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Chapter Text

Lucius Abraxas Malfoy—or, to put it simply, Lord Malfoy (and in all the world only three people called him anything else: one said ‘Papa,’ another ‘Luci,’ and the third was missing)—was stalking along the Ministry of Magic’s corridor in a mood that Tony Dolohov, in his unforgettable delicate manner, had described as ‘распидорасило.’

First off, the illustrious lord had a hangover. The previous evening he’d indulged with reckless abandon—namely, he’d polished off a bottle of Ogden’s Old entirely on his own. Even the finest firewhisky, knocked back in so barbarous a manner, exacts a price, and Lucius had demonstrated this to himself in full.

Secondly, Lord Malfoy had had a reason for such dissipation—and a very good one.

On Monday he’d woken up itching and sore, which at first he put down to eczema. Alas, that comforting illusion expired within ten minutes, and the self-deception that followed barely lasted the day, though Lucius gave it his best. He had the house-elf chuck out every feather mattress, alleging bedbugs. He ordered every bouquet in the house destroyed and solemnly renounced strawberries for breakfast, in case it was an allergy. He banished his new flannel pyjamas on the grounds that the wool pricked his sensitive skin. He even swapped his exquisite hand cream for a jar of plain old Vaseline.

The effect, predictably, was nil.

The trouble was that the itching, prickling and red blotches were clustered around a certain notorious tattoo on Malfoy’s left forearm. After a day the blotches vanished, but the tattoo itself itched abominably. By the third day the itch had become a pulling pain and the mark had clearly darkened. Today was the fourth day, and matters offered no encouragement. Lucius had even put a doublet on under his cloak—something he usually avoided—for he had the strong impression that his Dark Mark, swollen and sore like a gouty limb, showed through his shirt and drew the eyes of passers-by like a magnet.

Lucius was, it must be said, an impressionable and nervous soul.

So: a hangover, a gloomy Malfoy, and a powerful urge to pick a fight—and he knew exactly where to go in such a temper. This year the illustrious lord had joined the Hogwarts Board of Governors—how could he not, with his beloved son about to start school? But Draco wasn’t the only new pupil this year, and even if he had been, he certainly didn’t need cosseting.

There was, however, another pure-blood family who, alas, not only desperately needed the governors’ patronage, but habitually leaned on their purse as well: yes, the Weasleys. And Lucius had planned a fine blazing row with Arthur on precisely that subject today.

It wasn’t to be. Providence was already steering him towards another encounter—one that would prove truly fateful and shape the face of the wizarding world for years to come.

Rufus Scrimgeour, freshly installed as Head of the Auror Office, also had a hangover. Unlike Malfoy, he hadn’t drunk alone, and his reason was much cheerier. Everyone knew that if the new top man can’t, on the night of his appointment, drink every last one of his subordinates under the table, the Auror Office will spue him out of its mouth—and in such a case, one may as well turn his wand on himself and have done with it, rather than live with the disgrace. So the bout with John Barleycorn had been a fight to the death—and Rufus had won, but at what cost.

What he needed now was a hair of the dog. Failing that, a quarrel—anything to make the world a touch more uncomfortable and grim for someone else.

And then, as if on cue, a flash of pale hair caught his eye. The illustrious Lord Malfoy was sweeping down the corridor like a stray kneazle on a rooftop, wearing his usual haughty expression and flourishing his cane. The cane especially got up Rufus’s nose today. He pounced on his prey like a hawk.

‘Ah, my dear Lord Malfoy! What are the Death Eaters up to at the Ministry today? Buying or selling?’

Malfoy flicked Scrimgeour a glacial glance and hissed through his teeth:

‘I don’t know what you’re insinuating; there are no Death Eaters here.’

‘None at all?’ purred Rufus, all friendly reproach. ‘And that little mark of yours?’

‘I was under the Imperius Curse!’

‘They all say that… I do prefer hard proof.’

Lucius’s lips thinned and his face went pale. Rufus watched with relish as Malfoy’s features twisted with fury.

‘I am clean in the eyes of the law, Mr Auror!’—he even made ‘Mr’ sound like an insult.

‘And if I were to check?’ grinned Rufus. He loved a set-to; it kept him sharp.

‘Tu ferais mieux d’inspecter ton cul,’ Lucius snapped. ‘Check your arse first! Ten years have passed and you still can’t let it lie. Adieu!’

