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Serpentine
Lavender's Blue
Lavender's green, dilly dilly, lavender's blue,
If you love me, dilly dilly, I will love you.
You will be sweet, dilly, dilly, you will be kind
But most of all, dilly, dilly, you will be mine.
If you should die, dilly dilly, as it may hap,
You shall be buried, dilly dilly, under the tap;
Who told you so, dilly dilly, pray tell me why?
That you might drink, dilly dilly, when you are dry.
Lavender's blue, dilly dilly, lavender's green,
When I am king, dilly dilly, you shall be queen:
Who told you so, dilly dilly, who told you so?
'Twas mine own heart, dilly dilly, that told me so.
I love to dance, dilly dilly, I love to sing;
When I am queen, dilly dilly, you'll be my king.
Who told me so, dilly dilly, who told me so?
I told myself, dilly dilly, I told me so.
Lavender's green, dilly dilly, lavender’s blue,
You must love me, dilly dilly, cause I love you,
I heard one say, dilly dilly, since I came hither,
That you and I, dilly dilly, must die together.
---
The first thing Tom looks up the moment he wakes, is dreams. The second is visions. The third is Seers. He almost runs a trail to the library in his powder blue pajamas before coming to his senses: The library is closed. It is not a good idea to go out at this hour. Instead, he confides himself to the much smaller library within his common room. Most of the books are Slytherin records and history, as well as copies of pedigree certificates and detailed family trees, but his luck shines through and he finds two adequate books on the subject. He lays them out, open, alongside the torn page from the book he borrowed from Ximena.
He should probably return the bracelet.
He doesn’t want to.
The page he ripped out of the book explains the basic functions: protection against evil and malicious intentions. Specifically the Evil Eye. One of the books (the smallest one, it’s a detailed memoir from a Slytherin student in 1515 that reads like a manifesto,) is written by a Seer. It speaks about their predictions for the next millennium, cursed objects, and the sanctity of dreams. The second one is a basic dream interpretation manual with woodcut illustrations from 1624 Colonial America.
This is what he concludes after an hour of silent, diligent reading:
Bracelets like hers can rebound when taken away from their owners, particularly if they have been in their possession for a number of years. The magic from the bracelet and the magic of the owner feed off each other. Grow off each other. Communicate with each other. Like a wand and its witch. Even if the owner is a Muggle, the bracelet can bond strongly, and taking it away could result in a curse being placed upon the thief in question.
Luckily, he did not steal it. He found it.
No, he wasn’t so stupid as to think that. He wanted to be, though. Ignorance of his situation is much desired.
As for the curse, it can manifest in various forms. Boils and misfortune are traditional, but he suspects that Ximena’s former bracelet has worse in store for him. That whoever gave her that bracelet has worse in store for him. It does weigh heavy. Heavier than any threaded trinket has any right to weigh, and it does so increasingly as the days go by. Perhaps one day, if he kept it long enough, it would weigh as much as an elephant.
Dreams, he learns, are not often caused by curses, at least, not in any recorded history at the time of the manual. Curses are about prolonged suffering. Dreams are, in the end, harmless after all. Especially if dreamt by those who are not talented Seers, at least according to the author of the 16th century diary. A true Seer ability is rare, particularly amongst Magbobs and Muggles. Most have some sense of clairvoyance about them, but lack the knowledge to interpret or wield their abilities. Even in cases where one dreams of an event that will come to pass, it will be seen as coincidence or precise knowledge and understanding of whatever political, social, and cultural powers that brought said event to be.
A small piece of paper holds his notes, his handwriting rushed and looped. Notes about the black lake in his dream, the dark river, the bright terrifying light, the dark and combined hallways of his school and home...The dream book tells him he has to change. He is having a strong emotional battle. He--Ximena--Wants change. Freedom.
He should give the bracelet back.
But he wants to keep it. He wants to own its mystery. The very aura and history woven in its threads. He wants to uncover the meanings behind the carved symbols on the coin-like attachments--he hasn’t made much of a dent in it at all. He keeps getting mistaken for a Ravenclaw for all the time he’s spent with his nose in a book. His days and hours should be spent on practical knowledge and talking to other students...Not on this.
But he does it anyways.
The last time he had been this entranced over a stolen object, it was a small ring with a pink opal inlay--One that could open up, he later found out, hidden underneath the covers of his bed.-- The ring had belonged to a boy who regularly stole his food at dinner. Apparently it had been his mother’s. Or Aunt’s. Dumbledore had made him give it back before coming to Hogwarts.
A sudden noise rips him from his rememberings, and he freezes for six agonizing seconds before settling back into his seat. He marks his place in all the books and scoops them up into his arms, returning back to his bed in nervous silence.
He doesn’t have a goal yet, at least not a concrete one. He doesn’t want to be the pond scum at the bottom of the gutter, he wants to lift himself up by his bootstraps and make something of himself. But how? Gaining friends and influencing others to do what? Will he look up approximately how many people have to die for him to be King of England? Hardly. That was a distant dream once-upon-a-time back at the orphanage when he didn’t know of his magical abilities. His ambitions must be updated. Before, he could only hope to begin his path to greatness after coming of age, but life has given him a head start. He has to use all his cards, but he has to use them at the right time.
Now if only he knew what half his cards were.
In his hands, he currently has his charisma. His show of innocence, his raw talent, his ability to draw people to him. His house: a threshold of power and resourcefulness. Many sneer at his lack of trackable parentage behind the comfort of their common room, but outside, they stand by him. A fortress to the cruel and judging looks from the other houses.
He wants understanding. Knowledge of these obtuse pureblooded customs. Patience for his unknown blood status. A foothold. He wants people to look up to him. Come for guidance and wisdom and favors.
Tom wants to be wanted.
He slips the bracelet back into his pocket.
-
A week passes without him coming into contact with Ximena. He spots her out of the corner of his eyes, heading to class, heading to lunch, heading to the common room, and she looks the same as she always has: indifferent and lost in thought. A part of him, as always, is bothered that his presence makes little difference in her day-to-day life (Does she miss him? Notice that he’s gone? Wonder about his whereabouts?), but another part is grateful that she hasn’t confronted him about his sudden need for alone time. What could he say? That he wanted to pry her secret life from her damn hands, but got scared off because of some strange birds and flowers and dream? That he thinks her lost bracelet is driving him to insanity?
So of course, he confides (without revealing anything) in his house’s resident curse expert. Manages to catch her alone during lunch as she drinks her dark coffee, and pretends his questions have to do with an assignment.
“Ugly business, the Evil Eye.” Yami tosses her long black hair over her shoulder, looking tired, “You’ll see many a witch turn their nose up at it, but it’s far from child’s play: easy to get right, and easier to get wrong.”
Tom feels his hand itch toward his pocket.
“Charmed bracelets are common protection right?” He prompts.
“Oh yes, of course.” She holds up her left wrist to show him her own version of the bracelet hiding in his robes. Gold and red, with a sizable talisman in the shape of a hand with an eye in its palm. He recognizes it from the pages of the tome Ximena lent him, “I’ve had it since I was a baby, as is custom.”
“What happens if you lose it?”
Yami’s eyes narrow ever so slightly, as if she knew that Tom was up to something, but she continues, “I get another--But this one means much to me.” Her hand goes back down, “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about Lane’s lost bracelet, would you?”
Fuck.
“No, why?”
“Her magic energy has changed dramatically in the last two weeks since her duel with Acwellan.”
He blinks, because it is the most forward he has ever heard her be. Blinks because he thought only he could notice the change.
“Did she lose her bracelet then?”
“When Acwellan disarmed her--She got her bracelet instead of her wand.”
“How curious.”
“Indeed.” There is no way Yami knows...Absolutely no way, “I hope I don’t have to tell you the consequences of taking such a sacred object, Riddle. Or worse--Holding it hostage from its rightful owner.”
“I was raised with Muggles, remember?”
The look in her eyes tells him ‘We both know you’re smarter than that’, but she indulges, “Personally, if you were to steal my bracelet, you would die.” She says it so simply. So matter-of-fact, “I suspect hers is set up the same, though slower.” Her lips purse slightly, “Her kind have a special sort of relationship with Death.”
The hair on his neck rises. His fingers tap on the table. He opens his mouth, and…
“Acarya! I see you’ve saved us all seats.” The buffoon.
She exhales sharply through her nose, mouth forming a thin line. Tom empathizes hard.
“I did not save anything.”
“You saved it without even knowing,” He corrects, sitting down with Nemesis and Hedwig in tow along with, and this makes Tom double take, Ximena of all people. She looks a bit shaken up and woozy, holding her hand open to her chest as if she were trying to calm herself. Despite them all coming in a group, she’s strangely detached.
Hedwig places her hands on the table, aggressive as always, and addresses Yami, “I heard you were nominated for the Wizarding Schools Potions Championship next year.”
“You heard correctly.”
“Mentor me.”
Tom blinks. Yami remains unfazed.
“You want to participate yourself?”
Mildly sour, Hedwig purses her lips, “Slughorn is trying to vouch for me, but Dumbledore thinks I should wait--Dippet is indecisive as always.” A yes, then.
“Why would I help out the competition?” The older girl remains impassive, but Tom feels a sliver of amusement in her tone.
But before Hedwig can respond, his mentor butts his ugly head into the conversation, “Come on, Acarya, think of it as a collaborative effort to advance Hogwarts over the other schools. A bonding of sorts.” His hand tosses and gestures casually, his other one readies a mug of hot chocolate, “Acwellan and you, Britain and India--A bit like estranged brothers no? Cousins?”
“If Britain paid back every last knut they sucked out of India, it would rightfully cease to exist.” Yami sips from her cup of coffee as his mentor chokes on his own drink. Nemesis looks uncomfortable. Hedwig cranes her head and listens. Ximena holds the smallest of smiles on her lips.
“That’s--Bit harsh, isn’t it?” His mentor clears his throat, wanting to quell the spark in the room.
Yami’s eyes are cold fire, “Come again?”
He opens his mouth, and before he can reply, Yami cuts him straight off. It’s unbecoming. “Do you know what they did to them as punishment for insubordination? They made them break wizarding oaths. They made them swear on their magic.”
