Phoenix Feather
“Slow down, Harry!”
Harry laughed, turning. Even behind his round, wireframe spectacles, the 11-year-olds green eyes gleamed. “Hurry up, Tom! Come on, Professor!”
Albus was smiling peacefully, watching Harry run and bump into other wizards. Tom was frustrated. For some reason, Harry’s small stature did nothing to hinder how ridiculously quick he was. He would only manage to catch up when something had captured the younger boy’s attention - a grumpy goblin or a book with teeth. And then he couldn’t hold onto him for very long. At last, sensing Tom’s increasing duress, Professor Dumbledore relented and produced a long, silver thread from his robes.
“Tempus Vinculum,” Dumbledore intoned, tapping his wand to the thread. With a little wriggle, it leapt from Tom’s wrist to Harry’s, binding them together. Harry scowled as the older boy tested the thread, pulling gently. “It’s quite fragile, but it can be useful for finding each other in big crowds.”
With awe, Harry watched the glittering thread vanish, although he could still feel it around his wrist. “So it won’t get caught on other people?” Harry asked. Dumbledore nodded. The first-year whooped and ran off yet again, this time pulling Tom along by his wrist.
They ended up at Ollivander’s wand shop. The shop was surprisingly narrow and plain. Over the door, a sign hung half-heartedly with the script: Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 BC.
“He’s the best wandmaker in Britain, Harry,” Tom said. “Come on.”
The bell above the door jingled gently as the pair entered, Tom’s hand tight around Harry’s wrist. Inside, the store resembled an old bookstore, except with thousands of long, narrow boxes instead of books.
A middle-aged man walked out from behind a suspiciously high stack of boxes. “Can I help you?” He asked.
“We will be needing a wand for our young Mr. Potter,” Professor Dumbledore said from behind the boys. Tom tried very hard not to jump. How had the Professor caught up so quickly? He never seemed to walk faster than a leisurely stroll.
The wandkeeper peered down at Harry through his blue-rimmed spectacles. “I think I can find something suitables.” The wandkeeper tested at least five different wands on Harry until he finally found one that was perfect. As Albus paid for the wand up front, the wandkeeper glanced at Harry and Tom with concern. It did not go unnoticed.
“Why was he looking at us like that, Professor?” Harry asked the wizened old man behind them.
Dumbledore peered down at his future student through his half moon glasses and smiled kindly. “Harry, do you remember what Mr. Ollivander said about your wand core?”
“Phoenix feather!”
“Yes, that’s right. Phoenix feather is incredibly rare. In fact, I know the Phoenix who gave that feather, and I know that Phoenix only gave one other. Just one other.”
“Who has the other feather?”
Tom cleared his throat, feeling weirdly pleased. “I do,” He stated matter-of-factly. Dumbledore gave him an inscrutable look, but Tom couldn’t help feeling a little proud. “It means our souls are connected,” Tom finished.
Harry beamed so wide and bright Tom wanted to imprint the picture in his memory forever. Wagging his eyebrows teasingly, Harry nudged the taller boy and said, “Good luck getting rid of me now.”
Tom rolled his eyes and followed Harry to the next store.
---
“GRYFFINDOR!”
The Gryffindor House erupted in cheers, welcoming their petite newest member to their table. Harry Potter was all smiles and pink cheeks as he sat down besides a handsome red-haired boy and cute Asian girl. He shook hands and returned hugs and engaged in an immediate and fierce conversation with several of the other children at his table.
Tom stabbed his knife into the table.
---
“Harry.”
“Tom!” Harry was breathless coming out of the Gryffindor Common Rooms. “Hogwarts is everything you said it was!”
Tom allowed himself a little smile. But a green, cold monster shifted dangerously in his chest and the young Slytherin lost it just as quickly. “I told you to pick Slytherin.”
Harry rolled his eyes. “Right, like I can tell the hat what to do.”
“I told you that hat,” Riddle spit out the word like a dirty sock. “You can tell it which house you prefer. It takes your wants into account. Or did you not care about me, Harry?”
Harry crossed his arms spitefully. “Well, the hat and I talked, and I decided I prefer Gryffindor.”
Then Riddle was in his space, pushing Harry’s back against the cold corridor bricks, face just inches apart from Harry’s. Tom felt as if he were going mad.
“But I AM IN SLYTHERIN,” Tom hissed.
Harry reared back as much as he could, pressing his chest against his friend’s. “And it DOESN’T MATTER!” Harry yelled back, green eyes flashing. “I don’t have to be in the same house as you just because we’re friends. You have your mates and I have mine and we can be mates too. Houses mean nothing!”
Riddle was quickly being swallowed up by the monster in his soul. The more Harry talked, the more Riddle’s control waned, and withered, until the tremulous tether that kept it locked away snapped.
