Embryo

XIV

“No!” Harry moans, a truly wretched sound, shoving past Tom to collapse on his knees beside the fallen girl. His hands hover over her body as though he is unsure where to put them. Tom sighs, closing his eyes as his thoughts race.

“No, no, no!” Harry rages.

“Fuck. Is she dead?” Lestrange gasps, and his head starts to turn naturally toward his master, to ascertain what he must now do, but he knows not of the danger that awaits behind his turned back—

“Do not look this way!” Tom says with such a force and seething, that Lestrange practically snaps his neck to avoid looking over his shoulder, having never heard such a fierce or demented tone from Tom before. He and Prewett cower, confused but obedient.

Tom takes a deep breath, eyeing the enormous Basilisk hovering at his side. The bloody timing of it all!

Calm, calm…

“Keep your eyes covered until I say otherwise,” he grits. Lestrange and Prewett both clap a hand over their eyes, for while they do not fully understand what has happened, they must surely want to avoid that girl’s fate regardless.

“I was supposed to change things; I was supposed to stop this from happening!” Harry shouts in utter despair, head bowed low over Myrtle’s still chest.

“Quiet,” Tom snaps.

“What are we going to do?” Prewett asks, voice weak and trembling. “Is she really dead? How? It was so quick…”

Tom does not bother answering. He turns to the Basilisk and takes both ends of his scarf.

She is hissing, a deep growl that shakes the plumbing pipes and rings on the ceramic like a droning bell, agitated and affected by Tom.

“Bow your head,” he commands her.

Her eyes are pinning under her translucent brille, but she bows her head until they are eye to eye, the shadow of her latest kill reflecting in them. Tom fastens the scarf around her eyes and neck. “You will follow my voice, my scent. Do you understand?”

“Master’s voice…” she hisses, a deep rattling rasp that shakes the bathroom pipes and makes Prewett and Lestrange jump. Her massive head sways side to side, the wind of her breath making a breeze in the chamber. “But the prey…”

Her tongue flickers in Myrtle Warren's direction.

“No. You will leave it.”

Satisfied now that her deathly eyes are covered, Tom curses himself for not taking the precaution before bringing her above ground. Nevermind, what’s done is done. Spilt milk, as they say.

“You may open your eyes and look about freely,” Tom tells them.

“Merlin,” Prewett chokes the moment he turns around, his eyes falling on the enormous shadow that pulls itself in great, muscular coils out of the lavatory floor, the bulk of the Basilisk filling the small chamber, pressing into water closet stalls and straining the sink pipes. He looks from the beast to the body lying on the tiles. “Merlin.”

“Slytherin’s Monster,” Lestrange gasps, trembling where he stands, his face a perfect picture of awe. “A basilisk! Of course…”

Tom steps up to Harry and the fallen girl, grabbing his shoulder.

“Come,” he says, but Harry slaps him away, striking his arm with enough force to bruise.

“She’s dead!” Harry chokes, shock, horror plain on his face. Accusing. Betrayal.

“She is,” Tom agrees, looking at the girl’s frozen, empty expression. Death marks every one of her features, emanates from the deepest parts of her so strongly, Tom wonders if she had ever been truly alive at all. Some say there is a peace with death, a sense of relief and rest. Tom only sees meat going cold.

“I was supposed to save her,” Harry says, angry, lost and so very, very young. Tom feels the heavy pull of his devastation wanting to drag him under with him, deep and untouchable.

“No,” Tom says. “Time to face the truth—” and in parseltongue, he continues—”that you are here to create the future you have already seen. Leave her.”

“Leave her?!” Harry shouts, his voice echoing loudly, and Tom hisses in warning.

“Get up. Now.”

Harry gapes up at him.

“Lestrange, Prewett,” Tom motions. “Grab her. We’ll put her in the tunnels until I can deal with her. We haven’t the time to waste.”

“We can’t,” Harry chokes, horrified, grabbing Tom’s robes in his fist. “That’s awful, we can’t throw her down there like she’s nothing.”

She is nothing! Tom wants to rage. Doesn’t Harry see? Everyone of worth has a purpose. For Tom, it is to forge a new world order. For Harry, it is to show him the way, and the rest to serve in whatever capacity they are capable of to make it happen. What is one Mudblood girl’s life worth? Nothing. Less than nothing!

And while they argue, the evening minutes slip them by.

“Shall we leave her to be discovered then?” Tom asks, grabbing Harry and forcibly pulling him away, motioning once more to Prewett and Lestrange to grab hold of her.

Their knees shake, their complexions pallid, and this is the true test of their mettle. They hesitate for but a moment, seemingly searching in the other’s eyes a sign of doubt or dissidence. They hoist the girl up by her blue wrists and ankles, pale and slim, her head dropping between her shoulders as though on a cut string, and carry her slight form to the opening of the tunnel that leads down to the Chamber of Secrets. They hesitate only when they must step carefully around the Basilisk’s coiled body, robes whispering against each bladed scale, a mist of sweat beading on their brows.

They drop her down into the dark and leap away from the entrance and the Basilisk, in awe of her but desperate for the safety of distance.

“Close,” Tom hisses when it is done, and the sink rises from the floor and locks into place with a dull thud. A tomb sealed. “For now, we continue as we were. Go check that the hall is still clear, truly clear. We’ve made a lot of noise.”

His Knights scamper out of the lavatory with haste.

“I couldn’t stop it,” Harry says again, tears now forming in his eyes. “We—we have to tell Dumbledore.”

“No,” Tom snarls, shaking him. Fool of a boy! “You asked for this, and I was gracious enough to acquiesce. It is your doing that the Basilisk is outside of the Chamber, and so it is your doing that the girl died. You will continue, or I will do nothing to keep you from being implicated when her body is found.”

