Embryo

IV

Out in the grass, in the fields of warm, malted barley and dried leaves, Tom bares his face to the sun in supplication. The wind is brisk by the Black Lake’s bank, even out of the shade, and it chills the air, but the sky warm. He inhales and rather understands the appeal of naturalism.

Tom is not a Rousseauist, nor a Tolstoyan, but even he–a heathen youth now long separated from newborn innocence by the corruption of civil society–can appreciate the day… even if the seat of his pants is damp from the soil and the skin of his cheeks has been made tight in the wind.

“‘It is a noble and beautiful spectacle to see man raising himself from nothing by his own exertions by the light of reason,’” Alphard Back recites from his place in the grass as well, book unfolded in his lap. “‘All the thick clouds in which he was by nature enveloped part; mounting above himself; soaring in thought even to the celestial regions; like the sun, encompassing with giant strides the vast extent of the universe.’”

Rosier gives a long groan, lolling her head in Walburga’s lap and tossing her own copy of the Discourse on the Arts and Sciences to the glades. “I should have stayed inside to play Gobstones with Mulciber and Dolohov. Alphie, you’re making this drier than the man did himself, and he believed in universal celibacy!”

Alphard’s face pinches with mild annoyance, but he continues without comment.

“‘So long as government and law provide for the security and well-being of men in their common life, in the arts, literature and the sciences, it will continue to fling garlands of flowers over the chains which weigh them down. They stifle in men’s breasts that sense of liberty, cause them to love their own slavery, and so make of them what is called a civilised people.’”

“Listening to this is the real slavery,” she mutters, then stutters to a halt as Walburga brushes a hand over her cheek, appearing to be on the brink of combustion.

“Cordillia, you are much more handsome when you are silent,” Walburga chastises as she pets the girl. “Imagine that.”

Rosier promptly disowns her voice.

“Thank the stars Lestrange has Herbology this hour,” Ignatius laughs. “He and Rosier together would completely undermine the point of this venture.”

“What is the point?” Rosier interrupts.

“The stars? Thank instead Rousseau,” Tom says, ignoring Rosier. “Lestrange has a sixth sense for Romance. Any whiff of it sends him fleeing into the hills.”

“I can’t blame him,” Alphard mutters, struggling to rally his fortitude. “Rousseau isn’t exactly what I’d call light reading.”

“The mind can’t survive alone on your erotic novellas,” Walburgra says. “Variety is important. Continue.”

Alphard sighs, looking as though he deeply disagrees, longing for some such novella now no doubt.

“Fine. Today: Rousseau. Tomorrow: The Perfume Garden. ‘Necessity raised up thrones; the arts and sciences have made them strong. Powers of the earth, cherish all talents and protect those who cultivate them. Civilised peoples, cultivate such pursuits: to them, happy slaves, you owe that delicacy and exquisiteness of taste, which is so much your boast, that sweetness of disposition and urbanity of manners which make intercourse so easy and agreeable among you—in a word, the appearance of all the virtues, without being in possession of one of them.’”

“Another philosopher obsessed with virtue,” Prewett complains. “Perhaps if dear old Jean-Jacques had known the virtue of Quidditch, he might have been more forgiving to the everyday society man.”

Thadeus laughs, conjures the sparkling image of a snitch, shadowy and white in the sunlight. They abandon French philosophy for play. Rosier rolls from Walburga’s thighs to smash a smoke bludger into Alphard’s face. It leaves his cheeks streaked with soot.

There is an uproar of shouting and lazy retaliations of waving wands.

Perhaps Tom is a Rousseauist, after all, though not for a concern of virtue or loss of innocence.

The natural world holds much power and while Rousseau reviles society, it is through liberal study and worldly conversation that these powers grow apparent. If society corrupts, then corruption is natural.

Tom turns to the lake to watch its shore lap at the sand and listen absently to his peers entertain one another. At his side, Harrison sits. He curls against the wind, watching with disaffected eyes the eruption of his peers at play, the dissonance of laughter and howling breeze. Tom had not bade Harrison to accompany them on the campus lawn, rather, he had followed slowly after Tom, drifting steadily after him.

“Which would you choose?” Tom asks him. “Your innocence or your society?”

But this is not the Harrison who had so boldly declared that war is not a game. This is the dazed boy who first appeared at their table at the Welcome Feast. His eyes are as glassy as the still lake waters, head low and vulnerable, pale ears reddened in the cold.

“It feels like there’s something of mine down there,” he says.

“In the lake?” Tom asks.

“Something precious.”

Tom’s eyes trace over Harrison’s exposed ankles, the bottom of his hem too short, wondering what precious thing could be down there, or anything of Harrison’s for that matter. But his gaze is caught on bony white skin, pebbled with cold, and he finds he cannot look away from them. His hand could circle the whole of that ankle.

“Harrison, are you still wearing just that pitiful robe? Outside?” Thadeus Nott asks, vanishing the smoky quaffle heading for him with a bat of his hand, like one might bat away cigar smoke.

“No pants, even?” Ignatius demands in incredulity, sweeping a glance down the boy’s slight figure, perhaps trying to discern the presence of undergarments. Harrison watches them over the bend of his knees silently.

