Embryo

II

They say that the Soul lives on, though men have long disputed the nature and the immortality of it.

Soul, Sawol, whose origin and material elude man and man’s comprehension.

The divine Anaxagoras, in whose honour an altar was erected for his having taught mankind that the sun was greater than Peloponnesus, that snow was black, and that the heavens were of stone, affirmed that the soul was an aerial spirit, and immortal.

Aristotle, who has been explained a thousand ways because he is unintelligible, was of the opinion that the soul was the resulting substance of the combined understanding of all men–one mind, one soul– and Socrates, philosophical master of Plato, the philosophical master of Aristotle, used to say that the soul was corporeal and eternal; that the soul was a portion of the physical substance of God.

A very sublime, self-satisfying thought indeed.

And on God and the Fathers of the Church who wouldst claim to shed their Pagan roots, the first Christians believed that the soul was human, and the angels and God physical too. But this assertion does not long last under scrutiny, for the closer a thing is, the easier it is to understand. Modern religious men have naturally improved upon the system because of this. They make the soul loftier. First, it was human, then of God’s substance, then intangible. They make it inaccessible, farther into the realm of Unknowable.

This benefits Puritanical society greatly: so long as the soul is virtuous and whole, one need not define it, or understand the source of its immortality. Whatever substance it may be comprised of, whatever its composition, is of little consequence the virtuous.

For this—though, not only this—virtue is of little consequence to Tom, as is God.

But even Tom Riddle cannot resist the unanswered question, the one his peers struggled to answer before, and has spent many an evening examining what things he has in common with beasts, and what he possesses above them, hours spent studying the periodic groups for the chemical answer where spiritual ones have so failed, until above all, he arrives at himself.

What is a soul?

How is one to characterise an entity which is inherently characterless? Is the soul a metal; a conductor of heat and heart? Malleable or sturdy? In Tom’s own experience, the soul has proven to be acutely corrosive.

He must reconcile the new rationale with the old; the world he knows to exist and the world in which he once existed. To a Muggle, what is rational is what can be empirically quantified. But what is rational to a wizard? The graceful simplicity of the scientific method cannot withstand the wizard’s reality. A new method must arise.

He has requested isolated laboratory sessions with several of Hogwarts’ patron ghosts and poltergeists, who display in varying measure an ability to communicate thought into matter. A ghost, it is theorised, is a manifestation of a person’s lingering impression, taken from the moments of death. It is not, in any sense, the actual deceased individual. Ghosts are forever frozen, mentally, emotionally. A ghost is but a person’s own lingering memory of oneself. It bears no life, and cannot return to it.

Fertile ground for the enterprising mind, too, though so far all of the ghosts of Hogwarts have disappointedly declined to participate in his research.

Is the soul sentience?

Descartes seemed to believe so, that the soul was thought and that man thinks eternally. That upon conception this thought-soul forms alongside the babe in the womb and is wiped clean at birth. Tom wonders then, if he were to take an infant at the instant of its birth—no, before its birth, if he were to spy upon an embryo in the womb, and swallow it whole, would he find Descartes?

And if the soul is sentience, then is not the newborn infant, who operates with no sentience at all, soulless?

Morgana, the Mortal Goddess, aspired to anatomize the soul. She believed that the soul resided within the heart in a previously unobserved fifth chamber, beneath the ventricles, and flowed in the blood. She surmised that those who mixed blood in their bodies, would become possessed and infected by another’s soul, and wrote many enchantments involving such, though she needn’t have worried. The dissections that followed her hypothesis thereafter revealed that a fifth chamber in the heart was found only in those affected by strong Veela heritage.

Even Merlin could not resist the succulence of the suggestion of a soul; was convinced that within the soul, there was the source of magic, and within magic, the source of the soul. An endless, beginningless regenerative existence that powered the earth. A convenient ideology for him, as it ensured Wizard supremacy over the Mundane, the Muggle. As soulless as Decrates’ babe.

They have had their try at the question: what is the soul? A parade of venerated philosophers, esteemed magicians, accomplished reasoners, all! And yet each fail to satisfy.

If only the great thinkers of history had traversed where Tom has traversed, into the deepest recesses of the cosmos’ mysteries. Perhaps then, they would have found an answer.

Such are Tom Riddle’s thoughts as he arrives on the morning’s first class on the first day of his Sixth Year.