The two pale girls appear varying degrees of nauseous. Ximena is unfazed and curious. His guide is just about withering in his seat.
“And that’s not even touching what happened to the Muggles.” Her mug is set down beside her notes, “Don’t try to lecture me on my own people’s history again.” She stays seated and silent. Dignified. His guide takes his cue to shuffle away, bowing his head gracefully in defeat as he apologizes. Nemesis follows suit soon after. Only Hedwig and Ximena stay seated, the younger witch waiting, the older one looking at her bare wrist.
“Now, when is your free period?”
The two plan a set time and day to meet together and discuss the competition. They break off together speaking about asking Slughorn for use of his classroom after hours. Tom blinks across the table at Ximena, “Are you alright?”
His concern makes her baffled, apparently, “What do you mean?”
“You felt a little rattled when I saw you come in.” It’s very unusual for you to be hanging out with that sort.
“Oh, that.” Discomfort
Usually, he would press on despite her clear reluctance. But he doesn’t. Doesn’t find it smart. Right. He changes the subject, “I noticed your amusement at Acarya’s tongue lashing,”
“Mm...It was satisfying.”
“Have you wanted to say similar?”
“Many times.” No hesitation. A tired sigh, “Sometimes it is not worth it. People do not listen, they only wait until you are done talking.”
He thinks on that, for a small while.
“Sorry I haven’t been up and around much.”
Ximena holds up a hand, open palmed, “No need for apologies. I figured you were studying for your midterms. Your education is important you know.”
He nods once, “You’ve helped me out with my studies many times.”
Tom’s not sure what to do with her resulting look of surprise, “--Have I?”
“Oh yes, more than I can say.” Honest words, “Your advice, the places you lead me in the library, the book you lent to me...”
Her eyelashes flutter slightly, her fingers lift to her lips in thought. As if she were trying to dig through her memories for any evidence of what he was saying, “So I have...” She looks at him, “I’ll take your word for it.”
“Did you really forget all that?” All the time we’ve spent around each other?
She clears her throat, “No no, I...” A hum, her thoughts buffering, “I didn’t do those things to help you...Not like that, I mean.” Her fingers tap tap lightly over her mouth, “I was just..sharing. Conversing. Like others talk about the weather. Or Quidditch.”
Ah, “Thank you.”
“Of course.”
“Could you...Tell me something?”
She looks at him but does not say anything. He continues, “Can anyone learn to...feel others’ magic?”
“You mean you can’t already?”
That was a good hot stab to his side. It was entirely normal for someone his age to do that then. Either that, or Ximena expects everyone to be able to do something that only comes naturally to her. He’s not sure which one he is hoping for.
“Oh, sorry.” His emotions had shown clear on his face, then, “Well, it’s um, it’s just like getting the feel of a room. You have to just pay attention.”
Tom had once heard that explaining something that comes naturally to you, like breathing, is impossible to explain to someone who has no idea where to start, “What am I paying attention to?”
“Well, just the air around a person. Not with your eyes, but with your own magic.” Her lips form a thin line again, “It’s easier to sense others before your own...Almost like how you can never look into your own eyes, do you understand?” Vaguely. “Some people get good at hiding it, and you can control its range sometimes, if you’re particularly skilled. Give off killing intent and power levels, it’s nice for intimidation during duels.”
“Can you see mine?”
“Yes--In a manner of speaking.” She readjusts herself in her seat, “Physically manifesting your magic takes a lot of work and patience. Power doesn’t hurt either. I can’t see your magic, but others can. It would be like seeing temperatures, or radio waves.”
“What’s it like?” Tom tries hard to keep the thrill from boiling over, but it’s so hard.
Despite all she has said about not being able to see it, Ximena squints at his form, “It feels...compact. Tight. Suppressed.” She stops squinting, “It’s hard to tell without using my magic to prod.”
“Why don’t you?”
Something like a blush dusts across her face, “That’s...It’s very personal to do. Intimate. I wouldn’t do that to you without your permission or a warning. It’s something you do...In a battle. To scare and torment. Or to family, to comfort and protect.”
“We’re friends, though, right? Can you show me? I give you permission.” That hopeful note in his voice is the cherry on the cake. She looks compromised. Hesitant. He only has a few seconds after her reluctant nod before he...perceives that she is even doing anything.
Softly, something brushes up against what he would call his personal space. It does not touch his skin or clothes, but it touches him. As if his feet were sharing a pool with someone--something--and they moved. It tickles. He holds back any temptation he has to giggle.
The thing presses deeper. It doesn’t feel like a ripple anymore, it feels like a gossamer caress. A fluffy cat cuddling against his essence, or a snake slipping over his soul. It’s cool, like a stone by a river. It pushes and pulls gently against...something. Was this his magic guarding him? What would happen if he parted it and let the mysterious thing through…?
Tom slips into his magic like a wet glove. It stretches out, uncertain of what is happening, and snaps back skin tight, fitting perfectly. A reverse shedding of skin. For a moment, the imagery of crawling into a cocoon comes into his head. The comparison comforts him.
“There...That’s it...Can you feel it?”
Her voice surprises him. It almost feels like he is deep underground with how distant the sound is to him. But as his magic conforms to him, it becomes clearer: the thing that had been pushing up against him. Water.
“I feel it.”
He wishes he hadn’t said it. Her magic retreats back to her at once, and he is left with just his own awareness of his own magic, dancing pleasantly about him.
“It’s black.”
“Black?” He didn’t know magic had colors.
“Endless...A night sky.” Ximena bears a look that Tom knows means she is thinking a million thoughts a second, “It’s very grounded. Rooted. Strong.” He likes that. “Your magic is very elegant. You have a lot of potential.”
Most nothing is greater than the want to feel her own magic, but he doesn’t ask. He knows what her answer would be.
-
Dumbledore, back when he first visited him at Wool’s, had made a small jest over his skill of getting himself into situations where he has no one to blame but himself. Well, he didn’t word it like that, but Tom knows what ‘troublemaker’ means coming from the mouth of an adult.
The point is: he’s in a place that he only is responsible for.
It was his mentor’s idea, he swears. Something about socializing more (more than he even does now?) and ‘Having a bit of fun, Riddle, you’re such a squeaky clean student’. Normally, Tom would never (never) allow himself to be bullied or pushed into such a thing but...It’s not like he’s having to participate in Mischief Night, right? Nevermind that that was something he actually was more curious about--What irked him was having to do something (anything) on the terms of others. But these are the cards he has been dealt, and he will play them perfectly.
A part of him feels a bit silly at dressing up, but another part (a much louder, stronger part) feels excited. It’s his first proper Hallowe’en, and he wants to do it right. He wants to look good and play and talk with his fellow wizards and witches. Be a part of their world. Hallowe’en at Wool’s was always uneventful: a few of the older children would sneak out and return with goodies for the younger ones, but Tom was usually left out from those raids (oh, he took all the sweets and pastries he wanted later, mind you.) The most dressing up anyone did was with old pillowcases and donated clothing. Children were ghosts, nuns, and all other sorts of unimaginative people. Unpleasant.
Tom’s costume is a dream: A tunic entirely sewed from starflowers and skeleton leaves, of which he had help in creating thanks to a few charmed older girls--His usually neat and combed aside hair is styled wild with a few sprigs of leaves pinned. He is the absolute portrait of boyishness.
Needless to say, few of his pureblooded companions understand his disguise. Uncultured swines. Hedwig guessed something along the lines of a wood sprite. His mentor thought he was some Shakespearean character, which was considerably closer, but not on the nose. Muggles, as ugly and stupid as they are, still have some value...If only in their works.
“Something’s missing,” He mutters to himself on the way to the party, rubbing a strand of his short hair between his fingers.
“What, did you have a hat or something too?” Hedwig, dressed as the Goddess Morrigan, turns to look at him impatiently.
Tom shakes his head, “It’s my hair. I wish I could make it longer. More red.”
“Is that all?” She pulls her wand out and points it at his head, “Mum’s the word.”
“Can you really?” It shouldn’t have surprised him at this point, really, that wizards could do such a thing, but it does.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” She smirks at the excitement in his voice, “Colovaria.”
A tingling all over his scalp. On the edges of his vision, he sees brown burn into a bright auburn. He can’t stop his grin, especially when Hedwig continues with a lengthening charm.
“Not too bad for a first year, eh?” Humility really doesn’t suit her, “Simple cosmetic charms--You learn those in sixth year. Don’t tell anyone I know how to do them, they’ll lose their fucking heads over nothing.” She tucks her wand away, “That should last a few hours, hopefully, if I did it right.”
Trickling students trail along the way to the lesser hall dressed in all manner of strange and fantastic dress. Fabric, accessories, and hair twinkles and shines and seems to move with a life of its own. He tries not to stare, he wants to act as if he’s seen such wonders all his life. He wants to play pureblood. Or at least half-blood. He wishes he had not let the status of his parentage out so quickly or at all. But he has time. He always has time.
The hall is lovely. Dark and gloomy in a way that only Hallowe’en could make fun. There appears to be various parts of the hall sectioned off with hanged veils and curtains that shimmer and obscure the people and objects beyond. All that can be seen behind them are the flickering flames of the floating, migrating candles that make their way through the hall. They glow effervescently, their radiance visible despite obstacles and distance.
He spots Ximena alongside his mentor, and another girl, looking out of place.
“Good God, woman, what are you supposed to bloody be? Did you even dress up?” Hedwig’s astonishment feels misplaced to Tom: the older girl is wearing a modest, sensible, black long sleeve dress with an attached capelet. It reminds Tom of the photograph hung in the Matron’s office back at Wool’s.
Ximena blinks, “I’m in mourning.”
His mentor laughs, “You never change, Lane.” Two years is a little too short a time to know a person before saying that, but maybe Tom should wait two years before passing judgement, “Didn’t think I’d see you here, you were looking sick towards the end of your last period.”
A small shrug, resigned and tired, “I had something like an obligation.”
The muggleborn girl--the one Tom saw previously, so long ago--raises her hand, admitting guilt, “I made her come! She’s my secret weapon.” The girl is dressed as Frankenstein’s bride, quite convincingly too. He wonders if her costume will be misunderstood as well.