“I can’t, no, I—”

Tom snarls, patience, composure lost.

“I will personally raise the body count tonight if you do not do exactly as I say, Harry!” Tom shouts, hands gripping painfully at Harry’s bony collarbones, inching to his neck. They breathe heavily in one another’s space, Tom daring him to oppose him any longer.

Harry glares at him wetly.

“We still need to get the Basilisk out of the castle,” he agrees. “Before it kills someone else.”

“Good,” Tom says, soothing his hands down Harry’s arms. “Good.” Then to the Basilisk, “Forward, this way.”

Prewett darts out into the corridor then turns back.

“We’re all clear,” he whispers, eyes fixed on the monstrous serpent.

“Good God,” Lestrange says, strangled once again by the very sight of the Basilisk’s bulk as it slithers pat him into the hall, captivated by her rhythmic motions, and somehow appearing even larger than before.

“To the staircase,” Tom whispers, glancing up and down the dark corridor, and wondering if anymore unaccounted-for Mudbloods will come stumbling out of the shadows to besiege their quest. When no other persons make themselves known, they herd the Basilisk, Tom and Harry in the lead and Prewett and Lestrange in the rear, carefully past Dumbledore’s deserted office to the narrow staircase that lies tucked away behind the tapestry of the 1636 Duel of Women.

The Basilisk’s sides scrape along the stone walls, sending a shower of sandy dust over them as she squeezes through the passage. She hisses in discomfort and rage, forked tongue rising in a sinister curl in her wide, open maw.

“It isn’t going to fit,” Prewett whispers from the back end of the Basilisk.

“I thought we measured!” Lestrange complains.

“Careful for the trick step,” Harry reminds them.

“What’s going on?” Rosier’s voice echoes softly from the top of the winding staircase. “We heard shouting.”

“Is the fourth floor clear?” Tom calls up.

“Nott spotted Peeves earlier, but he’s dodged off for now. We should hurry though.”

“Right. Harry, take over the Basilisk. When she feels the walls bend, tell her to climb as quickly as she can. Prewett,” he calls down the staircase where he can just make out his face around the bulk of the Basilisk. “You know the Distendio charm? We’re going to do the whole tower from here, to the fourth floor. On three. Rosier, stand clear!”

Harry nods and they plaster themselves on either side of the blindfolded Basilisk head, watching each other from between her open jaws. Her fangs create the illusion of bone white bars that separate them.

“Ready, Prewett?” Tom calls, drawing his wand. “One, two—Distendio!”

The walls in the tight staircase ripple, and suddenly they begin to groan. Where they pressed tightly against the Basilisk’s sides, her rough scales gauging deep scores in the flagstones, they now bend and stretch around her like elastic.

“Now!” Harry tells her, pressing hard into the wall away from her sharp hide, the stones bending to cradle him. “Go!”

She undulates, darting forward up the stairs, each step cracking and crumbling under her massive weight until at last she disappears around the bending staircase and out into the fourth floor corridor.

“Great leaping lobalugs!” Rosier’s voice echoes down the tower. “Is it big?! It’s huge!”

Tom looks down the wrecked stairwell.

“Repair this then meet us in the south end lavatories,” Tom tells the Knights carefully climbing the ruined stairs below. He checks his pocket watch. “Three minutes.”

Tom grabs Harry by the arm and pulls him up the rest of the way to the fourth floor. Rosier is stood on shaking knees, her eyes wide and face pale as she looks upon the blindfolded Basilisk. She is almost an exact mimicry of the girl who died only minutes before with that same look on her face.

“Walburga?” Tom calls down the hall.

“It’s clear,” she replies.

“This way,” Tom hisses, directing the serpent. “Forward.”

The Basilisk scrapes along the hall, and Walburga meets them as they turn into the lavatory, her eyes large as she takes in the sight of the beast.

Abraxas and Nott are just finishing clearing the wall, a hole in the stones that opens into a large pipe.

“We might have to make this bigger,” Nott says, staring at the Basilisk in disbelief.

“Wow, Riddle, I mean this is…” Rosier breathes as she trails behind him, gesturing at the Basilisk. “It was really in the school this whole time? And you control it?”

“I do.”

She stares openly, speechless.

Footsteps rush from behind them, and Tom raises his wand to meet whoever it may be, but it is only Prewett and Lestrange hastily turning into the lavatory and closing the distance on the opening to the tunnel in just a handful of steps.

“We need to close this up,” Lestrange rushes out. “Bloody Peeves is all over us.”

They all make a rush for the pipes, Prewett clambering in last along with the last three feet of the Basilisk’s tail. They raise their wands, and together, stone by stone, seal themselves in.

“Lumos,” Rosier whispers, followed by a chorus of the others, and soon the dark tunnel, grimey and damp, is lit by a soft yellow glow. She laughs. “Not Hogwarts’ finest view, is it?”

It is musty and crowded with them all cramped together, the Basilisk taking up the majority of the space and forcing them to press against the mossy, slimy walls. Tom squeezes his way to the front, pushing Harry ahead of him to keep him in sight.

“Let’s go,” he says, and commands the Basilisk forward once more.

They are so close…

She obeys, and he leads her and his procession of Knights through the dripping pipes of Hogwarts, their steps echoing like the slow drips of water that surround them.

“What are we going to do about that girl?” Lestrange whispers.

“What girl?” Rosier asks.

“Later,” Tom cuts them off.

He’ll deal with it later.

“Harry,” Nott whispers in the dim. “I meant to ask, was that Parseltongue you spoke to the Basilisk?”

