He Is Collecting
Chapter Twenty-Six: He Is Collecting
Hogwarts, 1991
The next morning was bitterly cold, the fire having burnt low and not likely to be stoked up again until after lessons had started. Hermione's bed was warm and inviting, a cosy cocoon that begged her to roll over and simply go back to sleep, but she knew she couldn't. Classes resumed today, and if she was being perfectly honest Hermione wished to be up and dressed before any of the other girls—after her outburst the night before she wasn't keen on facing them. Guilt was gnawing at her stomach, twisting it into knots. She shouldn't have lost her temper; though it had felt good to finally snap back at the overbearing Lavender Brown, experience had taught her that it wouldn't be long before the girl in question returned fire. Wanting to avoid that confrontation for as long as possible, Hermione pulled herself out of bed. The floor was like ice against her bare feet, prompting her to wash and dress in record time. She was out of the dorm before any of the other girls even stirred.
Breakfast, however, did nothing to improve her mood. Plagued by a jittery nervousness, she found that she could hardly stomach even the thought of food. Lavender and Parvati, when they finally arrive in the Great Hall, sat as far from Hermione as was possible, studiously avoiding her gaze as if they feared being attacked should they dare to so much as look at her. Kate and Fay weren't much better, though they did offer her wobbly, unsure smiles every time they caught her glancing in their direction.
"Are you alright?" Harry asked, sharp eyes watching the way she mangled her toast but never ate it.
She had barely even noticed Ron and Harry sit down and, taken by surprise, all she managed to blurt out was a defensive sounding, "What?"
"It's just…" Harry sighed, searching for the right words. He took a moment to distract himself, scraping her shredded toast onto his own plate and handing her a fresh slice, but eventually continued, "You keep darting worried glances over at Lavender and Parvati, and neither of them will even look at you. Did something happen last night?"
One day, she would stop being so surprised by the small boy's unerringly perceptive observations, but for now she still found it jarring and a touch eerie how quickly he could bleed out from impish little Harry into this knowing, seeing young man. It was still unclear whether he did it on purpose, but she rather suspected that he liked to keep people guessing, liked it when others underestimated him.
She bit her lip and ruthlessly suppressed the urge to look down the length of the table again, quietly confessing, "I may have done something rash." Ron—who had been busy shoveling eggs into his mouth this whole time—finally looked up from his breakfast, disbelief stamped all over his features. And he wasn't the only one; Harry, too, looked downright shocked that clever, meticulous Hermione was even capable of rash action. Feeling a bit panicked under the twin forces of their incredulity, she let the story spill out in a rush, "Lavender overheard me talking to Tom last night. I don't think she actually managed to make out any of the conversation, but she insisted that she heard a boy's voice. And, well…" She took a deep albeit quick breath, voice straining high and tight as she concluded, "Well, I panicked. She had all the other girls standing around her, accusing me of being a traitor or some such rubbish, and I didn't want any of them getting suspicious about Tom so I pushed them."
"You pushed them?" Ron echoed blankly.
"A little," she nodded morosely, fingers drumming agitatedly against the rim of her plate. "Only Parvati and Lavender," she rushed to add. "No one got hurt, I swear! I just wanted them to leave me alone for once."
"For once?" Harry's green eyes, always so striking even under the most mundane circumstances, seemed to peer straight through her now in a fashion uncannily similar to Snape's glittering gaze. "Have they been bothering you?"
Hermione couldn't stop the long-suffering sigh that burst from her lips. "Everyone always thinks little girls are sweet and kindhearted, but I've never thought so. Get a group of them together and they'll inevitably find someone to pick on—I've always been an easy target, I suppose," she replied quietly, restless hand moving to tangle with the uncontrollable, riotous mass of her hair.
Harry's fingers darted out, quick and certain, catching her hand before it could bury itself in the unstyled frizz. She dared a fleeting glance at him, terrified at the thought of finding pity swimming in those emerald eyes, but found only understanding reflected back at her. He'd spoken of his relatives sparingly and with great reluctance, episodically revealing that they were deeply uncharitable people who did not particularly like him; it was strange to think that, scrawny as he was, he'd likely endured his own share of bullying prior to Hogwarts.
Ron, meanwhile, was fixing a dark look down to the other end of the table. His ears were flushing a brilliant crimson and his face was nothing short of affronted on her behalf. There was something curiously brotherly about his reaction, and she had a sneaking suspicion that the Twins were going to be given some quiet suggestions about who to focus their next few pranks on. "You should have said something, Hermione," he told her hotly, glaring at the two girls in question. "Don't keep that sort of thing to yourself!"
"I didn't want to cause any trouble," she replied simply. After the incident with Tom and Andy Smythe all those years ago, it had just seemed easier, less dangerous to keep her problems private.
"We complain up and down about Malfoy and his goons," Harry pointed out evenly. "How's this any different? You're supposed to confide in us, even if it's just to complain about how obnoxious they are."
"You were worried about Davies getting upset, weren't you?" Ron guessed, hitting the nail on the head.