⸻

There are no chairs in Dumbledore’s classroom, nor tables or desks. There is, instead, a large, lush purple carpet, which spans the entirety of the room and is dotted with misshapen, fanciful floor cushions. The students, familiar with their professor’s particular breed of peculiarity, grab the cushions and seat themselves on the floor in an approximation of a lumpy circle.

Dumbledore is already seated, long, spindly legs crossed, knobby knees exposed, and bright robes splayed out behind him. His legs are bare but for tall, multi-coloured striped socks and polished, green oxfords.

“My students,” he greets with relish, “what a pleasure to have you here again! What marvellous discoveries await you, for the NEWTS course is without a doubt the most exciting Transfiguration class in all your years here. We will be exploring new theories and challenging experiments, pushing our abilities to their limits! But first, we must all relearn what the summer has made us forget.”

Tom settles between Lestrange and Nott, sinking into the fuchsia fibres. They take out neither quill nor ink, no books or parchment rustling their way out of their bags. Dumbledore insists that such materials are only a hindrance to these seminar-like discussions, distractions to the flow of ‘scholarly conversation,’ as he so likes to think of these classes.

“And it seems we are only partially still asleep after a hearty breakfast. I’m afraid I did shoot for a late afternoon Monday slot when we are all more awake, but alas. Professor Slughorn won it this summer in the staff’s biannual flobberworm race,” Professor Dumbledore imparts with an apologetic smile. “Now, shall we review where we left off last Term?”

There are several branches in Transfiguration, each with their own theories and levels of difficulty, complexity and relevance. As was discussed in the library only a couple of days previous: there are the categories of Incomplete and Complete Transfiguration, inter- and intra-organic Transfiguration. These occur at varying levels of invasiveness in regard to internal changes, from least effect on a living creature’s identity to most. For example, while an Animagius externally undergoes a full-body transformation and even adopts some animal thinking, this Transfiguration is less invasive than that of Lycanthropy, where the mind is lost even though the body is not completely transformed.

The Abrahamic mage will say the first transfiguration ever performed is Yehoshua’s water to wine, and the Greecian will say it is Daedalus’ wings. It was even once rumoured that the sphinx was a result of early attempts at Transfiguration, but the Felis Sapien is its own species whose genealogy can be tracked to fossils found near the Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, when magical creatures still interacted freely and openly with all humans. But none of these are truly the earliest signs of transformative magic.

The very first known record in human history of Transfiguration actually transpired in Mali of Africa, in the Dogon Tribe, Habe, stranger. It is said that their ancestors, Po Tolo and his brother star Emme Ya of the Toloy of the third and second centuries BC, in fascination with the astrological and the Sirius star, the brightest in earth’s sky, transformed their rivers into fish scales, their skin made hard to withstand the weathering of the cosmos, so as to ascend and explore.

That is the beginning.

“At the conclusion of last Term, we discussed the intricacies of the exoskeleton of a dung beetle and how it can be used to create a powerful armour should one be pressed in extreme conditions. It is, as you’ll recall, all thanks to the regenerative polymer Chitin and its close friends, sclerotin and calcium carbonate.”

Dumbledore allows this information to sink in before continuing.

“This was paired with a lovely demonstration from each of you, showcasing its merits in comparison to armour formed from the cockroach. We remember the spell of course. Everyone, together:”

There is a chorus of voices, some less enthused than others, “Iorra pansara.”

Dumbledore beams. “Wonderful! And so we continue our practical uses of polymers with equal fervour. Let us discuss amber. What do we already know of it?”

What does he wish to know? Tom wonders.

It is known mineralogically as succinite, provided by Ernest Klein. In his Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Magical Language, Klein derives the term from Latin succinum, “amber,” succus or sucus, “sap,” plus conjugation -ite.

The most accessible sources of amber are found as fossilised tree resin or in coal streams, particularly in New Zealand. But the Wizarding World’s more lucrative avenue of amber is through the merfolk of the Baltic Sea. The Queen Jūratė of the Sea made first contact with Lithuanian fisherman Kastytis in 1042 and traded with him her amber tears for his love, and the trade has been ever-flowing since. Prime Minister Justas Paleckis has only recently returned from an invitation to the famed Amber Palace.

“It is used as a glaze for brewing instruments,” Nott speaks up when no other rushes to answer Dumbledore’s hanging question. His eyes recite with his mouth, as though reading from an invisible book. “The amber coats the alloy of a knife or a mortar. It ensures the effects of electron expulsion or static do not interfere with the preparation of potion ingredients.”

Dumbledore beams, his teeth white frosted and evenly gapped, a cemetery. “Excellent, Thadeus. Five points to Slytherin. Observe.”