“Secret weapon?” His mentor is amused, he speaks condescendingly, “What, are you going to use her to spill punch on Rosier’s dress?”
The girl, while somewhat aware of his mentor’s opinion of her, Tom’s sure, smiles right back, “It’s a secret for a reason.”
Their conversation continues, with Hedwig chiming in, and Tom turns to Ximena, complimenting her appearance, “You look nice.”
“Thanks. You do too.”
“Can you guess who I am?”
“You’re Peter Pan.[1]” Ximena comments as he swells with satisfaction. Of course she would get it. She would understand. He thanks her wholeheartedly, confirming her guess, and asks another question, “Was she really your obligation?”
A pause before she processes what he said, her eyes flicker to her companion briefly, “..No.”
“Riddle! I thought that was you.” Tom turns and finds Nemesis smiling under a golden tiara of stars, “Come with me, I have some friends that want to meet you--”
Nemesis, as thin and frail as she seems, has the grip of a heavyweight champion. He turns his head to properly excuse himself to Ximena, but when he looks, she is already gone. Dissolved into the crowd like mist.
Though he likes that there are people vying for his attention, he doesn’t like the clear control they have over him. Being able to push and pull him away from things and people. He supposes he’ll have to have a talk with his classmate about that, ‘Next time, just ask, please.’ A flash of pleading eyes and a comforting smile, and he knows Nemesis will concede and apologise--She’s a bit of a pushover sometimes.
Tom expects the people she wants to introduce to him are the same. Birds of a feather. She had told him friends, but he suspects that was shorthand for ‘people my parents want me to build relationships with’, considering the blatant differences in generation. They all look like pillars of staggering height and ages, but all made of the same expensive material. Old money. Old blood. Alongside them, he is rudely introduced to highblooded society and customs: eating with the right fork, sneezing correctly, and insulting someone the way it should be done: behind their backs. It’s not anymore tiring or annoying as his usual catering to egos, but God, it’s ugly. He doesn’t even wholly enjoy the company of his classmate, who is so boring at a damn party that she could rival a brick wall. All she keeps talking about is whose cousin is whose wife or brother or grandparent. She keeps talking about her honorable uncle, the Minister for Magic, whose name causes discomfort on other’s faces when brought up. She keeps talking about her father this and her mother that, and all her older siblings and their spouses.
Fortunately, the bore does not last long. Or longer than it should. Once people see him around other pureblooded students and staff, they acknowledge him. Look him in the eyes. Size him up. He smiles, charms, and slides into people’s consciousness. What an adorable young lad. So sharp! So witty. It fills him with a pleasant buzz. And with every added word of praise and adoration, it grows increasingly stronger.
He’s having fun. People smile at him and compliment his costume (though they don’t know what he is), share their food with him, and talk about what a great asset he is to Slytherin House--To Hogwarts. At one moment, Slughorn finds his way to him and recounts a story that happened in the classroom just a few weeks ago to other teachers. Tom sees the admiration and impressed looks, and he basks in it. Colors and sounds swirl by him in a flurry, it feels as if he’s caught in a blizzard of cheer and mischief. Students and teachers begin to dance to whatever haunting tune is being played and echoed throughout the chamber. His head feels heavy and his feet light, drunk without a single drop of wine fallen on his tongue. Drunk on the smiles and candy and socialites. Why did he ever feel like he wanted to skip this event? Was it pompous? Was it pure buffoonery? Was it a waste of time? Absolutely. Oh, but he loves it.
Excusing himself from Druella, her cousin, and Nemesis, he stumbles through boisterous laughter and shifting bodies to find the drink table--Or a spare house elf holding more of that fizzy, fruity pop soda that made his mouth tingle and dance with flavor. Rather than that, he finds something else entirely:
A secluded, dimly lit corner of the room veiled by gold, filigree, semi-opaque curtains. As he passes them, he feels the sheet, the mask of drunkenness lift from his eyes. A few students lean on the marble columns whilst standing, others sit criss cross on the tile or on sparse floor pillows. Ximena herself, sits tall and elegant on a cushy, velvet bench, hands in her lap. He sees her mouth move, but he cannot hear anything until he gets just close enough. Just beyond the last thin curtain.
There’s something different happening. Different because there is a moderately sized group of students--strangers-- surrounding the girl giving their full attention, and Ximena appears in a trance. At ease. Rather than scatter and scramble as she did only a few days ago, his senior takes the attention professionally. As a public figure would. There is no sweat on her brow or seizuring in her fingers or nervous eyes moving back and forth for an escape. There is only stillness.
“...there was a terrible flooding that spring, mudslides destroyed so many homes around us. It was too dangerous for me to go to the well.” As she presses her lips together before continuing, Tom settles in close but out of sight, “So I went to the river.”
Briefly, his gaze flickers to the faces of the other students. They hang eagerly to her every word. He looks back.
“It was swollen. Grown about five or seven meters in width.” Though her voice remains even, suspense builds with every passing second, “I thought it would be violent. Torrenting and strong and fast, but it wasn’t. It was calm and almost still. Like it was sleeping.”
Her eyes are the same way they were the morning they spent out in the grounds. Distant and nostalgic. Yearning.
“The edges of the river were too shallow for me to collect water. There was dirt and drowned insects, it wasn’t clean.” Another press of her lips, “So I stepped in further.”
“I hiked up my clothes so they wouldn’t get wet, but it felt futile. The moment my feet submerged in that river, my whole body--my soul--was soaked.” Her hand, the missing bracelet hand, presses flat against her chest, “The river was cold and miserable. It was heavy. The more I waded, the stronger the current became. It was like it didn’t want me there.”
Tom wants to check on the faces of the others, but he can’t take his eyes off Ximena’s form.
“And then I heard it: distant at first, mistakable for the wind.” A minute shudder runs through her neck and shoulders, “Softly half-crying, softly half-singing. It was the most defeated, pitiful, tragic sound I ever heard.”
What was she saying? He wants to ask. But of course, much as of late, he does not voice anything. He merely sits and waits in silence for the story to continue.
“But it was beautiful. A beautiful song-wail. Comforting and haunting all at once. I wanted to find it. To capture it somehow. Keep it bottled and near me for always.” A blink and the subtlest of frowns, “It was a woman calling for her children.”
Gooseskin rises up on Tom’s arms and neck.
“When I saw her, she was waist deep in the river, wearing the most colorful, gorgeous clothing I’ve ever seen.” Her eyes shut briefly, as if she were picturing it in her mind’s eye, “Embroidered flowers, leaves, birds and people dancing on her blue frock. A green shawl covered her head, she looked like a saint. So warm. So sad. I wanted so badly to reach out and touch her. I wanted to tell her it was okay. I was here. Her child is here. I’m here. I’m here and I love you. I love you.” Her eyes open again. Looking out, past and through the students in front of her. Out in the distant beyond. Everyone listening to her story is leaning in ever so slightly, mouth parted.
“And then I drowned.”
Tom releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding hostage. The students around him seem to do the same.
Ximena waits. Suspense is everything, “When I woke up, I was thrashing in the arms of one of the sisters, coughing up water and soaked to the bone on the edge of the river.” Her shoulders relax, “I was nine.”
In the quietness that follows the end of her story, he tries his best to process the information as quickly and efficiently as possible. It wasn’t just a story, it wasn’t just a story that you claimed happened to you or someone you knew, that was real. She rode with the Grey Lady. Was atop the Pale Horse. Was under daisies. She died. Death took her and she came back.
His thoughts are interrupted by a high whistling of his mentor, “Merlin, Lane, you told it better this year.” His classmates around them blink out of their daze and gather their wits.
“Make it a Hallowe’en tradition, yeah?” Prewett pips up, smiling bright.
Tom does not stay to comment or congratulate. He books it straight to the library.
The few Prefects poor enough (or boring enough) to be assigned to watch duty are just bitter and tired enough for Tom to sneak past them with little difficulty. The library is dead silent and empty, save for the fluttering of a few books flying overhead to a different perch.
His feet take him to the Myth and Legend section in the upper floors, and his hands reach out, as if on instinct, to grab a royal blue book, Magical Diffusion in The New World. He doesn’t want to wait to go back to the common room, he wants to open up the book now and study in the library furiously until he finds it, but he waits. Waits until he climbs all the stairs down into the dungeons, until his hair returns to its earthy brown and his costume trails skeleton leaves behind him. Tom sits up in his bed and reads. Reads wildly as his classmates enter the dormitory and fall to sleep, one by one. Reads as the clock strikes midnight and dark figures swim past his windows. He studies righteously until he finds just what he is looking for. And when he finds what he is looking for, he gets a triumphant gleam in his eyes. Gooseskin. A satisfied night’s sleep.
When he talks to her again, it is November the second, and he has regained his footing. He finds her sitting quietly at a desk in a small nook in the deserted common room (as the first snowfall of the season had called everyone outside to fool around). A pair of enchanted scissors cut rapidly at some colorful paper whilst she reads through what Tom identifies as a cookbook. Curious choice in his opinion, but he’s not here to get distracted.
Pulling up a chair to the right side of the desk, he asks her permission to join her. When she gives it, he sits down comfortably, eyeing the movement of the silver scissors.
“Crafting?”
“Something like that.” She turns the page in her book to a colorful moving illustration of a dancing bag of sugar.
“How do you get the scissors to do that?” His voice sounds almost transfixed.
Ximena’s eyes finally come off the book to look at what her magic has created, “A simple charm.”
“I don’t think that’s very simple.” The cutouts and nips on the paper are precise, despite the speed. So far, it looks as if it’s going to be a snowflake of some sort.
Ximena exhales strongly and sharply. It’s the closest thing he’s heard to a laugh from her, “Well, it’s simple to me.”
“We can’t all be as powerful and skilled as you are.”
The words are meant as flattery. And teasing. A test of their relationship. He feels a bit deflated when she doesn’t react much to it.
“Power is nothing when you have no smarts.”
He’s not sure what she means, so he goes on, “You sound like a Ravenclaw.”
“Oh, not that again.”
“--Not what again?”
