Chapter 11
TOM’S CHANCE CAME NEXT week. Hagrid had invited him to the funeral of Aragog, the Acromantula that had gotten him expelled all those years ago. He couldn’t bring himself to refuse: Hagrid had helped fend off Tom’s bullies during the former’s three years at Hogwarts. That, and the animal-loving Half-Giant had been a friend, something of immense value back then, so Tom still felt he had a favor to repay.
When he made the trek down to the Groundskeeper’s Hut, warming charms on to fend against 1971’s first snowfall, Tom was surprised to find Slughorn heading in the same direction. “Foraging for Potions ingredients?” he asked.
Slughorn turned back, several paces ahead of Tom. “In this weather? Hardly!” the Head of Slytherin scoffed. “No, I’m headed to Hagrid’s. You hear about Aragog too?”
Tom nodded.
“Well,” Slughorn said, clapping his mittened hands together, “It’ll be just like old times, then.” He said that mournfully, leaving Tom was somewhat confused until he remembered that Slughorn had been the teacher who’d brought the story about Hagrid’s beast to Headmaster Dippet. If Tom had been in a worse mood, he would’ve given the wiley old man a hex thirty years in the making for bringing up such a subject so casually. He was hardly one to leave old grudges.
It wasn’t long before they saw the great black mass adjacent to Hagrid’s place of residence, the old Acromantula’s eight legs outlined sharply against the snow. Beside it stood Hagrid, leaning against the Hut with his hands against his beard, shivering, and probably not from the cold.
“Tom!” he exclaimed, sitting up and running towards them. “Tom- Horace- Oh thank Merlin you came!” After two quick bear-hugs, the three of them turned to the arachnid in the room, or rather the snow. “Acromantulas usually eat their dead,” Hagrid explained, “but Aragog - oh the poor thing . . . He never had any eggs, and it just didn’t feel right, leaving him to the vultures.”
“Well, I suppose the best way would be- cremation,” Tom said, choosing his words carefully to avoid offending Hagrid. “Fire, that is.”
“Yeah,” Hagrid said after a moment, nodding and calming down. “Yeah, that sounds alright.”
“Did you check for venom?” Slughorn asked suddenly. “If we cremate it, some of it might evaporate and, well - I don’t want McGonagall on us for outdoing Peeves,” he finished. He sounded more morose than humorous; if Tom hadn’t known better, it seemed like Slughorn actually felt the least bit self-conscious.
The Potions Master spent a fair amount of time defanging the thing while Tom prepared to burn it. When they were done, they moved into the Groundskeepers Hut with Hagrid, who’d retreated from his grounds during Slughorn’s field dissection (even Tom found it fairly stomach turning). He’d set out some meade for the three of them. “He was one of my only friends, you know,” the Half-Giant said after a moment, glancing out the window to where the smoke was still rising. “And you Tom, of course. Back in our youth.”
Tom nodded as he took a sip from his glass. “I’m sorry about all this,” he said, minding the sting from the meade. It was fairly strong, even by Hagrid’s standards.
“So am I, Hagrid,” Slughorn reassured, patting Hagrid on the shoulder. “We remember how you were back then.” Tom shot the other Professor a look; he wondered if he remembered how he had been back then. Or how Severus was.
Hagrid gave the Potions Master a long, woeful, discerning look before downing his glass in one shot. “Then why’d ye hand me over?” he said, expression darkening like the coming night, a look of anger Tom had rarely seen on his face.
Slughorn slumped, as if trying to make himself smaller. “I didn’t know what would happen,” he explained, voice unusually cold. “All I’d heard was-! I’m sorry,” he interrupted himself, seeing that Hagrid remained unmoved.
Slughorn’s former pupil stared him down until finally breaking away and pouring himself another glass. “It was thirty years ago,” Hagrid said, his forgiving nature coming out. “Forget it.” Not a nicety, merely a request.
But Slughorn was only beginning. “And Myrtle- by Merlin, that was the same year!”
Hagrid put his arm around Slughorn’s shoulders. “Just forget it, old man. That wasn’t even your fault! We couldn’t have known.”
