.

Livia barely managed to keep her voice quiet as she nudged Orion without looking up. “I’m sure it’s quite a pretty distraction,” she said with a teasing smile.

Ruby giggled as Orion flushed and steadfastly avoided looking at Tom. “Oh, I’m sure it is,” she said with a knowing smile. 

Tom finally handed Ruby her essay, interrupting the easy banter. “If I didn’t know any better, I would think you wrote it this poorly on purpose,” he quipped.

Ruby pouted as she skimmed his notes. “I worked hard on this.”

Tom hummed incredulously before turning to Orion. “Would you like to revise Care of Magical Creatures next, or would you rather whinge some more?” he asked, already pulling out the appropriate study guide.

Orion, cheeks still rosy, groaned again, earning several glares from nearby tables. “I hate the end of term,” he complained. “It’s the perfect day for flying, and instead we’re cooped up in this boring old library, and Tom’s all grouchy and bossy.”

“I wouldn’t have to be bossy if any of you took your studies more seriously,” Tom replied mildly, doodling part of the Runic array to generate fire while he waited for Orion’s complaining to cease.

Ruby, perched sideways in her chair, flicked her quill at Orion’s head and smirked. “Well, look on the bright side. At least your family’s New Year’s Eve gala’s coming up. Just a few more days in the library, and you can spend the entire holiday being fed truffles by Veelas.”

“That was one time,” Orion muttered, reddening. “And it wasn’t a real Veela; Alphard conjured an illusion of one! Now, the peacocks at Malfoy’s, on the other hand, just love eating truffles. Do you remember when Abraxas brought one last year? The way it danced?”

Livia choked on a laugh, but it faded almost immediately as silence settled over the group. Tom didn’t say anything. He just dipped his quill in his inkwell again, his expression unreadable. The pause stretched long enough that even Orion noticed.

“Oh,” he said, sitting up straight, looking unusually flustered. “Tom—I didn’t mean—”

“No harm done,” Tom said smoothly, though there was a slight tightness to his voice.

“I’ll ask them next year,” Orion blurted. “I mean it. I’ll beg. Properly. Down on one knee and everything.”

“That’s sweet,” Ruby said, frowning, “but it’s still rubbish that he has to stay at the castle alone.”

“I could owl my parents,” Livia offered, brightening. “We’ll be spending Christmas at the cottage near Windermere. It’s cozy, and Father would like you, Muggle-born or not.”

Tom gave a small, genuine smile. “Thank you. Truly. But I don’t mind staying.”

Ruby raised an eyebrow. “You’re saying you want to spend Christmas stuck in the gloomy old castle, with nothing but a handful of students, the ghosts, and Peeves for company?”

“Don’t forget all the dusty old books,” Orion quipped. “He loves those.”

Tom hesitated, then said, “I like the quiet. No crowds, no noise. Just snow falling and books. Besides… my birthday’s on the 31st. I like having it to myself.”

That silenced them for a moment.

Ruby blinked. “You’ve never told us that.”

He shrugged, deliberately casual. “Wasn’t sure it mattered.”

Livia leaned in, frowning. “Of course it matters. How are we meant to send you embarrassing birthday owls if we don’t know the date?”

Tom laughed, cheeks flushing. “I truly don’t mind. But thank you. For asking.”

Orion grinned, relieved. “Right. That’s it then. I’m sending you the ugliest barn owl I can find. You’ll be begging for mercy by the start of term.”

Ruby beamed at him. “We’ll all owl you. Every day if we have to.”

Tom didn’t answer right away. He looked around at them—at Orion’s artfully tousled hair and crooked smile, at Livia’s ink-stained fingers and determined brow, and at Ruby’s shining eyes, full of fire and mischief.

And for a moment, the knot in his chest loosened.

So this was what it was like. To be listened to. To be liked. To have friends.

“I’ll look forward to it,” he said softly.

Tom had prepared meticulously, almost obsessively, for his own gift-giving. He’d agonized for weeks over whether it was necessary—then even longer over what would be perfect. He had no model for this, no past to draw from. Only instinct.

Orion’s birthday was only a couple of weeks prior to Tom’s, and for that, Tom gave more. After agonizing over the possibilities, Tom had stumbled on it during the last Hogsmeade trip in a small shop of magical curios: an enchanted hand mirror, polished obsidian in a green velvet case, charmed to subtly adjust light and angles until the viewer always looked their best.

For Christmas, he gave each of them a slim, leather-bound journal—black for Orion, navy for Livia, and deep violet for Ruby. Inside, he had painstakingly customized the pages: personalized study schedules tailored to their strengths and weaknesses, organized by subject and exam date, complete with an indexing charm that had taken ages to perfect. The books were full of notes from the material for next term (Tom had gone to the trouble of requesting syllabi from all of their professors). The margins of the notes contained clever mnemonics, cross-referenced textbook pages, and wand movement diagrams enchanted to move. Plus he included additional notes on subjects that interested each of them.

For Ruby, sections on wandless magic and theory; she would excel at those. Livia’s pages contained outlines of textile transfiguration and glamour spells. Orion’s emphasized strategic dueling patterns and advanced Defense theory, where he still wavered.

Each journal closed with a note:

If you follow this, you’ll pass everything. No need to thank me.

He sent them all the day before his friends were due to leave for the holidays, sneaking out to the owlery in the early morning hours.

25 December, 1940

The enchanted ceiling above the Great Hall was blanketed in low, snow-heavy clouds, the air filled with the gentle drift of enchanted flakes that melted before they touched the floor. Most of the long tables sat empty; only a few clusters of students remained for the holidays, their voices hushed by the quiet reverence of Christmas morning.

Tom sat alone at the Slytherin table, a teacup cooling beside him, his well-worn copy of Numerology and Grammartica open in front of him. His posture was still, expectant, though he would not have admitted it to himself. Something about the quiet settled more heavily this morning.

The morning post arrived in a burst of wings and glittering snow.

Three owls descended toward him—one large and brown, another dusky gray, and a third white with speckled feathers. He recognized them immediately: Livia’s, Orion’s, and Ruby’s.

He stared at the three parcels they deposited before him. For a moment, he simply looked at them: wrapped boxes, folded parchment, crisp ribbons. They did not shimmer with hexes or stink of obligation. No one had ever sent him anything before.

He gathered them quietly, tucking each one beneath his cloak with deliberate care.

He didn’t open them there.

The lake outside the windows cast its pale light down into the Slytherin common room, where shadows of drifting grasses swayed gently across the floor. A greenish gloom filtered through the glass, dim and drowsy, wrapping the room in a hush that felt more ancient than the castle itself.

The hearth flickered with lazy flames. Tom sat on one of the velvet-cushioned chairs near the fire, alone.

The gifts were arranged carefully on the table before him.

He started with Livia’s.

It was a larger box, wrapped in silver paper with a neat black bow. He opened it slowly, hands trembling slightly, and came into contact with soft green wool. He lifted it from the box gently, revealing a stylish traveling cloak. It was subtly embroidered with silver serpents. 

I selected green and silver for you, not only because they look marvelous with your coloring, but also to remind you that you truly belong in Slytherin

—Livia

He stared at the note longer than he should have, his eyes prickling a little and his throat tight with emotion.

Next: Orion’s.

Dark green paper, gold ribbon, an obnoxiously large bow that jingled with enchanted cheer. Inside the box was a sleek glass bottle—dragon-oil hair tonic, the expensive sort Tom had noticed Orion himself used. A flash of mirrored self-awareness.

You always look perfect. Here’s to keeping up appearances.

—O

Tom exhaled through his nose, more breath than laugh. He had never asked for this. Never hinted. Yet somehow… Orion had known precisely what message to send.

Last: Ruby’s.

Wrapped in soft brown paper with a bit of red thread. Inside was a hand-knit scarf: charcoal and green, uneven in texture, slightly too long. It was the only one of the three that felt touched by time, made rather than bought. The wool was warm, and the charms she’d cast on it were subtle and skillful. A letter was tucked among the folds:

I wasn’t sure if you’d like it, but I made it anyway. Happy Christmas! It’s charmed to stay warm and dry and to never itch. And no one else has one like it.

—Ruby

Tom swallowed. His fingers closed around the scarf. His chest felt tight, foreign. He hadn’t expected this—any of it. Not the gifts. Not the compliments. Certainly not something someone had made just for him.

He had never been given anything in his life. Not with kindness. Not without an agenda. Not like this.

He leaned back in the chair, the scarf still resting in his lap, and watched the fire crackle. The lake shadows swam lazily across the floor.

He didn’t try on the cloak. Didn’t test the tonic. He only sat there for a long time, the wool of the scarf warm in his hands, as if proof that something in the world, somehow, was beginning to change.

Tom’s birthday had passed unnoticed every year of his life. He’d long since stopped expecting otherwise. It was not a date to be remembered; it had been a day like any other, marked only by the passage of time and the echo of absence.

So when he returned to the dormitory that evening, his arms full of borrowed books, the lake light pale and flickering overhead, and saw the three parcels arranged precisely on his bed, clearly delivered by the school elves, something in him froze.

No mistaking it now. This wasn’t Christmas.

This was for him.

He approached slowly, almost suspiciously.

The first was the largest: a finely crafted leather satchel, beautiful black dragonhide with reinforced seams and a gleaming silver clasp. It was elegant but durable, clearly designed to carry more than just the basics, and probably cost more than Tom had gotten in his past three book stipends combined. There was a note tucked inside.

You’ve been dragging half the library around like a madman since first year. I can’t imagine the damage you’re doing to your poor back. Consider this a solution. Waterproof, reinforced, lightening charm, bottomless charm. I hope you enjoy all of the hidden pockets. Happy Birthday, Tom.

—Orion

Tom stared at it. He hadn’t realized Orion had noticed the old secondhand satchel at all, the one he’d hastily mended with a Reparo after it tore straight through the bottom in November. But the truth was obvious: he had noticed. Enough to do something about it.

He set the satchel aside with deliberate care.

The second package was lighter. Inside a square silver box were two cashmere jumpers, one charcoal and the other a soft pine green. Folded perfectly, impossibly soft. The card inside was blunt, scrawled in Livia’s unmistakable ink.

For Salazar’s sake, stop wearing the same jumper every day. You’re too handsome for that.

—Livia

He allowed himself the briefest smile, quick and secretive.

The third gift was wrapped in rough linen. It opened to reveal a dragonhide wand sheath, dark and gleaming, threaded with green stitching and charmed to fasten smoothly to his forearm. Its weight was perfect. Its fit was flawless.

The note was short.

Something to protect what matters. Happy Birthday, Tom.

—Ruby

He turned the sheath over in his hand. He didn’t need to say it aloud to know it: they’d each chosen well. Not extravagantly. Not sentimentally. But thoughtfully.

They’d thought of him.

He sank into the armchair by the fire, the only sound the gentle creak of the floor and the muted ripple of water beyond the stone walls. He laid the gifts around him like a quiet orbit. The satchel to his right. The jumpers folded on his lap. The wand sheath secured beneath his sleeve.

No one had ever given him anything like this.

At Wool’s, birthdays were days to survive, not mark. No one had asked what he wanted. No one had given him anything that wasn’t rationed, pitied, or begrudged.

Now, here he was, fourteen years old. With gifts. With friends.