"There's no need to get testy," Hermione grumbled at the two of them. As flattering as it was to watch the pair jump to her defence, these situations always made her uncomfortable—she couldn't help but remember the terrified shrieking of a young boy facing a power he could never defend himself from, and the chilling sight of blankly black eyes flashing with the heat of betrayal. She didn't like to remember Tom that way—callous and vicious and terrifying—and had since then, to varying degrees of success, gone well out of her way not to provide him with any temptation to fall back on old habits. "I'm used to this sort of thing, you know."
Ron scowled at that, angrily pushing his eggs around his plate now, too worked up to eat anymore. "That doesn't make it right," he snapped, looking up after a long moment. "D'you want us to talk to them?"
"What would you even say?" she snorted, unable to picture that particular confrontation; as far as she was aware, Harry and Ron had rarely ever so much as exchanged pleasantries with the other First Year girls in Gryffindor.
"Dunno," the redhead shrugged, "but it couldn't hurt."
"All I want is for them to forget the mysterious Slytherin boy they've somehow heard rumours about," Hermione confided and then, unable to help herself, added, "and to not go tattling to Professor McGonagall." Her palms grew cold and sweaty at the very thought, heart thumping uncomfortably in her throat. The tide of her anxiety rose, sharp and uncontrollable, and she squeaked, "What if she gives me detention—I've never been in real trouble before!"
"Relax," Harry laughed, bumping shoulders with her. "They haven't got any proof, have they? It would be your word against theirs." He gave her an easy, unconcerned smiled. "And I know McGonagall doesn't play favourites, but she clearly has a soft spot for you—I mean, how else do you explain us not getting into any trouble over that whole troll incident? She'd probably be a lot more upset that the other girls were ganging up on you than that you tried to defend yourself." It was astounding how much Harry trusted simple good fortune to see him through life; he was not an especially lucky boy by anyone's measure, excepting two botched assassination attempts, and yet he believed in luck wholeheartedly. "Anyway, it's double Defense this morning. We don't even have Transfiguration today; by the time they could mention something to Professor McGonagall they'll probably be too embarrassed to bring it up."
Ron blanched at the mention of Defense, biting out a quiet, "Bloody hell!"
"What?" Hermione asked confusedly, knowing it was unlikely that he'd suddenly decided to start taking seriously the threat Quirrell posed.
The redhead rummaged desperately around his schoolbag for a moment, shunting books aside as he searched for something, but after several long seconds he appeared to come up empty. "I forgot my essay back at the Tower," he confirmed bitterly.
Harry checked his tatty, battered-looking watch and commented, "If we leave for it now, we could probably still make it to Defense on time."
They were well out of the Hall and racing toward the Tower before anyone spoke again. Ron, clearly feeling miffed about the whole situation, burst out, "What kind of maniac assigns an essay just before the holidays and then another one during? Not even Snape was that heartless!"
Hermione smothered a laugh and rolled her eyes. With Ron in one of his moods, there was simply no sense in pointing out that their Defense lessons were comprised of little else other than writing assignments; her words would only fall on deaf ears. Instead, she tartly countered, "And yet you both insist that Quirrell is as harmless as a kitten."
"Dangerous and inconvenient are two different things, Hermione," Harry replied lightly. "Even if he was of a mind to cause harm, he'd probably be trembling too hard to actually aim his wand properly."
She raised a brow, unimpressed with that logic. "And if the trembling is just an act?"
"Well, then obviously," he conceded while their redheaded companion quickly disappeared through the portrait hole. "But he hasn't done anything suspicious."
"Not around you," she admitted, frustration colouring her words dark and a bit snappish, "but I'm telling you, he threatened me."
Harry rocked nervously on his feet for a moment, looking uncomfortable with whatever he was about to say, but eventually plowed ahead regardless, murmuring, "I don't doubt that you felt threatened, but—" Ron had since rejoined them, scroll clutched triumphantly in hand as they began scurrying once more, and Harry used his reappearance as an excuse to trail off.
However, Hermione had a sneaking suspicion that she knew what the other boy had been about to suggest and she couldn't leave that thought alone. "What?" she prompted him in a stern voice that brooked no refusals.
Ron glanced between the two of them, a bit unsure of what he'd just walked into. Harry, for his part, sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck before gently continuing, "Well, you do tend to overreact where the Professors are concerned."
"What?" she snapped, affronted. A nearby group of Ravenclaws tensed and quickly scuttled passed them at the shrill sound of her anger.
And for all that he wasn't quite certain what he had missed while retrieving his homework, Ron jumped into the fray now to defend his green-eyed companion. "You just panicked a few minutes ago over the thought of Professor McGonagall assigning you detention," he pointed out carefully. She glared at him, but he only gave her a sheepish sort of smile and asked, "Is it possible that you were so frightened about the idea of Davies being caught, of the two of you getting into trouble, that you misunderstood Quirrell?"
She took a deep breath and gave the question due consideration. Not that she had to, of course; she knew the truth, but so far the truth hadn't gotten her anywhere. After a lengthy moment wherein she tried to see the situation as her two Gryffindors might have, she finally replied, "The first time, maybe—but definitely not the second or the third time."
Harry stopped, suddenly rooted to the spot. "Second or third?" he asked stonily. "When were you going to tell us about that?"