Dumbledore plucks his wand from the draping sleeves of his robes, an archeologist amongst the topography of his mysteriously enhanced pockets, and summons a sphere of warm orange amber in the palm of his hand.

“A pearl of amber,” he says, “suspended in the air, unaffected by temperature or gravity when under my spell, and you can see its own mass self-gravitating it to this marvellous spherical shape—just as our earth was formed. Would anyone like to guess at its viscosity? And why you might coat a metal with this substance and not, say, a wand?”

The class continues along the same vein, and Tom spends it listening and supplementing silently with himself the details Dumbledore prefers to gloss over. Amber, such an interesting notion; could he potentially fossilise a portion of himself within it, as it so thoroughly fossilises the feather, the beetle, the mosquito?

Could it house a soul?

Dumbledore, if he knew, would surely refuse to answer.

⸻

In the Common Room, an hour before lunch convenes, Tom is still asking himself. He is seated by the hearth in a leather seat. The sofas and rugs are similarly adorned with his House peers, clustered together, reading aloud Kant’s Was ist Aufklärung? and laughing.

Before his research, Tom has never assumed knowledge over the Soul, nor even conceded with its existence. He has seen no reason for the need, for the infantilism of deity and god over man, when man has such the tools for himself to be a creator. Tom felt certain before that should he go looking for it, should he plunge his fingers into his chest and break open the warm flow of it, that he would find only his organs.

There are those crafters who would claim otherwise, attracted as they are to the volatile, Unknowable nature of the human soul. The Rousseauist, the Plato. They ask, can you touch the soul, can you test it, certainly, but these questions are clouded in the smog of, should a soul be touched? They would worship rather than dissect. And for their reticence, they remain shrouded and unlearned.

Tom has no such reticence.

Now he understands the provocative truth, the soul devoid of gods. It is as any material force as the next, to be grown or neglected, to be moved and manipulated.

To be cut.

A single tome, the only one of its kind in all of Hogwarts, offers but one sentence: by the removal of life, with force, the fibres of the Soul are fringed, that once which was Whole made into a Twin; a violent violation of nature itself.

He is not deterred. Was the steam train not once thought immoral? Was the novel not first feared? Is the mere possibility itself not proof that it is of the natural world?

Is violence not natural?

Tom’s ring finger glistens in the fireside, warm, seemingly breathing.

The realities of soul mutilation are plain mathematics. Quantifiable. Wholly Knowable.

In Humanity Rises, penned in navy blue ink by Alphonse Durach, the word Horcrux appears for the very first time in history, dated circa 1890.

The author begins with the body. A live homo sapien commands an enormous amount of power, from the potential energy hiding away in the bonds of cells, of tissues, within the tensions of the muscle, to the heat of the brain in its electricity and functions. When this energy is suddenly banished from its house of gelatinous flesh, it creates a vacuum.

Durach calls it removal from life, with force, a flowery turn of phrase for killing.

At once, a shockwave is created. It slices through the air, deceptively painless. The shard that breaks away is crystalized. The danger lies not in the cut of the soul itself, but in the transient space-time vacuum birthed by the process.

To survive the ordeal, one must predict for the vacuum’s behaviour by establishing necessary parameters:

A basic vacuum wherein f(r) and b(r) are redshift and shape functions, r is the throat of the vacuum and a, the catalyst, determines the stress energy scenario, i.e.

Accounting for the energy density of Avada Kedavra, p(r), the radial pressure, and pt(r), the transverse pressure released in the reaction, one can predict the nature of the vacuum, its stability, durability, radiation levels, and the location of its event horizon, and thus, the caster may be prepared with the proper runic countermeasures.

While there is little material on the differences of effectiveness between using chalk, blood, or pigment powders, it is certain that the Runic Array should be at least three layers deep to protect the mage from the worst of radiant exposure. The outermost layer must ground the environment so as not be swallowed by the vacuum. The middle layer must ground the caster to prevent his magic and body from being syphoned into the delicate reaction. The innermost layer must ground the soul, for once a piece of it is cut, it is untethered, regardless of its loyalty.

The space-time vacuum is open for, but a moment. The initial energy disperses in the environment as heat and light upon its opening. It is in the final burning of its closing, as it collapses violently in a molten burst, that the soul fragment is placed in its container and welded shut therein. He is now forever tethered to this plane of existence.

It is ancient magic, that all-consuming power of a dying star, the light of which only the caster of this ritual will ever see.