Tom grabbed his Harry by the wrist and began pulling him away. He didn’t know where he was going - barely registered Harry struggling uselessly against the older boy’s inhuman strength. All he knew was that a chorus of “mine, mine, mine” was ripping through Tom’s skull to the beat of his heart and he needed to show Harry, to mark him-
“Boys.” The long patterned robes of their Transfiguration Professor was unmistakable.
Tom and Harry stilled at the same time. Tom didn’t let go of Harry’s wrist, but hazarded backwards to see Harry’s tear-stricken face. Dumbledore presumably saw the same thing, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he just smiled gently at Harry and Tom, forgivingly. “I believe it is time for you two to be off to bed. You may reconvene in the morning.”
Gradually, a heavy presence rested on Tom and Harry’s shoulders, making the two boys feel sleepy and calm all at once. Tom released Harry’s wrist and Harry rubbed it. Neither of them looked at one another.
“Off you go,” Dumbledore urged. Glancing backwards, Harry stumbled away.
“Just a moment, Mr. Riddle,” Dumbledore put a hand on his student’s shoulder before he could follow. They both waited until Potter was well out of reach.
The old Professor raised an eyebrow at Riddle’s twisted expression. “Is something the matter, Mr. Riddle?”
In that moment, Tom hated his Professor. He hated him for taking Tom to this incredible, amazing school of magic and away from his Harry. He hated him for delivering his Harry to Tom’s new home, only to be just out of reach in an entirely separate House. For his whole first year, Tom bore with the cutting, desolate hole inside which he sought in vain to fill with knowledge and history and magic as he waited for his soul to be returned to him. And now… Who would curl around Harry at night? Who would receive those sweet smiles, teasing winks, open laughs?
But Tom didn’t say anything at all.
Dumbledore watched Tom, a deep furrow of concern etched in his brow. He seemed to see much more than Tom allowed. “Okay, then. Have a good night, Mr. Riddle.”
It was all Tom could do to incline his head. Then he turned around and walked back to the Slytherin dorms alone, feeling the weight of Dumbledore’s gaze the entire way.
As it was, Tom could feel himself falling farther and farther away from Harry. He remembered back to one moment over the summer when he and Harry were enjoying a lazy rainy day in Harry’s bed, reading one of Tom’s newest textbooks. The two had scarcely spent a moment apart due to Harry’s insatiable curiosity about the world of magic and Tom’s long restrained need to reconnect. As usual, Harry twisted onto his side and flopped his head onto his arm.
“What is ‘mudblood’?” Harry asked.
Tom sneered. “A thief. Someone who stole magic that doesn’t belong to them.”
Harry thought about that seriously. “How would they do that?” Harry asked.
“Well, as you know, there are those of us who are born with magic. We are pureblood wizards or, sometimes, half-blood wizards.”
“Like you?”
Tom sighed. Had anyone in Slytherin made such an accusation, Tom wouldn’t have hesitated to raze them to the ground. But his little one was asking out of genuine curiosity. “I have a muggle mother, yes, but I don’t want to talk about her. And I wouldn’t go spreading that about, either.”
“Oh,” Harry said. It was clear he didn’t understand. “So mudbloods are…?”
“Both their mom and their dad are muggles. They shouldn’t have magic at all.”
Harry frowned. “That’s why you hate them? Because their parents can’t do magic? Ms. Cole and Miss Martha can’t do magic. Do you hate them?”
“I don’t, but only because they’re beneath us. At least they didn’t steal magic.”
“Tom, you can’t say that.” Harry admonished, frowning. “Ms. Cole and Miss Martha are our family-”
“No, I’myour family,” Tom said sharply.
Harry glanced down. Tom had gripped Harry’s thin arm so tightly it would likely leave a bruise. After a moment, he let go.
“Sorry,” Tom muttered. To his surprise, Harry didn’t get angry or scared. The younger boy simply snuggled up to Tom, tipping the older boy’s arm around him.
“You are my family,” Harry told Tom. “But I hope one day you’ll see that Ms. Cole and Miss Martha are family too. We can have a big family.”
Tom just didn’t see how that was true. All he needed was Harry.
---
As Tom feared, the next few months were hellishly isolating.
“Harry, come sit here!” A Gryffindor would call him for breakfast.
“Harry, over here!” Another Gryffindor would grab him for lunch.
“Harry, let’s study together!” A Hufflepuff would beg after dinner, even though Harry wasn’t very good at Charms at all.
At the last one, Tom’s unbothered mask chipped a little. Even the Puffs were trying to take his Harry away now? Ludicrous. Tom grabbed Harry’s sleeve and gave him a look. Harry used his free hand to rub the back of his head. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” Harry hedged.
Internally, Tom’s jealousy warred with his inability to go against the younger boy’s puppy eyes. Predictably, the puppy eyes won.