“That kind of talk, that I don’t belong in Slytherin house.” She sighs, “Houses are stupid. They only divide us.”
He can’t say he disagrees. It’s much harder influencing those outside his house when they don’t share a class period with him, “...When he said that fame was fickle and changing, just like last year, what did he mean?”
Just as he thought, she did remember those words. Something told him she would. Despite her inability to recall names or memories, he knew that she would remember this. It was a phrase connecting them, like ‘Remember the boat show last year?’ or ‘This is just like when auntie forgot to cook the goose!’. It established a bond between them. A memory.
“I was a hatstall.”
The word, the name, bears meaning. Strong meaning. He can tell. Heavy and solid like a weight. He has no idea what a hatstall is, of course.
“I took more than five minutes to sort.” She continues, looking at him.
“--Oh.” The words Is that uncommon is about to come out of his mouth, but thankfully they never do. He would look like an idiot if they had. He remembers his own sorting. How quick the hat had rightfully placed him among his own, as fast as firing a pistol. How the longest sorting had been only thirty seconds, outside of one classmate: Nemesis. Five minutes exactly.
“How long? Which houses?” He’s dying of curiosity. His hands grasp the edge of the table, leaning in closer.
“I’m not sure. I don’t remember.” Of fucking course. “I sort of...dipped out of my consciousness. Disassociated with the moment.” He can understand that. Having all those eyes on you was unnerving when he underwent it, he can only imagine how she took it. Standing alone on a stage with hundreds of eyes watching and waiting. Calculating. Sneering at your unfamiliar, non-magical name.
“What I do remember is the end, when the Sorting Hat said Slytherin.” And then she huffs up her voice in imitation, “Stubborn child! Slytherin!” Her shoulders slump back, her eyes still revisiting the memory, “When I came to, people were quiet. They didn’t clap. No one told me how long I was up there. I didn’t even know I was a hatstall until three months in.”
“Who told you?”
“The buffoon.” She shares with him, smiling at the private joke. It’s an unfamiliar sight on her face, but not unpleasant. Her teeth, he notes, are perfect, “He’s the one who really showed me the ropes regarding wizard customs. Made it easier to keep my head down.”
And he tilts his head at this, “Why do you hide?” It comes out softly and full of curiosity.
“Attention brings problems, more often than not.”
“Like with the duel?”
Hesitation. “Yes. Like with the duel.” By now, her attention on the book was long lost, her spot on the page marked only with the red bookmark she had been using to keep her place.
“But everyone was so nice to you!”
Ximena presses her lips together, “Nice is not always kind.”
She ended the conversation with that. Her stop to it was practically tangible. He opts for changing the subject, “Any plans for Christmas?”
A small little sigh and an even smaller shrug, “Just being at home.”
“Like last year?”
A hum, “Perhaps. Might be nice to stay, but they might miss me.”
“Might?”
“Might.”
Tom didn’t know you could stay at Hogwarts for the holidays--He’d have to ask Dippet about that, because Dumbledore neglected to tell him.
“Would you like to write to each other? Like pen-friends?”
Ximena looks to be taking careful consideration of his request, fingers laced together atop the table as if she were deciding something leagues more important. Like the colors for new curtains in the parlor, or whether or not to cut her hair, or which one of her children she liked better.
“I would like that.” She decides.
His chest swells with satisfaction.
Things were once again, as his mentor would say, back to normal.
-
Over the Yuletide holidays, Tom finds himself blessed enough to be allowed to stay at Hogwarts after a timid inquiry at Headmaster Dippet. And of course he would be allowed to stay over the vacation, Hogwarts would be happy to have him.
The castle is peaceful and lonely. A perfect backdrop to his current state. The halls are mostly empty and silent as an old movie. Only the wind groaning through the walkways and his own footsteps keep him company. Every once in a while, he’ll spot another student out of his periphery, but they all keep to themselves. Some will congregate in small groups with each other, but Tom hasn’t approached any yet. None of them are in Slytherin anyways. He’s fine by himself, as he always has been. In fact, he openly revels in the solitude (not that there’s anyone to see it): his gait mimics that of a king as he struts around the deserted Slytherin common room, pretending to own the place. The chaise and chairs in the lounge? All his, it’s where he does his important thinking. The beds in the first year dormitory? All his, he switches between them as he pleases. The small library and fireplace? All his, because there is much to learn and show for his success. It’s such a delight. The only thing that would make it better is if there were others there to play with him. Be his servants and confidants and fellow noblemen.
The grounds, blanketed with blinding snow that crunches delightfully under his shoes when he walks on it, resemble a Christmas postcard. Tom wishes he could paint it on a piece of bristol paper and send it back to Wool’s, showing off how much better he is here. Away from them. Back at the orphanage, they will be setting up for Christmas Eve by now: putting up moth-eaten stockings, attending services at the chapel, and decorating the saddest, ugliest tree in London. Last year, it had caught fire from the candles hung on it thanks to a mischievous stray cat that had somehow wandered in (It was Tom. He had let it in because the matron is allergic, and she had been foul to him earlier. No regrets.) They should have known better, really, it wasn’t freshly cut. It had been donated, if his memory serves him, by some rich patron who had wanted a nice photo opportunity for Sunday’s post. They came along sometimes, but not often enough to be remembered. He prefers the donations from church members who felt they were making a sort of difference in his life, but even they eventually move on to better ventures.
Then there are the past residents.
The older orphans, now adults, who had nothing but warmth and gratitude towards Wool’s for housing and feeding and loving them when the world wouldn’t. They are a sight often seen in and out of the place all throughout the year, frustratingly enough. They offer toys and clothes and food. They offer apprenticeships and jobleads. They offer a way out. But most annoying of all, they come back for their siblings. Time after time, Tom has seen the children that grew out of being an orphan return for a brother, or sister, or more. Come! I have found our family! Come! I have arranged for you to marry my employer’s son! Come! I have made my fortune! Why would they want to return to such a place? Why would they come back for their sibling? The moment Tom comes of age, he is going forward and never looking back.
Going where? He’ll sort out that detail later. The world of magic has opened a hall of doors for him. Each possible future more tantalizing than the last. Just a matter of working for the keys. Or taking them from others. He’s not picky. He’ll work as a damn shopkeeper, for God’s sake, as long as he can stay here. Where he belongs.
Again, he tries not to think about the end of the year. When he has to return to home.
Tom shakes his head. No. It’s absurd to ever think that Wool’s was his home. It is a dwelling. A temporary shelter. A space that only exists when he has need of it. Just need. Not want. Not ever want. Hogwarts is his home now. For now. He will find--build a better one. Surely. A citadel far more safe and grand than Hogwarts. Luxurious and comfortable.
...Maybe he could ask Dippet if he could stay over the summer as well.
Admittedly, he is a bit miffed and confused that Ximena did not stay over the holidays as well. He had been under the impression (under the hope) that she held as much repugnancy for her abode and the people around her there like he holds for Wool’s. Was he wrong? Maybe she has some sort of obligation there--Or she’s hiding something (another something), like visiting the Acwellans again. The thought makes him sour. Should he ask her about it? Then she would know he was prying--Or can he play it off as just casual conversation between him and Hedwig? No. He’ll simply ask if she...went on any special trips. Yes.
The first letter to Ximena is rewritten three times. The first, because he felt he was rambling on about boring subjects. The second, because he had spilled ink when Ambrose speed walked over his hand in an attempt to catch a wandering beetle (he put him back in his tank with a good scolding. One that would make the matron at Wool’s proud.)
The third time around, he decides to be short. To the point. Let her decide the topics--But don’t let her be the one to initiate conversation. Knowing her, becoming pen-friends has probably already slipped her mind. Not at all because he is unimportant to her, surely, but because...Well, she’s Ximena.
Atop the west tower, Tom clutches the letter deep in his pocket, shielding it from the bizarre winds of the afternoon. Prying open the cold wooden door (it frequently got stuck thanks to caked owl droppings that dried on the floor before it), he peers in carefully. Never having been inside the owlery before, he doesn’t know what to expect--But the strange boxed displays of owl perches were not exactly...Well, where did they nest? It can’t be very comfortable…
But no matter. Tom steps forward, and absolutely does not flinch at the sudden flapping of wings above and around him, towards the few owls set aside by the school for student use. Hedwig had mentioned to him that the best bird for the job was a barn owl named Hattie because “sodding owl delivered my mother’s baked goods through the worst damn blizzard of the fucking century, she’s no cock-up, my sister swears by her”, and well, with an argument like that, how can he choose otherwise? It wasn’t as if he knew enough about sending mail by owl to see the marks of a good flyer. Maybe there was a class on that in his Care of Magical Creatures class?
Almost (almost) timidly, he calls out the name of the owl and is rewarded with a plump looking owl fluttering up in his face--Pulling away in surprise, he sticks the letter out automatically, not quite knowing what to do. He had seen others tie their parcels onto the birds’ feet, and other times, they would simply hand them over for the owl to carry in their beaks. Luckily for him, Hattie appears to be an experienced owl and simply nips the letter in her beak delicately, does a little body shake in preparation, and waits for Tom to tell her where to go.
He clears his throat, feeling awkward despite being alone in at the top of the tower, “Bring it to...Ximena Lane.” A name alone should work (damn girl was still religiously private, so an address was out the window) but Tom adds on at the last minute before Hattie could disappear from view, hoping it would help, that it wasn’t too late, “My friend, Ximena Lane.”
The wind shifts violently, almost throwing Hattie right out of the sky. Instead of being knocked down, however, she recovers, and is soon nothing but a distant speck in the horizon.
If you love me, dilly dilly, I will love you.
You will be sweet, dilly, dilly, you will be kind
But most of all, dilly, dilly, you will be mine.
If you should die, dilly dilly, as it may hap,
You shall be buried, dilly dilly, under the tap;
Who told you so, dilly dilly, pray tell me why?
That you might drink, dilly dilly, when you are dry.
Lavender's blue, dilly dilly, lavender's green,
When I am king, dilly dilly, you shall be queen:
Who told you so, dilly dilly, who told you so?
'Twas mine own heart, dilly dilly, that told me so.