“Yeah,” Lestrange chimes in. “And earlier, Tom said something to you and you understood.”

There’s a pause.

“Are you—are you by any chance—?”

“Impossible,” Rosier scoffs. “You must have misheard!”

“I know what I heard!” Lestrange defends himself.

“Enough,” Tom calls, before Harry can interrupt and say something reckless. He does not need to invite their speculation. The less they know or think of Harry, the better. “He is my uncle’s son, born out of wedlock. Obviously, it is a matter of secrecy, though it does not matter. He can never claim the Slytherin line.”

There.

Tom turns to Harry to ensure he will not argue, and Harry just purses his lips and looks away. He is too weary to fight, it seems, worn down by the burden of that girl’s death. It’s turning over and over in his head, the helplessness, the guilt.

It is enough to explain the curse that follows Harry everywhere as well, that makes him fade from notice, from memory, from sense. The Slytherins are an ancient and noble line, nearly made extinct, in danger of dissolution. Of course the family has ways of dealing with unwanted heirs and ill-sired children. Harry is likely one in a long line of them, they will think. In the dark, they may even pass for kin.

No threat to the structure of power and under Tom’s wing out of necessity than out of choice; not like Tom’s other Knights, hand-selected. Special.

“Is that the end?” Rosier calls as they step around the drainage water that runs down the pipes and make the last turn, the final bend in the tunnel. The end comes in sight, the iron grate where water rushes out and down below into the lake. “Thank Merlin!”

Tom approaches the exit wand raised, and dissolves the grate. A biting cold wind whips into the tunnel’s mouth, roaring at them and beating against the castle walls.

He checks the time, pleased to see that despite unforeseen events, they have not been delayed, and shoots green sparks into the air. The sky is clear, a dark velvety black expanse that disappears into the horizon where the tops of the trees of the Forbidden Forest rush up to meet it. The lake below is crystal clear and still, a black hole in the hills that reflects the stars above perfectly. It is too dark to make out any shapes under the water’s surface.

“Prewett, you have the brooms?” he calls over the rushing wind and water.

From his rucksack, Prewett pulls out the brooms, all eight of them, and restores them to their normal size.

“Is this the latest Cleansweep?” Lestrange asks. “You got these and haven’t let us all use them for the team?”

“Mount up,” Tom snaps, swinging his leg over his own broom and gritting his teeth.

“Don’t think I’ve seen you on a broom since First Year,” Prewett laughs. “You remember how to fly?”

Tom glares and points for Prewett to get in the air already.

“Mr. Featherby!” a voice calls to him from the sky.

The dragon handlers have arrived.

They are each on a broom, an enormous, sturdy leather sling swinging between them.

“This is it,” Harry says miserably.

He’s asking himself if this is worth it.

He clenches his jaw and throws his leg over his broom and forcefully launches into the air.

Tom watches the Knights lift off into the cold, night air one by one, before he too lifts away.

“Come,” he beckons the Basilisk, coaxing her until her snout just pokes out of the side of the castle, blowing great gusts that blow them to and fro.

“Never heard of a dragon living in a castle before! Not one that was occupied at least,” Ridgebit calls. “Let’s load her up!”

At Ridgebit’s direction, they each attach a handle of the large leather harness to the backs of their brooms so that it hangs evenly between them, stable and ready to take on the Basilisk’s weight. They carefully hover forward until Rosier and Prewett are pressed into the side of the castle wall, the harness aligned and flush with the opening of the drainage pipe.

“Forward!” Tom hisses at the Basilisk, and she slithers out of the castle, nose probing the air and seeming to recognize that she is no longer inside. She carefully slithers onto the harness, her great weight settling in. They strain to hold her, flighting in a perpetual upward direction to keep her aloft.

The moment she is situated upon it fully, Ridgebit draws his wand and with a swish, she is secured safely into place with a series of buckles and straps.

She roars.

She writhes, bucking against the straps tightening on her body, and they’re sent flying in the air on their brooms, holding on with all their strength. Whey whip through the air—and oh, how Tom hates flying, how he hates his life suspended in a single broom. If it breaks, if the enchantments on it are faulty, if he flies too high—he falls.

Rosier cries out as she’s slammed into the stone wall from the force of it.

“Steady, there!” one of the handlers calls desperately. “Ai grijă!”

Through the wind in his eyes as he once more is pulled with great force through the air, Tom sees the blur of a light flicker on in the south-side windows above them.

“Calm!” Tom shouts. Then, “Sleep! I command you to sleep!”

The Basilisk hisses angrily, but Tom persists. He reaches deep, curls his fingers into the velvety magic that bounds creature to master. It tingles, burns his skin in the brusque night air. “As your master and the one true heir of Salazar Slytherin, I order you to sleep!”

Finally, she falls still and quiet, regaining control of their brooms.

They’re all breathing hard, trying to reorient themselves. Abraxas has somehow capsized and is trying to get himself right-side up.

“Thank fuck!” Rosier shouts, haggard. The end of her broom is frayed, bristles falling out.

“Will any of this start to be easy?” Prewett gasps.

“Good work! Upward ascension!” Ridgebit calls, and with a gentle whoosh, they rise into the sky, over the castle parapets and scaffolding, its peaked towers and domed roofs. “Releasing the obscuring brolly!”

With a wand flourish and the sound of a pop, a large, inverted brolly drops from the underside of the harness and unfolds beneath them, spanning almost fifteen metres. The cloth of the brolly shimmers before Tom’s eyes for a moment, before it settles, smooth and as perfect a reflection of the night sky as the lake below. Anyone looking from the ground will see only the sky, Tom and his travelling companions hidden in the camouflaged cradle of the brolly.