Tom remembers that scouring light well, how it scorched his eyes and left his skin burning. He remembers the sudden dark and quiet in the seconds after. Wet with sweat and trembling. Holding a precious, throbbing ring to his chest. It was warm and alive, as though he were holding his own heart.

He remembers the deep feeling of violation, of something… enormous and beyond comprehension reaching inside him with a slow, gargantuan arm, and leaving behind old memories of the universe itself. Life cycles in stars and an eternity of smooth, uninterrupted black.

Was this the universe? Was it death?

There is a certainty now that he has seen it, that should his Horcrux fail, that void would come to claim him. In taking its energy, he is now in part owned by it.

Tom never intends to pay this cosmic debt.

“Is that Muggle maths, Riddle?” Rosier asks.

“It is magic spoken in numbers,” Tom answers, folding the well creased papers away and tucking them out of sight in his bag. Whereas Magic lies in the imprecise, it is the enterprise of mathematics to pursue perfect precision. The sorcerer or the poet do not go mad, but mathematicians… they languish in asylums and sanatoriums, for the closer they come to the answers they seek, the further away they seem. The mathematician is the Prometheus among them; the one who goes to forbidden places and returns with the gifts all enjoy but he alone pays for.

Danger lies not in imagination—no, that is free and lawless. It is abstraction that unhinges.

“Why not in words then?” she asks indignantly, dropping down onto the sofa beside Walburga and flashing her a winning smile.

“Rosier,” Walburga sighs in consternation, in pity, “why does the painter write in paint, or the musician by song? There are more ways to speak than with one’s mouth. Perhaps you should consider trying it.”

Rosier stares at her, indeed speechless, ears red and likely imagining between the two of them all the ways they might speak without words.

Tom leaves them to it, having no desire to bear witness to Walburga’s latest meal—for she has already had her way with the girls of her own year and must now start anew on the girls in sixth.

Instead he tucks away his ‘Muggle maths’ and his books, his quill and his Neitzche, and approaches the small clusters of first and second year students in the Common Room, those sweet children with soft, rounded faces and eyes filled with admiration. They ask him their questions, not on their classes or on Quidditch, naive and wondering, can you talk to snakes, are you really the heir of Slytherin, will you be the Minister some day, and Tom humours them, answers them, and they know instinctively that his words carry the weight and vibrations of the universe itself.

⸻

The art of potions-making is unlike other magical practices. Whereas runes and transfiguration require a precise and exacting hand, and arithmancy and divination are driven primarily by interpretation, brewing potions is a separate kind of challenge. It requires both precision and instinct. One may follow the directions perfectly, and still produce only a mediocre draught. A true master finds power and ritual in the process—grinding, slicing, stirring—and communes with his ingredients, meditates on their purpose and outcome.

Of all the subjects taught in Hogwarts, this is the one that does not come naturally to Tom.

He has spent long hours memorising a vast encyclopaedia of different plants, sediments and salts, pickled animal parts, and all their properties and purposes. Aconite, asphodel, ashwinder egg, bezoar, bluebell, croakoa…

If they are better crushed, pressed, or chopped. If they are prone to resistance. Still, the stirring rod rests not as comfortably in his hand as his wand, not as lovely.

This is not the case for Thadeus Nott, Tom cannot help but notice every time they are in class together since First year, Nott hunches over his cauldron, face completely obscured by the screen of thick, bright purple smoke bubbling up as he carefully tends to the brew. Tom half thinks that Nott himself must be an ingredient for him to be so close to tipping his head into the liquid.

Today, they brew Liquid Bliss, the elixir to induce euphoria, and the room is brimming with a sweetness that makes Tom drowsy, his dicing slower, indulgent. The overall mood in the chamber is a relaxed and amiable one. There are several studies on part of Ministry specialists that thoroughly document all of its effects. They have listed arousal, dancing, glee, forgetfulness, hysteria; insurmountable happiness. A single drop has even cured cases of major depression.

Tom thinks it sounds very much like the feeling one gets after casting an Unforgivable.

He supposes that is why it is a controlled substance.

“Mr. Lestrange!” Professor Slughorn calls with warning from a few tables over. “Unless you intend for your elixir to transform into a deadly cloud of gas, I suggest you do not let that fifth porcupine quill anywhere near your caldron,”

Tom glances over his shoulder at the workstation behind him and watches Lestrange clumsily drop his forceps and the dreaded porcupine quill onto his table with a loud clatter. Nott emerges from his own cauldron just long enough to show he is laughing.