And the strange, tight feeling in his chest was not power. It was not pride. It was something quieter, more dangerous. A kind of warmth he wasn’t sure how to carry.

He rested his head briefly in his hands, shielding his eyes from the shifting light above as a few tears snuck their way out. No one was watching. No one would ever know.

But for the first time in his life, Tom Riddle felt the weight of being seen—and chosen—not for what he could do, or what he looked like, but simply for who he was.

And it undid him, just a little.

Chapter Text

17 January, 1941

The halls of the castle had taken on a damp, grey chill in the beginning of the new term. Winter still clung to the windows in patches of frost, and the glow of torchlight did little to warm the long, drafty corridors.

Tom walked briskly ahead of his friends (and if he didn’t feel a thrill of excitement at the thought that he, Tom, had real, human friends for the first time in his fourteen years). He had his new bookbag, courtesy of Orion, slung over one shoulder, his arms swinging casually at his sides. Orion, trailing a step behind, was grumbling loudly enough to echo.

“You’ve gone completely mad, Tom,” he grumbled. “Dragging us to the library the second day back? Second day! Not even the Ravenclaws are that cruel.”

“Someone has to rescue your marks before you fail out in spectacular disgrace,” Tom replied without looking back. “No friends of mine will fall so dreadfully behind on their studies.”

“You’re just saying that,” Orion said darkly, “so you don’t have to help us cram at the last minute.”

Tom allowed himself a small, amused smile. “That would be manipulative.”

“So you admit it!”

He didn’t deny it. Ruby snorted, and Livia giggled, their laughter echoing lightly off the stone.

They were just turning the corner near the staircase that led to the dungeons when they saw her.

At the top of the next stairwell stood Agatha Malfoy, her satchel slung over one shoulder, her school cloak catching slightly in the breeze from a high, drafty window. Her pale blond hair floated in soft waves around her face, and she looked just as surprised to see them as they were to see her.

Tom’s smile vanished. His posture straightened, shoulders drawing slightly back, spine rigid. Agatha paused as well, blue eyes flicking over the group, landing on Tom and lingering for a heartbeat too long.

She gave a small nod, reverting back to pureblood manners. “Rosier. Nott. Black…Riddle.”

The others mumbled greetings.

“Miss Malfoy,” Tom replied, his voice polite and distant, his face unreadable.

The pause that followed was long, brittle.

Then Orion stepped forward—not in front of Tom, exactly, but just to the side, close enough to make a point. His voice was low, sharp, a little too casual.

“He doesn’t want to talk to you, you know.”

Tom blinked and glanced at him. “Orion—”

But Orion kept going, eyes still fixed on Agatha. “Whatever you think you can say now, it’s months too late. You had your chance, and you blew it. Tom’s moved on.”

Agatha’s expression barely shifted, but something in her shoulders tensed.

Ruby let out a sharp breath and grabbed Orion’s arm. “Alright. Down, boy,” she said with forced brightness, tugging on his sleeve. “We’ll meet you back at the common room, Tom.”

Orion looked like he might argue, but Livia slipped in on his other side, touching his elbow. “Let’s give them a moment,” she said gently.

There was a longer than needed pause. The three of them lingered, Livia’s eyes flicking between Tom and Agatha with careful calculation, Ruby biting her lip like she wanted to say something else, and Orion glaring at Agatha like he wanted to hex her on Tom’s behalf.

Tom didn’t speak. He couldn’t quite breathe.

Then the others turned and went, their footsteps fading into the corridor behind them.

He and Agatha stood alone.

She looked at him. Not like she had in the bookshop, when her hand was tucked into someone else’s arm. Not like she had in the common room before things shattered between them. But with something like guilt swimming beneath her calm exterior.

“You’re…well?” he asked, in the most formal tone he could manage, just to break the uncomfortable silence.

She nodded. “You?”

He nodded once, forcing a serene smile. It probably looked like he had eaten something sour. “Quite.”

A silence bloomed again, heavy as snowfall.

He shifted his grip on his books. “I should—”

“I heard it was your birthday,” she interrupted, soft but clear.

He stilled. Didn’t turn—just froze.

“The thirty-first. New Year’s Eve.”

He looked at her then, cautiously, like she might vanish if he moved too quickly.

“Yes,” he said slowly, “It was.”

Agatha’s voice barely carried. “Happy birthday.”

There was a beat of silence—painfully quiet, painfully full.

I wish I had asked before hung between them, unspoken and undeniable.

Tom gave her a faint smile, almost too polished to be real. “Thank you,” he said with deliberate politeness.

And then he walked away.

The common room was quiet, the hush of late evening broken only by the rustle of pages and the soft crackle of the green-tinged fire. Most of the Slytherins had gone to bed, and those still lingering were murmuring in the corners or slipping upstairs in twos and threes. Tom sat near the hearth, curled on a tufted settee with a potions book open in his lap, his gaze far away from the text.

Orion emerged from the dormitory hallway, running a hand through his hair. His usual swagger was muted, replaced by something quieter. He dropped into the seat beside Tom without asking, sighing dramatically as he stretched out his legs.

“I swear,” he said, “if my dear cousin gives us one more lecture on ‘playing with heart and honor,’ I’ll fly my broom straight into the pitch.”

Tom didn’t look up from his book. “Honor. How quaint.”

“I prefer winning.” Orion tossed his head with a careless grace, gray eyes shining. “But Alphard wants to do things the ‘right way.’ Which is why he spent most of practice yelling at Walburga for trying to hex Ravenclaw’s Seeker in the corridor just a few days before our match last term.”

Tom smirked faintly. “She’s vicious. Willing to do anything to win. I’ll grant her that.”

“True,” Orion agreed, his tone bright, though there was something else simmering under it. “You should come watch a practice this week. I’ll show off.”

“That would be a change,” Tom said, lips curling.

Orion gave him a shove with his shoulder, then leaned back again, letting the silence settle for a while. The firelight flickered across his face as he watched it dance, thoughtful.

Eventually, he said, “You handled that well earlier. With Agatha.”

Tom turned a page. “Did I?”

“You didn’t hex her. That counts as maturity.”

Tom said nothing.

Orion gave a little sigh. “You liked her.” There was no accusation in it, just quiet recognition.

Tom’s voice was neutral. “Doesn’t matter.”

A few more seconds of silence passed. Then Orion shifted, his tone a touch more deliberate. “I just don’t see why you waste your time on girls like her. All that frost. All those games. You could choose differently, you know.”

Tom finally looked at him, brow slightly raised. “Differently?”

“I mean…” Orion’s voice trailed off, then picked up with forced lightness, “You could be unpredictable. Surprise everyone. I can tell you from experience just how fun it is to make someone blush.”

Tom stared at him for a long moment, his heart beating a little faster. Orion really was quite handsome, with his lazy smiles and windswept black curls and stormy gray eyes. Tom would have to have been blind not to notice. Orion Black had half of their year eating out of the palm of his hand. 

So he took a breath and said, “And what would your family say, if you made a Muggle-born blush?”

Orion gave a breathy laugh and waved a hand. “They’d hardly care. I’m not the heir. I’m not the one they’ve pinned all their hopes on. Alphard’s the one who has to marry some appropriately respectable girl with a family tree as inbred as ours. Me?” He leaned in slightly. “I’m free to enjoy myself however I please.”

Tom’s cheeks flushed entirely against his will.

Then, quietly, with only the barest edge of hesitation, he asked, “Do you want to go to Hogsmeade with me next weekend?”

Orion blinked. He searched Tom’s face for a joke, a trap, something cold and calculated, but there was none of that in Tom’s expression. Only a carefully level stare.

A slow, warm smile spread across Orion’s lips. “That a date, Riddle?”

“If you like,” Tom said, smirking faintly. “Unless you’d rather go with Flint. I saw him asking you yesterday.”

Orion barked a laugh. “Please. I’d rather take the Giant Squid.”

Tom let out a soft chuckle, the tension slipping out of his shoulders as he closed his book.

“Then it’s settled,” he said.

They sat quietly after that, the fire crackling between them, and for once, the silence didn’t feel like a burden. 

18 January, 1941

The Slytherin dormitory was dim with the soft, shifting light of the lake filtering through enchanted windows. Pale green ripples moved across the stone walls, casting dancing patterns onto the ceilings and bed curtains. The usual hush of morning was accompanied by the faint creaks of the underwater current pressing against the ancient glass.

Tom took longer than usual to dress.

His roommates noticed.

“You’re worse than Brax,” Oleander Parkinson groaned, dragging a comb through his hair with theatrical dismay. “That’s the third time you’ve brushed your fringe.”

Callum Flint glanced over from his mirror and made a show of sniffing the air. “And is that new cologne I smell, Riddle? Have mercy on the poor villagers.”

Tom ignored them with a faint, unbothered smile as he adjusted the fine clasp on the dark green cloak Livia had sent him for Christmas. Silver thread ran along the hem in the faintest suggestion of serpents, catching the lake-filtered light with each movement. Her card had nearly made him cry. I selected green and silver for you, not only because they look marvelous with your coloring, but also to remind you that you truly belong in Slytherin.

Beneath it, he wore a warm, hand-mended jumper of deep navy wool and newly tailored trousers. His new scarf from Ruby was already wound neatly at his neck.

Adrian Greengrass tossed a pillow at Callum. “At least he has taste. Unlike you, who wore the same ratty scarf three winters in a row.”

Orion was still in the bathroom, groaning audibly about the injustice of mornings. His voice echoed down the curved corridor connecting their sleeping quarters to the main common room, each complaint more theatrical than the last.

Tom took the opportunity to slip out while the others were distracted by their usual banter. He walked the gently sloping tunnel toward the common room, boots thudding softly on damp flagstones. The usual green-tinted gloom of the lake shimmered around him, shadows of fish and kelp trailing along the outer walls.

He had just reached the common room entrance when someone stepped directly into his path.

Abraxas Malfoy.

The flickering torchlight picked out the sharp angles of his face and the shimmer of silver embroidery on his dark cloak. He looked as perfectly composed as ever, except he was alone. Parkinson and Greengrass were conspicuously absent.

“Riddle,” he said coldly. “A word.”

Tom inclined his head, curious despite himself. “Of course.”

They stepped into a narrow side corridor lined with weathered busts of various magical serpents. The sound of the lake water above felt louder here, as though the walls themselves were listening.

Abraxas folded his arms. “I’ll keep it brief.”

Tom waited, but he didn't have to do so for long.

“You should talk to my sister.”

The words landed like cold water down Tom’s spine. Of all the things he might have expected from Malfoy, this was not one of them.

“You didn’t seem particularly keen on that idea last year,” Tom said carefully.

Abraxas gave a clipped laugh, devoid of humor. “And then I went home for the summer.”

There was a bitter pause.

“Our father gave me a lecture long enough to make my ears bleed. Because I dared question whether marrying Ulric Dawnstride’s daughter, who despises me, by the way, was a waste of my life.” He looked at Tom with sharp eyes. “In families like ours, we don’t get to choose. Not really. You fall out of line, you fall out of favor. And then all the gold and power and connections vanish like smoke.”

Tom studied him in silence, expression unreadable.

“You think you understand Slytherin ambition,” Abraxas said, “but you’ve never had to yearn for freedom from the weight of your own name.”

“No,” Tom admitted softly. “I haven’t.”