They fly steadily in the night, over the forest as it gently moves in the wind with an eerie life of its own, over the small lights glowing from Hogsmeade, and the Scottish highlands and foothills. It is beautiful in the dark, the greenery made deep with shadows, a fine emerald silk. When he looks over his shoulder, the tallest points of Hogwarts castle peak shyly over the horizon before succumbing to the distance.

He looks ahead to Harry, who flies directly in front of him. He sees him begin to shake, back small, head tucked between his shoulders, the icy wind of November cutting through their winter robes, and in the space between them, Tom sees the sparkle of water drops glittering as the wind breaks them apart, feels them mist his face. Salt, bitterness. It could be rain. It could be the ocean spray, carried on the wind.

Harry is crying.

Among the bitter berries, Tom thinks, tongue darting out to catch a bead of his tears on his lip, there is no fit place for the sweet fig to bloom.

—

They touch down an hour later on Longa Island, a bitterly cold, wind-scoured piece of land that juts out of the ocean as uninviting as the hard waves that lap on its shore. They gently lower the sleeping Basilisk onto the rocky scrub that dots the island with green. In the dark, the moon shines a white light over the North Atlantic. Tom savours the feeling of standing on his own feet, stiff and sore from flying, though he knows they have more distance to fly yet.

“A beautiful specimen, Featherby,” Ridgebit says to Tom, hopping off his broom and inspecting the Basilisk from a distance. “Never seen anything like it, and the way you bewitched it to sleep! You sure this is a dragon?”

“She’s a Lambton Wyrm,” Tom lies, and the man nods along with an undisturbed, Imperiused smile, despite there being no Wyrm with the kind of crest a Basilisk has upon their head. Still, the moment Tom spoke, it became true to Ridgebit and the handlers. From now on, they will believe her to be a Wyrm native to Britain, no matter what they see.

“Harvey!” one of the handlers calls, then says something in Romanian. Ridgebit answers back, and turns to Tom.

“We’re going to set up the Beast Portal. She’ll likely wake up when we make the jump. Angry, too.”

“I’ll handle her,” Tom assures him.

They prepare the Beast Portkey, a large, hand-woven net in the shape of a runic array, one that emulates the power of a normal Portkey. They unfurl the net, aloft in the air and settle it in the rocky sand, surrounding the Basilisk’s coiled figure. They hammer stakes in the cardinal directions, each one an anchor with a bright aquamarine conduit crystal.

“Ready!” Ridgebit calls, and they all move inside the circle. He withdraws two more additional crystals, checks with his handlers that all is set, then with a mighty force, strikes the crystals together in his hands.

There’s a shockwave, a thunderclap, a bright shower of green sparks from Ridgebit’s hands, and the ground drops from beneath their feet.

In an instant, Tom is brought down hard into the ground, a sudden cold rain soaking into his clothes, so frigid it burns. Harry groans, and the sentiment is shared by the others. Rosier stumbles, doubles over and vomits into the grass. Abraxas quickly follows.

They’ve arrived on a raised, stone platform in the centre of a large grassy plain surrounded by gentle hills, lit with the pale light of full morning. The Basilisk writhes within the harness, her enormous tail lashing down on the stones with enough force to rattle them out of their moulds. Aside from her rage and the torrent of rain, it would be a rather beautiful vista.

“Calm, calm!” the handlers call, drawing from their robes a strange mouthpiece that creates a deep rumble when they blow through it.

The Basilisk hisses but calms, fangs bared, head whipping around for she still cannot see.

“Be calm,” Tom tells her. “You are safe.”

“Strangers… enemies, danger,” she hisses.

“You are safe,” Tom reasserts, “This is your new home. Sleep.”

“What I would give to speak the dragon’s tongue!” Ridgebit laughs.

Tom offers him a bland smile, glancing at his watch. It is just after eleven at night in Scotland. They’ll need to move along now if they’re to make it back to the castle in time before dawn.

Tom reaches into his robes for the thick packet of care instructions he has compiled for the handlers. She will need to be cared for in a separate area from the other dragons, and they will need to be wary of her deathly sight.

“Shouldn’t pose a problem,” Ridgebit assures him. “There are special goggles for handling Cockatrices that I’m sure will work just fine on this lovely girl. Never heard of a Lambton Wyrm with eyes like a Cockatrice. Iudita! Bring us some of the Cockatrice goggles so we can get this girl situated in her new home.”

“She was bred to have a special mutation,” Tom answers as one of the handlers, Iudita presumably, disappears with a crack and reappears moments later with the protective eyewear which she passes to her partners. Their lenses are coated with an iridescent, oily finish that is reminiscent of an insect’s wings.

“Mother’s a three hour flight to Iași,” Rosier says, wiping her mouth and pointing eastward. “Should be a straight path over pastureland, though that means we’ll be flying against full wind.”

“Then let’s not delay,” Tom says, and motions for his Knights to follow. “Come.”

He passes Ridgebit the remainder of his galleons. Perhaps he’ll make this a Basilisk farm at some point.

“Well?” Tom asks Harry as they walk in the grass. “Are you satisfied? I’ve done as promised.”

Harry stares out at the hills and the morning sun, eyes red and rain-beaten.

“Yeah, sure.”

Tom looks away to hide the smile creeping onto his face.

Oh, how smug and bright Harry had been only a day before. How triumphant!

He was so certain, so sure that he could twist Tom this way and that, could control him.

And look at him now…

Poor, sweet Harry.

It almost makes mounting the broom again bearable.