“Piss off,” Lestrange whispers without heat.

Tom returns to watching his own cauldron, the Liquid Bliss bubbling an innocent shade of lavender. Really, it’s a wonder they aren’t all laughing. Still, there are dangers lurking in every tonic. There are cases in which the effects of the potion are permanent, witches and wizards unable to express fear, anger, or grief for the rest of their lives. Stranger still, there is the case of Petra Prindelton in 1841, who drank the potion as a treatment for paranoia and immediately flew into a violent rage, maiming up to twelve people and killing one before they could restrain her. She sat in St. Mungo’s mental ward, ceaselessly cackling until she died of an aneurisma.

There is speculation that these cases are the result of a poorly brewed Liquid Bliss, and Tom wonders, eyeing the workstations around the room, some with potions better off than others, if history will repeat itself: Professor Slughorn has informed them they will be drinking their elixirs at the end of next class.

Tom’s own potion is nearly complete, his forehead sweating with the sweet steam that rises from his cauldron. He has already added the ground porcupine quills that have troubled Lestrange so, as well as the last five milligrams of wormwood, stirring rod steadily moving in a counterclockwise motion. It looks well enough, but when he compares his potion to Nott’s, a bright lilac that seems to shine with happiness, he cannot help feeling irritated.

“Nott,” he says quietly. “What have you added? You’ve done something outside the instructions, haven’t you?”

Nott smiles secretively but holds his tongue.

“Miss McLaggen, your potion is green!” Professor Slughorn exclaims, aghast. “Better start from scratch.”

Unfortunate for her, as there are only a few more minutes left in class. The more successful students have begun clearing their workstations, Tom included. He snuffs the burner flame, collects any salvageable materials, and begins cleaning his tools.

It is around this time, as Tom settles in to wait for his elixir to cool, that he begins to feel as though he has forgotten something. Is someone missing? Tom glances curiously around the candlelit workshop, counting heads. There is Lestrange and Nott of course and Rosier and the other Slytherin Sixth years, and of course the Ravenclaws. Is it perhaps an assignment he’s neglected? But they are early in the term yet, and the only assignment they’ve received so far is reading.

His Prefect duties? It strikes him suddenly, the memory of Professor Slughorn making his way towards him during the Welcome Feast and his request.

The transfer student! How had Tom forgotten?

He is not prone to absentmindedness, but on reflection, Tom cannot remember if he had seen the boy anywhere all day. Not the Great Hall or the Common Room or in any of Tom’s classes. But it doesn’t seem like anyone else has noticed his conspicuous absence at all either.

“Have you seen Harrison?” Tom asks Nott, curious.

“Who?” Nott replies, focused solely on the delicate matter of syphoning his elixir carefully into four glass vials.

Tom does not bother to elaborate, deep in his thoughts now. Does anyone remember the transfer student?

Tom ponders on this odd quandary, moving through the familiar motions of bottling his elixir now that it has cooled, a familiar routine. He glances again around the classroom, and thinks Professor Slughorn may be able to shed light on some of the mystery.

“Professor,” he calls, when the room is emptying out of students and fumes alike, and approaches where the man is taking notes of the various vials his students have turned in. “Could I have a moment of your time?”

“Always for you, my boy,” he says amiably.

“I was hoping to ask you about the transfer student.”

Slughorn looks up at him, brow furrowed.

“Transfer student?”

It is a nearly identical exchange to the one Tom had with Nott barely five minutes ago, and now Tom is really curious. There’s a prickling on the back of his neck.

“Harrison,” he clarifies. “You asked that I guide him while he adjusts to life here, but I must confess, I find the task complicating itself. It may help if I knew more about him. Where he came from, what his circumstances are.”

Professor Slughorn shakes his head as though clearing it.

“Oh—yes, of course! Mr. Harrison. I must be getting on in my years now, I’d completely forgotten. Well, it’s to be expected the lad needs some time to adjust. We mustn’t be too hard on him. I’m sure with time he’ll open up to you all about his circumstances. You’ve a knack for secrets!”

“Do you know where he is?” Tom asks—not because he believes Slughorn knows, but because he wants to further explore this forgetfulness, this communal amnesia that seems to be plaguing everyone.

“I’ve no doubt he’ll find his way to where he’s supposed to be,” Professor Slughorn answers dismissively. “Oh, and I’ll be starting up my dinner parties soon. Bring the boy along, will you?”