I love to dance, dilly dilly, I love to sing;
When I am queen, dilly dilly, you'll be my king.
Who told me so, dilly dilly, who told me so?
I told myself, dilly dilly, I told me so.
Lavender's green, dilly dilly, lavender’s blue,
You must love me, dilly dilly, cause I love you,
I heard one say, dilly dilly, since I came hither,
That you and I, dilly dilly, must die together.
---
The first thing Tom looks up the moment he wakes, is dreams. The second is visions. The third is Seers. He almost runs a trail to the library in his powder blue pajamas before coming to his senses: The library is closed. It is not a good idea to go out at this hour. Instead, he confides himself to the much smaller library within his common room. Most of the books are Slytherin records and history, as well as copies of pedigree certificates and detailed family trees, but his luck shines through and he finds two adequate books on the subject. He lays them out, open, alongside the torn page from the book he borrowed from Ximena.
He should probably return the bracelet.
He doesn’t want to.
The page he ripped out of the book explains the basic functions: protection against evil and malicious intentions. Specifically the Evil Eye. One of the books (the smallest one, it’s a detailed memoir from a Slytherin student in 1515 that reads like a manifesto,) is written by a Seer. It speaks about their predictions for the next millennium, cursed objects, and the sanctity of dreams. The second one is a basic dream interpretation manual with woodcut illustrations from 1624 Colonial America.
This is what he concludes after an hour of silent, diligent reading:
Bracelets like hers can rebound when taken away from their owners, particularly if they have been in their possession for a number of years. The magic from the bracelet and the magic of the owner feed off each other. Grow off each other. Communicate with each other. Like a wand and its witch. Even if the owner is a Muggle, the bracelet can bond strongly, and taking it away could result in a curse being placed upon the thief in question.
Luckily, he did not steal it. He found it.
No, he wasn’t so stupid as to think that. He wanted to be, though. Ignorance of his situation is much desired.
As for the curse, it can manifest in various forms. Boils and misfortune are traditional, but he suspects that Ximena’s former bracelet has worse in store for him. That whoever gave her that bracelet has worse in store for him. It does weigh heavy. Heavier than any threaded trinket has any right to weigh, and it does so increasingly as the days go by. Perhaps one day, if he kept it long enough, it would weigh as much as an elephant.
Dreams, he learns, are not often caused by curses, at least, not in any recorded history at the time of the manual. Curses are about prolonged suffering. Dreams are, in the end, harmless after all. Especially if dreamt by those who are not talented Seers, at least according to the author of the 16th century diary. A true Seer ability is rare, particularly amongst Magbobs and Muggles. Most have some sense of clairvoyance about them, but lack the knowledge to interpret or wield their abilities. Even in cases where one dreams of an event that will come to pass, it will be seen as coincidence or precise knowledge and understanding of whatever political, social, and cultural powers that brought said event to be.
A small piece of paper holds his notes, his handwriting rushed and looped. Notes about the black lake in his dream, the dark river, the bright terrifying light, the dark and combined hallways of his school and home...The dream book tells him he has to change. He is having a strong emotional battle. He--Ximena--Wants change. Freedom.
He should give the bracelet back.
But he wants to keep it. He wants to own its mystery. The very aura and history woven in its threads. He wants to uncover the meanings behind the carved symbols on the coin-like attachments--he hasn’t made much of a dent in it at all. He keeps getting mistaken for a Ravenclaw for all the time he’s spent with his nose in a book. His days and hours should be spent on practical knowledge and talking to other students...Not on this.
But he does it anyways.
The last time he had been this entranced over a stolen object, it was a small ring with a pink opal inlay--One that could open up, he later found out, hidden underneath the covers of his bed.-- The ring had belonged to a boy who regularly stole his food at dinner. Apparently it had been his mother’s. Or Aunt’s. Dumbledore had made him give it back before coming to Hogwarts.
A sudden noise rips him from his rememberings, and he freezes for six agonizing seconds before settling back into his seat. He marks his place in all the books and scoops them up into his arms, returning back to his bed in nervous silence.
He doesn’t have a goal yet, at least not a concrete one. He doesn’t want to be the pond scum at the bottom of the gutter, he wants to lift himself up by his bootstraps and make something of himself. But how? Gaining friends and influencing others to do what? Will he look up approximately how many people have to die for him to be King of England? Hardly. That was a distant dream once-upon-a-time back at the orphanage when he didn’t know of his magical abilities. His ambitions must be updated. Before, he could only hope to begin his path to greatness after coming of age, but life has given him a head start. He has to use all his cards, but he has to use them at the right time.
Now if only he knew what half his cards were.
In his hands, he currently has his charisma. His show of innocence, his raw talent, his ability to draw people to him. His house: a threshold of power and resourcefulness. Many sneer at his lack of trackable parentage behind the comfort of their common room, but outside, they stand by him. A fortress to the cruel and judging looks from the other houses.
He wants understanding. Knowledge of these obtuse pureblooded customs. Patience for his unknown blood status. A foothold. He wants people to look up to him. Come for guidance and wisdom and favors.
Tom wants to be wanted.
He slips the bracelet back into his pocket.
-
A week passes without him coming into contact with Ximena. He spots her out of the corner of his eyes, heading to class, heading to lunch, heading to the common room, and she looks the same as she always has: indifferent and lost in thought. A part of him, as always, is bothered that his presence makes little difference in her day-to-day life (Does she miss him? Notice that he’s gone? Wonder about his whereabouts?), but another part is grateful that she hasn’t confronted him about his sudden need for alone time. What could he say? That he wanted to pry her secret life from her damn hands, but got scared off because of some strange birds and flowers and dream? That he thinks her lost bracelet is driving him to insanity?
So of course, he confides (without revealing anything) in his house’s resident curse expert. Manages to catch her alone during lunch as she drinks her dark coffee, and pretends his questions have to do with an assignment.
“Ugly business, the Evil Eye.” Yami tosses her long black hair over her shoulder, looking tired, “You’ll see many a witch turn their nose up at it, but it’s far from child’s play: easy to get right, and easier to get wrong.”
Tom feels his hand itch toward his pocket.
“Charmed bracelets are common protection right?” He prompts.
“Oh yes, of course.” She holds up her left wrist to show him her own version of the bracelet hiding in his robes. Gold and red, with a sizable talisman in the shape of a hand with an eye in its palm. He recognizes it from the pages of the tome Ximena lent him, “I’ve had it since I was a baby, as is custom.”
“What happens if you lose it?”
Yami’s eyes narrow ever so slightly, as if she knew that Tom was up to something, but she continues, “I get another--But this one means much to me.” Her hand goes back down, “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about Lane’s lost bracelet, would you?”
Fuck.
“No, why?”
“Her magic energy has changed dramatically in the last two weeks since her duel with Acwellan.”
He blinks, because it is the most forward he has ever heard her be. Blinks because he thought only he could notice the change.
“Did she lose her bracelet then?”
“When Acwellan disarmed her--She got her bracelet instead of her wand.”
“How curious.”
“Indeed.” There is no way Yami knows...Absolutely no way, “I hope I don’t have to tell you the consequences of taking such a sacred object, Riddle. Or worse--Holding it hostage from its rightful owner.”
“I was raised with Muggles, remember?”
The look in her eyes tells him ‘We both know you’re smarter than that’, but she indulges, “Personally, if you were to steal my bracelet, you would die.” She says it so simply. So matter-of-fact, “I suspect hers is set up the same, though slower.” Her lips purse slightly, “Her kind have a special sort of relationship with Death.”
The hair on his neck rises. His fingers tap on the table. He opens his mouth, and…
“Acarya! I see you’ve saved us all seats.” The buffoon.
She exhales sharply through her nose, mouth forming a thin line. Tom empathizes hard.
“I did not save anything.”
“You saved it without even knowing,” He corrects, sitting down with Nemesis and Hedwig in tow along with, and this makes Tom double take, Ximena of all people. She looks a bit shaken up and woozy, holding her hand open to her chest as if she were trying to calm herself. Despite them all coming in a group, she’s strangely detached.
Hedwig places her hands on the table, aggressive as always, and addresses Yami, “I heard you were nominated for the Wizarding Schools Potions Championship next year.”
“You heard correctly.”
“Mentor me.”
Tom blinks. Yami remains unfazed.
“You want to participate yourself?”
Mildly sour, Hedwig purses her lips, “Slughorn is trying to vouch for me, but Dumbledore thinks I should wait--Dippet is indecisive as always.” A yes, then.
“Why would I help out the competition?” The older girl remains impassive, but Tom feels a sliver of amusement in her tone.
But before Hedwig can respond, his mentor butts his ugly head into the conversation, “Come on, Acarya, think of it as a collaborative effort to advance Hogwarts over the other schools. A bonding of sorts.” His hand tosses and gestures casually, his other one readies a mug of hot chocolate, “Acwellan and you, Britain and India--A bit like estranged brothers no? Cousins?”
“If Britain paid back every last knut they sucked out of India, it would rightfully cease to exist.” Yami sips from her cup of coffee as his mentor chokes on his own drink. Nemesis looks uncomfortable. Hedwig cranes her head and listens. Ximena holds the smallest of smiles on her lips.
“That’s--Bit harsh, isn’t it?” His mentor clears his throat, wanting to quell the spark in the room.
Yami’s eyes are cold fire, “Come again?”
He opens his mouth, and before he can reply, Yami cuts him straight off. It’s unbecoming. “Do you know what they did to them as punishment for insubordination? They made them break wizarding oaths. They made them swear on their magic.”
The two pale girls appear varying degrees of nauseous. Ximena is unfazed and curious. His guide is just about withering in his seat.
“And that’s not even touching what happened to the Muggles.” Her mug is set down beside her notes, “Don’t try to lecture me on my own people’s history again.” She stays seated and silent. Dignified. His guide takes his cue to shuffle away, bowing his head gracefully in defeat as he apologizes. Nemesis follows suit soon after. Only Hedwig and Ximena stay seated, the younger witch waiting, the older one looking at her bare wrist.
“Now, when is your free period?”