As they take flight once more, waving their goodbyes to the dragonologists and leaving the Basilisk behind, Tom wonders what she will think when her fiery eyes take in the scenes around her, the sky, the hills. Will she comprehend or appreciate being free of the dank stone pipes she has languished in all these hundreds of years? Will she miss the feeling of home? Will she remember Tom when he comes for her?

He points his broom away from her anyhow, following Rosier and Prewett’s lead over the mountains, thighs and arms aching. There’s only a little left now before they’re home to Hogwarts, and Tom almost wishes for this flight to go on forever. For him to take in the golden light piercing through the heavy rain clouds as long as he likes.

Harry drifts from them, flying higher, trailing his fingers through wisps of cloud.

He is thinking Why am I here?

He is thinking How do I live?

What have I done?

Perhaps it is that the Universe is not so easily influenced. Perhaps it is that the harder Harry fights their shared future, the more he ensures its existence. Perhaps Harry is but a mirage, an ephemeral shade who can only witness this world and never touch it in any meaningful way. But that cannot be true, or Tom’s own senses are lying to him.

“Perhaps it is not meant to be understood,” Tom tells him, but the wind roars over him, and Harry does not hear.

—

Iași is a beautiful expanse of a city, the second largest in Romania and one of the oldest. It is settled on the rising bank of a valley, and so they see its expanse on the horizon long before they arrive. It is the throne of Romanian culture, once the capital, and is home to the oldest universities, trading routes, botanical gardens, libraries, and theatres.

It has long been a social and magical centre in Europe, particularly in the East.

As they approach fast from the sky, nearly frozen to their brooms, Rosier points down at the eastern side of Iași, a small village off the main sprawl of the city, surrounded by pastures. It is a small pocket of magical folk, one of many that dots the area, and Tom burns with envy; other than Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade, there are no other areas in England free of the Muggle taint that creeps ever so closer each year.

“There!” she calls. “At the Vlădiceni Monastery!”

They are wind-chafed and frost-burned by the time they sink towards the earth and land on stiff legs outside of the monastery. It is a beautiful white, stone building with bright gold scaffolding and blue steepled roofs. Their boots crunch on the frozen grass.

Prewett’s legs nearly give out.

“Someone needs more drills,” Nott laughs, though his knees are trembling like a newborn doe's.

Lestrange draws his wand and taps himself on the head, vanishing the icicles that have grown in his hair.

“Even through the warming charms, that was bloody cold,” he complains, shaking himself. The others agree, each rubbing their gloved hands together for friction and warmth.

Tom surveys them, weary and half-frozen. Harry’s lips have gone blue at the edges.

“Cordillia!” a woman calls, and Rosier looks across the lawn to the entrance of the Monastery where a group of Ministry officials are rushing to greet them.

“Mother!” she calls back.

“Well,” Madame Rosier says when she reaches them, her colleagues stopping some paces away and giving them privacy. Her sharp, dark eyes rove over the group, settling on Tom for a long moment before returning to her daughter. “You didn’t say you’d be arriving today. I don’t suppose you’d mind telling me what you’re doing in Romania and why you need a Portkey back to the school? I’m guessing you didn’t fly all the way over from Scotland.”

“I told you! We’re here as part of research for an advanced tutoring group on the dragon sanctuary I wrote to you about,” Rosier says, as though that explains all.

“With no professors and not a single school supply between you?” Madame Rosier drawls. She reaches into her fur-lined robe and pulls out a pewter pocket watch. “You must be the most diligent students in all of Hogwarts, to be studying where it is currently three in the morning.”

Rosier adopts a sheepish expression and her mother turns her shrewd eyes once more on them all.

“Raynaldus,” she greets Lestrange with a dip of her chin.

“Madame,” Lestrange bows. “And my seniors, Ignatius Prewett, Walburga—”

“I know who they are, boy. There isn’t a Pureblood family of which I am not aware.” she says. Yes, the circle is small, and she’s likely to have attended balls or dinner parties with their parents. Then her eyes conspicuously skip over Harry as though he were no more than a wisp of the wind. Her gaze settles heavily on Tom.

“I’m assuming this is your expedition, no? You are the boy I have been hearing so much about, are you not? Riddle?”

“I cannot claim to know what you have been hearing, Madame,” Tom says with a polite bow of his head and a glib smile. “But I am Tom Riddle, yes.”

Madame Rosier scoffs, amused and offended in turn.

“Dear old Pollux and the rest of the good old boys’ club can’t seem to get enough of you. I hear you’ve secured your own private fund out of the lot of them. Lestrange is even sponsoring your research projects; how fortuitous for you.”

She’s titillated by the rumour and deeply repelled by it in equal measure. Tom is certain given some time alone with her, he could tip that balance in his favour. None can resist his pretty smile.

“He has a keen eye for who will harald in the future of pureblood society,” Tom says without humility. This generation delights in the arrogance of youth, and Madame Rosier is no exception. Her eyes glitter with mirth and new regard at his audacity.

“And as the self-proclaimed heir of Slytherin, I suppose you’d say the key to the future lies in following our ancient past?”

“I’d say you must determine for yourself, as all those before you have.”

“You graduate next year?” she asks after a short pause.

Hm. She cares whether it is legal to get closer… None of her other peers had.

“I come into my majority next month,” Tom says with a raised chin.

She smiles, sharp.

“Then I look forward to hearing more about your endeavours.”

Rosier makes a noise in her throat and Walburga laughs at her, loops her arm with hers.

“Consider yourself a part of the club, my dear,” she whispers. “No mother or father is safe from our Tom.”

“Glad my father’s in prison, then,” Nott mutters.

“You should worry about your mother. Widows are so lonely…,” Walburga sighs.