“Of course,” Tom answers automatically. “Thank you, Professor.”

Tom takes his leave and ascends up the serpentine dungeon halls to the ground floor. The dungeons, as all parts of Hogwarts castle, are enchanted, and much like the swivelling staircase or its trick steps, these darkened tunnels are not always friendly to the students who traverse them. They wind and lead, sometimes to one’s destination and sometimes not. But while the staircases are the invention of Ravenclaw and the Great Hall, Hufflepuff, the dungeons are Slytherin’s, and so these corridors never lead Tom astray.

⸻

“Quidditch tryouts are next Wednesday,” Prewett imparts brightly to the Slytherin table brightly and piles food high on his platter until it nearly overflows, a grin stretched on his freckled jaw. “And I made Captain since Dawlish finally graduated—better late than never—so I’ll expect the lot of you to pay your dues. I shan’t play favourites, but I can be bribed.”

“Did you hear that the Gryffindor Captain was taken to the hospital wing during their tryouts yesterday?” Roman Diggory, a Fifth year, says from down the table, her smile coquettish. “Stray bludger.”

“I can see you’re vying for my good graces already,” Prewett laughs.

“It is that season, again,” Walburga intones softly to Malfoy and Tom. They are perhaps the only students in Hogwarts who have always felt a bit lukewarm in regard to the sport. Malfoy prefers Warlock Polo, and Walburga prefers the sport of chasing pretty-faced girls.

Personally, Tom prefers to commit violence on behalf of himself rather than on behalf of a school team, though he cannot feign total disinterest. As with all things magic, Tom has studied the history and nature of Quidditch.

The enchanted broomstick is one of the oldest enchanted objects in modern wizardry. True, the advent of wizarding manufacturing has exponentially increased the quality of today’s broomsticks and other forms of transportation, but before school teams, before the portkey or Floo network, there was the simple broom fashioned from a fallen branch and dried wheat.

Alice Kyteler, the first to take flight, describes in her diary, in May of 1315, “Would I am made to sit again upon the bony, lopsided back of an ass, I shall be swept into hysteria. I’d sooner sit on mine broom!”

She spent the harvest flying openly over fields of rye, teaching her son and other witches in her community, for this was still some three hundred years before the Statute of Secrecy. She would unknowingly revolutionise Wizarding travel and eventually, the sport that would come to consume the globe.

In the days leading up to the Statute of Secrecy at the height of the witch hunts, Muggle history rewrites Kyteler as a harlot. Her very literal daily flights are replaced by figurative ones; hallucinogens applied to the bare genitals by straddling a common broom. Though Tom isn’t wholly convinced there weren’t hallucinogens at all, having read other parts of Kyteler’s memoirs. Who is he to begrudge her for finding the highest peak of bliss in the body as well as the skies?

“Each part of mine body seemed to be going off on its own, and I was seized with a fear that I was falling apart. It was intoxicating. I soared where mine whiles— the clouds, the lowering sky, herds of beasts, falling leaves… billowing streamers of steam and rivers of molten metal— were swirling along.”

“You would not go, not even to champion your betrothed?” Abraxas asks of Walburga loudly, slyly.

Little Orion Black, last year’s Slytherin Chaser, fumbles his spoon, his ears prickling with the shade of heat, and Alphard Black rolls his eyes in disgust. Poor Orion, doomed to a rather passionless marriage bed, unless he makes some rather drastic changes.

“But of course,” Walburga says dutifully. “We are family.”

She winks at Orion, and this time, it is Rosier, last year’s Beater, who loses her cutlery, a flash of jealousy clear on her face.

“Oi!” Prewett complains. “Between you and Riddle, the whole team will be giddy. Better you don’t come to watch any matches.”

“Don’t worry about the team,” Lestrange says, crossing his arms in a manner of haughtiness. “My father has taken it upon himself to charitably gift our team with seven Comets.”

There is uproarious cheering for the remainder of the meal, much speculation on who will make the team, how they’ll do against the other houses, and who will win the Quidditch cup.

Tom leaves them to their fervour, alone with his thoughts on magical flight, alone with Kyteler. There have been no major advancements in modern wizarding transportation since the implementation of the Floo Network, and Tom marvels at the potential for experimentation. Apparition to locations one has never seen, for instance. Or magical flight outside the earth’s atmosphere. If Tom could reach the moon, he could reach the sun, and further still, to other galaxies, to the centre of the cosmos. To the Throne of God.