“Tomorrow,” Tom said, like an oath.
Tom didn’t get to see Harry again for five long days.
In the meantime, Tom kept himself distracted. Even though he was just a second year, Tom topped every class and led a rapidly growing group of mates. He unofficially unseated Malfoy but Malfoy only occasionally seemed to mind, hanging onto Tom’s every word as desperately as the others. They were a motley crew of devoted Slytherins. There were the weak seeking protection, the ambitious seeking some shared glory, and the thuggish gravitating toward a leader who could show them more refined forms of cruelty. Tom was with his followers when Harry finally found him again.
Potter wasn’t showing his usual wide smile when he walked up. In its place was a strange expression - a flash of trepidation. Tom waved them off and tilted his head at Potter, a non-verbal, “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Tom, these people you hang out with. Don’t they seem…” Harry chewed on his lower lip, unsure how to finish his thought. Tom watched the boy’s tongue peek out to lip the bite.
“They mean nothing.”
“Not to you. They kind of act like you’re a prophet. And yesterday I caught two of them pushing around Weasley. They said he was weak - and they told me that you didn’t care for the weak. Why would they think it’s okay to… Do that?”
Tom knew exactly what he had told them. The day before, he and Harry were supposed to eat together when he watched that stupid, red-haired Everley Weasley throw his arm around Potter’s thin shoulders as though they were best friends. Harry deserved better. That’s what Riddle was here for - he would show Harry exactly who was worthy of him.
Tom didn’t have to say any of this aloud. Potter, as usual, read Tom’s thoughts in his carefully masked expression as easily as if they were his own. The small boy felt a fire burn up his chest and flush his cheeks. “You- you don’t own me!”
“Harry, just imagine you kept your relationship with that muggle-lover. Do you realize there is a war right now? People are dying left and right. Could you really trust someone so weak to take care of you? I mean, it’s obvious where his loyalties lie.”
Harry clenched his fists. “I. Do. Not. Need. Protection,” He spat. For a suspended moment, fierce green eyes glowered at the older boy’s almost indifferent mask. And then the air whooshed out of the first-year’s chest and Harry was left shaking his head. “I think you’re trying to protect me, but I’m fine, Tom. Truly. Maybe a hundred years from now I’ll need saving, but not now. Leave my friends alone.”
Tom could see Harry had made up his mind. He let it go, of course, but his thoughts were thrown into turmoil at one single thing Harry had said. “A hundred years…”
One hundred wasn’t long enough. What if they could live… Longer?
The dark idea didn’t stop there. It coiled in the back of the young wizard’s head like a snake poised to strike. Almost every day now there was news of war, blood, and death. The foolish muggles blowing themselves up and the few wizards caught in the crossfire. A waste. Good, pure magic-users stolen from the pinnacle point in their lives by the weak and worthless.
And then, as if to exploit the growing fear in Hogwarts (only exacerbated by Headmaster Dippet’s obvious growing tension) a muggle illness swept the school.
One of the advantages of being a witch or wizard was that the same magical properties which lent power to a spellcaster would also act as a superimposed immune system against most contagions. That, and Nurse Pillfoy was one of the greatest Healing Witches in all of Britain. As the snow began to fall in November, Nurse Pillfoy met her match: Smallpox.
Headmaster Dippet required magic facemasks on every student, to be cast by 7th years and staff. Tom rolled his eyes and spelled his own and then hunted down Harry and spelled his, too. He would be damned if one of Harry’s mudblood companions made a mess of such an easy spell. Didn’t hurt that Harry looked startled at his friend’s abilities before granting him a grateful smile.
Nurse Pillfoy and the Professors went around casting extra protection spells. Headmaster Dippet cast extra charms on the entire Hogwarts castle and forbade the students from engaging in extracurriculars until the Muggle disease outside had subsided, or an appropriate magical antidote was recovered.
No one really knows how it started. For much of November, it seemed as though the disease had passed over the magic community - as so many external dangers did.
And then little Ravenclaw Amitha Kanikar received a post from her grandmother, a Healing Witch who had flown to her home village in India to help muggles with the Pox. The following day, five Ravenclaws were in the Hospital wing with soaring fevers and splotches.
Panic ensued. Students were being withdrawn as quickly as their parents could manage. The Potions master was effectively removed from classes, charged with finding a magical antidote within the week. In that time, Hogwarts emptied out, and there was suddenly 50% attendance - those whose families believed only the weak were infected, those who were assured their children would actually be safer in the school, and those who had nowhere else to go. Eight more students fell ill.
Including Harry.
Tom was in the library when he found out. He had just started a fascinating read on a unique type of dark magic - one that hinted at a way to preserve one’s soul. It referred another tome, Secrets of the Darkest Art, which could only be found in the Restricted Section. Tom approached Librarian Madame Lorine with an easy smile.