“He wouldn’t!”

He might, Tom thinks, shameless.

“Come, let us have an early breakfast before you return. You have arrived on an auspicious day.” She waves them forward. “Today, we meet with leaders of the magical world to end this silly Muggle war. With Kiev officially liberated, it seems everyone is keen on capitalising on the turn of the tide.”

To many, the Muggle war is anything but ‘silly.’ Though they are still some distance from Iași, she bears the scar of Muggle artillery and fires still. In the Pogroms that struck Iași barely two years prior, countless wizarding families were swept up and eradicated just the same as any Muggle. It is no wonder that the conference should happen here, where there are so many eager to see the end of a long, horrific conflict. But Madame Rosier has never known war personally, not the kind that has sunk its teeth in Europe like a sickness. The kind that invades your home and culls you, impersonal and animal. The kind that turns neighbours into co-conspirators of your doom. That is the privilege of a Pureblood.

“The Russian and American alliance?” Abraxas asks eagerly. “And our Minister too?”

Madame Rosier indicates yes, and he and Lestrange looks wildly around the lawn, the towering Monastery, and the cluster of white tents peeking around the far side of the building as though he might spot them at any moment.

They rejoin with the rest of the British Ministry officials, and Madame Rosier introduces them briefly. One of them, an Auror there for security, frowns at them.

“Bit far from school, aren’t you?”

“Worried they’re Grindelwald’s spies, Abbot?” Madame Rosier asks, unimpressed.

“Can’t be too careful these days,” the Auror says, apparently not sensing when she is being made fun of.

They’re led down a winding cobblestone path around the Monastery and the full spread of white tents on the lawn is revealed, their peaks like that of glacier caps on the frosted grass. Officials and aides scurry between the large tents, preparing for the conference that many hope will end Grindelwald’s campaign of harassment. An auspicious day indeed.

They are walking steadily to the tents, where Madame Rosier tells them breakfast and their portkey awaits. It is due to activate in half an hour, returning them to Hogsmeade and ensuring their timely arrival back at Hogwarts. They haven’t arrived a moment too soon.

“Is it a Romanian breakfast?” Rosier asks her mother. “I’m starving.”

“Are there any of those little buns?” Prewett asks excitedly. “Gogols? Gogini?”

“And that aubergine spread you brought back before, Mother! Is there any of that?”

Tom is watching the field, and the stretch of tents beyond. There are fewer Aurors than he expected, a sparse Romanian guard dotting the scene. It is odd, this close to the Moldovan border, besieged as it is with Grindelwald’s retreating forces. The back of his neck prickles, and a hand suddenly clutches his sleeve.

“Tom,” Harry whispers hoarsely, speaking up for the first time in hours. “Something’s—”

Tom sees it first because he is watching the aides rushing about, floating supplies through the air, preparing for what is no doubt meant to be a sumptuous banquet, but it will never happen.

A rush of fire descends on them from the sky.

For a moment, he thinks it is a dragon, chasing them all the way from the valley.

“Get down!” he orders, and his Knights, so well trained, drop to the grass and shield their faces as a fiery backlash rolls over them. The bristles of their brooms catch, their skin going tight with heat. The fire roars, blots out the blue of the sky as it rushes over them.

A shockwave rattles the plains immediately after, shaking the ground beneath their feet, and suddenly there are a dozen soldiers in silver robes converging on the monastery, and with a surge of blood that burns through him, Tom breathes in the screams and the intent to kill on air. His ring throbs around his finger; it urges Tom to quench its thirst.

“Grindelwald!” someone shouts amidst the screams, shrill and raw.

“We must evacuate the Minister!” an Auror orders, disappearing into the building with a fleet behind him.

“No way,” Prewett says, eyes wide and mouth agape.

“Bloody Germans!” Madame Rosier snarls. She unsnaps her outer cloak revealing combat robes underneath and turns to Tom. “Fleeing Ukraine like the rats they are.”

The scene unfolds in seconds before them, a dramatic painting of a full-scale assault on the grassy plains. The white tents turn bright orange as they catch fire, a violent eruption of colour on the backdrop of gentle, beautiful hills. Cracks of disapparition echo over the field as civilians and politicians flee. Remorse never overcomes us so powerfully as when we see beauty touched by the rotten breath of debauchery.

Though Tom feels no remorse, only the animal pound of blood in his fingers and itch of thirst in his throat that demands to be whetted.

“With me!” Tom orders, wand drawn. They are very exposed here on the open field, sitting targets unless they run or engage. And Tom will not run.

“What should we do? Tom?” Lestrange asks, stomping on the burning ends of their brooms to smother the embers.

“You may flee or fight your way to the Portkey, but do not regret your choice later,” Madame Rosier shouts over her shoulder as she makes her way to the monastery with the rest of her attache to protect the Minister. “Don’t get my daughter killed, Riddle!”

Tom assesses, scanning the field.

They could flee into the hills and wait for the situation to be handled to have transportation arranged back to Hogwarts. But the hours are waning. They must return to the castle before anyone is aware of their absence. And there is Myrtle Warren’s body and traces of the Basilisk’s path to erase. Classes will begin in a few short hours.

They cannot wait.

Tom does not want to wait.

He wants to get his teeth wet.

The lives of his Knights are a trifle to these pangs of thirst.

Leave them, Tom’s instinct whispers. They’ll only get in the way of your pleasure.

“The east,” Harry says, shaking Tom’s shoulder and pointing to their right where the edge of the field rises.

Yes.

“We’ll skirt the eastern side of the plain,” Tom says. They can use the slope for advantage. “Line of sight will break up once we reach the tents. Until then, we’ll maintain a circular form. Prewett, Lestrange—you take to the air to cover us from above. Quickly—before they can descend upon us unprepared!”