“Oh, if only it were true!” Slughorn bemoaned, slumping onto the table. “If I hadn’t offered that damned Potions Mastery, none of it would’ve been!”
Tom choked on his meade. Earlier, he’d merely been minding his own drink, not wanting to dig up the memories Hagrid wanted buried.
But now- now he couldn’t help but remember.
It was 1943; Tom was a fifth year, Hagrid was a third, Eileen was a second, and Myrtle had been a fourth. The second oldest out of all of them, but by far the most vulnerable: Hagrid was protected by the Gryffindors (until the incident with Aragog, anyway), Eileen was a part of the Pureblood ilk, and Tom had grown used to bullying no matter how painful it was. Besides, he’d made the Quidditch Team that year, and no Slytherin wanted to harm one of the greatest Seekers they’d had in decades.
But Myrtle? She had nothing. Where Tom was handsome, she was bespectacled and pimpled; where Eileen was of Pure heritage, she was a Muggleborn; where Hagrid was happy, she was miserable. She often hid in the girl’s bathroom, camping out there until someone coaxed her out or cleared off her bullies, usually Tom doing the latter.
And yet, she was incredibly talented: She was the one to introduce Eileen to the Slug Club and Hagrid to animals, and sometimes she surpassed Tom’s own knowledge in DA. As such, Slughorn had always taken an interest in her: Tom hadn’t known how much until now. He shouldn’t have been surprised when she came to him during breakfast one day - he was fairly sure the day he joined the Quidditch Team - asking him for advice on whether or not to take an offer from the Potions Master for a Potions Mastership, her strongest subject.
Tom had immediately said yes: What else could it bring her? Back then it seemed as if everything simply came to people like them in deals. Deals that no one else had to make, but good opportunities nonetheless. That was simply the way of this world, Tom had believed; you either accepted the power given to you, or denied the possibility of any. He explained all that to her; she did not look entirely believing, but said she’d say yes.
Later, Eileen said that Myrtle had told her that Tom felt heartless, cold. Like he’d lost his soul.
It wasn’t until after the last Quidditch game of the season that he heard of her again: Slytherin had won by an unprecedented majority. Tom stayed behind to wash up with his teammates, some of the few people then to accept him out of hand. Abraxas was there with him, telling him how he might be able to make connections with his family, something Tom would later take him up on.
And then they went back to the Castle, where the Staff had found her. She had left a note explaining everything: How her parents didn’t understand her; how her friends were moving away from her; how she just did not know what to do; and how she could not bear being alone anymore.
Tom refused to eat for a week: All his friends comforted him, probably fearing that he might be next. Even when he accepted dinner at Malfoy Manor, he could not stop thinking about Myrtle. She had taken her own life of fourteen years, something unfathomable even to Tom. Her future was bright, even if her present was dark. He wouldn’t understand until fifteen years later, when Eileen had left and Abraxas had betrayed him.
When he was alone.
And now he looked upon Slughorn, pouring himself another round of meade, the man who’d just admitted that he was the one to destroy the last will to live of the most unhappy person Tom knew. The only thing stopping him from lunging at the other man was the fact that he could not forgive himself.
At some point, when either the meade or the conversation had become too much, Tom left, ignoring the searing cold from the night and his now worn off warming charms, dragging himself to bed before allowing himself to sleep, and, finally, to think.
He will not be alone.
He will not be alone.
He will . . .
***
Tom could hardly recall what happened the next morning. The older you get, the harder it gets, he reflected fretfully.
He slept in, endlessly retracing his steps until he remembered: The funeral; Slughorn; the Meade . . .
Myrtle.
He shot up, ignoring the stabbing pain at the back of his head as he dragged himself to Slughorn’s office practically half drunk. Slughorn himself didn’t look much better, passed out on his desk with one hand on his chin and the other holding a quill. “Oh, Tom,” the Head of Slytherin yawned, rubbing his eyes. “Can this wait, I have some preparations to make. Especially with the inspection coming out. Up,” he corrected.