"Davies is going to kill us," the redhead moaned loudly, attracting curious looks from a few passersby. "We were meant to be protecting you."
"This is why we all asked you not to go off on your own," Harry told her softly. Then, looking somewhere between disappointed and distressed, asked, "Did he hurt you?"
Hermione quickly got all of them moving again, not wishing to dawdle when it was Quirrell's class they were in danger of being late for. It was her turn to scratch at the back of her neck now—suddenly aware that telling them about her First Year tormentors and Quirrell on the same morning was probably an overload, that she should have spread the information a little apart—but she gave them both a shy, relieved look before asking, "You believe me?"
Harry and Ron both frowned at that. "Are you lying?"
"No! It's just… you didn't before," she rushed to explain. "At all."
The two boys were looking increasingly uncomfortable about their lapse in judgement, and perhaps the slightest bit afraid now that she'd been left to her own devices for so long.
"Three times is a bit much not to take you on your word," Harry replied. His tone was apologetic, just this side of self-recriminating, but when he spoke again there was a note of stubbornness threading his voice. "I'm not saying I agree that he's the one after the Philosopher's Stone, but if you say he's been threatening you then I believe you. To be clear, though, Snape is still a greasy, suspicious git."
She laughed at his assertion, a surprisingly carefree sound considering what they were discussing, and blithely returned, "The two of you couldn't have made that more clear even if you'd scrawled it across the castle in giant, Hagrid-sized letters." She couldn't even begrudge the boys their opinion either, because she didn't necessarily disagree. Snape was a petty, vindictive man who derided great joy from making his brightest students feel worthless. It wouldn't take too much of a jump to believe that he was evil on top of all that. In fact, out of all their professors he seemed the most obvious candidate for any wrongdoing—if not for quiet, unobtrusive, incredibly possessed Quirrell, that is.
Ron, who had briefly smiled at the idea of Hagrid-scale graffiti, sobered quickly and asked, "So what happened?"
Hermione sighed, hating the idea of having to explain everything a second time. Then again, Tom had taken the news surprisingly well, and there was no reason to think that the two Gryffindors would react any worse than a temperamental Slytherin. "I think," she began, replaying the memory for herself, "when Quirrell found Tom and I that first time it was honestly just coincidence—but even without ever getting a good look at Tom, Quirrell seemed to realise that he wasn't one of his students. And, since Defense is compulsory for First Years—"
"He got suspicious," Harry realised.
She nodded. "He recognised Tom's wand, or at least thought he did, and I assumed if I could figure out who he thought Tom was we might understand him a little better."
"So you went looking for the wand," Ron guessed, because even though they'd really only been friends for a few short months, he still knew her well enough to realise that researching was her default reaction to just about everything. "Did you find it?"
"The exact same day, in fact." Not that it had done her any good. Discovering Tom M. Riddle had only deepened the mystery more, adding questions while providing no answers in turn. "But then Quirrell found me, and he was different." Even now, she shuddered at the memory of that thing that had cornered her in the Hall of Academic Excellence. "He didn't stutter or shake; he was calm, quiet. Charming, almost, in a completely unsettling way, somehow compelling and repulsive all at once." The boys both looked as if they were having a hard time picturing that; then again, if she hadn't seen Quirrell's act firsthand, she had a feeling she would've had a hard time imagining it too. The very idea of smoothness was just too deeply uncharacteristic of their bumbling, cowardly Defense Professor.
Harry recovered from his confusion first, prompting her to continue. "And he threatened you?"
Hermione shook her head. "Not in so many words; mostly he just seemed interested in finding a way to contact Tom." She thought back to the disconcerting Darkness that had allowed the mask of Quirrell to slip off in front of her, to the slick way it had moved and the soft voice it had spoken with. Unsettled anew, she continued, "But even if he never said anything inappropriate to me there was a malice in him, something twisted and wrong. He didn't touch me, didn't even stand any closer than usual, but..." she trailed off, struggling to find the right words to describe how she'd felt in that moment—small and helpless and so keenly alone. "I could imagine the violence without him having to put it into words," she concluded shakily, "and somehow the fact that he wasn't cruel was all the more terrible."
"That doesn't sound like Quirrell at all."
"I agree." An understatement, but what else could she say? Whatever had spoken to her that afternoon hadn't been Quirrell. "Tom and I think he's being possessed, but we don't know who by." She saw the two boys exchanging looks from the corner of her eye, and rushed to add, "And before you say it, that doesn't sound like Snape, either." Professor Snape did have an insidious edge to him, and while he was habitually soft spoken there was nothing about him that could be considered charming. There hadn't been a single hint of his sneering disdain within the disquieting monster that had faced her.
Harry visibly struggled for a moment to set aside his favourite theory for any strange goingson. "So if that was the second time Quirrell-or-whoever threatened you," he asked slowly, getting back on track, "then when was the third?"
"He sent me a Christmas present of sorts," she shrugged, still feeling strangely guilty whenever she thought about Curses And Counter-Curses for some reason. Probably because she knew it wasn't entirely appropriate for her to have it, but that sentiment hadn't stopped her from reading the book or its annotations.
Ron's eyes lit up and he guessed, "That box you couldn't open!"