“Rousseau says the honest man is an athlete, who loves to wrestle stark naked,” Alphard says matter-of-fact. “He scorns all vile trappings, which prevent the exertion of his strength, and were, for the most part, invented only to conceal some deformity.”

“I doubt he considered the chill of September in northern Scotland in his ruminations,” says Nott.

“Besides which, he’s dead,” Prewett states matter-of-factly, pulling off his outer Slytherin robe. “At the moment, Rousseau doesn’t know cold from cock.”

Nott laughs.

“Though I’m not entirely convinced he’d know the difference alive, either,” Prewett continues, yanking his deep blue woollen jumper over his head. His bright red hair pops out of the collar full of static.

“What are you doing?!” Rosier demands, putting her hands over her eyes, and blushing bright red.

Ignatius rolls his eyes with great exaggeration and tosses the jumper to Harrison. It spills over his lap, and Harrison holds it out cautiously, just looking at it.

“Well put it on, chap,” Ignatius prompts. “It’s got excellent warming charms woven into it.”

“It doesn’t have your initials on it,” Harrison says, tracing his finger over the delicate knit as though searching for the missing letter.

“And why should it?” Prewett asks.

Harrison cannot appear to answer. He wordlessly slips the jumper over his head, directly on top of his thin robe. It pools around him, his hair comes through all the more wild, his spectacles crooked. His shorter arms are swallowed by the long sleeves.

“You look like a buggy little owl,” Walburga says, as though delivering an unfortunate diagnosis.

Tom wonders if he’ll fly away.

“Have you always lived like a House Elf?” Rosier sniffs.

“All right,” Prewett scolds. “Everyone else, cough up a sock or something. Between the lot of us, we can have Harrison bundled up head to toe.”

No one moves to make a donation. Prewett scowls at them.

“What?” Alphard demands. “I’m not giving anyone my socks. They’re hand-woven from Peru!”

Nott sighs. “Where are your other clothes, Harrison?”

Harrison looks down at himself.

“What’s wrong with these?”

The students all look askance at one another in silence.

How could this be? How is it Harrison has arrived here with so little? There is nothing in the dorms, no books, no stray robes, nothing to suggest Harrison can claim anything at all. Even Tom, perhaps the poorest to have ever arrived at Slytherin’s door that first year, was provided three sets of robes and the school materials he required. They had been second hand, yes, old and creased with time. But he had been fully clothed.

But then, Tom had not been cursed with a forgetfulness spell.

Very deliberately, he faces Harrison and unwinds his silk scarf from round his neck. He turns face to face with Harrison, and drapes it over the boy’s head. The fine, glossy material is almost a veil between them until it settles under his chin. Tom imagines taking hold of the ends of the scarf like a lead.

Harrison’s ears are rather more red than before.

“You’ll have to buy some more clothes when we go to Hogsmeade in October,” Nott says.

Harrison just shrugs, sinking into the stretched neck of Prewett’s jumper. Tom doubts Harrison owns a single knut. He sits back in the grass and thinks not of Rousseau but of Dostoievskii’s Akaky Akakievich.

Goodness is more dear to the good than learning to the learned.

—

Thadeus Nott and Saturday both dawn dreary. The clouds cling to the peaks of Hogwarts castle like grey moss, casting the grounds and sleeping inhabitants in a murky, sticky blue light. He lies awake, the first to rise up from unconsciousness in his dorm, even beating the ever-diligent Prefect Riddle, and to himself says, Regression to the Mean. It is statistically improbable to languish in misery forever.

He quickly dons his winter day-wear and outer coat, skin still flushed and vulnerable from the heat of sleep. It feels strange returning to everyday clothes, after only a few weeks wearing his Slytherin robes. His school uniform is an armor, and he is nude without it. Thadeus taps his boots with his wand and they lace perfectly, his fingers white on his wand’s handle, his knuckles burning. A nervous biter, is he, and his knuckles face the brunt of it, the skin raised and puckered to the pattern of his teeth. His mother abhors the habit, would spend summers soaking his hands in vinegar to dissuade him; a treatment of the fever but never the sickness itself.

Thadeus’ knuckles now would provoke Lady Nott to exclamations, as they blister and scab within a few days, then peel with shiny new, pink skin to start on again; ready for another round of worries.

Dressed, he raises the emerald sea tapestries around his bed and slips out of the dorm, through the narrow staircase, the predawn sky too dark yet to illuminate the lake under his feet. He descends, cracks open the curio cabinet behind which the Sixth year dorms are sequestered. It is so ordinary a sequence that Thadeus expects to be met with the bustle and song of Slytherin Common Room in the daytime. It is a harrowing reminder to be greeted with empty silence.

The couches and chairs, the cosy corners and warm fireside alcoves, are all empty—but for one.

“Ignatius,” he breathes.

His friend, half sleeping, jerks in the plush armchair, his elbow slipping from its perch on the armrest.

“Thad!” he rushes out in an almost whisper, jumping to his feet and rubbing sleep from his eyes. He is still in his pyjamas and slippers. His voice is sandy in a way that has Thadeus recalling their late nights and summer sleepovers. “Scared me to death. You’re like a bloody dementor.”