Abraxas looked away, jaw tight. “You proved yourself. You’re clever. Controlled. A decent person. My sister… She was better when she was around you. Happier. More confident. So if you’re still interested in being her friend, I won’t stop you.”

Tom felt something stir in his chest—not triumph, but confusion. The last time they’d spoken of Agatha, it had ended in a flurry of threats from her overprotective younger brother.

“I doubt she wants to speak to me,” Tom said cautiously.

Abraxas met his gaze. “That’s between you and her. Just don’t humiliate her. Or me.”

Tom gave a small, respectful nod.

Abraxas straightened his shoulders and disappeared down the corridor without another word, boots echoing off the stone.

For a long moment, Tom stood alone in the cool green glow, the water shifting above like liquid glass, and wondered, just for a moment, what price he’d be asked to pay if he ever had everything to lose.

Then he turned and walked up toward the waiting snow and sunlight.

The stone steps leading up from the dungeons were colder than usual. Tom emerged into the Entrance Hall, the pale light of midmorning glinting off the tall windows. Outside, the grounds were blanketed in a pristine layer of snow, undisturbed but for a line of student footprints leading down the slope toward the gates.

He waited near the entrance, the folds of his new cloak pulled neatly over his shoulders, hands folded in front of him. When Orion finally arrived, breathless from rushing, his cheeks were flushed and his curls were still slightly damp.

“Sorry,” he panted. “Parkinson stole my comb and wouldn’t give it back unless I agreed to let him copy my Charms essay.”

Tom blinked at him slowly. “You didn’t.”

“I did,” Orion said cheerfully, straightening his scarf. “But I replaced all the nouns with kitchen utensils.”

Tom laughed, quietly, but genuinely, and offered Orion his arm. It was mostly for the joke of it, and Orion rolled his eyes before taking it.

Outside, the morning air was crisp and sharp, stinging their cheeks and turning every breath to mist. The path to the village was marked by a procession of chattering students, boots crunching through the snow, scarves whipping in the wind. The sun cast a faint silver light over the hills, and the lake glittered through bare trees like a slab of glass.

Orion nudged Tom as they walked. “You’re very quiet today.”

Tom hesitated. “Malfoy stopped me on the way up.”

“Oh?”

“He wants me to speak with his sister again.” He kept his time deliberately light.

Orion snorted. “That’s rich after last year.”

“That’s what I said.” Tom glanced over at him. “He said I’d proven myself. That she was better when she was around me.”

Orion was silent for a beat. “Well, he’s not wrong. Agatha has always been quiet and ice cold, but since meeting you, she’s thawed out just a little.”

The pair passed the crooked gate into Hogsmeade. Snow had settled on the roofs like icing sugar, and smoke curled up from chimneys into the bright sky. Students were already ducking into shops, brushing snow off shoulders and stomping warmth into numb toes.

Tom and Orion made their way down the cobbled lane, pausing at shop windows and murmuring quietly to each other. Every so often, their fingers would brush. Tom’s stomach did a strange, fluttery thing each time. It wasn’t unpleasant, but unfamiliar.

“Where to first?” Orion asked.

“Three Broomsticks?”

“Too crowded. Let’s walk first.”

So they did.

They took the long route, looping past the main streets and down toward the frozen stream where someone had charmed snowballs to circle like vultures over a group of laughing Hufflepuffs. They detoured through a bookshop, where Tom found a collection of obscure magical treatises, and Orion spent ten minutes thumbing through a poorly-written romance novel, reading the ridiculous dialogue aloud in a hilarious falsetto until Tom had to drag him out before the shopkeeper cursed them.

Eventually, they made their way back to the Three Broomsticks, which had cleared out slightly. They found a quiet booth near the hearth. Tom removed his cloak, shaking snow from the hem, while Orion ordered two butterbeers and slid in across from him.

“You’re still thinking about Agatha,” Orion said, not unkindly.

Tom was quiet as he accepted the drink. “I don’t know what I’m thinking.”

Orion looked into his butterbeer. “You don’t have to explain anything. I like you. You like me. We both know this isn’t going to end in some star-crossed romance.”

Tom looked at him then, sharp and searching.

“I don’t mean that cruelly,” Orion added. He gave Tom a bittersweet smile. “You still look at her like the world tilts when she moves. I’ve seen it. I’m not blind. But I like you.”

There was a moment of soft silence between them, filled only by the distant murmur of conversation and the crackle of fire.

Tom spoke carefully. “Are you really not worried about what your parents will say when they find out about…this?”

Orion smiled, crooked and warm. “Like I said, I’m not the heir. I’m the pretty younger cousin with no responsibilities. I can enjoy myself however I please.” His smile broke out into a grin as he took Tom’s hands in his own. His hands were calloused and sun kissed from hours on the Quidditch pitch, and they were warm. “And believe me, I’m definitely enjoying myself,” he added with a wink.

Tom huffed a laugh. “You’re ridiculous.”

“And you’re impossible.”

Their fingers interlaced, not quite fitting together but fitting enough that neither pulled away.

Tom sipped his butterbeer. It was bubbly and sweet and comfortingly mundane. He looked at Orion, at the easy confidence in his posture, the warmth in his eyes. This wasn’t what he’d expected from the day.

But it wasn’t unpleasant either.

The walk back from the Three Broomsticks was quiet at first, the snow beginning to fall again in soft flakes that clung to their hair and lashes. Tom and Orion moved close together, trading low conversation and laughter, the tension of the earlier conversation melting into easy companionship. The sun had begun to dip behind the trees, casting the village in a warm gold that glinted off icicles and turned every windowpane into fire.

They had just crossed the small wooden bridge leading toward the main road when the laughter cut off.

“Well, well,” drawled a voice like ice against skin. “Isn’t this sweet?”

Tom stilled, instantly alert. Orion’s body went rigid beside him.

Walburga Black stood in the middle of the path, her gloved hands clenched tightly around a fur-lined muff. Her lips were twisted in a sneer, curls pulled tight beneath her winter hood. Flanking her were three Slytherin girls—Antonia Warrington, Grace Goyle, and Octavia Rowle, all watching with sharp-eyed malice. The wind whipped her cloak dramatically, as if nature itself conspired to make her entrance more theatrical.

“So that’s why my dear cousin has been so eager to defend a mudblood,” Walburga continued, her voice rising stridently. “And here I thought Riddle was just helping you avoid failing your classes. But no—of course not. You’re a filthy blood traitor now.”

Her words hung in the cold air like frostbite. A few other students slowed nearby, sensing the tension.

Orion bristled but said nothing. His jaw was clenched tight, a faint flush rising to his cheeks.

“Just wait until your parents hear,” she hissed, eyes flashing. “Holding hands with a mudblood. You think they’ll find that charming? Or maybe—maybe they won’t even care. Maybe they already know you’re a disgrace.”

Tom felt something sharp twist inside him. He stepped forward, calm, composed, smiling just slightly. “You ought to be careful, Walburga. Your teeth are chattering. Could be the cold.” His tone was pleasant, but he allowed his magic to flow from him, making the air heavy and thick. “Could be that your body knows better than your mind and is trying to warn you not to cross me.”

She snapped toward him like a whip. “You think you belong with us, Riddle? You don’t. You’re nothing more than a nasty little rat. Charming, perhaps. Bright, but still vermin. Do you honestly think anyone actually respects you? You’re a pest, not a peer.”

Before Tom could respond, another voice cut in—cool and crisp.

“Isn’t this getting rather stale?”

They all turned to see Abraxas Malfoy standing with his hands in his pockets, expression coolly disinterested. His blond hair was dusted with snow, and he looked, as always, as though he’d stepped out of a painting.

“Riddle has clearly proven he belongs in Slytherin,” Malfoy said lazily. “Whatever the Hat saw, whatever the professors see, it clearly outweighs his blood. So unless you’re planning to go tell Dippet that the Hat got it wrong, you ought to stop embarrassing yourself.”

Walburga stared at him as if he’d slapped her. She recovered quickly, to Tom’s disappointment.

“You’re one to talk of embarrassing oneself,” she spat. “You’ve been leaning on your father’s name so long, Malfoy, that you’ve forgotten how to stand without it. And now look at you. Dangerously close to being thrown off the Quidditch team, fumbling in class, letting some mudblood upstart show you up in Potions.”

Malfoy’s jaw twitched, just slightly. Tom could see the burn of humiliation in his pale cheeks, but to his credit he didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, he only looked at her with faint pity.

“How tiresome you are.”

Walburga went still. Her eyes narrowed, lips thin and white.

Rowle and Warrington shifted nervously behind her, but said nothing. The silence stretched.

Then, with a dismissive toss of her head, Walburga turned and stalked off into the snow, her friends trailing after her.

Tom let out a quiet breath. Orion hadn’t moved; he was staring after her, shoulders rigid with lingering rage.

Malfoy turned to Tom, gave him a brief nod, and walked away without another word.

Tom blinked after him, momentarily stunned. The Malfoy heir had just defended him, publicly. It would’ve felt like a trap if not for the strange, weary conviction in his voice.

“You alright?” Tom asked softly.

Orion nodded. “She’s just…” He shuddered. “She’s a nightmare. I dread it when we have to visit that side of the family.”

They started walking again, the snow crunching under their boots.

“I should’ve said something sooner,” Orion said at last, sighing. “Should’ve hexed her on the spot.”

Tom shook his head. “You didn’t need to.” 

And he meant it. Because Walburga’s fury had said more than any duel could: Tom Riddle was no longer just tolerated in Slytherin. He was defended.

He smiled fondly as Orion turned the discussion to Quidditch; he knew Orion would tell Alphard about what happened this afternoon, and Walburga would probably pay for it one way or another.

It seemed that over the past several months, Tom had become too powerful to cross and too important to ignore. 

Chapter Text

21 January, 1941

The fire in the Slytherin common room was roaring by the time Tom and Orion stepped inside, shaking snow from their cloaks like two very dramatic, very well-dressed dogs. The lake above shimmered in the ceiling, casting the dungeons in a greenish hue that made the firelight flicker like dragonfire.

Livia and Ruby had claimed a prime spot near the hearth, nestled into a couch with cocoa in their hands and gossip at their lips. Livia had her legs curled beneath her, while Ruby had her legs thrown casually over the armrest like a cat who owned the place. Ruby looked up as they entered and gave a low whistle.

“Well, look who decided to grace us with their presence,” she said, lifting her mug in greeting. “Back from your romantic getaway?”

Tom arched an eyebrow, brushing melting snowflakes from the collar of his cloak. “If by romantic, you mean frostbitten and accosted by a banshee in a student’s body, then yes.”

Orion flopped onto the hearthrug with a dramatic groan. “My dear cousin Walburga. The living embodiment of a Howler.”

“She found you?” Livia asked, wide-eyed. “We were hoping you’d managed to give her the slip.”

“Oh, she found us all right,” Orion said, standing with exaggerated theatrics as if to deliver a monologue. “And lo, her fury was great. She denounced me as a blood-traitor, accused Tom of contaminating the noble House of Black by proximity, and promised to alert the press—or at least my uncle.”

Ruby leaned forward. “You’re joking.”

“Not even Orion’s jokes are that ridiculous,” Tom said dryly, unwrapping his scarf. “She’s developed a real flair for the theatrical. I think the steam from her ears melted a foot of snow.”

“But then,” Orion said, grinning, “just as she was working herself into a proper villainous lather… Malfoy appeared.”