The two plan a set time and day to meet together and discuss the competition. They break off together speaking about asking Slughorn for use of his classroom after hours. Tom blinks across the table at Ximena, “Are you alright?”
His concern makes her baffled, apparently, “What do you mean?”
“You felt a little rattled when I saw you come in.” It’s very unusual for you to be hanging out with that sort.
“Oh, that.” Discomfort
Usually, he would press on despite her clear reluctance. But he doesn’t. Doesn’t find it smart. Right. He changes the subject, “I noticed your amusement at Acarya’s tongue lashing,”
“Mm...It was satisfying.”
“Have you wanted to say similar?”
“Many times.” No hesitation. A tired sigh, “Sometimes it is not worth it. People do not listen, they only wait until you are done talking.”
He thinks on that, for a small while.
“Sorry I haven’t been up and around much.”
Ximena holds up a hand, open palmed, “No need for apologies. I figured you were studying for your midterms. Your education is important you know.”
He nods once, “You’ve helped me out with my studies many times.”
Tom’s not sure what to do with her resulting look of surprise, “--Have I?”
“Oh yes, more than I can say.” Honest words, “Your advice, the places you lead me in the library, the book you lent to me...”
Her eyelashes flutter slightly, her fingers lift to her lips in thought. As if she were trying to dig through her memories for any evidence of what he was saying, “So I have...” She looks at him, “I’ll take your word for it.”
“Did you really forget all that?” All the time we’ve spent around each other?
She clears her throat, “No no, I...” A hum, her thoughts buffering, “I didn’t do those things to help you...Not like that, I mean.” Her fingers tap tap lightly over her mouth, “I was just..sharing. Conversing. Like others talk about the weather. Or Quidditch.”
Ah, “Thank you.”
“Of course.”
“Could you...Tell me something?”
She looks at him but does not say anything. He continues, “Can anyone learn to...feel others’ magic?”
“You mean you can’t already?”
That was a good hot stab to his side. It was entirely normal for someone his age to do that then. Either that, or Ximena expects everyone to be able to do something that only comes naturally to her. He’s not sure which one he is hoping for.
“Oh, sorry.” His emotions had shown clear on his face, then, “Well, it’s um, it’s just like getting the feel of a room. You have to just pay attention.”
Tom had once heard that explaining something that comes naturally to you, like breathing, is impossible to explain to someone who has no idea where to start, “What am I paying attention to?”
“Well, just the air around a person. Not with your eyes, but with your own magic.” Her lips form a thin line again, “It’s easier to sense others before your own...Almost like how you can never look into your own eyes, do you understand?” Vaguely. “Some people get good at hiding it, and you can control its range sometimes, if you’re particularly skilled. Give off killing intent and power levels, it’s nice for intimidation during duels.”
“Can you see mine?”
“Yes--In a manner of speaking.” She readjusts herself in her seat, “Physically manifesting your magic takes a lot of work and patience. Power doesn’t hurt either. I can’t see your magic, but others can. It would be like seeing temperatures, or radio waves.”
“What’s it like?” Tom tries hard to keep the thrill from boiling over, but it’s so hard.
Despite all she has said about not being able to see it, Ximena squints at his form, “It feels...compact. Tight. Suppressed.” She stops squinting, “It’s hard to tell without using my magic to prod.”
“Why don’t you?”
Something like a blush dusts across her face, “That’s...It’s very personal to do. Intimate. I wouldn’t do that to you without your permission or a warning. It’s something you do...In a battle. To scare and torment. Or to family, to comfort and protect.”
“We’re friends, though, right? Can you show me? I give you permission.” That hopeful note in his voice is the cherry on the cake. She looks compromised. Hesitant. He only has a few seconds after her reluctant nod before he...perceives that she is even doing anything.
Softly, something brushes up against what he would call his personal space. It does not touch his skin or clothes, but it touches him. As if his feet were sharing a pool with someone--something--and they moved. It tickles. He holds back any temptation he has to giggle.
The thing presses deeper. It doesn’t feel like a ripple anymore, it feels like a gossamer caress. A fluffy cat cuddling against his essence, or a snake slipping over his soul. It’s cool, like a stone by a river. It pushes and pulls gently against...something. Was this his magic guarding him? What would happen if he parted it and let the mysterious thing through…?
Tom slips into his magic like a wet glove. It stretches out, uncertain of what is happening, and snaps back skin tight, fitting perfectly. A reverse shedding of skin. For a moment, the imagery of crawling into a cocoon comes into his head. The comparison comforts him.
“There...That’s it...Can you feel it?”
Her voice surprises him. It almost feels like he is deep underground with how distant the sound is to him. But as his magic conforms to him, it becomes clearer: the thing that had been pushing up against him. Water.
“I feel it.”
He wishes he hadn’t said it. Her magic retreats back to her at once, and he is left with just his own awareness of his own magic, dancing pleasantly about him.
“It’s black.”
“Black?” He didn’t know magic had colors.
“Endless...A night sky.” Ximena bears a look that Tom knows means she is thinking a million thoughts a second, “It’s very grounded. Rooted. Strong.” He likes that. “Your magic is very elegant. You have a lot of potential.”
Most nothing is greater than the want to feel her own magic, but he doesn’t ask. He knows what her answer would be.
-
Dumbledore, back when he first visited him at Wool’s, had made a small jest over his skill of getting himself into situations where he has no one to blame but himself. Well, he didn’t word it like that, but Tom knows what ‘troublemaker’ means coming from the mouth of an adult.
The point is: he’s in a place that he only is responsible for.
It was his mentor’s idea, he swears. Something about socializing more (more than he even does now?) and ‘Having a bit of fun, Riddle, you’re such a squeaky clean student’. Normally, Tom would never (never) allow himself to be bullied or pushed into such a thing but...It’s not like he’s having to participate in Mischief Night, right? Nevermind that that was something he actually was more curious about--What irked him was having to do something (anything) on the terms of others. But these are the cards he has been dealt, and he will play them perfectly.
A part of him feels a bit silly at dressing up, but another part (a much louder, stronger part) feels excited. It’s his first proper Hallowe’en, and he wants to do it right. He wants to look good and play and talk with his fellow wizards and witches. Be a part of their world. Hallowe’en at Wool’s was always uneventful: a few of the older children would sneak out and return with goodies for the younger ones, but Tom was usually left out from those raids (oh, he took all the sweets and pastries he wanted later, mind you.) The most dressing up anyone did was with old pillowcases and donated clothing. Children were ghosts, nuns, and all other sorts of unimaginative people. Unpleasant.
Tom’s costume is a dream: A tunic entirely sewed from starflowers and skeleton leaves, of which he had help in creating thanks to a few charmed older girls--His usually neat and combed aside hair is styled wild with a few sprigs of leaves pinned. He is the absolute portrait of boyishness.
Needless to say, few of his pureblooded companions understand his disguise. Uncultured swines. Hedwig guessed something along the lines of a wood sprite. His mentor thought he was some Shakespearean character, which was considerably closer, but not on the nose. Muggles, as ugly and stupid as they are, still have some value...If only in their works.
“Something’s missing,” He mutters to himself on the way to the party, rubbing a strand of his short hair between his fingers.
“What, did you have a hat or something too?” Hedwig, dressed as the Goddess Morrigan, turns to look at him impatiently.
Tom shakes his head, “It’s my hair. I wish I could make it longer. More red.”
“Is that all?” She pulls her wand out and points it at his head, “Mum’s the word.”
“Can you really?” It shouldn’t have surprised him at this point, really, that wizards could do such a thing, but it does.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” She smirks at the excitement in his voice, “Colovaria.”
A tingling all over his scalp. On the edges of his vision, he sees brown burn into a bright auburn. He can’t stop his grin, especially when Hedwig continues with a lengthening charm.
“Not too bad for a first year, eh?” Humility really doesn’t suit her, “Simple cosmetic charms--You learn those in sixth year. Don’t tell anyone I know how to do them, they’ll lose their fucking heads over nothing.” She tucks her wand away, “That should last a few hours, hopefully, if I did it right.”
Trickling students trail along the way to the lesser hall dressed in all manner of strange and fantastic dress. Fabric, accessories, and hair twinkles and shines and seems to move with a life of its own. He tries not to stare, he wants to act as if he’s seen such wonders all his life. He wants to play pureblood. Or at least half-blood. He wishes he had not let the status of his parentage out so quickly or at all. But he has time. He always has time.
The hall is lovely. Dark and gloomy in a way that only Hallowe’en could make fun. There appears to be various parts of the hall sectioned off with hanged veils and curtains that shimmer and obscure the people and objects beyond. All that can be seen behind them are the flickering flames of the floating, migrating candles that make their way through the hall. They glow effervescently, their radiance visible despite obstacles and distance.
He spots Ximena alongside his mentor, and another girl, looking out of place.
“Good God, woman, what are you supposed to bloody be? Did you even dress up?” Hedwig’s astonishment feels misplaced to Tom: the older girl is wearing a modest, sensible, black long sleeve dress with an attached capelet. It reminds Tom of the photograph hung in the Matron’s office back at Wool’s.
Ximena blinks, “I’m in mourning.”
His mentor laughs, “You never change, Lane.” Two years is a little too short a time to know a person before saying that, but maybe Tom should wait two years before passing judgement, “Didn’t think I’d see you here, you were looking sick towards the end of your last period.”
A small shrug, resigned and tired, “I had something like an obligation.”
The muggleborn girl--the one Tom saw previously, so long ago--raises her hand, admitting guilt, “I made her come! She’s my secret weapon.” The girl is dressed as Frankenstein’s bride, quite convincingly too. He wonders if her costume will be misunderstood as well.
“Secret weapon?” His mentor is amused, he speaks condescendingly, “What, are you going to use her to spill punch on Rosier’s dress?”
The girl, while somewhat aware of his mentor’s opinion of her, Tom’s sure, smiles right back, “It’s a secret for a reason.”
Their conversation continues, with Hedwig chiming in, and Tom turns to Ximena, complimenting her appearance, “You look nice.”
“Thanks. You do too.”
“Can you guess who I am?”
“You’re Peter Pan.[1]” Ximena comments as he swells with satisfaction. Of course she would get it. She would understand. He thanks her wholeheartedly, confirming her guess, and asks another question, “Was she really your obligation?”