Thadeus does his best to not contemplate real dementors.

“What are you doing awake?” Thadeus whispers as well, unable to raise his voice beyond the hard tangle of apprehension residing in the soft tissue of his lower palet.

Ignatius has the gall, as always, to appear stricken. “I’m not much of a friend if I can’t send you off to a horrid time. Would you rather go at it alone?”

It is Saturday, the third Saturday of September, and Thadeus, for the first time directly, allows himself to finish the thought: it is finally time for his father's trial at the Ministry.

It is time they bury his sister Millicenta.

“No,” Thadeus chokes.

“Then let’s walk.”

They leave the Common Room for the draughty dungeons, and the castle itself appears to be asleep. The armoured knights that line the staircase just behind them slouch against one another, and the windows droop pitifully. Portraits snore within their frames. Thadeus on occasion—on any other day when it the sun is bright and the halls are filled with haze, when the corridors are teaming with voices and footsteps— swears he can see ghostly figures of students past, flickering betwixt real and dream. He wonders then if the castle can dream.

Thadeus wonders if the castle will ever dream of him long after he is gone.

Or might he instead be banished from this place, condemned for his father’s sins?

Tycho Nott, a self-proclaimed pious man, a follower of old Pureblood traditions seduced by Grindelwald’s myriad promises, operates and organises his life according to Natural Order: he the king, and Muggles the vermin. It is not an uncommon sentiment.

It is less common for a man such as Tycho Nott to sire a Squib.

You understand, don’t you, my boy? Tycho Nott had spoken to Thadeus as he wiped fog off of his spectacles. It was a shame to our family.

If Millie had only received a Hogwarts letter...

Thadeus cannot look away from Ignatius’ fleece slippers. They muffle his steps, covered by the reverberating clicks of Thadeus’ own boots. As though he were walking alone.

Seized suddenly with this thought, Thadeus reaches between them and grasps Ignatius’ hand tightly. Their fingers do not lace neatly, and Thadeus uses his nails too harshly, but Ignatius does not chastise him.

If he could, Thadeus would delay them here forever.

But despite his best efforts, they do indeed eventually wind their way to Headmaster Dippet’s office. When they have arrived with stale silence and sweaty palms, when the door looms ahead unobstructed, Ignatius stops and turns to him.

“Thadeus,” he pleads very seriously. He looks much older suddenly in the half light. Thadeus can see stubble, a startling revelation. His dearest friend will be eighteen soon, and will leave the school in a few short months forever. Thadeus hadn’t yet considered that he’d be without Ignatius for his final year at Hogwarts.

“They’re going to ask you things you won’t want to answer. Personal, invasive things about your father, your mother, everyone. It will be humiliating. But you have to tell the truth through it all, do you understand? Your father… he did something terrible, and you have to do your part to see that he faces the consequence. So just—tell them everything.”

Thadeus cannot eject a single sound, his throat sealed. Ignatius hugs him briefly, tight and vicious.

“Go,” his friend whispers as they separate. He looks as though he might say more, but holds his tongue.

Thad’s throat is closing, and he can’t promise. Not to his friend, with his prying eyes and velvet winter slippers. Not to himself.

Headmaster Dippet is blessedly monosyllabic in greeting and departure. He tells him the time he’ll return in a few days, and offers paltry support. Thadeus hears the words through many miles.

He is first going home, and the pressure he’s felt in his chest since his father killed Thadeus’ one and only sister tightens ever the more.

He dashes the Floo powder into the Headmaster’s fireplace.

“Nott Estate, Wiltshire, Secondary Residence.”

—

A House Elf greets Thadeus when he steps through the hearth into the darkened sitting room of his mother’s wing. It isn't one he recognizes, but his father recycles the elves regularly. To keep them from getting any ideas, he’d say.

“Young Master Nott wills be needing help with his luggage?”

“No. No luggage. Where is Mother?”

“Mistress bes in her private quarters, Young Master,” the elf says with a bow so low, his floppy ear drag on the polished wood floors.

Thadeus fortifies himself with a deep breath, then brushes past the elf for the dark mouth of a hallway that will lead to his mother’s rooms. He passes high windows, hung with stiff, heavy draperies, that overlook the expansive property of the estate and spies the main house on the horizon. Mother had moved into the second house a few years ago; Father blamed her for their daughter’s Mundanity.

It is no Malfoy estate, with marble sconces and silver inlays, no, but it is classically grand, furnished in rich tapestries that range in all colours. When it is not so dark, the house is quite comfortable. In high season, when social events are all a-fervor, Mother hosts tea and parties on the first floor, and her guests have always spoken highly of her hospitality. Thadeus himself likens it to a prison, and doubts there will be any visitors after his father’s trial.

Now, in the gloom, it seems the house is mourning.

He is an intruder in the silence.

He suddenly wishes for Ignatius.

Thadeus presses on and travels the rest of the hall until at last he arrives at the closed double doors leading to his mother’s room.

He knocks gently.

“Mother? Are you awake?”

“Come in, Thadeus,” his mother beckons, the door opening by its own accord.