⸻

After dinner, Tom corrals his House and ushers them to the dungeons, intercepting attempts to break curfew. Olive Hornby, a Third year, no doubt up to her usual mischief, and a group of First years who insist they must retrieve something from the library for their assignments, though Tom knows they have truthfully been dared to go to the Black Lake and attempt to coax the giant squid to the surface. He sends them each to their beds with the advice that should they wish to break the rules, they should do so without getting caught.

Tom then leaves them then, to retrace his steps in the corridors and begin his evening Prefect rounds.

He relishes Hogwarts at night, the darkness rushing up to cool the lingering heat of twilight, and the soft ambient glow of the lanterns catching fire. Tom plays with the lit flames as he passes them, draws them out from their wick homes and runs small orbs of light between the tips of his fingers as fireflies, until they coalesce in his hand. He snuffs the warm life out with a clench of his fist.

Shadows descend upon his form, hug his nape and kiss the backs of his knees. He alights a step of the grand staircase, holding fast to the railing as it swings from its landing. He’s taken to the third floor sweepingly, passing portraits who are soon retiring, drowsy in their frames, nursing cigars or spirits. Even the shifting staircase itself seems lethargic, its bulk dipping like the chin of a child nodding off.

Hogwarts all around him slows, submerged in the palpable stillness of slumber. He hears the whining whisper of a breeze ghosting through the castle’s cracks, the echoing, distant footfalls of professors and straggling students in route, the hiss of candle wax as it burns and drips to the floors beneath.

Tom feels himself be put at ease. He enjoys these evening strolls when the castle is his alone.

He goes to corridors and corners where other Prefects don’t often bother to walk, for he has little interest in discovering snogging teens and doling out detentions. These nightly walks have allowed him to explore every inch of Hogwarts and its hidden passages.

Tonight, he meanders down the third floor halls, heels clicking smartly on stone. He passes the corridor of Gunhilda of Gorsemoor and the trophy room, wanders with no purpose but to absorb the ghostly tranquillity of an old, groaning alcazar. He even idles to gaze upon the school grounds through vaulted windows and painted glass.

The world outside is heavy with fog, a constant of these Scottish moors.

Tom watches his breath manifest upon the cool glass, a circle of grey obscuring the dull gloom of the vegetable patches below. He presses his finger to the mark as it fades and watches frost spread beneath the clean line of his nail, crawling, shimmering.

An odd noise trickles from the opposite end of the corridor.

He turns away from the window, listening.

There is a warped, warbling noise making its way through the third floor, a thin sound that reverberates off the walls. A radio?

With a decisive flick of his wand, the clicks of his heels are silenced, and he follows the noise down the hall.

“Priivleka tenn,” he whispers as he approaches the source, a door adjacent to the Charms classroom, and as though the shadows were an oily ink, they slither from the walls and wrap around Tom as a second skin. He all but disappears into the dark.

The door is ajar, and as Tom slinks hidden along the wall towards it, he is met with a waning, lilting tune. It is a mangled song, not one he recognizes, discordant on the ears. He places a hand on the wooden door and carefully, so carefully, eases it open, just enough to peer inside.

The room is dim, lit only by moonlight and the scattered warmth of the lanterns coming in from the hall, and empty but for the small, dark shape moving at the centre. A lullaby plays throughout the room, a pitiful, curdling sound that Tom at last recognizes as the result of a poorly cast tune spell.

He pushes the door open to its capacity, a pillar of light spearing through the chamber and casting away the shadows concealing it.

There is a student on the floor. He crawls on his knees, hands sweeping at the stone floor as though searching.

It is Harrison, he realises, the transfer student. He does not appear to notice that the door has been opened or that he is no longer alone. There is a wand, discarded some feet away from the boy, its tip glowing softly in time with the dreadful song.

“Looking for something?” Tom asks, allowing his concealment charm to melt away like shadowy ink running down his body.

Harrison startles badly, so hard his crooked glasses slip from his nose and clatter harshly on the floor. The lenses reflect light and the dark shape of Tom’s own feet as he advances.

Harrison squints up at him.

“No, I—I don’t know.”

Tom picks up the spectacles gently by a delicate arm. They are old, the lenses thick and fogged. The frames are scuffed and a jagged, spidery crack spreads over the lens of the right eye.

“You’re very far from the dorms, Mr. Harrison,” he says, still examining the spectacles. “What are you doing out past curfew?”

“There’s something here. Something’s supposed to be here,” the boy mumbles, hands once more sweeping over the third floor chamber.