"No." Hermione frowned, disgruntled to even so much as think of the pretty puzzle she still hadn't been able to figure out—it was just as infuriatingly unsolvable at Hogwarts as it had been in London. "I really don't know who sent that, and the more I think about it the more I suspect it came to me by mistake." Ron looked dubious at that, but didn't interrupt. "What Quirrell gave me was more or less a bribe—he's still trying to get in contact with Tom, you see. I don't know what for, but he's insistent and fast losing his patience. I'm worried he'll do something drastic if we put him off for much longer."
"So what are we going to do?" Harry asked, businesslike. It never even occurred to him that this wasn't his fight, that he didn't have to share this burden if he didn't want to; his loyalty to his friends was instinctive and ran shockingly deep. She didn't think she'd ever been more fond of him and his stubborn nature than she was in that moment.
"Tom's written a letter," she explained, nervously biting her lip as she darted a glance around the corridor. Thankfully, no one seemed to be paying the First Years any mind, too busy rushing to their own classes. "I doubt it will satisfy Quirrell for very long, but it seemed like the safest way to hold him off."
"What did he send you?" Ron asked suddenly. At her blankly confused look, he clarified, "Quirrell's bribe, what was it?"
"A book, unsurprisingly," she replied, shrugging carelessly. "It's not rare or valuable or anything—in fact, there was even a whole display of them at Flourish & Blotts over the summer—but it is an older copy and has been annotated by… someone." A vindictive genius who wrote in spidery, elegant, precise cursive. "Not Quirrell, because the handwriting doesn't match—"
"You read it?" Ron burst out, staring at her in horror. "Are you mad? It could have been cursed or enchanted!" At Harry's shocked look, he explained, "Quirrell could have imbued the pages with compulsions to make you do something against your will, or cursed it to erase your memory or speak in riddles for the rest of your life. Magic books can very dangerous; you have to be more careful!"
"I didn't know," she replied quietly, trying to sound innocent and apologetic. But she had known—it had been one of her first thoughts, in fact—only she'd discounted the theory. Whatever was possessing their Defense Professor didn't want suspicious eyes turning in its direction, and wasn't likely to unleash any mayhem unless it had no other recourse. Perhaps accepting the book had been reckless on her part, but she firmly believed in the saying, 'Nothing ventured, nothing gained,' and she was in desperate need of some insight into the workings of their shadowy adversary. "Nothing's happened, in any case. What do you think I should do?"
Harry looked a little suspicious at her demure defense, but chose not to pry. Instead, he asked, "Does Davies know about any of this?"
"I told him over the holidays," Hermione nodded. Patting her pocket, she continued, "That's when we thought up the letter."
"Bet he blew his top," Ron snorted uncharitably.
Sometimes she suspected that the redhead enjoyed picking arguments, but she refused to take this particular bait. "He was surprisingly calm about the whole ordeal," she said quietly. "I know he's angry—for a lot of reasons—but he's not bringing it up. I don't know whether to count that as a blessing or not." Because if there was only one thing that she had learned about Tom, it was that he never truly let go of anything. He was fantastic at prioritising based upon the needs of the situation, but eventually all his grievances came back to the fore. She could only hope that he would decide he'd forgiven her somewhere in the interim.
"You should talk to a Professor, Hermione," Harry interrupted her thoughts. It was uncharacteristic advice from him—he never seemed particularly interested in trusting adults if he could help it—but it seemed that his nerves had finally overridden instinct. "Someone needs to know what's going on."
"How can I?" she returned seriously. "Technically, Quirrell hasn't done anything wrong—not anything we know about or could prove, anyway." She could only imagine the scorn she might face for 'spreading nasty rumours' about sweet, befuddled Professor Quirrell. The dark shadow that infected him would probably laugh its incorporeal arse off. Not to mention that those sort of claims would put her under a lot scrutiny that she didn't need. "Besides, I can't risk bringing anyone else's attention toward Tom. Could you imagine what would happen if the Ministry caught wind of a time-traveling twelve year old?"
Harry heaved a great sigh. "So we're stuck with Quirrell."
"Or whatever is controlling him," Ron chipped in glumly. "I don't like this."
"Nor do I," she agreed, "but we haven't really got a choice right now." Not without proof, not without damning evidence. If it weren't for the fact that it was twisting her stomach into knots, she could almost admire how neatly Quirrell's spectre had backed them all into a corner.
"This is why Davies wants to take over our Defense lessons, isn't it?" Harry realised slowly, just as they rounded the last corner toward the classroom in question.
Hermione nodded, although it was unnecessary—for once, it seemed that they were all finally on the same page about the danger facing them. "We're pretty convinced that Quirrell's teaching poorly on purpose, so that no one would be able to stand against him most likely. Tom's own lessons are very different and he's top of his class—"
"No wonder you two get along," Ron muttered, rolling his eyes.
"—so studying with him will help," she concluded, blithely ignoring the interruption.
The three of them skidded through the classroom door and took their seats with only seconds to spare. For the first time that she could remember, Hermione wasn't looking forward to class at all; even through all the years of systematic bullying, she'd never once lost her joy in the face of acquiring knowledge. She dispassionately handed in her homework—slipping Tom's note into the pile as she passed it forward with the rest—and reflected that there was nothing to be learned in Quirrell's classroom, no truth to be taken from the twitchy, nervous act that he put on for the rest of the school.