She is reclined elegantly in a pale blue robe, situated upon a chaise with a long roll of parchment and a glass of what is probably sherry.

“I am reviewing the materials the Esquire office sent. You will need to be groomed for your testimony.”

She looks up at him, and smiles. Mother has never been a kind woman, not to him. She did what was necessary, for him and the family. Their relationship is a formal one, recognized by banks and schools and blood, but rarely by filial affection. He does not resent her for it. Does one resent the winter for taking away the warmth?

Mother was kind to his sister.

There was something in Millicenta that softened. Perhaps the sheen and bounce of her dark curls, or the wideness of her eyes, or the way she truly loved, not in the tight-mouthed way of the rest of them, but earnestly and fully.

That was her magic.

“Come sit with me, Thadeus.”

Mother sits up, draws him near with a gesture. He sits beside her in her small suite, a velvet prison.

She strokes his hair the way she used to stroke Millie’s.

“You have grown so tall,” she sighs wistfully. “You’ll come of age soon. I can scarcely believe it.”

Thadeus moves away from the touch. His instincts flare.

“You have come to an age where you can appreciate responsibility, and an heir has many.”

“I am prepared,” Thadeus says automatically.

“I am relieved to hear it. Here,” she sets her sherry down and passes him a rolled parchment. “A guide for your testimony this evening. Be sure to review it, and follow it closely. This was prepared by our Barrister.”

“A guide?”

“Yes, you are the key witness. Your response will determine the trial. We must ensure your answers show the best of your father, so his return home is not further delayed.”

Thadeus stands abruptly, body going hot with rage.

“His return? You want him back? Here?”

“Compose yourself, Thadeus. This is his home, where else does he belong?”

“He killed my sister! Your child—” Thadeus’ throat closes. He closes his eyes very tight, heart thumping. “He belongs in Azkaban.”

The funeral had been swift, to keep the time investigators had Millicenta’s body as short as possible. She lies in the family mausoleum, permitted only because Tycho Nott had already been apprehended and so was not at liberty to oppose it.

He looks at his mother, pleading with her.

“I cannot manage the estate alone,” she tells him. “There are many messes he must put to right.”

“His messes! If it’s the estate, I can help you! I’m almost of age, I know our accounts, our equities. The financiérs are familiar with me.”

They stare at one another in silence until his mother rises. She cups his face in both her hands, though her face is not gentle.

“Your father is in a very precarious position. He has involved the family and our affairs in dangerous plots. We are tied up in them, and we cannot afford for him to be in prison.”

Dangerous plots...? Moreso than what’s already been discovered?

“Is it the Germans? Mother, we can go to the Ministry, we can tell them!”

“I will not be implicated in Tycho’s mistakes! And neither will you. No. He will come home, he will manage his business, and we will be as we were.”

Thadeus strikes his mother’s hands away, steps back.

“He killed Millicenta!”

His mother sighs.

“Yes, he did. Perhaps now, he will have less to be angry about.”

To be sane in a world of madmen is in itself madness.

—

Is there not nobility to be found in suffering, pray? The Greats tend to say so. Iron and steel are forged in the fire, and nuclear fission is not possible without violent pressure. It follows then, that the greatest thing one can do for oneself is to suffer.

Tom disagrees.

There is no such special thing to it, suffering. Any fool or foe can suffer, and Tom has seen it enough with very little yield. The best one can do for oneself is learn to avoid it, or, failing that, inflict it.

Professor Slughorn’s dinner parties, on the other hand, are unavoidable.

They tend to be made out as a cloistering thing, Slughorn’s little collections. Tom must count himself among them, begrudgingly. It is an invaluable opportunity to seat himself with the many connexions his Professor has made over his long tenure, one which Tom is ever ready to leverage. Why, last year at just fifteen, he had spent hours in the company of the most talented duellers of the age, a noblewoman from South Africa and Raynaldus Lestrange’s mother. Tom is grateful, truly. How else could he so easily peer into the realm of modern influencers? His peers provide their own opportunities but they are still only children.

Tom has much to thank Professor Slughorn for.

The dinner parties are still irrefutably, unforgivably annoying. Due mostly to the host himself.

“Tom, dear boy!” Professor Slughorn blusters with an ever present self-importance. “Sit, sit! Beside me, you must. And—oh! Mr. Harrison too, you’ve brought him along. Capital, capital!”

Tom smiles out of muscle memory alone.

“You spoil me, Professor. How can I monopolise your attention when you have so many guests? They are keen for your stimulating conversation.”

Here, he and Abraxas share a meaningful look across the table. As a Malfoy, he had of course been recruited for Slughorn’s other side at the head of the table. Ignatius Prewett sits beside him, bored and irritated already.

“I won’t hear of it, Tom! It is the first dinner party of the year, and you have wasted no time to outshine your peers with top marks, no time at all. Such a thing is worth celebrating, wouldn’t you say?” Slughorn insists.

Prewett rolls his eyes.

“You will have my classmates resenting me,” Tom jests, surrendering to his lot and motioning for Harrison to take the seat next to him.

“Let them!” Slughorn crows. “Greatness is to be envied—oops! Oh, dear.”