Livia and Ruby exchanged a glance. Ruby nearly dropped her mug. “Abraxas Malfoy?”

Tom nodded, settling into a nearby chair with practiced grace. “The very same. He told her to give it a rest. Said I’d proved myself and it was growing tiresome watching her have a tantrum every time I opened my mouth.”

“He even called her tiresome,” Orion added gleefully.

Livia’s jaw dropped. “Did she faint? Combust? Hex him into next week?”

“She went for the jugular,” Tom said. “Mocked his Quidditch performance.”

“Oof,” Ruby winced. “Cold.”

“She said, and I quote,” Orion said, slipping into a cruel falsetto, “‘You’ve been leaning on your father’s name too long, and now you’ve fallen over.’” He paused, then added cheerfully, “Which, if nothing else, is objectively funny.”

Livia blinked. “And Malfoy just took that?”

“Oh no,” Tom said, smirking faintly. “He turned bright red and looked like he’d vanish. But still. Points for effort.”

“Can we go back to the part where Malfoy defended you?” Ruby asked, pointing her mug accusingly at Tom. “I need a second to recalibrate my entire understanding of Slytherin politics.”

“It surprised me too,” Tom admitted thoughtfully. “But I suppose everyone’s full of surprises.”

“Some more than others,” Orion muttered, eyeing him sidelong.

Tom nudged him lightly with his boot. “Careful, or I’ll start believing you actually like spending time with me.”

Ruby groaned. “Ugh. Disgusting. I liked it better when you were both pretending you weren’t inseparable.”

“We’re still pretending,” Tom said innocently. “We’re just less convincing now.”

Orion shot him a look, and Ruby howled with laughter.

The fire cracked. Outside, the lake shifted like a sleeping beast. For the moment, everything in their little corner of the world was warm, ridiculous, and deeply familiar.

Tom let himself sink into it. He tilted his head back, eyes half-lidded, and murmured, “To Slytherins. Vicious, vain, and somehow still delightful.”

“Cheers,” Orion said, raising an invisible glass.

“Here’s to Walburga losing sleep over us,” Livia added.

“To Abraxas, shockingly useful,” Ruby said with mock solemnity.

And with that, they fell into the kind of laughter that only best friends share—sharp-edged, self-aware, and absolutely unstoppable.

30 January, 1941

The dormitory was bathed in shadows, the green-tinged glow of the lake casting flickering patterns across the ceiling. The soft sound of water lapping against enchanted stone filled the silence between the even breathing of sleeping boys.

Tom shifted beneath the hangings of Orion’s four-poster bed, pulling the curtain closed with care. They’d timed it as they always did; Greengrass snored the loudest after an evening of studying, Flint never stirred once he was out, Malfoy used silencing charms because he couldn’t sleep otherwise, and Parkinson mumbled when he dreamed but never woke.

“You’re freezing,” Orion whispered as Tom climbed in beside him, both of them in sleep shirts and warm socks, tucked close under Orion’s thick quilt.

“It’s warmer in here,” Tom murmured, brushing the tip of his nose against Orion’s cheek. “And quieter.”

“You’re always quiet,” Orion said with a smile. “Except when you’re telling me I’ve misquoted a footnote.”

Tom scoffed lightly, amused. “That only happened once.”

“It was twice,” Orion teased.

Tom leaned in, eyes half-lidded. “Would you like me to correct you again?”

Orion didn’t answer. He kissed him instead—soft, brief, a little awkward the way first kisses always are. But they both smiled into it.

Another kiss followed. Then another. Still soft. Still careful. A laugh bubbled in Tom’s chest, stifled by the hush of the room and the strange, aching thrill of being so near someone and not needing to hide.

“You’re smiling,” Orion whispered, grinning.

“You kissed me,” Tom whispered back.

They settled into silence again, shoulder to shoulder, barely touching but sharing warmth in the cold green dark. Eventually, Orion’s breathing evened. Tom remained awake a little longer, watching the play of light across the curtains and wondering how something this simple could feel so extraordinary. Tom was careful and quiet when he slipped back into his own bed, but his smile and blushing cheeks warmed the cold space well enough.

February, 1941

Tom sat on the icy bleachers, a well-worn book resting open on his lap, though he hadn’t turned a page in quite some time. His gaze was fixed instead on Orion, who raced through the pale sky like a firework in green and silver. Every roll, every dive seemed designed to dazzle.

“Show-off,” Alphard muttered, glancing down from where he hovered a few meters above the stands on his broomstick. His Beater’s bat rested casually on his shoulder, a perfect counterweight to his sharp grin. “Only flies like that when he knows you’re watching.”

“I imagine it’s good training,” Tom replied smoothly, though he felt a rare warmth settle in his chest. “Dodging Bludgers and hearts.”

Alphard snorted. “He’ll be dodging a broken nose if he drops the Quaffle again today.”

Tom smiled faintly, tilting his chin upward just in time to see Orion corkscrew into a controlled dive, snatch the Quaffle from a trailing fourth-year reserve Chaser, and soar off again.

Across the pitch, Walburga rocketed by with her bat gripped like a cudgel. She’d already taken out one of the school’s practice Bludgers and seemed to be aiming for a second. When her eyes met Tom’s, she sneered openly.

“I think she likes me,” Tom murmured dryly.

“My sister wants to feed you to the grindylows,” Alphard replied, shaking his head. “She’s been especially obnoxious lately. If you hexed her broom midair, I might look the other way. So long as she can still fly in our next match, of course.”

Tom gave no answer, but his fingers drifted across the spine of his book in a way that suggested he’d thought about it.

Further above, Abraxas Malfoy darted past on a warm-up lap, the wind whipping his hair. His body was taut with concentration, and he flew tighter and cleaner than he had the previous term. Every movement spoke of discipline.

Tom noted it, just as he noted the way the others followed his lead now. Whatever had happened over the holidays, Abraxas had returned determined to earn his place—not rest on it.

On the pitch below, Orion glanced back toward the stands. His grin split wide when he caught Tom watching.

Tom pretended to return to his book.

March, 1941

The library was unusually warm that afternoon, the long windows fogged with condensation from spring rains pattering against the glass. Tom had chosen his usual table near the far shelves. It was quiet, slightly hidden, and with perfect afternoon light. He was two chapters into an advanced potions text when a familiar shadow fell across the pages.

“Late start?” Tom asked without looking up.

Orion dropped into the chair opposite him, his hair still damp from a post-practice shower, and gave an exaggerated sigh. “I fear I may be developing a newfound love of studying. Tragic, isn’t it?”

Tom raised an eyebrow. “Orion Black, notorious slacker, falling in love with books. I never saw the day coming.”

“You’re a terrible influence,” Orion shot back, slouching just enough to scandalize the glaring librarian from afar. “A few weeks ago, I could barely finish my essays on time. Now I’m practically color-coding my notes.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Tom murmured, but the smile tugging at his lips betrayed his pleasure.

Orion leaned forward across the table, chin on his hand. “You’re just annoyed because I’ll finally start beating you on exams.”

Tom leaned in as well, voice low and playful. “Orion, darling, if I were annoyed, you’d already know. I’d be three questions ahead of you and quietly circling your mistakes.”

Orion blinked once. “You are terrifying.”

Tom shrugged. “And yet, here you are.”

Beneath the table, their knees touched for the briefest second. Neither of them moved.

14 March, 1941

Professor Dumbledore paced slowly between the rows of desks, his fuschia robes swishing brightly with each step. At the front of the room, teapots stood in neat rows, awaiting their transformation into small, living creatures. A classic exercise, yes, but not an easy one.

Tom was already watching his tortoise blink contentedly up at him, its shell a perfect porcelain white.

Across the aisle, Orion stared at his own teapot, brow furrowed. A few sparks had shot from his wand, and the spout had twisted into what might’ve been a foot. Possibly. But then, with a whispered correction and a surprisingly deft flick, the teapot gave a soft pop and settled into a tortoise with delicate coppery markings.

Tom raised his eyebrows in surprise.

Dumbledore had seen it, too. He paused behind Orion’s shoulder and nodded once, gravely. “Five points to Slytherin, Mr. Black. That is a rather elegant shell.”

Orion beamed, and Tom leaned over slightly, voice quiet. “Studying is paying off, isn’t it?”

Orion grinned. “Told you. Terrible influence.”

18 March, 1941

Breakfast in the Great Hall was quieter than usual, the deep chill of an unseasonably cold March morning slowing most students into sleepier rhythms. Outside the tall, frost-laced windows, snow had begun to fall, fine and powdery. Inside, the air was warm, scented with toast and stewed apples, and the soft clink of silverware echoed off the high, enchanted ceiling.

Tom was already halfway through a cup of tea and reading a folded copy of The Daily Prophet someone had left behind, its ink slightly smudged. Ruby and Livia flanked him, discussing Transfiguration theory with the half-hearted energy of girls more interested in people than spells.

Livia had just asked Tom a question about basic switching spells (he answered without looking up) when Orion Black finally ambled into the hall, hair tousled, tie half-done, and a deeply annoyed look on his face.

“Morning,” Ruby chirped, barely hiding her grin.

Orion muttered something that sounded like it’s too early to be alive, and dropped onto the bench beside Tom, grabbing himself a piece of toast and leaning into his shoulder with a lazy familiarity that made both girls glance at one another.

“Honestly,” Tom said without looking away from the newspaper, “you’re barely functional until eleven.”

“And yet,” Orion said with a smirk, “you still like me.”

Tom’s lips twitched. “Debatable.”

That earned a chuckle from Livia, who sipped her pumpkin juice while her gaze darted between them, sharp and curious.

Ruby didn’t even bother with subtlety. “You two’ve been quite chummy lately.”

“Have we?” Tom asked innocently, folding the paper and setting it aside.

“Oh, please,” she said, grinning. “You disappear together half the time. And last night you spent thirty minutes in the common room pretending to be reading Hogwarts: A History while he was practically in your lap.”

“That book is very informative,” Tom said mildly.

Orion, who was now lazily spooning jam onto another piece of toast, grinned with reddening cheeks. “Riveting stuff.”

Tom glanced sideways at him, voice just dry enough to raise Livia’s eyebrow. “You didn’t seem bored when I read it to you the other night.”

Ruby coughed, nearly choking on her eggs.

There was a beat of stunned silence. Then Livia let out a low whistle. “You two are actually together. You’ve been sneaking off to snog.”

Tom said nothing, but the amused gleam in his eyes said everything.

Orion leaned back with a satisfied stretch, arms behind his head. “Well, they do say you should learn from the best.”

Ruby gaped at them. “When? How? Where?”

Tom took a delicate sip of his tea to his growing smile. “A gentleman never tells.”

“But you are not a gentleman!” Ruby exclaimed.

Orion laughed and bumped his knee against Tom’s under the table.

Livia, still studying them, tilted her head. “You really ought to be more discreet. Not everyone’s going to find it as charming as we do.”

“We’re not giving them any concrete proof,” Tom said smoothly. “People can gossip all they like, and they always seem to do so where either of us is concerned.”

Ruby hesitated, then asked softly, “Even your family, Orion?”

Orion shrugged, still relaxed. “They don’t care what I do. Alphard is the heir. I’m nothing but the entertaining cousin they trot out at parties. As long as I look good and don’t make a scene, they’re content.”