A pause before she processes what he said, her eyes flicker to her companion briefly, “..No.”
“Riddle! I thought that was you.” Tom turns and finds Nemesis smiling under a golden tiara of stars, “Come with me, I have some friends that want to meet you--”
Nemesis, as thin and frail as she seems, has the grip of a heavyweight champion. He turns his head to properly excuse himself to Ximena, but when he looks, she is already gone. Dissolved into the crowd like mist.
Though he likes that there are people vying for his attention, he doesn’t like the clear control they have over him. Being able to push and pull him away from things and people. He supposes he’ll have to have a talk with his classmate about that, ‘Next time, just ask, please.’ A flash of pleading eyes and a comforting smile, and he knows Nemesis will concede and apologise--She’s a bit of a pushover sometimes.
Tom expects the people she wants to introduce to him are the same. Birds of a feather. She had told him friends, but he suspects that was shorthand for ‘people my parents want me to build relationships with’, considering the blatant differences in generation. They all look like pillars of staggering height and ages, but all made of the same expensive material. Old money. Old blood. Alongside them, he is rudely introduced to highblooded society and customs: eating with the right fork, sneezing correctly, and insulting someone the way it should be done: behind their backs. It’s not anymore tiring or annoying as his usual catering to egos, but God, it’s ugly. He doesn’t even wholly enjoy the company of his classmate, who is so boring at a damn party that she could rival a brick wall. All she keeps talking about is whose cousin is whose wife or brother or grandparent. She keeps talking about her honorable uncle, the Minister for Magic, whose name causes discomfort on other’s faces when brought up. She keeps talking about her father this and her mother that, and all her older siblings and their spouses.
Fortunately, the bore does not last long. Or longer than it should. Once people see him around other pureblooded students and staff, they acknowledge him. Look him in the eyes. Size him up. He smiles, charms, and slides into people’s consciousness. What an adorable young lad. So sharp! So witty. It fills him with a pleasant buzz. And with every added word of praise and adoration, it grows increasingly stronger.
He’s having fun. People smile at him and compliment his costume (though they don’t know what he is), share their food with him, and talk about what a great asset he is to Slytherin House--To Hogwarts. At one moment, Slughorn finds his way to him and recounts a story that happened in the classroom just a few weeks ago to other teachers. Tom sees the admiration and impressed looks, and he basks in it. Colors and sounds swirl by him in a flurry, it feels as if he’s caught in a blizzard of cheer and mischief. Students and teachers begin to dance to whatever haunting tune is being played and echoed throughout the chamber. His head feels heavy and his feet light, drunk without a single drop of wine fallen on his tongue. Drunk on the smiles and candy and socialites. Why did he ever feel like he wanted to skip this event? Was it pompous? Was it pure buffoonery? Was it a waste of time? Absolutely. Oh, but he loves it.
Excusing himself from Druella, her cousin, and Nemesis, he stumbles through boisterous laughter and shifting bodies to find the drink table--Or a spare house elf holding more of that fizzy, fruity pop soda that made his mouth tingle and dance with flavor. Rather than that, he finds something else entirely:
A secluded, dimly lit corner of the room veiled by gold, filigree, semi-opaque curtains. As he passes them, he feels the sheet, the mask of drunkenness lift from his eyes. A few students lean on the marble columns whilst standing, others sit criss cross on the tile or on sparse floor pillows. Ximena herself, sits tall and elegant on a cushy, velvet bench, hands in her lap. He sees her mouth move, but he cannot hear anything until he gets just close enough. Just beyond the last thin curtain.
There’s something different happening. Different because there is a moderately sized group of students--strangers-- surrounding the girl giving their full attention, and Ximena appears in a trance. At ease. Rather than scatter and scramble as she did only a few days ago, his senior takes the attention professionally. As a public figure would. There is no sweat on her brow or seizuring in her fingers or nervous eyes moving back and forth for an escape. There is only stillness.
“...there was a terrible flooding that spring, mudslides destroyed so many homes around us. It was too dangerous for me to go to the well.” As she presses her lips together before continuing, Tom settles in close but out of sight, “So I went to the river.”
Briefly, his gaze flickers to the faces of the other students. They hang eagerly to her every word. He looks back.
“It was swollen. Grown about five or seven meters in width.” Though her voice remains even, suspense builds with every passing second, “I thought it would be violent. Torrenting and strong and fast, but it wasn’t. It was calm and almost still. Like it was sleeping.”
Her eyes are the same way they were the morning they spent out in the grounds. Distant and nostalgic. Yearning.
“The edges of the river were too shallow for me to collect water. There was dirt and drowned insects, it wasn’t clean.” Another press of her lips, “So I stepped in further.”
“I hiked up my clothes so they wouldn’t get wet, but it felt futile. The moment my feet submerged in that river, my whole body--my soul--was soaked.” Her hand, the missing bracelet hand, presses flat against her chest, “The river was cold and miserable. It was heavy. The more I waded, the stronger the current became. It was like it didn’t want me there.”
Tom wants to check on the faces of the others, but he can’t take his eyes off Ximena’s form.
“And then I heard it: distant at first, mistakable for the wind.” A minute shudder runs through her neck and shoulders, “Softly half-crying, softly half-singing. It was the most defeated, pitiful, tragic sound I ever heard.”
What was she saying? He wants to ask. But of course, much as of late, he does not voice anything. He merely sits and waits in silence for the story to continue.
“But it was beautiful. A beautiful song-wail. Comforting and haunting all at once. I wanted to find it. To capture it somehow. Keep it bottled and near me for always.” A blink and the subtlest of frowns, “It was a woman calling for her children.”
Gooseskin rises up on Tom’s arms and neck.
“When I saw her, she was waist deep in the river, wearing the most colorful, gorgeous clothing I’ve ever seen.” Her eyes shut briefly, as if she were picturing it in her mind’s eye, “Embroidered flowers, leaves, birds and people dancing on her blue frock. A green shawl covered her head, she looked like a saint. So warm. So sad. I wanted so badly to reach out and touch her. I wanted to tell her it was okay. I was here. Her child is here. I’m here. I’m here and I love you. I love you.” Her eyes open again. Looking out, past and through the students in front of her. Out in the distant beyond. Everyone listening to her story is leaning in ever so slightly, mouth parted.
“And then I drowned.”
Tom releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding hostage. The students around him seem to do the same.
Ximena waits. Suspense is everything, “When I woke up, I was thrashing in the arms of one of the sisters, coughing up water and soaked to the bone on the edge of the river.” Her shoulders relax, “I was nine.”
In the quietness that follows the end of her story, he tries his best to process the information as quickly and efficiently as possible. It wasn’t just a story, it wasn’t just a story that you claimed happened to you or someone you knew, that was real. She rode with the Grey Lady. Was atop the Pale Horse. Was under daisies. She died. Death took her and she came back.
His thoughts are interrupted by a high whistling of his mentor, “Merlin, Lane, you told it better this year.” His classmates around them blink out of their daze and gather their wits.
“Make it a Hallowe’en tradition, yeah?” Prewett pips up, smiling bright.
Tom does not stay to comment or congratulate. He books it straight to the library.
The few Prefects poor enough (or boring enough) to be assigned to watch duty are just bitter and tired enough for Tom to sneak past them with little difficulty. The library is dead silent and empty, save for the fluttering of a few books flying overhead to a different perch.
His feet take him to the Myth and Legend section in the upper floors, and his hands reach out, as if on instinct, to grab a royal blue book, Magical Diffusion in The New World. He doesn’t want to wait to go back to the common room, he wants to open up the book now and study in the library furiously until he finds it, but he waits. Waits until he climbs all the stairs down into the dungeons, until his hair returns to its earthy brown and his costume trails skeleton leaves behind him. Tom sits up in his bed and reads. Reads wildly as his classmates enter the dormitory and fall to sleep, one by one. Reads as the clock strikes midnight and dark figures swim past his windows. He studies righteously until he finds just what he is looking for. And when he finds what he is looking for, he gets a triumphant gleam in his eyes. Gooseskin. A satisfied night’s sleep.
When he talks to her again, it is November the second, and he has regained his footing. He finds her sitting quietly at a desk in a small nook in the deserted common room (as the first snowfall of the season had called everyone outside to fool around). A pair of enchanted scissors cut rapidly at some colorful paper whilst she reads through what Tom identifies as a cookbook. Curious choice in his opinion, but he’s not here to get distracted.
Pulling up a chair to the right side of the desk, he asks her permission to join her. When she gives it, he sits down comfortably, eyeing the movement of the silver scissors.
“Crafting?”
“Something like that.” She turns the page in her book to a colorful moving illustration of a dancing bag of sugar.
“How do you get the scissors to do that?” His voice sounds almost transfixed.
Ximena’s eyes finally come off the book to look at what her magic has created, “A simple charm.”
“I don’t think that’s very simple.” The cutouts and nips on the paper are precise, despite the speed. So far, it looks as if it’s going to be a snowflake of some sort.
Ximena exhales strongly and sharply. It’s the closest thing he’s heard to a laugh from her, “Well, it’s simple to me.”
“We can’t all be as powerful and skilled as you are.”
The words are meant as flattery. And teasing. A test of their relationship. He feels a bit deflated when she doesn’t react much to it.
“Power is nothing when you have no smarts.”
He’s not sure what she means, so he goes on, “You sound like a Ravenclaw.”
“Oh, not that again.”
“--Not what again?”
“That kind of talk, that I don’t belong in Slytherin house.” She sighs, “Houses are stupid. They only divide us.”
He can’t say he disagrees. It’s much harder influencing those outside his house when they don’t share a class period with him, “...When he said that fame was fickle and changing, just like last year, what did he mean?”
Just as he thought, she did remember those words. Something told him she would. Despite her inability to recall names or memories, he knew that she would remember this. It was a phrase connecting them, like ‘Remember the boat show last year?’ or ‘This is just like when auntie forgot to cook the goose!’. It established a bond between them. A memory.
“I was a hatstall.”
The word, the name, bears meaning. Strong meaning. He can tell. Heavy and solid like a weight. He has no idea what a hatstall is, of course.