They fall into place around Tom not a moment too soon, for Grindelwald’s soldiers seize upon them, and Tom is lost in the animalistic haze of bloodlust. It ignites him with the urge to spill lifesblood from his enemies and drink it from the dusting of snow on the ground. The cold is suddenly far removed as a group of soldiers spot their intent and engage them. He kills the closest one without a whisper of a noise—just a quick stream of green light. The ring on his finger throbs in delight just as the first kill hits the ground.

Quick and easy, that first one out of the way. How it teases Tom’s senses; how he yearns for more.

The next one fights viciously, catching Walburga in the arm and Abraxas in the chest with a curse that breaks through their shields, but she too falls under Tom’s wand, felled by his killing delight. This is not the safe cradle of Hogwarts, the game of duelling. Grindelwald’s people are not here to simply harass, maim and chase fleeing bureaucrats. They came to annihilate. But they are not prepared for the viciousness with which Tom meets them.

They move forward steadily through the fray, leaving a red smear in their wake, an oppressive roar of noise crushing in on them at every moment. They are surrounded, each engaged in the dance. It is exhilarating. Addicting!

“Argh!” Rosier shouts as a spell engulfs her face. She’s thrown off her feet into the grass, dazed. They must break formation and form a circle around her, Harry struggling to pull her up by the scruff as she cradles her bloody, mangled nose.

“Fuck!” she curses, eyes swelling shut.

“We’ll never cut through fast enough while one of us is down!” Lestrange shouts from above through the noise, never turning away from their attackers. “We’ve still got at least a hundred metres to go!”

Leave her, leave her, Tom thinks. Better, Kill her before she gets in the way!

“Let her double up with you!” Harry shouts. “She can at least shoot stunners blind!”

Tom snarls and cuts a man down, splits his head open and sprinkles the ground with glistening teeth.

“Tom!” Harry calls, and it is a distant sound, irritating and far away.

He catches another soldier in the thigh, sends a spurt of blood arcing high in the air, a bright, hot arterial spray. It feeds the flame in him.

“Tom!”

He cannot hear. Through the mesmerising dance of swirling robes and jets of light, Tom sees a tall, blond man at the centre, a wild, delighted smile on his face as he fends off wave after wave of Romanian defenders.

Could it be? Here?

It is.

Gellert Grindelwald!

Something hard yanks on Tom’s arm in a vice grip, and Tom points his wand, ready to eliminate any obstacle—but it is only Harry, shaking his arm. Tom snarls and throws him off, vision going red.

“Tom, listen!” Harry yells.

Tom grits his teeth, staring down at Rosier as she clutches her mangled nose. Helpless. Weak!

Snuffing her out under these circumstances would be a mercy. It is no less than she deserves. She and anyone in Tom’s way. But—Walburga is watching him unblinking. They all are. He needs them still.

The battle is limping along, more and more wizards simply apparating away when they see that Grindelwald is here in the flesh, fleeing for their lives. The meagre devour the meagre.

“Take her and fly!” Tom eventually forces out. “More of you—clear a path for me with advantage from above.”

They obey, directing Rosier onto a broom with Lestrange and pushing off the ground with great effort. Tom never looks away from Grindelwald in the distance. He spins and weaves, not like a machine or automaton. Grindelwald duels as though there is no greater pleasure. Tom watches in a trance.

It’s audacious, what he aims to do; sooner than Tom ever imagined.

Grindelwald’s skill and strength are apparent and not exaggerated. He is a Dark Lord, even if a poor one. Tom knows his own strength, but he has no illusions of his own weaknesses. He is still a student with much to learn, and he has never experienced full-scale warfare. He has never been so tested.

But he believes.

He is compelled forward, and none stop him, engaged as they are in their own battle for life.

They scream, they gnash their teeth, they do all in their power to eke out their next breath for every moment they can, but Tom walks steady and sure, for he knows the secret of man and of life itself.

All is decay. Man constructs rituals and facades, pitiful pleasures and exploits, but death—death rules the world. Death devours everything. It is a long way to resurrection, if indeed there is one, and wretched Man will do all to extend his wretched existence.

And knowing that is the sweetest thing, because Tom? Tom cannot die.

Why then shouldn’t he fight Grindelwald!

Tom points his wand to the sky.

“Robore fraternitatis!”

He calls on the last of the Coven’s Blessing, the power granted on Samhain. His Knights exclaim all around him as they are sapped of their Blessing's power. It pools in his wand hand, heating his fingers, a void drawing in the magic around him with an incredible pressure.

It draws tight at the tip of his wand and bursts like a bubble.

The shockwave fells all within a thirty metre radius, Germans and allies alike, and just like that, he stands on the same arena as Gellert Grindelwald.

None between them.

Tom is facing his back, Grindelwald a fierce figure in the distance, fighting a group of ragged British Aurors.

Tom takes his opportunity.

“Instabilis gravitatum!”

The spell strikes Grindelwald at the backs of his knees and his stumbles.

Tom feels a choking pride swell within him but before he can savour its sweet taste, Grindelwald disapparates mid-fall ten metres North and regains his footing. He whips around to spot the wizard responsible for nearly felling him, and Tom stands proud already summoning a tunnel of raging Fiendfyre to protect himself and scorch his enemies.

“Is Europe all out of fully grown fighters?” Grindelwald laughs. “They send me children to kill now. I don’t mind it; what do the poets say? What matters where young babes fall to fill the maws of worms—on battle-plains or listed spot? Both are but theatres where all actors rot.”

Tom smiles.