Tom turned to look at him, just for a moment. There was something like sadness in his eyes, quickly buried beneath his usual calm.

“You’re not nothing,” he said quietly.

Orion smiled, a bit more sad this time. “Neither are you.”

There was another silence, warmer this time.

Livia blinked. “Merlin. This is the softest I’ve ever seen either of you.”

“I need to hex something just to balance the mood,” Ruby muttered.

Tom laughed, and it was real, unguarded.

He didn’t notice the way all three of his friends turned toward him at once, as if that sound had startled them. As if they’d never heard it quite like that before.

20 April, 1941

The first real warmth of spring had settled over the castle like a long-awaited sigh. Beneath a pale blue sky brushed with soft clouds, the grounds were beginning to bloom. Crocuses were clustering near the greenhouses, yellow daffodils nodding along the castle walls. The lake shimmered in the sunlight, no longer rimmed with ice, and a warm breeze stirred the tall grass on the hills.

Tom sat beneath one of the budding trees on the slope near the Black Lake, legs stretched out in front of him, a thick volume concerning pre-Ministry British magical law propped open on his knees.

Orion was sprawled in the grass beside him, arms folded behind his head, eyes closed against the sun. He’d removed his cloak and rolled up his sleeves, and admittedly the spring air was finally warm enough to tempt even Tom into shedding layers. A lazy smile pulled at Orion’s lips.

“Are you pretending to read, or do you just enjoy the feel of parchment against your skin?” Orion asked, cracking one eye open.

“I find the act of reading in your presence increasingly difficult,” Tom retorted, though the edge in his tone was softened by the faintest curve of his mouth.

Orion tilted his head toward him. “Ah, so you’re saying I’m distracting.”

“I’m saying you’re incorrigible,” Tom said, nudging him lightly with his knee. “But yes. That, too.”

A short distance away, Ruby and Livia were plaiting wildflowers into each other’s hair, talking in low voices punctuated by laughter. Ruby had insisted the quartet take advantage of the weather, and Tom (though he’d rolled his eyes) had not protested too much. Especially after Orion had bumped his shoulder on the way down to the lake and whispered, “Come on, it’s practically romantic.”

They weren’t entirely alone. Other students dotted the lawn in little clusters—revising, laughing, dozing—but the open air made it feel like they had the world to themselves.

“You know,” Orion said lazily, eyes still on the sky, “we never had a proper second date.”

Tom glanced down at him. “Did we have a proper first?”

“You asked me to Hogsmeade,” Orion pointed out. “You wore that ridiculous white shirt I said I liked.”

“It’s a perfectly good shirt,” Tom retorted, his cheeks reddening.

“It’s frayed at the shoulder.”

“It is not. I mended it myself.”

Orion grinned. “See? Perfectly romantic.”

Tom shook his head but smiled despite himself. “I suppose that makes this our second, then.”

Orion turned to face him fully, propped up on one elbow. “Hmm. I thought it was more of a spring outing with chaperones.”

Tom’s lips twitched. “If you’re implying that Ruby counts as a chaperone, she just tried to braid dandelions into a snake. I wouldn’t trust her to supervise a rock.”

“I’d trust her more than I’d trust us alone in the dorm again,” Orion said, not bothering to keep the mischief from his tone.

Tom’s face flushed ever so slightly, the kind of quiet color he normally kept buried behind his cool composure. “You’re not helping my focus.”

“That’s the idea,” Orion murmured, reaching up to pluck a petal from Tom’s collar where it had settled.

From the distance, Ruby called, “Are you two coming to help me make a crown for Livia, or are you just going to flirt under a tree like you’re in a painting?”

Tom rolled his eyes and stood, offering Orion a hand. “Come on, Romeo. Let’s go make flower crowns.”

Orion grinned and took it.

Chapter Text

20 April, 1941

The castle in spring held a kind of humming stillness. Outside, the air had softened with blossoming flowers; lilacs curled on the edges of the courtyard, and the scent of warmed stone drifted in through a few opened windows. But here, just outside the library, shadows pooled like ink across the flagstones, and the silence carried more weight.

Tom turned the corner alone, his book held close to his chest, fingers absently smoothing the frayed binding. He hadn’t needed to return it yet, but he’d wanted a moment away. From Livia’s knowing smiles. From Orion’s teasing fingers twining through the hem of his sleeve. From Ruby’s unrelenting spring cheer. From the brightness of everything blooming.

He slowed his pace when he saw her.

Agatha Malfoy leaned too casually against the wall beside the heavy oak library doors, her hair, a pale waterfall of silvery blond waves, tucked behind one ear. A book on esoteric rune theory rested, forgotten, in one hand. The late afternoon light caught in her icy blue eyes. She wore elegant spring robes in pale green, with a dark blue skirt and crisp white blouse underneath. She wasn’t looking at him yet.

When she did, her expression didn’t change, but something passed over her eyes. Recognition. Resignation. Something sadder.

They stared at one another for a few moments.

“I thought you’d be out on the lawn,” Agatha said at last, voice carefully casual. “Sunning yourself with your little entourage. Isn’t that what Orion Black’s around for these days? Fetching flowers and falling over himself to impress you?”

Tom’s lips parted, just slightly. “My friends wanted to walk the grounds. I needed to return this.”

She nodded, eyes flicking to the book tucked casually under his arm. “Always the model student.”

“I do try.” His classic winning smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Fabian Lestrange rounded the corner then, his swagger as pronounced as ever, though his eyes flicked between them with open suspicion. He sauntered forward and placed his hand on the curve of Agatha’s waist like it belonged there.

She didn’t move.

Tom’s jaw tightened.

“Didn’t know you were keeping company, Aggie,” Lestrange said, flashing Tom a humorless grin. “Riddle.”

“Lestrange.” Tom inclined his head, forcing a sunny smile.

Fabian chuckled. “You always seem to be popping up where you’re least wanted.”

“I was just heading to the library,” Tom said, cool as polished glass. “Excuse me.”

“Leaving so soon with your tail between your legs, Riddle?” Lestrange challenged.

Tom turned, reluctantly.

Agatha’s eyes met his, cool and unreadable beneath her curtain of pale hair, which glinted faintly in the spring sun.

She tilted her chin ever so slightly. “You’ve been quiet lately.”

“So have you,” Tom said, his voice carefully even. “But perhaps that’s the natural course of things.”

Lestrange’s smirk sharpened. “Funny how people find their place in the end.”

Tom ignored him. His gaze remained fixed on Agatha.

“Orion isn’t very good at pretending to be unaffected,” she said coolly, flicking an invisible piece of lint from her sleeve. “He looks at you like you’ve hung the moon, and everyone’s noticed. Even you couldn’t be that blind.” Though her words were mild, the bite behind them was clear.

Tom’s heart gave a single, traitorous thump, but his expression remained smooth. “Is that what bothers you?”

Agatha’s laugh was soft and sharp. “Hardly. I just didn’t think you’d settle for someone so easily impressed.”

He could have said something cruel. He was tempted.

But instead he asked, “Why wait for me here, then?”

For the first time, she looked uncertain. Her eyes flicked down to the book in her hand, then back to him.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Habit, I suppose.”

He appraised her with a sympathetic eye. The shadows beneath her eyes, the tension in her jaw. Something in him softened, even though it shouldn’t have.

“You still read outside the library like you’re waiting for me to interrupt you.”

She smiled faintly, but it vanished almost immediately. “You interrupted a lot of things.”

Tom stepped back, nodding once.

“Happy spring, Agatha.”

He turned.

She watched him go, the weight of unsaid things hanging heavy between them. When the door creaked closed behind him, she exhaled slowly, her knuckles pale around the book’s spine.

The echo of Tom’s footsteps faded down the corridor, swallowed by the low hum of castle voices and the rustling wind outside the leaded windows.

Fabian let out a soft snort.

“Well,” he said, his voice a mix of disdain and amusement, “wasn’t that just dripping with adolescent drama?”

Agatha didn’t answer. She turned her eyes back to the book she had been holding. 

The most important elements of a non-reciprocal runic array are those which ground it. That is, those denoting the time and location of— 

Fabian gently lowered her book leaned closer, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“Riddle looked at you like a wounded poet. He thinks he’s something special because he caught the eye of the Black family disappointment.” Fabian scoffed. “Don’t you remember when Orion was a good boy who respected the sanctity of pure wizarding blood? Now look at him, mudblood Riddle’s pathetic little lapdog, always—What’s the word? Panting. Yes, that’s just it. He’s a panting little dog, begging for a scrap of attention.”

She sighed, low and long, and closed her book with a snap. “Fabian.”

He ignored the warning. “It’s almost sweet, if you don’t think about how pathetic it is. Orion Black, of all people—preening and singing like he’s Tom Riddle’s prized songbird. And Riddle…” He folded his arms. “Greedy little brown-noser, isn’t he? One minute everyone sees him for what he is, the next he’s being carried around the common room like he’s the bloody Heir of Slytherin. It’s an absolute disgrace!”

“Enough.”

Fabian tilted his head, eyebrows arched. “Struck a nerve?”

She finally looked at him. Her icy blue eyes narrowed just slightly, but her voice stayed even. “No. I’m just tired of your commentary. Once is enough.”

He gave a short laugh. “Most girls would shred their finest cloaks just to be on my arm.”

“Then perhaps you should ask one of them to be on your arm instead,” Agatha retorted coolly.

For a moment, there was quiet between them. Fabian’s smirk faltered. He shifted against the wall and glanced toward the end of the corridor where Tom had vanished.

“You know,” he said, tone lower now, almost dangerous, “for someone who insists she doesn’t care, you waited here for nearly ten minutes.”

She didn’t respond.

“Agatha.”

“Let it go,” she said, just a hint of pleading in her voice.

Fabian watched her a moment longer, then shrugged and turned toward the stairs. He gazed at her over his shoulder, haughty expression back on his face once more.

“As you like. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. Nothing good can come from associating with mudbloods.”

Then he walked away, boots tapping against the stone.

Agatha remained where she was, eyes on the heavy doors of the library as the students continued shuffling around her. She stood still, expression unreadable, her fingers clenched around the spine of her book.

Chapter Text

20 April, 1941

The common room was quiet when Tom stepped inside, bathed in a greenish glow that shimmered gently across the stone walls like sunlight refracted through deep water. The sconces had been lit, casting flickering shadows across velvet-cushioned chairs and shelves of dusty volumes. A few second-years muttered over a chessboard near the hearth. Someone yawned from a window seat, curled beside a pile of books and a sleeping cat.

Tom entered like he always did: composed, graceful, perfectly unbothered. His robes draped neatly from his shoulders, his hair gleamed faintly in the low light, and the book he carried, still unread, tucked beneath one arm, gave him the air of a scholar returning from a thoughtful stroll.

He offered a polite nod to Livia as he passed her curled on a divan, and returned Ruby’s smirk with an even one of his own. No one gave him a second glance. No one could tell.

Orion was sprawled near the fireplace, one long leg tucked beneath him, the other stretched across the rug. He’d shed his outer robe, lounging in shirtsleeves with ink smudged faintly at his wrist. His Charms textbook lay open across his lap, but he wasn’t reading it; he was watching Tom.

“You’re late,” he said with a grin, tilting his head back lazily. “What’d you do, get lost in the Restricted Section?”