Well, that wasn't entirely true, she reflected. His lessons were still complete rubbish, but they did give her the opportunity to study him without seeming suspicious. Quirrell was excellent at hiding whatever was inside him; had she not already known what to look for, she probably never would have noticed. The other personality was subtle in the way it looked out through the Professor's eyes, peering at their assignments during quiet moments when its host was busy grading papers. It would quirk a brow and huff out a silent laugh at the wrong answers they had dutifully committed to memory—mocking, scornful, and cruelly amused despite likely being one of the chief contributors to all that misinformation.
The spectre suddenly raised Quirrell's head, as if aware of her uncharitable scrutiny, its haunting, knowing eyes searching the classroom. Hermione quickly lowered her attention back to her desk, and from the corner of her eye noticed Ron and Harry doing the same. She wasn't surprised by their newfound interest, but she wondered what they perceived of him, how much of the toxic shadow they were able to differentiate from Professor Quirrell. Did he seem even half as dangerous to them as he did to her and Tom?
The class continued, dragging by at a depressingly sluggish pace. Quirrell's shadow had to notice the three Gryffindors' enduring inspections, but it never called them out on it. If it was prone to rash confrontation, it did not indulge in the impulse now, content to let the trio work themselves up into a suspicious misery. And it was miserable—having so many questions and no answers; being so close to something so basely wrong and not being able to say anything about it. By the time Quirrell was passing back graded scrolls at the end of the lesson, Hermione felt wound tight and Harry appeared to be fighting off a headache. Even Ron, who wasn't particularly observant most of the time, later said that there was definitely something fishy going on.
Hermione's natural impulse was to remove herself from the danger as quickly as possible but—as she stared down at the new, sealed missive the Defense Professor had hidden within her returned scroll—she conceded that she was stuck in the thick of it for the time being. Maybe, once they had a better idea of what Quirrell and his darkness thought they wanted from Tom, it would be easier to avoid and/or foil them.
Maybe.
But the sinking feeling in her gut warned her not to hang any hopes on that simple desire.
Hogwarts, 1939
Tom left breakfast early that morning, content to let the other Slytherin First Years stew amongst the rumours for a little while longer. Andrus had been correct in that Tom had no way of controlling what shape those whispered words might take, but he didn't need to really. In the end, all that matter was that he'd finally gained the Slytherins' attention. So long as Alphard Black—the would-be king of the First Years, and the most easily directed variable thanks to Tom's influence over Black's beloved cousin—remained interested and open to his presence, then the plan was a success. The deeper he managed to get inside the little aristocrat's social circle, the more room Tom would have to slowly begin seizing control. Black's closest confidants would be a snap, thanks to the information Andrus had supplied him with. It would take him time, and of course there were outliers who didn't exactly fit within Black's circle, but if all went well then by the end of the term no one would even so much as think about sneering at Tom's presence anymore.
Perhaps not this year, but sometime soon Tom vowed that all those little spoiled brats that had turned up their noses would eventually beg to know him.
He absently made his way into the dungeons. First lesson that day was Double Potions with the Hufflepuffs. He found that even though there was little magic to this particular art, he quite enjoyed Potions; he didn't even mind that no one dared to sit with him, preferring to work alone in the first place. Of course, had Hermione been there it would have been an entirely different story.
He was still a bit angry that she'd dared to call him shortsighted—as if she had any idea how far his sight truly spread—but he would swallow that anger in an instant for the opportunity to have her at his side. It was cruel that the only person who really understood him, who was his friend and equal in every respect that mattered, was trapped fifty-two years apart from him. Last night, he'd indulged in the brief fantasy of her sitting amid his peers, ruling those simple creatures as easily as he knew she could, but that dream filled him with a hollow ache and made him wonder why he was torturing himself. With any other desire he would have plotted, calculated, ruthlessly pursued, unleashed any trick in his repertoire to satisfy the avaricious little orphan that screamed across the planes of his thoughts—but no matter how badly he wanted Hermione with him, his repeated failures to understand the nature of his traveling left him baffled and unsure of himself. The idea that he would have to make do with what he was given was simply repugnant, but so far he'd found no other avenues down which he might be able to satisfy his growing desire to keep her close.
Lost within his own thoughts, Tom barely noticed when Slughorn began the lesson. At the First Year level, Potions was little more than following simple recipes and rarely required his full attention. In other subjects he found that lack of connection dull and frustrating, but for some reason Potions was soothing in its quiet monotony. Having no partner to divert his focus, he rarely spoke during these lessons, save to answer Slughorn's jovial yammering. Today, however, was different.