Harrison startles as Slughorn’s arm crashes into the crystalware on the table, sending rich, burgundy wine spilling over the broken glass. The crowd jumps at the noise.

“No matter, no matter,” Slughorn chuckles.

“Allow me, Professor,” Walburga says, arriving a few moments late, as is most fashionable, and just in time to draw her wand and reverse the damage done. She seats herself in the third position, pinning Harrison between herself and Tom.

Slughorn raises his repaired glass.

“Marvellous work Miss Black. A toast! To my most cherished guests. May this pioneer dinner be a success: in new friendship, in knowledge, and in endeavouring to have a damned good time. To this dinner and every one after! Cheers!”

The table follows suit and they raise their glasses together. Over the noise, Slughorn says, “My word, Miss Black, I do believe you have improved the quality of this crystal.”

The food appears, and the overall measure of enthusiasm rises.

Conversation flows steadily with the wine, and voices rise around them in great crescendo. Down the table, there are more students of course, of other Houses, and a few noteworthy guests: the 1942 International Wizard Chess champion, a woman from Azerbaijan; a Hogwarts alumnus who now leads the research department at St. Mungo’s Hospital; and a man who Tom believes to be a vampire, but he isn’t sure.

“Eric Blair’s manuscript has been leaked by one of the publishers who rejected him,” Abraxas is saying.

“Animal Farm?” Slughorn scowls. “Nasty business. And at such an inopportune time.”

“You agree, then?” Walburga Black asks. “You think the publishers were right in refusing to endorse it? I should think we were beyond the age of censorship, even when the theme is... inopportune.”

“I believe Professor Slughorn was referring to its rather disparaging metaphor for a particular ally in our war,” Prewett says.

A ripple of disapproving titters runs down the table.

“You mean the Muggle war,” someone further down says.

“And I suppose the fact it’s spearheaded by Gellert Grindelwald is neither noteworthy nor even acknowledged?” Prewett retorts loudly.

“Spearheaded? Grindelwald is a Muggle pawn!”

“I say!” Slughorn exclaims in alarm.

“I heard Blair has gone to Muggles to have it published, under the moniker George Orwell,” Abraxas sniffs.

“And the Muggle Liaison Office will never allow it!” a Ravenclaw Seventh Year girl snarls. “He clearly references Animagi. It is too dangerous to release to Muggles.”

“Did you even read the manuscript?” Walburga laughs. “They’re not Animagi, Thicknesse, your mother should have sent you to finishing school after all.”

“Please, young ladies, gentlemen,” Professor Slughorn half-heartedly shouts over their clamour of words and biting rebuttals. His face is flushed, and he looks to his right, at Tom and Harrison. His face lights up with inspiration of a new topic.

“A-hah! We have amongst us a new face, fresh blood. What is more stimulating, after all, than an extra mind to be added to our discussions?”

Everyone falls silent to look where Harrison sits small in his chair. He, despite manners or even the rather cosy warmth in the smallish nook, still wears the scarf Tom himself had wound about his neck the previous day and looks deeply resentful of the sudden attention.

“We extend a warm welcome to you, Mr. Harrison,” Professor Slughorn continues with relish. “We all await with bated breath to see how you shall flourish here. I’ve no doubt you will accomplish great things, particularly,” Slughorn dips his chin to Tom, “with young Mr. Riddle here to guide you. I hold the utmost faith in him.”

Harrison stays stubbornly silent.

“Tell me,” Slughorn presses when he is not granted a response, “how do you find Hogwarts so far?”

“Very… very well, Professor,” Harrison grits.

“And how do you find Tom Riddle?” their Professor asks with a laugh, clearly expecting only the most flattering of responses.

It is a vulgar heap of affection being levelled to Tom so shamelessly, but it is made less vulgar by virtue of Slughorn granting Tom unlimited access to the Restricted Section in Hogwarts’ library as well as a few Staff-only shelves. A small price to pay for the benefits, being aggressively flattered.

“I find Tom Riddle…” Harrison clears his throat. He ducks his head, half of him now obscured by a combination of his thick hair and Tom’s scarf. “Dangerous.”

It is said so quietly, it is completely unheard but for the two directly beside him.

Tom takes a sharp breath, winded. This peculiar feeling of blood and excitement sweeps over him.

“My, my,” Walburga laughs breathlessly.

“Not to worry, young man,” Professor Slughorn chuckles, oblivious. “I’ll not force you to sing the praises of your peer when you have known him so short a time. But I have no doubt you will come to recognize his brilliance for yourself!”

Harrison nods stiffly and pushes his chair back from the table.

“Toilet,” he mutters, all but running from the room.

Tom watches him go without comment.

“Poor Mr. Harrison,” Walburga coos. “So easily frightened.”

“I thought you knew,” Abraxas says from across the table. “Harrison is his given name. He doesn’t use a surname. Nott told me, he noticed on the roster.”

“Is that so?” Walburga asks, with only mild curiosity.

“Besides which, he’s an illegitimate Potter no matter which side you look at. He’s as good as Charlus’ twin when he was this age,” Abraxas finishes with a certain air of triumph.