Tom hummed as he sat down beside him, adjusting his robes with casual precision. “Something like that.”

“You didn’t even bring anything new.” Orion nudged the edge of the closed book under Tom’s arm with his knuckles. “Same old theory text.”

Tom smiled. “It’s still worth rereading.”

Orion gave him a longer look now. His smile faltered, just slightly, the corners of his mouth twitching as if he were puzzling something out. He leaned in a bit.

“You’re doing that thing.”

Tom arched an eyebrow. “What thing?”

“That thing where you pretend you’re fine, but your shoulders get too straight, and your voice gets very level.”

“I always speak levelly.”

“Exactly.”

Tom’s lips curved faintly, but he didn’t reply.

Orion shifted closer. His voice was lower now, pitched just for the space between them. “Was it her?”

Tom didn’t ask how he knew. Of course he knew.

He looked toward the fire, where the embers were burning low, casting flickering shapes on the rug. “She waited outside the library. Said some things. Nothing I didn’t already know.”

Orion was silent for a beat.

“Do I need to hex her?”

Tom laughed under his breath, the sound sharp but brief. “No.”

“You’d tell me if I did?”

“Probably not.”

Orion tilted his head, studying him. “You don’t have to pretend you’re all right, you know.”

Tom let his hands rest neatly in his lap, still and composed. Only the faintest tension in his jaw betrayed him. “It’s easier this way.”

Orion nodded slowly, a smile growing on his face. “Well, you can be as composed as you like, Riddle. But you’re still stuck with me.”

Tom turned toward him then, and the look in his eyes softened for the first time. Not theatrical, not calculated. Just quiet, grateful for the feeling of being seen and cared for that Orion always managed to impart on him.

“I know.”

“Good,” Orion replied with a grin.

Stormy gray eyes met deep brown, Orion’s expression just patient and grounding, steady. He slowly reached out a hand to where Tom’s own sat neatly clasped. Tom felt his heart beat just a little faster as Orion gently entwined their hands. Orion’s fingers warmed Tom’s cold ones, and immediately, Tom felt the ache in his chest ease just a bit.

Before he could lose his nerve, Tom lifted their entwined hands and softly pressed his lips to soft skin on the back of Orion’s hand. He felt his own cheeks flush as Orion’s grin became just a tad lopsided. Tom just smiled back, uncaring of the fact he probably looked just as flushed and dazed as his boyfriend (and if that word didn’t send the best kind of jitters to his stomach!).

A pause stretched between them, full of warmth and that fluttery feeling of young love. Then Orion leaned in closer, voice lighter now.

“Besides, you’re much prettier when you’re brooding.”

Tom made a noise halfway between a scoff and a laugh. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You like that about me.”

Tom didn’t deny it, instead closing the distance between them and pressing their lips together for just a heartbeat—just long enough to show his approval and bring a satisfying flush to Orion’s handsome face.

The fire cracked beside them, and the whispers in the room resumed their gentle drone. From the outside, nothing had changed. But between the two of them—beneath the calm, beneath the mask—something warmer had bloomed.

21 April, 1941

The scent of old parchment and polished wood hung heavy in the air of the Ancient Runes classroom. Along one side, stained glass windows cast runic shapes across the floor, all flickering and twisting as if alive.

Professor Tyber Aesalon was a narrow-shouldered man with a pronounced stoop and hair the shade of old parchment. His eyes, however, were sharp and bright behind his round glasses, and his voice—when he chose to use it—cut like a knife through even the thickest fog of adolescent inattention.

Today, though, all eyes were fixed forward.

Because today was Tom Riddle’s presentation.

The term had centered around ritual frameworks and their evolution from early Norse magical theory. Each student had been asked to study a known seasonal ritual and propose modifications based on historical precedent, personal research, and magical law. Most would speak for five minutes.

Tom was granted twenty.

He stood now at the front of the classroom before a low ceremonial altar—nothing more than a wide slate basin he had marked chalk with runes to match the intricate circle he had drawn on the floor. The air shimmered faintly with the gathering magic. 

Several students sat straighter. Ruby Rosier had her chin propped on her hand, watching with undisguised interest. Oleander Parkinson was whispering to Lavinia Yaxley, until a look from Professor Aesalon reduced them to silence.

Tom was composed as ever, his uniform immaculate with his sleeves rolled once at the wrist and his stance tall and confident.

“Today I’ll be demonstrating a modified version of the Ritual of Sigrblót,” he began, voice measured, “originally performed as an early summer offering to ensure victory in battle and a fruitful agricultural season.”

A few students perked up. Victory in battle? That sounded promising.

“But rather than employing traditional sacrificial methods,” he continued, “I have adapted this version to focus on internal transformation: the sharpening of the mind for examinations, the cultivation of clarity, and the purification of intent. The symbolism, the elemental invocation, and of course the carved runes shall remain largely unchanged from the original ritual apart from my modifications to ensure its proper functioning in this new context.”

Professor Aesalon gave a small, approving nod. “An ambitious transposition. Continue.”

Tom touched the edge of the slate basin with his wand. Slowly, the chalk runes began to glow—first a pale gold, then deepening to a rich amber. He continued speaking, even as he moved around the circle.

“The ritual’s core structure aligns with the seasonal axis of spring to early summer, where light overcomes darkness. Each runic activation is keyed not to sacrifice, but to symbolic substitution of objects freely given—a feather for swiftness, sage for clarity, and bloodroot for endurance.”

He opened a small wooden box and laid out the items: a fine black feather, a dried sprig of sage, and a root with a vivid red core.

Each was placed with meticulous precision into the basin. He murmured a few of the traditional ritual’s phrases with the introduction of each item—words of intent in ancient Norse. He prayed his pronunciation was at least passable, though he knew his intentions mattered far more to this sort of magic than the words he spoke.

“Traditionally,” Tom added as the objects glowed a deep, satisfying red within the basin, “this rite is performed at dawn to represent the beginning of summer. But with a few adjustments to the temporal runes and appropriate solar amplification—” He gestured to the charmed windows and an enchanted mirror angled to catch the warm spring sun—“we can invoke a similar power output with an afternoon aspect, if my calculations are correct.”

He waved his wand once, and the mirror caught the sun’s glow in a brilliant flare—focusing the light through a triangular crystal, refracting it directly into the runic basin.

The glow surged.

The runes Tom had written in chalk at the beginning of class pulsed not just golden now but pulsing red and green, and a faint hum filled the room. The air shifted—charged, metallic. A few students instinctively leaned forward in their seats.

Tom chanted his invocation of the sun three times, and the bright light steadied as Tom felt the telltale prickle of powerful ritual magic flowing through his body. He breathed it in for a few moments before he spoke to the class again.

“This variant focuses not on supplication to Odin but on the assertion of personal will. The practitioner does not beg gods for wisdom or victory. He instead becomes worthy of it and takes it for himself.”

The ritual completed with a soft chime, and a faint ring of runes lifted into the air, orbiting the basin in a slow, glowing circle before fading into nothingness.

Silence.

Then: “Mr. Riddle,” Professor Aesalon said, walking forward slowly, “would you care to share the texts you used for this derivation?”

Tom answered readily. “For the circle, I referenced Runes and Their Practical Applications by Svengard, The Shifting Wheel by Hawthorne, and for the language of the ritual, I employed fragments from the traditional Sigrblót rite recorded in Nordic Blood and Song—Cinderford’s 1798 translation.”

Professor Aesalon looked faintly delighted. “And your seasonal corrections?”

“Tested against the Vernal Equinox Model and refined using tide tables and sunrise charts from the Hogwarts archives.”

A slow breath escaped the professor. “Remarkable. Your application of symbolic substitutions shows deep comprehension. Rare in one your age.”

Tom’s lips curled into the faintest smile. “Thank you, sir.”

As Tom stepped away from the altar, several of his classmates looked at him with new eyes. Not just as the clever orphan boy. But as something else. Someone impressive and enviable.

Abraxas Malfoy said nothing, but his eyes lingered. Livia Nott looked proud, and Ruby Rosier gave Tom a grin, as if to say I knew you’d be brilliant.

And as the students packed up, the faint scent of sage still hanging in the air, Professor Aesalon turned back to the basin and whispered a preservation charm over the runes, as though not quite ready to see them go.

Chapter Text

15 May, 1941

The Arithmancy classroom sat in the eastern turret, its circular walls lined with blackboards covered in spidery equations, matrices, and numerical diagrams so dense that even the most erudite Ravenclaws found them dizzying. Outside, the sky was cast in an unsettling gray-green light as dark clouds loomed. The air buzzed faintly with the static of an incoming spring storm.

At the chalkboard stood Professor Quillan Vex, a young wizard whose cuffs were perpetually ink-stained and whose dark hair often bore a wildness caused by nervous fingers. He wore his robes too long and muttered calculations under his breath like they were prayers. The students suspected he sometimes forgot to sleep, as evidenced by the dark circles beneath his hazel eyes.

“Today,” he said, tapping his wand against the board as the class settled, “we’re applying compound intention matrices to spell architecture. Specifically: how the function of  incantation, intent, and result can represent the outcome of an enchantment.”

Tom sat near the window, flanked by Livia Nott and Orion Black. His parchment was already unrolled, quill poised. His handwriting—sleek and angled—was immaculate as always.

Vex turned to the class, eyes sweeping over the room. “Who can explain the relationship between intent, incantation, and result in Arithmantic terms?”

A few students looked vaguely panicked. Livia glanced at Tom.

Vex motioned to Tom, who sat up straighter.

“At its most basic form, the relationship between intent, incantation, and result, as defined by Quick’s Theorem, can be represented Arithmantically as result being a function of incantation multiplied by intent, or by incantation being a function of result divided by intent. Intent, notated as a, serves as a coefficient of x, or incantation, which modifies both the intensity and shape of the resulting spell. But the inverse also applies; multiplying the desired result, f(x), by the coefficient of intent, a, can also alter the spell’s outcome.”

Professor Vex stared at him for a moment, blinking behind thick lenses. “Yes. Precisely.” He turned to the board. “Someone write that down before I forget it.”

There was a small murmur of amusement across the room. Orion nudged Tom with the edge of his boot under the table.

“Show-off,” he whispered, though his voice was fond.

Tom didn’t look at him, but the corners of his mouth twitched.

They worked through the first half of the class in silence, save for the scratching of quills and the occasional crack of thunder outside. Professor Vex drifted among them like a restless ghost, peering over shoulders and muttering, “No, no, we are not attempting to graph this function yet,” or “Intent, Miss Nott, not willpower. They’re subtly different and are represented by different variables.”

As they moved into partner work, Vex clapped his hands. “Pair up and construct a spell matrix that allows for delayed magical release of at least thirty seconds before collapse, and then provide an Arithmantic proof for a spell of a similar magical output using Quick’s Theorem.”

Livia shifted toward Amelia Bulstrode, already gathering her notes. That left Tom and Orion.

They exchanged a look.

Tom raised a brow.

Orion rolled his eyes. “Fine. But if you start quoting Wand Movements and the Calculus of Intent again, I’m leaving you to suffer alone.”

They spread their parchments between them. Orion’s handwriting was more careless than Tom’s, slanted and often smudged, but his instincts were sharp. He was far more talented than he let on, especially when focused.