“I took more than five minutes to sort.” She continues, looking at him.
“--Oh.” The words Is that uncommon is about to come out of his mouth, but thankfully they never do. He would look like an idiot if they had. He remembers his own sorting. How quick the hat had rightfully placed him among his own, as fast as firing a pistol. How the longest sorting had been only thirty seconds, outside of one classmate: Nemesis. Five minutes exactly.
“How long? Which houses?” He’s dying of curiosity. His hands grasp the edge of the table, leaning in closer.
“I’m not sure. I don’t remember.” Of fucking course. “I sort of...dipped out of my consciousness. Disassociated with the moment.” He can understand that. Having all those eyes on you was unnerving when he underwent it, he can only imagine how she took it. Standing alone on a stage with hundreds of eyes watching and waiting. Calculating. Sneering at your unfamiliar, non-magical name.
“What I do remember is the end, when the Sorting Hat said Slytherin.” And then she huffs up her voice in imitation, “Stubborn child! Slytherin!” Her shoulders slump back, her eyes still revisiting the memory, “When I came to, people were quiet. They didn’t clap. No one told me how long I was up there. I didn’t even know I was a hatstall until three months in.”
“Who told you?”
“The buffoon.” She shares with him, smiling at the private joke. It’s an unfamiliar sight on her face, but not unpleasant. Her teeth, he notes, are perfect, “He’s the one who really showed me the ropes regarding wizard customs. Made it easier to keep my head down.”
And he tilts his head at this, “Why do you hide?” It comes out softly and full of curiosity.
“Attention brings problems, more often than not.”
“Like with the duel?”
Hesitation. “Yes. Like with the duel.” By now, her attention on the book was long lost, her spot on the page marked only with the red bookmark she had been using to keep her place.
“But everyone was so nice to you!”
Ximena presses her lips together, “Nice is not always kind.”
She ended the conversation with that. Her stop to it was practically tangible. He opts for changing the subject, “Any plans for Christmas?”
A small little sigh and an even smaller shrug, “Just being at home.”
“Like last year?”
A hum, “Perhaps. Might be nice to stay, but they might miss me.”
“Might?”
“Might.”
Tom didn’t know you could stay at Hogwarts for the holidays--He’d have to ask Dippet about that, because Dumbledore neglected to tell him.
“Would you like to write to each other? Like pen-friends?”
Ximena looks to be taking careful consideration of his request, fingers laced together atop the table as if she were deciding something leagues more important. Like the colors for new curtains in the parlor, or whether or not to cut her hair, or which one of her children she liked better.
“I would like that.” She decides.
His chest swells with satisfaction.
Things were once again, as his mentor would say, back to normal.
-
Over the Yuletide holidays, Tom finds himself blessed enough to be allowed to stay at Hogwarts after a timid inquiry at Headmaster Dippet. And of course he would be allowed to stay over the vacation, Hogwarts would be happy to have him.
The castle is peaceful and lonely. A perfect backdrop to his current state. The halls are mostly empty and silent as an old movie. Only the wind groaning through the walkways and his own footsteps keep him company. Every once in a while, he’ll spot another student out of his periphery, but they all keep to themselves. Some will congregate in small groups with each other, but Tom hasn’t approached any yet. None of them are in Slytherin anyways. He’s fine by himself, as he always has been. In fact, he openly revels in the solitude (not that there’s anyone to see it): his gait mimics that of a king as he struts around the deserted Slytherin common room, pretending to own the place. The chaise and chairs in the lounge? All his, it’s where he does his important thinking. The beds in the first year dormitory? All his, he switches between them as he pleases. The small library and fireplace? All his, because there is much to learn and show for his success. It’s such a delight. The only thing that would make it better is if there were others there to play with him. Be his servants and confidants and fellow noblemen.
The grounds, blanketed with blinding snow that crunches delightfully under his shoes when he walks on it, resemble a Christmas postcard. Tom wishes he could paint it on a piece of bristol paper and send it back to Wool’s, showing off how much better he is here. Away from them. Back at the orphanage, they will be setting up for Christmas Eve by now: putting up moth-eaten stockings, attending services at the chapel, and decorating the saddest, ugliest tree in London. Last year, it had caught fire from the candles hung on it thanks to a mischievous stray cat that had somehow wandered in (It was Tom. He had let it in because the matron is allergic, and she had been foul to him earlier. No regrets.) They should have known better, really, it wasn’t freshly cut. It had been donated, if his memory serves him, by some rich patron who had wanted a nice photo opportunity for Sunday’s post. They came along sometimes, but not often enough to be remembered. He prefers the donations from church members who felt they were making a sort of difference in his life, but even they eventually move on to better ventures.
Then there are the past residents.
The older orphans, now adults, who had nothing but warmth and gratitude towards Wool’s for housing and feeding and loving them when the world wouldn’t. They are a sight often seen in and out of the place all throughout the year, frustratingly enough. They offer toys and clothes and food. They offer apprenticeships and jobleads. They offer a way out. But most annoying of all, they come back for their siblings. Time after time, Tom has seen the children that grew out of being an orphan return for a brother, or sister, or more. Come! I have found our family! Come! I have arranged for you to marry my employer’s son! Come! I have made my fortune! Why would they want to return to such a place? Why would they come back for their sibling? The moment Tom comes of age, he is going forward and never looking back.
Going where? He’ll sort out that detail later. The world of magic has opened a hall of doors for him. Each possible future more tantalizing than the last. Just a matter of working for the keys. Or taking them from others. He’s not picky. He’ll work as a damn shopkeeper, for God’s sake, as long as he can stay here. Where he belongs.
Again, he tries not to think about the end of the year. When he has to return to home.
Tom shakes his head. No. It’s absurd to ever think that Wool’s was his home. It is a dwelling. A temporary shelter. A space that only exists when he has need of it. Just need. Not want. Not ever want. Hogwarts is his home now. For now. He will find--build a better one. Surely. A citadel far more safe and grand than Hogwarts. Luxurious and comfortable.
...Maybe he could ask Dippet if he could stay over the summer as well.
Admittedly, he is a bit miffed and confused that Ximena did not stay over the holidays as well. He had been under the impression (under the hope) that she held as much repugnancy for her abode and the people around her there like he holds for Wool’s. Was he wrong? Maybe she has some sort of obligation there--Or she’s hiding something (another something), like visiting the Acwellans again. The thought makes him sour. Should he ask her about it? Then she would know he was prying--Or can he play it off as just casual conversation between him and Hedwig? No. He’ll simply ask if she...went on any special trips. Yes.
The first letter to Ximena is rewritten three times. The first, because he felt he was rambling on about boring subjects. The second, because he had spilled ink when Ambrose speed walked over his hand in an attempt to catch a wandering beetle (he put him back in his tank with a good scolding. One that would make the matron at Wool’s proud.)
The third time around, he decides to be short. To the point. Let her decide the topics--But don’t let her be the one to initiate conversation. Knowing her, becoming pen-friends has probably already slipped her mind. Not at all because he is unimportant to her, surely, but because...Well, she’s Ximena.
Atop the west tower, Tom clutches the letter deep in his pocket, shielding it from the bizarre winds of the afternoon. Prying open the cold wooden door (it frequently got stuck thanks to caked owl droppings that dried on the floor before it), he peers in carefully. Never having been inside the owlery before, he doesn’t know what to expect--But the strange boxed displays of owl perches were not exactly...Well, where did they nest? It can’t be very comfortable…
But no matter. Tom steps forward, and absolutely does not flinch at the sudden flapping of wings above and around him, towards the few owls set aside by the school for student use. Hedwig had mentioned to him that the best bird for the job was a barn owl named Hattie because “sodding owl delivered my mother’s baked goods through the worst damn blizzard of the fucking century, she’s no cock-up, my sister swears by her”, and well, with an argument like that, how can he choose otherwise? It wasn’t as if he knew enough about sending mail by owl to see the marks of a good flyer. Maybe there was a class on that in his Care of Magical Creatures class?
Almost (almost) timidly, he calls out the name of the owl and is rewarded with a plump looking owl fluttering up in his face--Pulling away in surprise, he sticks the letter out automatically, not quite knowing what to do. He had seen others tie their parcels onto the birds’ feet, and other times, they would simply hand them over for the owl to carry in their beaks. Luckily for him, Hattie appears to be an experienced owl and simply nips the letter in her beak delicately, does a little body shake in preparation, and waits for Tom to tell her where to go.
He clears his throat, feeling awkward despite being alone in at the top of the tower, “Bring it to...Ximena Lane.” A name alone should work (damn girl was still religiously private, so an address was out the window) but Tom adds on at the last minute before Hattie could disappear from view, hoping it would help, that it wasn’t too late, “My friend, Ximena Lane.”
The wind shifts violently, almost throwing Hattie right out of the sky. Instead of being knocked down, however, she recovers, and is soon nothing but a distant speck in the horizon.
♠ ♠ ♠
[1] I based his costume choice on the brilliant fic ‘Finding Neverland’ by IMBailey on Quotev! It’s a very nice, surprisingly wholesome bb Tom Riddle fic, and I can’t recommend it enough.I don’t usually give explanations to things I write unless they’re confusing/culturally bound/i want to give credit, but the nursery rhyme I used today has some altered lyrics/verses courtesy of me. I tweaked some existing versions and mushed variations together to fit the story/chapter.
Uh, sorry for the delay for this chapter! I decided to combine and compress chapters six and seven together, which caused a longer wait time, but a longer chapter! Without all the fat :D Hope it was satisfactory :0
I, uh, made a playlist for this fic :D I’m still working on it, but if you’d like to check it out, it’s on Spotify under ‘Serpentine - Part 1’. All classical, of course. Give it a listen while reading!
A a funny side note: Lion keeps telling me ‘Does Hedwig know that she’s black?’, and it’s making me laugh/cry.
I also launched a Patreon! Which is relevant because alongside artworks, I’ll be posting previews and never-before-seen writings of mine to patrons! Check it out under /monikaelma :D Only $1 a month to be let in on the fun and goodies.
Thanks chickhabit13 for your comment! <3