Today, an auburn-haired, cold-eyed witch had set up camp at the workbench beside his own. She was just as striking in the light of day as she had been in the dim fires of the Great Hall last night—her evocative colouring suggestive of no less than hot blood spilled upon bitter ice. A part of him still held out hope that—despite Andrus's warnings and the great differences in their appearance—they were in some way related, that this amusingly aloof creature before him was the missing link he needed to connect himself to Salazar Slytherin. However, if Cleantha Selwyn suspected anything of the sort herself, she kept those thoughts buried deep where they could not be observed. Regardless, her interest in Tom from last night had clearly carried over into the morning, and she seemed particularly eager to strengthen that tentative tie. As soon as the Professor stopped lecturing and left them to their brewing, she leaned in close to him. Offering a conspirator's smile that should have looked at odds with her usually blank expression but somehow didn't, she quietly said, "Where were you at breakfast? I wanted you to meet my friend—"
Selwyn's partner leaned back to get a better look at Tom and primly introduced herself, "Hestia Dagworth-Granger."
"She's also a Slytherin First Year," Selwyn chipped in. It was hardly necessary information, seeing as the two girls had rarely been sighted outside of each other's company since the Sorting Ceremony, but Tom held his tongue.
The other girl's name immediately caught his attention however, and he couldn't stop himself from pondering aloud, "Granger?" He studied her, scrutinising somewhat harder than was strictly polite, but he was too busy looking for traces of Hermione in her to really care. Hestia shared Hermione's colouring, but his Gryffindor was hardly exotic in that regard. The creature before him was petite, her features delicate and fae: like Selwyn, she possessed a pretty facade to hide the perceptive mind lurking within the depths of her eyes. She lacked that wild spark though—the riotous curls, the fiery temper, the desperate thirst for knowledge—that made Hermione less like a girl and more like a force of nature. It was possible that the two were related in some capacity, but equally possible that they were not; it was no stretch of the imagination to picture other Grangers out in the wide expanse of time and space. Without further evidence, he simply could not pass judgement.
The girl bristled, cutting into his thoughts with a sharp, "Dagworth-Granger. You're hardly in a position to be throwing stones, Riddle."
Tom backtracked quickly, surprised that such an innocent question had struck a nerve. He should have been more careful, he realised belatedly; the families outside the Sacred Twenty-Eight had to fight a lot harder in order to justify calling themselves Purebloods. It seemed that the Dagworth-Grangers were struggling against the perception that they were only Half-Bloods and were very touchy about it. "You misunderstand me, Hestia. May I call you Hestia?" he asked, doing his best to sound contrite and soothing. At her begrudging nod, he continued, "I'm not making any accusations—I happen to know a witch by the name of Granger and was simply curious if the two of you were related."
His explanation seemed to appease her and she took a few seconds to think it over. "Not many parts of the family have dropped the hyphen, if you take my meaning," she shrugged, turning back to her brewing, "but I suppose it's possible. You should introduce us."
Cleantha, who had observed their exchange with her usual detached interest, turned curious eyes fully toward him now. Everyone knew about his relationship with Eunice Macmillan, but her and Fawley presented the only friendships anyone could be certain of—even Andrus was little better than a question mark to most. A witch by the name of Granger was news, a brand new piece to the puzzle that Tom presented, and Selwyn appeared to be an avid collector.
But Hermione was a secret that couldn't fully be shared, not if he wanted to keep his inexplicable power over time to himself. All he could do was brush off the questioning look and offer the incredibly fake-sounding cover story that he'd already given to Slughorn. "Her family's moved to the continent, I'm afraid."
For as flimsy and childish as that excuse appeared, Cleantha somehow seemed to take him at his word. "Now?" she asked, looking a touch shocked. "Her parents must be mad! My dad says a bloke named Grindelwald's been stirring up too much trouble—any sane person would stay here, where it's safe."
Hestia laughed at that and countered, "They do say that Beauxbatons and Durmstrang offer subjects that Hogwarts simply won't."
"I doubt a little Dark Magic is worth the trade off, Hesti," Selwyn rolled her eyes and argued good naturedly, sounding rather like the two of them had had this conversation before. "Unlike those other schools, Hogwarts is impregnable. If I were you, Tom," she turned slightly, addressing him once more, "I'd talk to her parents about having her transfered here before war breaks out."
For once, Tom found himself stumped. What could he even say to that? He'd gone out of his way not to meet the elder Grangers, unable to stomach the thought of witnessing firsthand how they would be intrinsically closer to their daughter than he was. And even if he had managed to build up some kind of report with them, he doubted it was anywhere within his admittedly prodigious skills to convince them that attending the same school, fifty-two years in the past was really the best thing for Hermione. He imagined they were dumbfounded enough by the state of things in the 1990's, adding time-travel into the mix would only result in disaster.
However, Hestia saved him from having to answer; she quickly challenged her friend, replying, "The war's already started, it's just a matter of how fast and far it will spread. And anyway, who knows what side her family supports."
"With a name like Granger?" the auburn-haired witch asked with a snort, sounding very much as if she thought the other girl was being thick.
Hestia's dark eyes flashed and she raised a disdainful brow at the other girl as she warned, "Watch it, Clee; that smart tongue will be the death of you someday."