As they worked, their arms brushed occasionally—an accidental slide of a sleeve, the faint pressure of knees under the table. Tom didn’t pull away. Something in him felt keenly aware of the distance—how little there was of it, and how easy it would be to fully close.

Orion paused halfway through drawing the matrix, his brow furrowed. “You used a Fibonacci progression in the delay line.”

“Yes,” Tom murmured, glancing over. “It stabilizes the pause before magical release. Keeps the spell from rupturing early.”

Orion tilted his head. “It’s…quite elegant, don’t you think?”

For a moment, the words hung between them.

Elegant.

It wasn’t a compliment like the others Tom had received all day—brilliant, clever, intimidating. This one was softer. More careful.

Tom looked up, and Orion was already watching him, cheeks flushing slightly.

There were footsteps nearby, the shuffle of Priscilla Corner rising to ask Professor Vex a question, the mutter of Honoria Dawnstride and Emily Church arguing over a numerical constant. But none of it pierced the strange, quiet thread stretched between them.

“I saw you in the courtyard yesterday,” Orion said softly. “After Ancient Runes.”

Tom blinked. “And?”

“You looked… happy. I don’t think I’ve seen that expression on you before.”

There was a faint smile at the corners of Orion’s mouth, but his tone wasn’t mocking. He was studying Tom with the same kind of intensity he brought to spellwork: like he was trying to solve something he didn’t yet understand.

Tom said nothing, but he didn’t look away.

When Professor Vex came around to inspect their work, he glanced once at the diagram, gave an impressed nod, and said simply, “Beautifully balanced. Seventy-five seconds of delay. That’s advanced-level spellcraft.”

Orion glanced sideways. “Told you it was elegant.”

Tom’s quill paused in his hand. And when he finished the final rune, his fingers brushed against Orion’s beneath the desk.

Neither of them moved.

22 May, 1941

The Charms classroom was filled with a pleasant golden glow, the high-paned windows thrown open to let in the breeze that carried in the smell of green grass and honeysuckle from the castle grounds. Desks were arranged in neat pairs, sunlight dappling over polished surfaces and notes half-scribbled. Third years filed in with varying levels of alertness—some yawning, some chattering, others flipping through last-minute notes.

Professor Raspin stood at the front of the room, her robes a deep maroon trimmed in pink, her wispy gray hair already escaping its pins. She wore spectacles that made her gaze sharp and unreadable. Though she was Hufflepuff’s Head of House and known for her fairness, she had little tolerance for laziness or excuses. Still, her voice was warm and well-modulated, and when she smiled, it reached her eyes.

Tom arrived early, as always, slipping into his usual seat between Orion and Ruby, who entered the classroom just behind him. By the time they settled beside him, his ink bottle was already uncorked, quill poised neatly, and wand resting on the desk beside his open textbook. 

Professor Raspin nodded at Tom approvingly as she began.

“Today we’ll be working on Amplifying Charms,” she said crisply. “These are subtle but incredibly useful for strengthening sound, light, or magical intensity. Used improperly, they’re rather dangerous to your eardrums and your pride. Used well, they’re quite elegant.” 

She raised her wand and gave a clean, circular flick. “Sonorus Particula.”

Her voice, already clear, boomed through the room like a bell in a cathedral. Her voice carried and echoed beautifully as she recited several lines of text written on the blackboard. She ended the spell with a flick of her wand, smiling. “Subtlety, of course, takes practice. Pair off.”

Tom found himself with Ruby, who grinned as she slid her wand from her sleeve.

“This’ll be fun,” she said. “I always forget how loud this one gets. Remember when Parkinson deafened himself in first year?”

“That was Flagrate,” Tom murmured, not looking up as he reviewed the wand movement diagrams in his notes. “But he deserved it.”

“True,” she said lightly, and then tried the spell on her own voice, only to produce a noise that sounded like echoey shrieking as she recited a mnemonic from Transfiguration. She laughed so hard she had to cancel the charm mid-cackle. “Your turn.”

Tom flicked his wand and recited the incantation in a calm, steady voice. As he recited a silly limerick about Quidditch that Orion had written last week, his voice amplified instantly—just a touch louder than normal, with a warm, resonant tone that filled the room without overwhelming it. Several heads turned. Professor Raspin, watching from across the room, raised her eyebrows.

“Excellent, Mr. Riddle,” she called. “Have you practiced this outside class?”

Tom inclined his head. “Only a little, Professor. I thought it might be useful for causing disorientation during duels.”

Professor Raspin’s expression warmed. “Forward-thinking, as usual. Perhaps you should consider tutoring some of your classmates. A few of them could use a steadier hand.”

Ruby elbowed him playfully, grinning. “Teacher’s pet.”

Tom smirked and returned to his notes.

Across the room, Orion was paired with Livia, who had just accidentally caused her voice to echo three times in quick succession.

Orion groaned, covering his ears.

“I sound like I’m announcing a bloody Quidditch match,” Livia muttered, trying to reverse it.

Professor Raspin was making her rounds now, offering brief corrections here and there, stopping occasionally to ask a student to try again. When she reached Tom and Ruby, she paused, looking between them.

“Miss Rosier,” she said, “would you mind stepping aside for a moment so Mr. Riddle can demonstrate an Amplification charm on a Lumos spell?”

Ruby stepped back with a dramatic bow. Tom raised his wand, cast Lumos, and then whispered the amplification charm, watching the soft light at the tip of his wand brighten gradually until it filled the nearby desks with brilliant clarity. It didn’t flicker or burst; it just glowed stronger, steadier.

Professor Raspin smiled. “Perfect. Precision and control. I daresay you’re well on your way to a perfect score in your practicals again this year.”

Tom inclined his head again, but something glimmered in his eyes: satisfaction, carefully cloaked.

When she moved on, Ruby leaned in and said, “You’re actually glowing.”

“I’m allowed to enjoy being good at something,” he said mildly, flicking the light away with a twist of his fingers.

“Sure,” she said with a smirk. “But don’t pretend it’s not about the attention.”

He didn’t respond to that, because she wasn’t wrong.

At the end of class, Professor Raspin called out just before they left, “Mr. Riddle, if you’re willing, I’d like you to assist with the first-years next week. I know my first-year class falls during your study hall, and I won’t take up all of your time. The first-years could really use some help with their unlocking spells this year. Your wandwork would serve as a good example for them.”

“Of course, Professor,” he said smoothly, gathering his things.

Orion sidled up as they left. “Teacher’s pet,” he echoed Ruby. “You’re lucky you’re brilliant. Otherwise we’d have to hex you out of spite.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Tom replied, and though it was a joke, there was a glint in his eye that hinted he might actually enjoy it.

Orion only laughed.

28 May, 1941

The Defense classroom always had a restless air to it, like the very walls were listening for danger. Tall windows let in light dulled by protective enchantments, and the shelves that lined the room brimmed with dusty tomes, relics, and the occasional cage that sometimes rattled on its own.

Professor Galatea Merrythought was at the center of it all: lean, silver-haired, and sharp-eyed. A former Auror with a spine like steel, she had taught Defense for nearly a decade and before that had seen more dark magic than most wizards ever read about. Her robes were dark and clean cut, and her boots had reinforced toes meant for kicking cursed artifacts into storage chests. Students respected her because they knew she wouldn’t hesitate to throw them across the room if they got sloppy—and she’d do it with love.

“Today we’re covering lycanthropy,” she said, striding to the front of the classroom with a rolled parchment under one arm and a heavy book under the other. “And more importantly, how to try and survive an encounter with a werewolf.”

That got their attention. Several students sat up straighter. Orion nudged Tom, who merely continued unpacking his notes with efficient ease.

Merrythought waved her wand and the blackboard behind her filled with her blocky handwriting.

WEREWOLVES: CURSE OR CONTAGION?

“Riddle,” she said at once, without looking up. “What is the magical principle behind the newly-invented Wolfsbane Potion, and what effect would its correct use have on a werewolf?”

“The Wolfsbane Potion is able to suppress mental transformation,” Tom replied immediately. “Though it must be consumed daily for a week leading up to the full moon. It functions by weakening the transformative hold of lycanthropy on the nervous system, rather than curing it. The werewolf retains human consciousness but not form.”

Merrythought nodded, her expression sharp. “Spot on. And the spell most effective against a transformed werewolf?”

“Depending on terrain,” Tom continued, “a strong Impedimenta can buy time. But a well-placed Lacarnum Inflamarae might be effective as a last resort, if the attacker is enraged and charging—though close-quarters combat against a werewolf would be extremely foolish.”

“You’ll all notice,” Merrythought said to the class, now turning to pace along the front row, “Riddle hasn’t even drawn breath yet. That’s because he read beyond the required chapter and actually thought about what he’d do if someone were trying to rip out his spleen. I suggest the rest of you do the same before your exams.”

Orion leaned toward Tom with a whisper. “You’re making the rest of us look bad.”

“You do that on your own,” Tom murmured back, flipping open his Defense textbook to the page on werewolf encounters. His notes were in a neat column beside the page. Across the aisle, Ruby was smirking at him, and Livia was chewing the end of her quill in frustration.

Merrythought conjured a shimmering diagram of a werewolf mid-transformation, bone and muscle reshaping in eerie realism. Several students grimaced.

“You’re more likely to meet one in the Forbidden Forest than you are in Knockturn Alley,” she said. “And if you’re trying to reason with it once it’s changed, you deserve what happens.”

Laughter sounded from the Slytherin side of the room. 

Ruby raised a hand. Professor Merrythought nodded to her. 

“Professor, what about magical tracking methods? Is there any way to tell the difference between a transformed werewolf and a wolf Animagus?”

Merrythought arched a brow. “Excellent question. Animagi leave a different magical signature—a kind of ripple you can detect with the right spell. There’s a charm for it. Riddle?”

“Revelar Formae,” Tom supplied immediately. “Though it requires close proximity and, ideally, eye contact.”

“Ten points to Slytherin,” Merrythought said. “Riddle, I might have you write the exam if you keep this up.”

When they moved on to dueling drills, the desks cleared with a wave of her wand, and she paired them off. Tom was with Orion again—something they both pretended not to enjoy quite as much as they did.

“Let’s try countermeasures for a clawed opponent,” Merrythought instructed. “No hexes that draw blood. We’re practicing deflection, not aggression.”

Tom lifted his wand. “Try not to be too dramatic.”

“You wound me,” Orion said, then struck with a mock-savage jab of a mild cutting charm mostly used for hair.

Tom blocked it smoothly, stepped back, and responded with a gentle Levioso that knocked Orion off-balance but didn’t send him flying. Orion laughed as he righted himself, hair slightly mussed, and aimed a second spell. They sparred like this for a few minutes, not winning or losing, just circling. Testing each other.

Merrythought’s voice cut in. “Good form, both of you. Though Riddle’s keeping his left side too open. Don’t think I didn’t see that.”

Tom blinked. “Yes, Professor.”

The class ended with a review of full moon calendar dates and a brief lecture on the ethics of dark creature classification.

As they packed up, Merrythought paused near Tom and said lowly, “You’ll go far. Not just because you’re clever, but because you understand the weight of the subject. Don’t lose that.”

Tom looked up, and for a moment something flickered across his face—interest, pride, maybe even something like gratitude.

“I won’t, Professor.”