Tom stood there, unmoving: The words froze on his lips. He couldn’t bring himself to speak on Myrtle’s behalf, even to her manipulator. He looked like a ghost.
It was then that he noticed a small, black bottle perched on Slughorn’s desk. It jarred a memory from Tom, somewhere recent, but not quite sure, like he’d just been asked what he’d eaten for dinner.
It came to him in a flash: Acromantula Venom. Very expensive if his off hand knowledge proved correct, and what Slughorn had insisted upon removing yesterday at Aragog’s funeral. Truly a one-in-a-life-time opportunity . . .
Everything came out at once.
“You bastard!” Tom exclaimed, wrenching Slughorn by the collar of his striped pajamas, tearing seams in the fabric and sending the top buttons to the floor by sheer force. “You go to one of the few people who can’t help but trust you, just to take advantage of them for money?!”
Slughorn’s face contorted in an ugly mixture of consternation, offense, and then finally terror. “Tom! Tom I-I swear, it’s all a misunderstanding!” he babbled. “I hardly remember yesterday!”
“And now, you stand by and watch,” Tom spat, his condemnation seeming to transcend actions both past and present, “as a boy, a student of your house, gets trampled, just because he doesn’t make the ranks of your club?! You no-good, double crossing, slimy son of a bitch!”
The look of terror on Slughorn’s face seemed to pop like a blister, tears welling up in his eyes and staining wrinkled features as he just wept. Tom threw him back across his desk in disgust, watching him fall to the floor and stammering through his sobs as if he’d swatted away a fly.
“You want to forgive yourself?” Tom asked after a moment, dangerously quiet. “Well, you can start now. You have three days to get rid of that damn club and tell Dumbledore you’re resigning as Head of House.”
For a few moments, it seemed as if Slughorn hadn’t heard him. But then he met Tom’s eyes - a hint of orange staining his normal blue - as if to ask what other choice he had. But then he seemed to realize that there was no choice: Slughorn was many things, but stupid wasn’t one.
He did everything in one. When Tom next met him in a staff meeting, he wondered how the man was still alive - merely curious, not sympathetic: He was unshaven for the first time Tom could remember, and his eyes were focused only on the floor. He looked like Hagrid had when he was asked about Aragog. Alone; alone with his guilt.
He almost looked sympathetic: Tom had experienced the exact same only thirteen short years ago when Abraxas - Lord Slytherin - betrayed him. All of a sudden, everything he’d seen and done, along with everyone he’d met, seemed all the more horrible. And Tom had spent his days wondering whether or not he should continue on his path; whether or not he should take the knife before him and complete the ritual on his divided soul. Or if he should simply end it all with a single cut. He guessed that’s how Myrtle felt.
But he moved on: His legacy lay with Severus now.
***
Dumbledore summoned him the next week. To Tom’s surprise, the Old Man didn’t look angered, merely agitated: The coming Ministry inspection must’ve taken a toll on him.
“Headmaster, you wished to see me,” Tom said coldly, standing solidly at the other end of the room as if preparing for a duel. He still hadn’t forgotten who’d sparked the current prank war. Or his recent meeting with Slughorn, for that matter.
“I did,” Dumbledore responded after realizing that Tom wasn’t sitting down. “I’ve heard of Slughorn’s recent decision,” he alluded.
“I was surprised as well,” Tom said mechanically. “I’d have thought that the old miser would’ve wanted to keep that job. Helped with running that club of his. I can’t guess why he’d throw it all away.”
Dumbledore frowned, the creases on his face becoming ever more pronounced. “Don’t play coy with me, Tom,” he said, dangerously quiet. “If you try anything to damage my position in the eyes of the Ministry during this coming investigation, there’ll be nothing incentivizing me to keep quiet about your past: Hogwarts must remain stable and inert for me to work in, and as long I am your Headmaster, that shall be your one and only goal. Do you understand?”
Tom grimaced: The Old Man probably still thought he was working for Abraxas. It reassured him, in a morbid, macabre way, that even in his heyday the Old Man would never understand him or his place in this World; his isolation. “Do not worry, Headmaster,” he said, genuinely this time. “That has been my only goal since I started work here.”