The two girls were tense for a long moment, but then smiled at each other—that same, dangerously sharp conspirator's grin that Selwyn had offered to him not moments ago. There was something appealing, something familiar about the pointed way these two girls spoke with one another. They did not demure or simper, talked of conflict and politics in place of fanciful or girlish things, and though they possessed the same aristocratic flair as Andrus there was nothing particularly coquettish about their exchange. Hermione would have been delighted by them, sharp edges and all, happy to match intellects with these like-minded individuals. That she'd ended up trapped in Gryffindor was a tragedy he still couldn't quite wrap his thoughts around; blood purity aside, she was better suited to Slytherin, to the serious and far more mature way his House comported itself. The dull ache throbbed to life once more as he pictured Hermione beside him now, exchanging conspicuous albeit playful barbs with Selwyn and Dagworth-Granger. She would have fit in with them in ways that wouldn't take a bloody troll attack to illuminate.
"You're very quiet, Riddle," Hestia interrupted his thoughts, chasing the fantasy away in place of the here and now. "Not on our account, I hope."
Tom offered the two girls his own twisted smile, the one that promised trouble and profit all in one. "I'm just enjoying the show," he quipped lightly, sparing a moment to make sure his potion was still on track. "It's so rare that I get a front row seat like this."
Cleantha hummed and began dicing herbs as Slughorn strolled passed the trio—beaming at the three of them, clearly overjoyed by something. "You should have done that little trick of yours ages ago, you know. You've put us all in a bit of a bind; there's a lot of lost time to make up for," she said at length, briefly chastising him with a little waggle of her paring knife once the Professor had wandered off. At Tom's guardedly blank look, she smiled and explained, "Slytherin's hierarchy is usually solidified by the second term, but you just changed everything. We're all back at square one now, scrabbling for purchase."
It was a confirmation of what Lestrange had told him; if he was to have any hope of his own House taking him seriously then he would have to shift the tide of power in his favour before the summer holidays. A part of him had suspected it would take a few underhanded miracles and some aggressive pulling at the strings of one Alphard Black—all of which he'd been fully prepared to do—but these were good tidings. If he'd managed to throw the First Years into chaos already, then he'd created more opportunity than he had counted on; alliances were up for grabs and he was eager to begin collecting. A good thing, to be sure, and yet… despite the increase in pointed stares and hidden whispers, he didn't really feel as if anything had changed. To that effect, he confided in the two girls, "The rather unwelcoming air of the boys dorm would beg to differ."
"They're just jealous and—if you don't mind my saying so—a bit thick," Hestia shrugged with a roll of her eyes. "I'm going to let you in on a secret, Tom: the male portion of Slytherin might have ambition in spades, but the truly cunning half lies with the women. Those boys understand your worth, but they're going to fight it tooth and nail for the stupidest reasons."
Her words were insulting and flattering all at once, and Tom couldn't help but chuckle at how openly she allowed herself to speak. Content to let the conversation play itself out, he prodded, "And the two of you have no such qualms?"
Cleantha's pale eyes glittered, and for all that she usually appeared so remarkably aloof she chose now to borrow some of her friend's frankness. "We all knew you were clever—more than anyone really thought you had a right to be with an unknown name like yours—but now it turns out you're powerful as well, and that means something in our House."
"They like to talk big about their precious bloodlines," their brunette companion spit out, and it was comforting to hear that someone else found that whole ideology tedious, "but when it comes right down to it all that really matters is the strength of your magic. Eventually they'll follow you, if only because they'll be too afraid to miss out on whatever benefits they might be granted by riding your coattails."
Flattery again. When he had played this game with Andrus back in October, honeyed words like these had sent up red flags, but here and now with these two girls, Tom didn't feel quite as threatened. Probably because Cleantha and Hestia didn't seem interested in recruiting him as their toady—they clearly wanted something from him, but they were shockingly, refreshingly honest about that. They weren't even attempting to pretend that this was less of a conversation than it was the prelude to a negotiation. He could respect their candor, but they were mistaken if they thought he'd bring the conversation to a head before they did; if they wanted something from him, then they would damn well ask. Side-stepping Hestia's candied visions of the future, he replied, "Then I think it rather tries my patience that I'm being made to jump through so many unnecessary hoops."
Cleantha laughed, earning startled looks from a few nearby tables. "You're not much for tradition, are you?" It wasn't clear whether she was referring to his method of social mobility or his conversational maneuvering, and she moved on too quickly for him to ponder it overlong. "But you're a Slytherin through and through, I can tell."
"Am I? What makes you so sure?" He turned back to stirring his potion, affecting an air of disinterest as he added, "There's been quite a lot of talk that I'm a little too blue and bronze to really be a snake." As much as he could value some of the qualities that the Ravenclaws held dear, the idea that he was not cunning or ambitious enough, that he was somehow too lacking to belong to the House of his own ancestor felt like a livid bruise that everyone kept prodding at.
Selwyn was undeterred by his statement, recalling, "You were so unimpressed last night—bored, almost—while performing magic that no other student in that Hall would have even thought to attempt. You have to be a Slytherin, because why else would you bother indulging yourself in a petty song and dance that you clearly found tedious?" She paused her own work in order to meet his gaze, and once she was sure she really had his attention, continued, "Ambition makes you stay the course, just like it does the rest of us."
Hestia, meanwhile, had clearly grown a bit bored as the conversation appeared to be no closer to whatever it really was they wished to talk about. A bit archly, she attempted to redirect the topic, "That little trick of yours, impressive as it was, clearly wasn't the one you actually wanted to perform. What are you hiding from the rest of us, Tom?"