Chapter Text

13 June, 1941

The last class before term’s end was always a half-formed thing: half a conclusion, half a celebration. Students arrived late from their previous classes, ties loosened, outer robes hastily redonned against the cooler air of the castle. The windows in the Transfiguration classroom had been thrown open to let in the June breeze, which smelled of cut grass and a coming storm. Outside, the lake glittered beneath the overcast sky.

Tom Riddle entered early as he always did.

Dumbledore had already arrived at his classroom desk, his outer robes shed, his sleeves neatly rolled, and his wand lazily sorting through a stack of essays. Live beetles clamored within tiny glass jars, each jar neatly labeled with a student’s name.

“Ah, Mr. Riddle,” said Dumbledore without looking up. “You’ll be pleased to know that today’s lesson involves something rather more imaginative than any other we’ve covered thus far.”

Tom’s gaze flicked to the blackboard, where Dumbledore had already titled the lesson. Animating the Inanimate: Controlled Transformation and Simulated Sentience. A thrill rose in his chest.

“I’m always pleased when complexity is involved, Professor,” he said coolly.

One of the beetles turned into a copper thimble with a pop. Dumbledore gave it a wry smile, casting a tempus before he pulled a roster from his desk and made a note beside a student’s name.

“Indeed you are,” Dumbledore murmured as Tom excused himself to his seat.

The rest of the class trickled in. Livia Nott was a bit sunburned from spending yesterday afternoon sunbathing on the grounds; Ruby Rosier was humming under her breath; Callum Flint, Abraxas Malfoy, and Oleander Parkinson were still arguing over Quidditch standings while Adrian Greengrass followed, grinning, behind them. 

Orion Black swept in last, hair wind-tousled, wand tucked haphazardly behind one ear. He grinned at Tom as he passed, and Tom returned it, though the expression quickly fell from his face. He never could muster up much of a smile in Dumbledore’s class. Not with how closely Dumbledore always watched Tom in particular.

“Today,” Dumbledore said as the door creaked shut behind the last student, a Gryffindor named Muldoon, “we will attempt the Transfiguration of base material into constructs. In other words, we will be attempting to temporarily animate objects through the induction of partial sentience. You may think of it as creating puppets with their own limited wills.”

He waved his wand, and the blackboard filled with chalk script: Principles of Semi-Sentient Transfiguration: The Law of Equivalence, the Risk of Overreach, and the Impermanence of Imagined Forms.

Tom’s eyes narrowed with interest.

Dumbledore’s voice was light as he levitated a variety of objects from his desk and distributed them to the class. “Some of you will create hopping teacups which spontaneously begin to sprout wings and fly. Others may create temporary pets made of parchment that seem to enjoy being patted. I wonder what you will dream up. Let’s find out, shall we?”

Tom knew what he wished to create before Dumbledore had finished speaking. He closed his eyes for a moment, visualizing the contours and behavior of the creature he wished to bring to life. Assured of the thoroughness of his vision, Tom turned to the small pewter dish on his desk and tapped it with his wand. 

“Vita brevis.”

The dish began to shimmer. A moment later, it reshaped into a delicate, multi-legged creature, almost resembling a winged crab. It twitched, lifted one leg experimentally, then began to scuttle in slow, deliberate circles around Tom’s inkwell.

Ruby Rosier shrieked as her own creation, a floppy, fur-covered cloth creature of indistinct form, made from a tea towel, tried to stand on its mismatched legs, toppled off the desk, and attempted to run away before returning abruptly to its original form.

Dumbledore strolled between tables, occasionally adjusting offering cryptic suggestions. When he reached Tom’s desk, he paused, watching the creature flutter its glossy wings.

“Interesting,” he said softly. “You gave its movements a prescribed pattern.”

“Intent breeds repetition, sir,” Tom replied, echoing Dumbledore’s lesson from last class.

“And repetition breeds transformative stability,” Dumbledore finished, his expression unreadable.

They held each other’s gaze for a moment too long. Around them, the classroom was all laughter and chaos as Livia’s lumpy glass bird was attempting to spread its lopsided wings before it reverted to its original form: an old flask. Between Tom and Dumbledore, however, hung a stillness, cold and electric.

“You realize,” Dumbledore said, almost casually, “that what you’ve made goes beyond a temporary animation, given the complete transformation.”

Tom tilted his head. “Is that a problem, sir?”

Dumbledore smiled. Not kindly.

“No, Tom. Merely an observation. You do so love to surpass all expectations, don’t you?”

Tom said nothing. His creation turned to face Dumbledore. It seemed to watch him.

The moment passed. Dumbledore moved on.

Later, as the bell rang, Tom lingered to tuck his notes precisely into his satchel. Orion waited at the door with a lazy grin but said nothing. He knew better than to interrupt.

Tom looked once more at the blackboard, to Dumbledore’s final note: The Law of Equivalence—All Transfiguration is Exchange. He smirked faintly.

No one ever talked about what was lost in the exchange.

19 June, 1941

The Slytherin common room glowed faintly in the soft underwater light, shadows flickering across the thick glass windows. It was the sort of late hour where the fire burned low and where only the closest friends remained behind after most had gone to bed, their voices soft and tired, their laughter relaxed.

Ruby lay draped across the settee, her bare feet resting on the armrest, a fizzing bottle of butterbeer balanced on her stomach. Livia sat on the rug, toying lazily with an ancient deck of exploding snap cards that sparked and sputtered in protest.

Orion was half-sprawled in an oversized armchair, his legs thrown over one side, his sleeves rolled up and collar open. Tom had managed to squeeze into the armchair with his boyfriend, his posture easy as he leaned into Orion, cheeks warm, long fingers absently tracing the carved serpent on the arm of the chair.

It was one of those rare evenings where no one was jockeying for dominance or status. The room felt less like a snake pit and more like a cozy den where everyone coiled gently together. For once, they were simply friends.

“I think my hair’s going to fall out from stress,” Ruby muttered. “I had a nightmare Professor Raspin turned into a badger and chased me out of the Charms classroom.”

“I dreamt I turned my exam into a frog and couldn’t change it back,” Livia said with a shudder. “And then it started croaking answers to someone else.”

“Sounds like a personal problem,” Orion said, yawning. “I’m just excited for exams to be over so Tom stops looking like he’s going to curse me for distracting him.”

Tom gave a quiet chuckle. “I don’t mind small distractions,” he pointed out. “The problem, darling Orion, is that you are no small distraction.”

Orion pouted, but Tom patted his knee.

“I mean to say that you are the biggest and best possible distraction,” Tom added placatingly.

Livia laughed at the indignant look on Orion’s face.

“You’re all insufferable,” Ruby cut in before Orion could respond. She cast Tom a speculative look. “Except for you, Tom. You’ve been weirdly tolerable lately. What’s gotten into you?”

Tom looked at her for a long moment before answering. “Maybe I’m simply in a good mood.”

Livia arched an eyebrow. “That’s…concerning.”

“I like it,” Orion said easily, wrapping an arm around Tom’s shoulders.

Tom allowed the contact, though his cheeks warmed just a little. Later, when the others had gone, they’d slip away together to the privacy of Tom’s bed, where their arms would wrap around each other and they would test the limits of their propriety.

But for now, Tom just leaned into Orion’s touch and said, “I’m glad.”

Orion gave Tom a private smile before addressing the group, his expression more serious. “Next year, things are going to change.”

“How so?” Livia asked.

Orion didn’t answer right away. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “But I can feel it. Like something’s about to shift.”

They were quiet for a while after that.

19 June, 1941

The heat came early that summer. Sunlight poured through the tall windows of Hogwarts like honey, sweetly warming the stone corridors and turning the lake into a glittering sheet of glass. Inside, however, the air remained cool, damp, and faintly chalk-scented: the eternal climate of exam season.

Tom Riddle sat at the front of the Arithmancy classroom, his brow furrowed as he worked through the final problem of his exam.

Professor Vex stood by the window, his ink-stained cuffs pushed up to the elbows, arms folded as he observed. There was something electric in his stillness, like he was waiting for a storm.

Tom dipped his quill again and finished his proof, referring back to the original question to be certain that he had answered it completely.

Orion, seated across the classroom, caught his eye and gave a crooked grin before turning his attention back to his own parchment. His hair was artfully mussed, as always, and his tie was stylishly askew. Tom gave him a faint nod, trying to ignore the way Orion’s handsome smile made his heart flutter, and returned to double checking his work.

When the exam ended, the students spilled into the corridor like freed prisoners. Tom waited by the door for Orion, giving Livia a smile as she passed.

“You wrote five scrolls, didn’t you?”

“Four and a half.”

“Show-off,” Orion said fondly. 

Tom just shrugged. “The length of my responses is not a reflection of my performance,” he answered coolly.

Orion just bumped him with his shoulder. “You’re sitting with me at lunch.”

Tom raised an eyebrow. “Don’t I always?”

“Yes,” Orion said, taking Tom’s hand. “But I want to enjoy my time with you before London takes you away for the summer.”

Tom gave a small, private smile and followed.

21 June, 1941

The morning was warm and cloudy, and the scent of summer grass lingered on the breeze as trunks levitated down the stone steps and toward the waiting carriages.

Tom stood at the edge of the courtyard fountain, his trunk already sent ahead. He was in no rush to leave, of course, to spend another summer at Wool’s. He watched students say goodbye, some with laughter, others with tight, tearful embraces.

A familiar glint of white-blond hair caught his eye.

Agatha stood near one of the stone arches, her pale eyes scanning the crowd. She looked perfectly composed, as always, seemingly completely unbothered by the noise of students rushing to their summer holidays. Fabian Lestrange hovered nearby, chatting with two of his thuggish friends, Maynard Avery and Killian Rowle.

Tom’s and Agatha’s eyes met across the courtyard.

There was no smile. No secret signal. Just a lingering gaze, cool and loaded with everything left unsaid.

Orion stepped up beside Tom and followed his gaze. “Going to say anything to her?”

Tom shook his head with a sad smile. “There’s nothing to say.”

Orion glanced at him. “She’ll probably come back furious next term that you ignored her.”

“Let her,” Tom said softly.

And then, as the train whistle echoed, Agatha turned and vanished into the crowd.

The train rumbled southward, cutting across wild green hills and sleepy villages. Tom sat in a compartment surrounded by his chatting friends, his arms folded, eyes lazily moving from Ruby to Livia as they engaged in a lively debate about whose parents’ meddling in their love lives was more intolerable. Given his lack of parents, Tom had little to contribute apart from the appropriate sympathetic noises at the appropriate times. Privately, he thought Livia’s mother sounded like a meddlesome nightmare, but he figured saying so would be rather rude so he wisely held his tongue.

Orion seemed to think Ruby had it worse and half-heartedly defended her between bites of cauldron cake.

Tom was grateful to have Orion by his side for just a few more hours at least. His easy smiles and warm hand in Tom’s would help sustain Tom through the lonely summer.

Outside, the world blurred.

Inside, Tom’s mind raced.

Wool’s Orphanage was waiting for him, all familiar shadows and cruel and noisy children and memories he wished to forget. He would return to it for the last time as the boy they remembered, but he was not that boy anymore. He would never be again.

Next year, he decided, he would begin to shape the world in earnest.

The foundations had been laid: his reputation, his connections, the mask he wore so well. But deeper still, something had begun to stir inside him: purpose.

He rested his head against Orion’s shoulder and closed his eyes.

Fourth year would be his most successful yet. He would make sure of it.