“Madame Lorine?” Tom asked sweetly. The elder librarian started at the interruption and patted her hair delicately.
“Oh, Tom dear,” She smiled. “I’m surprised to see you here.” When Tom raised his eyebrows at that, Madame Lorine dropped her smile. “Haven’t you heard? Your Potter friend has taken ill. He is in the Hospital Wing now.”
It felt like the air had been punched out of his lungs. Harry was a natural talent in magic, surely. But was his body so weak? An image came to mind of undernourished arms and legs, a thin face, a pale smile. Madame Lorine was still blathering on.
“Dreadful thing, really. But don’t you worry, darling. Our potions master was recommended by Headmaster Dippet himself and he assured me there’s plenty of ways he can speed up recovery for magic users…”
“Please excuse me, Madame Lorine,” Tom interrupted. “I just realized I left my Transfiguration essay in my trunk.”
“Oh yes, of course. Try to stop by the Hospital Wing if you have a chance, will you dear? Harry has always looked up to you, he has, and some cheer will do him good. Oh, and Tom,” Madame Lorine stopped him before he could make his hasty escape. “Was there something you had wanted to ask me?”
Tom thought about the Secrets of the Darkest Art. He bowed his head pleasantly. “Perhaps next time, Madame.”
Riddle almost bolted out the door, eager to leave the old hag and her tittering nonsense behind. Without thinking, he ended up at the Hospital Wing entrance, peering in the door nervously. Tom wasn’t really sure what to expect. A row of unconscious kids, maybe, and the smell of death in the air. He certainly wasn’t expecting a clean, open space with fresh sunlight and gentle laughter.
Of course Harry was at the center of it all. The boy was flushed and his gaze was glassy. The hospital pajamas swallowed up his small frame and hung heavy on the narrow shoulders. He was talking with two of the sick Ravenclaw girls, smiling and joking as if nothing were wrong while surreptitiously pulling down his sleeves to hide the red marks crawling their way up his hands and arms. Every so often, he would bring one of the glasses of water to one of the girl’s lips to allow them a sip. His hands trembled with the effort.
“HARRY JAMES POTTER,” Tom roared.
Harry’s eyes bugged out. The last time he had seen Tom this upset was when they were 5 and 6 years old and Harry had just punched him in the nose. Tom was kept out by a quarantine spell, but somehow, Tom had managed to open the door and scowl venomously across the barrier.
“You ignorant, self-sacrificial, belligerent HALF-WIT! If you don’t get back into bed at the count of three, I swear I will come in there and BIND YOU TO IT. Do you hear me?” Tom hissed, banging his fist against the magic blockade. Half of the ward had opened their eyes to the commotion at this point, and the two Ravenclaws Harry was speaking to devolved into quiet giggles.
Harry glanced at the girls, embarrassed. “Amitha and Miliarre were just showing me…”
“One!” Tom said, rolling up his sleeves. Harry squeaked and shuffled quickly to his bed on the other side of the room.
“Two…” Tom took out his wand threateningly. Harry fought with the covers without bothering to take off his slippers.
“Three-”
“I’m in! I’m in!” Harry yelped. Tom softened, ignoring the laughter from Harry’s neighbors. He took a moment to check out his friend, frowning at the blotchy flush and sudden, rattling cough that wracked Harry’s body. A hand tapped Tom’s shoulder, bringing him back to reality.
“Professor Dumbledore,” Tom said tightly.
The Professor merely peered past Tom into the room. He seemed to emanate calm. Despite himself, Tom found his thoughts rising from their illusions of death. “He’s okay, Tom,” Dumbledore said.
Tom turned away from the door so Harry wouldn’t see his expression. “He could be better,” Tom joked. It wasn’t really a joke.
Tom’s professor made an assenting noise but didn’t provide further comments. In the ward, Nurse Pillfoy had bustled in with the most recent batch of Rapid Recovery potions and was doling them out to her patients. Professor Dumbledore didn’t speak again until Harry had received a dose as well. “I imagine the students will be hungry when they get out. I’ll speak to Headmaster Dippet about getting you special permission to the Gryffindor dorm so you two may dine together.”
The implication that they would be fine, that Harry would be okay, was clear. Even so, Tom spent the next two days in an unnatural state of agitation, walking back and forth in front of the Hospital ward. When Harry finally was released by Nurse Pillfoy, Tom dragged him back to the Gryffindor dorms and almost force-fed him two bowls of minestrone. Then he buttoned up Harry’s nightclothes like he used to do when Harry was 6 years old and curled around him until the younger boy fell asleep.
As Harry slept, Tom reached into his bookbag and pulled out a thick, black volume. Silver letters in spidery script rolled across the front cover. Secrets of the Darkest Art. Using the moonlight from the window by Harry’s bed, Tom began to read.