“I suppose that explains why we are all so wont to forget him,” Walburga remarks, and receives furrowed brows. “Don’t say you haven’t noticed! Abraxas, your recent inheritance has left you rather numb. Even Raynaldus noticed after the first few weeks.”

“You think he’s been cursed?” Ignatius asks.

“He wouldn’t be the first illegitimate offspring confounded and cursed into obscurity. I have heard Euphemia Potter is rather wild,” Abraxas says.

“The same could be said for your father, Abraxas,” Walburga says with relish, a sly grin on her face. “Perhaps you have a half-brother. I bet in a certain light, you and Harrison have a likeness.”

“Hilarious,” he sniffs.

Tom watches the exchange without comment. A strange feeling has overcome him upon learning this latest news, a feeling of… understanding; kinship. He, too, was abandoned once. He, too, had endured that unique humiliation of being denied the truth of his birth, forced to live on the leftovers of others. Well, he has thrived since, and humiliation is now a stranger to him. Tom is the heir of Slytherin, a king among Wizards.

He wonders if triumph of a similar kind might become Harrison.

Tom is certain with due influence Harrison could be transformed. Tom would see it, make it so.

He glances at his silver pocket watch, a gift from the Malfoys last year, and is pleased with the lateness of the hour. He glances about the chamber, but Harrison has not returned, and with an odd urgency he feels he must dismiss himself.

“I must bid you all goodnight, Professor,” he announces loudly over the din. “My patrols will not wait.”

“Yes, well. Such is the burden of excellence. Off you go,” Slughorn permits. “I’ll have one of the elves drop a bit of pudding off in your dorm since you’ll be missing dessert.”

“I am much obliged, Professor.”

“Such is the burden of excellence,” Ignatius mimics at a whisper, and Tom leaves them to their stifled laughter.

The hall is much cooler than the stifling mugginess of steaming food and scents of stuffings and gravies. Horace Slughorn will not be separated from his hedonistic ways. It has been a happy marriage, after all, his professor and his indulgences. This is not to say that Tom looks down upon hedonism; it is merely that the indulgence in question should be more to his taste.

He pauses to consider now that he is alone in the dark.

Which way?

Where he is on the second floor, there are Professor Slughorn's private offices, where the man can be found most of the hours of the evening, for he very loudly disowns the draftiness and chill of the dungeons. There are staircases to the right, and a balcony overlooking the courtyard below the clocktower.

Which would Harrison choose?

His ring, which has only ever beat softly upon his finger like the gentlest of hearts, gives a hard throb, and the hand upon which the ring rests jerks of its own accord to his left down the corridor. Tom lifts his hand to inspect the ring in the dim light of the hall.

The black gem glitters, reflects back at him. It has grown very warm.

“What do you know that I don’t?” he murmurs.

The Horcrux is not under threat. It is kept in close proximity to the master soul, and there are no other Horcruxes to interfere with its stability. What is making it talk now?

The ring gives another tug, and Tom acquiesces. As though a hand has reached into Tom's navel, he is pulled down the hall of the second floor with a steady, gentle influence. His ring has fallen silent now that he has done as it has asked, but as he walks down the dark corridor, he isn’t at all certain why it would bring him here.

Tom hastens his step and rounds the next corner into a very startled Cordillia Rosier.

“Oh!” she cries as they collide. “Prefect Riddle! What a surprise. Aren't.... aren't you meant to be at Professor Slughorn's dinner party?”

Tom hums.

“There is only one of us here who is meant to be somewhere, Miss Rosier. It is well past curfew, and you are very far from the dungeons.”

“Fantastic,” Olive Hornby growls from behind her. Dolohov hovers near too. “I suppose you’ll be giving us a detention, then?”

“Indeed,” Tom replies, “and you'll report to Professor Slughorn tomorrow morning to receive your punishment.”

There is a raucous further down the dark corridor, and Tom glances over Rosier's shoulder to peer into the shadows.

“Who else is here?”

“Oh, you know, just Myrtle leMiserable,” Rosier sneers. Hornby giggles behind her.

“Myrtle Gémmisant, you know? I can't help it if she has a disposition for all that crying.”

At this, a piercing cry echoes out of the lavatory, punctuated with hiccoughing sobs.

“Is there anyone else?”

“Oh, I nearly forgot. That specky transfer student. He walked right into the girl's lavatory, just as you please!”

Tom considers all of this very quickly.

“Return to your dorms directly, all of you,” he dismisses them.

“Yes, Prefect Riddle,” they mutter, mulish. Their flippancy irks him, and he itches to correct it. But now is not the time.

Later, he promises.

He can hear a discordant wailing echoing about the halls that leads him to the entrance of the girls' powder chamber.

“Wretched! You are all wretched! Oh, I wish you would all die!”

He hears a murmur, that must be Harrison, but is much too quiet to discern the meaning. Tom steps into the sonorous chamber.

“That is not true, you! You—You cretin! You rat! Not true!”

The girl, Myrtle, is crumpled on the tile, her face purple with her sobbing. Harrison is in the corner farthest from the door, twisting the ends of Tom's scarf in his hands. He sees Tom at the sound of his footsteps, eyes wide.