“Nicht ich. Avada Kedavra!”

Grindelwald is fast, deadly. He sends a hailstorm of icy rock from the clouds that beat down on the field, sends them flying at Tom and the remaining Aurors. A glance around the field tells him that all the most important guests have made their escape, only the Romanian guard and British Aurors remaining. His Knights circle above him, casting spells at their adversaries below and the sun creeps higher in the sky. How much time do they have before the Portkey activates? It must be soon, but Tom cannot let this opportunity go by! He holds his own bitterly, thanks only to their dividing Grindelwald’s attention between them. Aside from that first spell, Tom does not make contact with him again.

Frustrated, tasting grandeur on the horizon, Tom surges forward, forces the confrontation if he must. He sends the Fiendfyre to chase Grindelwald’s feet, to bite at his hands.

Grindelwald thanks him with a slicing hex so fast Tom barely avoids it hitting his neck. It whispers through the air hardly visible to the eye and slices into his wand arm—deep. His fingers go lax, digitorum tendons severed. The Fiendfyre is completely out of his control now, burning up the grass, blackening the snow, and writhing along the field, ravenous and consuming. Grindelwald is only a few metres away now, his wand raised at Tom for a finishing blow, and Tom is moments from dropping his own wand, humiliation and fury welling up—

A hand crashes over his, securing its grip, tightening his numb fingers and raising his arm.

“Cast!” Harry shouts at him, pointing Tom’s wand unerringly on Grindelwald.

With all the force of your kinetic fire.

“Avada Kedavra!” he snarls.

An explosion of green cuts the field in two.

His wand scalds his palm, their arms shaking with the force of it.

On the opposite side hundreds of metres away, the Monastery collapses, rendered to rubble.

And between them, bodies lie, cut down in the path of their terrible spell. Tom breathes hard, his shaking arm slipping in blood out of Harry’s grip, relinquishing his own wand at last. He is trembling.

He has never felt magic like that, not ever.

“You!” Grindelwald snarls from behind them.

They’ve missed him.

Harry whips around, Tom’s wand already up.

“Expelliarmus!”

Grindelwald flies back with the force of the spell and his wand springs out of his hand and lands directly in Harry’s grasp. They stare in disbelief at him. Harry stands looking Grindelwald eye to eye, the man’s face twisted with a sick fury. He winds his arm back and throws the wand with all his might clear across the field and grabs Tom’s good hand.

“Let’s go!” he says, taking up the last broom, its bristles still smoking, and pulls at Tom to mount it ahead of him.

No, no, NO! Grindelwald is right there—Tom could destroy him, he knows he could! He could finish him; with his bare hands if he has to! He doesn’t even have a wand at the moment. He’ll kill Grindelwald now, he will for sure, he deserves it, needs it—but Harry has his grip on his only good arm and Grindelwald is advancing on them, face white with cold fury.

“Get on!” Harry shouts, still pulling, but Tom pulls away just as hard. He could get Grindelwald’s wand—it’s only there, somewhere in the snowy grass—”If you trust me at all with your future, get on the broom NOW!”

Tom stops to look at him, his skin smeared with soot, his mouth set in a hard line, and his eyes glowing green. He sees Grindelwald seizing upon them in the reflection of Harry’s glasses.

Green or glory, green or glory—

They soar upwards, the burning broom jittering in the air, and everything in him demands that they go back, everything else be damned! He wants to leap from the broom if he has to, but they are already too high, too far away.

If it weren’t for this damn arm—Tom looks down and it’s much worse than he initially thought. The slicing hex has cut into the bone as well. He can’t feel or move anything below the wound, can only watch the blood pour from it like a gasping mouth, the grin of his bone shining in the center like teeth.

He watches helplessly over his shoulder as Grindelwald glares up at them.

“Zauberstabdieb!” he shouts furiously, sending curses into the air after them.

Wand-Stealer.

Ahead of them, Lestrange circles around on his broom until he hovers alongside them, Rosier holding on from the back.

“That was Grindelwald wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?! You fought Grindelwald!” he shouts. “You fought him!”

No patience at the moment, Tom can’t humour him, wants to sink his fingers claws-first in his blanched, soot-smudged face. But he can't. If not for Harry's arms tight around him, he wouldn't be able to even hold on to this broom.

“Shut up Lestrange, we can celebrate later!” Prewett shouts from above them. “Rosier, where’s your mother’s tent?”

She garbles something, pointing in a leftward direction, nose too swollen and shattered to manage speaking.

They surge forward, the tents flying by, and dive downward when they reach the right one.

“What is it? Did your mother tell you what it is?” Abraxas asks, dismounting and rushing into the smouldering tent. They follow, grabbing hold of any small thing they see and trying to discern if it’s indeed their ticket out. Blasts continue to rush over their heads, showering them in embers, the tent trembling and on the verge of collapse.

“A ‘hrrinkert,” Rosier moans, hands on her face as her watering eyes dart around. She points frantically, near where Nott rummages through the contents of a broken bookshelf. Covered in ash, under a pile of burning parchment, they find a miniature sculpture of a dragon.

A Lambton Wyrm.

“Of course,” he can’t help but laugh.

Nott holds it up just as the tent is hit with another wave of fiery trembles.

“Quickly!” Walburga says. “Before this whole damned thing comes down on our heads! Or worse, before the Portkey activates.”

They gather in a circle, each touching a hand to the dragon. Tom looks down to find Harry clutching his hand, the numb one, his blood painting their laced fingers. They look at one another, and Tom sees the longing—to understand, to change.

The portkey glows, and everything—the burning tent, the stench and roar of battle and all Tom’s hopes of bright glory—it all disappears.