He was impressed by her intuition; it wasn't likely she'd guessed he was a Snake-Speaker, but she'd obviously sensed something. Tom had been so focused on Black and his cronies that he hadn't spared much attention to anyone else at the table. Cleantha had been of interest only because she'd introduced herself, but if he stretched his memory he had the vague impression of Hestia sitting beside her—and it was a little disconcerting to think that she'd perceived so much of him while he'd barely even registered her. He'd clearly grown a little too used to be overlooked; it was so easy to forget that there were eyes everywhere. Perhaps Hermione's accusations of shortsightedness weren't so far off base after all. Pushing back his disconcertion, he offered her a playful grin and challenged, "Surely you can think of more subversive ways to find out than just asking me."
"A test then?" The brunette's eyes gleamed, seemingly delighted by this turn. "We could whisper into the ears of the Carrows or the Rosiers—"
"Find out what it is that Lestrange is hiding on your behalf," Cleantha cut in, mirroring her companion's expression.
Tom snorted, unimpressed. "As if Alphard Black hasn't already tried that."
"Oh, yes, we heard the rumours," Hestia replied airily. "Illegitimate Lestrange, wasn't it?"
Cleantha turned her pale gaze upon him, taking his measure from head to toe. "You certainly have their colouring," she mused, "but you don't look much like a Lestrange to me."
"They've always tended toward the stocky side," Hestia agreed. "Tall and angular would suggest more of a Black."
"Or a Crouch."
"Or maybe even a Greengrass," the two girls grinned, clearly on a roll.
"It was smart of you to cloud the waters like that," Selwyn admitted, sobering quickly. "As much as Purebloods hate uncertainty, it's going be hard for anyone to stand against you when they're too busy wasting energy on trying to figure out what you are. Personally, I look forward to seeing what you do next."
Tom fought off the urge to lick his lips. Finally, they were at the heart of the matter, prelude played out and negotiations ready to begin. Carefully, so as not to appear overeager, he asked the pair, "And what price would the two of you pay for front-row admission to that particular show?"
The delicate, fae-like curves of Hestia's face sharpened for a moment, dark eyes filling with enthusiasm as they got down to business. "My, we are the industrious little politician, aren't we?"
"Come now, Tom," Cleantha interjected enticingly, "surely you wouldn't expect so much from your new friends, would you? We're so eager to show you off!"
The price they were offering to pay was clear: a potential alliance had been placed upon the table along with the optimistic possibility of some tenuous loyalty stretching beyond just the two of them. Unlike Lestrange, they would not have to be overpowered, threatened, or frightened into helping him. But what did they want in return? "Grateful as I am," he drawled, "I can't help but wonder at your motives."
"Good, we'd think less of you if you didn't," Cleantha smiled in that sharp way of hers again. As if she'd been waiting all this time for that offhand sign of awareness from him, she finally revealed, "The Blacks love to set up court whenever they arrive at Hogwarts, they take it as their due."
Hestia grimaced, as if it pained her to speak of this, and picked up where her friend left off, "But our families, old and powerful though they may be, have never been particularly well in with the Blacks."
The Dagworth-Grangers were wealthy and famous thanks to their success at potioneering, but they were not part of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, and to a family like the Blacks that mattered. On the other side of that coin were the Selwyns, who were part of the registry, but their infamously private nature had led them to be disregarded by many of the other families. And these two enterprising creatures were clearly not content with that state of affairs—Alphard's inattention had made enemies out of them, and the boy didn't even seem to know it. Tom represented their best chance to break out of the dissatisfying hierarchy they'd been sorted into, the greatest opportunity to exact revenge upon a system that had treated them with less than they thought they were owed. He felt an unsurprising amount of kinship with that—if there was only one thing in this world that he could understand and respect, it was the desire for revenge. The three of them—four if he counted Andrus—would work well together.
"That is a shame," he replied silkily. "Two nice, young girls like you getting snubbed when everyone knows Black wouldn't hesitate to bow down to the likes of Eunice Macmillan?" Their countenances darkened, perhaps feeling that he was treating their gender with a little too much flippancy, so he held up a hand, crooning, "Oh, don't get me wrong, Eunice is a clever enough student, but Slytherin concerns should stay in Slytherin hands, don't you think?"
Ruffled feathers soothed, Hestia nodded. "Yes, we do."
Cleantha gave him a long, searching look—no longer the playful assessment from before, but as if her cold eyes were trying to divine his future. She cocked her head, auburn curls tumbling over one shoulder as she asked him in a tone as serious as the gallows, "Do you have the tenacity, the sheer strength of will, to change the tides in the Common Room, regardless of the longstanding alliances and feuds being perpetuated on behalf of our parents and their parents before them?"
"And then some," he promised, equally grim. "I won't rest until I've had my way, and I think you know that."
"Then we're happy to throw our lot in with you," Cleantha replied with a hint of a smirk. "It's not like you could serve us any worse than Alphard Black does."
Tom didn't care much for that phrasing, but he chose not to take her up on it. For now, it was enough that he'd made some 'friends'. "You keep my interests at heart," he vowed to the two girls, "and I'll keep yours."