“He said I was dead!” the girl shrieks the moment she sees Tom, pointing at Harrison with a bursting of alarmingly large tears. They roll down her face in great tracks, and splash on the cold tile below.

Tom feels... surprise. He looks at Harrison then, for explanation, or for proof that Myrtle’s assertion could be true. It seems such a strange thing.

Harrison blinks up at him.

“She… she is,” he whispers, voice hoarse.

The words send Myrtle into a renewed tidal wave of horrified moaning. She buries her face in her arms and shrieks.

“Miss Gemissant,” Tom appeals to her.

“That is not my name!”

Tom berates himself for a moment, for missing the meaning of a French moniker, and for not cursing Olive Hornby when she so smugly stood before him.

“Myrtle, then,” he sighs. “Stand up. You are kneeling in toilet water.”

Myrtle’s cries die down as the reality of her position sinks in. She raises her head and looks down at where her robes are soaked through. She stands, sniffling all the while.

“M-my glasses,” she says between hiccoughs, mouth trembling. “That evil, no-good Olive Hornby took them and hid them somewhere in the lavatory! I can’t see without my glasses, I barely made it here in the dark. Oooh, it was dreadful. I can’t find my glasses...”

“Accio Myrtle’s spectacles,” Tom casts at once.

There is a telling splash of water from the black chamber of a stall, a skittering of wire against stone, and at length, Myrtle’s overly-large spectacles scrape themselves reluctantly to Tom’s feet. He refuses to touch them, mindful of their brief residence in the latrine, and gingerly nudges them with the toe of his oxfords towards the rumpled girl. She grabs them with trembling hands, already crying once more.

“Thank you,” she moans. Tom sneers, quite unable to contain his contempt any longer.

“Report to Professor Merrythought for detention tomorrow morning,” he says from behind a scowl and merciless teeth. Retribution, for wheedling his patience.

Myrtle sniffs loudly one last time before gathering herself and leaving the lavatory, dripping all the way.

“She is meant to be dead,” Harrison whispers. His voice echoes in the sudden quiet left without Myrtle’s wailing.

“On that particular point, Harrison, I brook no argument.”

“Moaning Myrtle is dead,” he states imploringly at Tom, again and with feeling.

Moaning Myrtle? Tom should hope Rosier and her ilk never hear such a name or they will never let it to rest.

Tom reaches for Harrison and pulls him to his feet, though the purpose is more to trap than to help. He pulls the wrinkled ends of his scarf out of Harrison’s hands, the ends of which have become worn and frayed.

“Why did you come here?” he asks at length. “To the girls’ lavatory? Did you get lost?”

He remembers the last time they’d touched. The bleeding of memories or dreams not his own, that sweeping flood of feeling and flight. Tom smooths the scarf ends against Harrison’s breast. The boy sits in his grasp still as prey, hair more wild than ever.

“It’s a secret,” Harrison tells him, eyes large and glowing.

“Oh?”

Harrison beckons him closer, and Tom obliges. The boy presses his mouth to Tom's ear, his lips fever hot, and whispers.

“I have to get into the Chamber of Secrets.”

—

Thadeus has never been inside of the Ministry of Magic.

He is not like the Blacks or the Malfoys or the Lestranges. Their fathers do not work for money; they loiter about the Ministry tending to their seats and holding club meetings. While Nott Sr. does hold two seats in the Wizengamot, his real work lies in manufacturing. The Nott empire is founded in the production and refining of raw materials. Pixie oil, vials, cauldrons, thestral leathers. Work that an aristocrat would turn their nose at.

And ample opportunity for disguising illegal business. Thadeus supposes that is not so different from the Ministry after all.

The halls are enormous, people gathered in gossiping crowds, or all, but running to their respective offices, memos tangling in the air above them in a frantic cloud of flapping paper.

Thadeus is terrified.

Their Barrister hadn’t told him what to expect of the testimony, only what he should say. He expects a dark cellar, with an iron seat, wet and frigid. Shackles, dementors, and unsympathetic courtiers. He expects to see his father laughing at him from his seat. He is instead led to a spacious room with warm lights, and a few members of the Wizengamot presiding over the court. He does not see his father, probably in one of the adjoining antechambers. Perhaps they’d thought his presence would make him too nervous.

Thadeus sits in a slightly elevated chair, and a man walks up to him with a stack of parchments in hand.

“Hello,” he says gently.

Anders, Thadeus thinks of his grey moustache and gold striped robes spontaneously, his name is Anders, head of the Department of Magical Misdemeanours. He'd bought a contract with Thadeus’ father last spring for self-tying shoelaces.

“Would you please state to the chamber your name?”

“Thadeus Leigh Nott.”

He glances down. Ander's laced oxfords are finished with a perfectly tied bow.

“Only son of Lord Tycho Lysander Nott and Lady Pricilla Jeanine Nott nee Brahe?”

“Yes.”

“You understand that you are here to voluntarily testify about the events surrounding the death of Millicenta Nott, by the accused Tycho Nott?”

“Yes.”