Tom tilts his head, considering.

“What is?”

“I don’t know,” Harrison says, frustration colouring his voice.

“And the music?”

“It protects me from the three-headed dog—” Tom feels his eyebrows raise in surprise. A cerberus? The hound of Hades that guards the underworld?

But when Harrison looks around, squinting at the empty chamber, his brows furrow.

“He was just here.”

“Why?” Tom asks, curious. The Hound of Hades, in the castle—imagine!

Harrison appears to fight with himself, thinking very hard. Tom kneels on one knee before him and with two hands, slides the broken glasses back onto the boy’s face.

“I know you,” he says again to Tom, vision clear but for the crack over his eye.

“Why was the three-headed dog here?” Tom asks again.

Harrison’s mouth remains open but empty for a long moment. Tom can see his teeth glistening in the dark; his upper left lateral incisor is slightly askew.

“There was a door here,” he says at last, looking down at the stones. Tom looks too. Of course there are hidden passages in the castle; he, himself, has discovered several. The ground beneath him, however, gives nothing away.

“What was behind the door?” Tom asks softly, kindly. The door that Cerberus guards.

“Nicholas Flamel.”

Tom inhales, sharp and quick, the unsettling music surrounding them. He feels his heart tick hard. Who is this boy? From where has he come? What had Professor Slughorn said? He will find his way to where he’s supposed to be.

“I believe you should stay close to me,” Tom says, pointing his wand directly between the boy’s eyes. “In case the Hound of Hades returns for you. Oculus reparo.”

The crack in Harrison’s spectacles scatter and dissolve with a dying shink.

⸻

“Le coeur fou Robinsonne à travers les romans. Lorsque, dans la clarté d'un pâle réverbère,” Rosier’s voice greets them as they return together into the embrace of the Common Room. She recites tremulously, her hands reaching out to the students gathered, but her eyes wander to Miss Black who argues quietly in the corner with Malfoy, their mouths curling as well in French.

“Passe une demoiselle aux petits airs charmants, Sous l'ombre du faux col effrayant de son père…” Rosier continues, louder, pointedly at a Walburga who does not spare her the attention. Instead, she looks up and sees Tom entering taking the short steps down into the commons and beckons him.

“Et, comme elle vous trouve immensément naïf, Tout en faisant trotter ses petites bottines—”

“Rosier, it’s poetry!” Alphard Black complains. “You don’t need to yell.”

The girl flushes.

“Elle se t-tourne, alerte et d'un mouvement vif....- Sur ...vos lè-l-lèvrier—”

Her audience laughs.

“You have returned to us ast last,” Walburga says as Tom seats himself at their small table. “And brought a shadow? Oh!”

She has an air of soft realisation. Her eyes look the boy over closely, bright with sharp scrutiny.

Tom looks back to the shadowed thing, the boy trailing behind.

“Nearly forgot we had a little creature,” Lestrange sniffs derisively, his eyes flicking over the boy.

“Yes...” Walburga replies absently. She has undoubtedly realised her absentmindedness is not completely natural.

Tom ruminates on what Harrison had said in the third floor chamber. He knows of Nicolas Flamel, as any magician ought, of his Alchemy and the Philosopher’s Stone. Hogwarts offers a class on Alchemy, and Tom wonders if he has time to add it to his schedule. Alchemy, particularly Flamel’s studies, involve the philosophy of the Universe’s sense of Balance. Of Appropriate and Exchange.

Tom wonders what the Universe must have stolen, in order for Harrison to appear here...

Nicolas Flamel is a famous enough invocation, but he does not know if Flamel has any relation to Hogwarts or why the man might be here, as Harrison seems to think. The reference to Cerberus in particular intrigues him. Flamel is known to have in his possession the Elixir of Life. He supposes that is enough to be stalked by the agents of the Underworld. Tom assigns himself the task of reading up on it—Alchemy and Cerberus both.

After he has written his Potion’s analysis on Milkweed, of course.

Tom pauses, alert.

That had been an intrusive thought.

Something is diverting his attention.

Tom looks at Harrison sharply. Did the boy dare to put a spell on him? Is the boy cursed? Why?

“Should we expect to save a seat for you at breakfast time?” Abraxas asks the boy as he viciously crosses out a portion of his own first essay, Runes by the look. His Correcting Quill banishes the scratched out marks until his parchment is clean once more, and he can write anew. “What is your name, again?”

“Of course,” Walburga replies for Harrison. She and Tom share a look. “Mice grow hungry.”