They ask him about his father’s history with questionable magic, and about his political leanings first. They warm him up with inquiries into his father’s behaviour at home, his letter correspondence, his travel habits. Did Thadeus notice anything strange about his father? Did he happen to see letters from particularly German names? Was his father working for the Dark Wizard Grindelwald?

He answers these, at least, truthfully.

His mother watches with a hawk’s eyes.

They ask about the details of the day Millie was killed.

The weather had been a rare, long awaited sunny day during an otherwise dismal week, as the Nott family had been preparing to go out for Millie's birthday. He'd been wearing his old riding boots, because his mother, Millie and he were going to go to the Prewetts to visit their stables and flying pitch.

He associates the day with leather saddles and tall, muddy grass.

“I don’t remember,” he whispers.

“Where were you that morning? What were you doing?”

Millie was wearing a new equestrian helmet, a birthday gift from Thadeus, her blue shirt tucked smartly into her trousers, her hair frizzed in the humidity of the morning. He remembers the anticipation of the smell of oats and straw, horsehide with the kiss of sweat. Thadeus cannot go to the stables still.

“Preparing for an outing.”

“All of you? Including your father?”

Nott Sr. considers horses to be beasts of a misfortunate evolution, as he considers all animals not himself.

“No.”

They ask why Millie went to see him.

What can Thadeus say? Because she was eleven and it was her birthday. Of course she went to see her father, if only for a few minutes. She hadn’t known the significance of the day, that her Hogwarts letter was not delayed but never arriving. She hadn’t known her father would hate her for it enough to kill her.

“What did you see when you went to look for your sister?”

He saw her helmet rolling out of his father’s office door, left ajar. He saw how her blood had dripped from her nose to the waxed wooden floor. Her body sprawled, and so still on the persian carpets.

He thinks how moments before he had heard his father’s shouting, his sister’s crying. How he had stood on the stairs frozen, unable to intervene.

He hadn't the reflexes. He hadn't understood the menacing capacity within his own father. His mother had sheltered him from the full extent of his hatred and prejudice. He hadn't been prepared for it then. He'd never seen the face of a man when he decided he'd kill, didn't know the nuances of murderous intent in the creases around a man’s eyes.

“Nothing,” he says, the words of his testimony guide swimming in his memory, and says it again when they repeat, frustrated “What did you see?”

“Nothing, nothing.”

He catches the hard stare of Agathe Prewett from beside his mother, and it is Ignatius’ stare.

He repeats “No” “I don’t know” “I didn’t see” so many times, he can see members of the court fighting to keep calm.

“Mr. Thadeus,” Anders asks, gazing down at him from over his spectacles, “what do you believe your father deserves in retribution for his crimes?”

Thadeus grimaces, but feels a steely rush of hatred turn his insides over.

“I trust that whatever the court decides will be appropriate,” he concludes, just as the Barristers had written.

They end his questioning, and Thadeus is released from the room. It is with great conflict within himself. His mother appears appeased, but when Lady Prewett finds him heaving in a corner behind a potted plant, her face is hard.

“Thadeus,” she sighs, the gentle touch on his shoulder blade as soft as his name on her lips. “You should not have spared the truth for your mother’s sake.”

“Lady Prewett,” he replies, ashamed of the relief so loud in his voice.

“Come speak with me,” she suggests softly, her long, thin neck arching to indicate a private location away from the people filing out of the chamber and into the waiting rooms. He lets her guide him from the dank chamber into a narrow hall, following her warm hand and sweet perfume.

She is, in many ways, more a mother to him than his own.

The Prewett and Nott families have been allies for generations. The matriarchs had attended school and had raised their children together. There isn't a time Thadeus can remember Ignatius and Agatthe not being there. Had Millesenta not been a Squib, she would have been Ignatius’ wife.

“Despite your reticence, the court hates your father. You were not here for yesterday's proceedings when he was on trial for his other crimes. You were thankfully one of many testimonies, several of which are captured Grindelwald conspirators. But your lack of detail has made the court less emotionally inclined to justice.”

Thadeus swallows around the roiling tempest in his chest.

“We were counting on a Kiss, but now I am not so sure...”

Thadeus doesn’t want to be a Lord, but it is a forgone conclusion.

“Your collar has a wrinkle,” she mutters, and he stands still as she smooths it out, her long nails brushing his neck. It soothes something within him.

—

They wait four hours while the Wizengamot deliberates.

Tycho Nott does not receive the Kiss. He is sentenced to Azkaban for five years of isolation, to which he will be transferred from Ministry holdings after Yule.

Five years. Not even half of Millie’s life.

His mother does not speak to him, her face set in stone. He had obeyed her, but not well enough. Not in mind or spirit. He had recited the words without conviction.

He Floos to Hogwarts in the same fashion he left, and rubs powder from his eyes where they are wet and overflowing. He steps away from the Headmaster’s hearth wanting nothing more than to lie in the dark and send his mind to oblivion, but Professor Slughorn greets him. Thadeus lets his Head of House clap his arm with rough comfort.

“Chin up, lad,” he says gently, holding out a Chocolate Frog box. Thadeus accepts it, collapses into a chair and heaves a sob. “There, there. The worst is over at last.”