He wheeled, swirled his cloak about him and swept away.

In a crisis, Lucius could move quickly and think even quicker. Rounding the nearest corner, he tucked the cane beneath his arm, set off at a brisk pace, slipped into a departing lift and reached the public Floo almost at once. But the countdown was no longer in minutes—only seconds. The flames flared green and died, and Lucius stepped from the Ministry atrium into his own sitting room.

By happy chance, Narcissa was taking tea, idly leafing through the fashion catalogue Twilfitt & Tattings. She looked up in surprise—Lucius’s entrance was anything but ordinary. Shaking soot from his shoulders, he said quickly:

‘Darling, the Aurors will be here any second—you must hold them off at all costs, five minutes at least, d’accord?’

Without a word Narcissa rose and vanished her simple, elegant morning-at-home ensemble down to the last stitch. Then, stark naked save for her wand, she summoned from the bedroom—a room three walls and a corridor away (the perks of an ancient and noble house)—a silk négligée. Lucius caught all this only out of the corner of his eye (the négligée, floating like a ghost through the air, was particularly choice); he had no intention of wasting a precious second. The fireplace whooshed, and he heard Narcissa scream:

‘Get out! You filthy animals! I’m not decent!’

He had never loved her more than in that moment.

He sprinted to his study, tugged a chain with a pin-sized key from beneath his undershirt—the safe was goblin-made and the lock just as tiny. He rifled through the documents and ledgers, feverishly hunting—where was it? The album of ‘French postcards,’ the Algerian passport, the folder with the will… Ah, here! With shaking hands he drew from the depths the one thing that must never, under any circumstances, fall into Auror hands.

Especially in light of… well, of everything.

It looked like an old diary, but only its owner knew what it truly was. It had to be hidden at once and hidden well. Only one hero could carry out such a mission: modest, lacking in outward charm, but upon whom they would all have to rely. Lucius took a steadying breath.

‘Dobby!’

Dobby was not the house-elf of anyone’s dreams.

Indeed, Dobby was so far from the house-elf of dreams that only the utterly unmanageable Kreacher was worse—who, happily, had been palmed off on Sirius. These days the poor creature lived like a hermit somewhere at Grimmauld Place, awaiting his master’s release from life imprisonment—a pitiless and pointless undertaking, but such is the nature of house-elf loyalty. Rumour had it that Lucius’s sister-in-law’s late elf had been even madder than Kreacher, but Narcissa had once declared that rank nonsense, and Lucius was accustomed to believing his wife.

Back to Dobby: entrusting him with anything requiring the slightest imagination was, on the whole, a mug’s game. Dobby had an excess of imagination for a house-elf, and every ounce of it ran in the wrong direction.

Still, Lucius had no alternative—and not a second to spare.

‘Dobby! Dobby! Get here at once!’

No sooner had the big-eared misfit appeared—every finger bandaged yet again; what had the little brute done to deserve such mutilation this time?—than Lucius thrust the diary into his hands and ordered:

‘Quick! Hide this somewhere no one would ever think to look!’

Dobby squeaked, bowed and vanished. Two seconds later the Aurors barrelled into the study, sweaty and out of puff—but they were already too late.

Fate—this time wearing Dobby’s modest mask—had made its move.

Chapter Text

The diary was old. Not merely worn and dog-eared—though it certainly looked it—but old in the sense of antique. Well, near enough. It fell short of being formally antique by a year or two at most. Respectably aged, in short. And yet it was entirely new, too—in that no one had ever set pen to it. Its prim, forty-eight-year-old virginity was marred only by two marks hidden inside the front cover: a stamp on the rear endpaper, ‘WINSTANLEY’S Bookstore & Stationers, 422 Vauxhall Road,’ and, calligraphed on the front, ‘T. M. Riddle.’ Nothing else—just emptiness, and the untouched smoothness of slightly yellowed, ruled pages.

Ordinarily, Harry saw red whenever he found traces left by previous owners on what was now his. He admitted, of course—if only to himself—that nothing he owned had ever truly been his alone; nothing brand new, his and no one else’s. It’s one thing to grasp that in the abstract, and quite another to confront the evidence: holes, patches, stains, scorch marks, grubby fingerprints—and worst of all, someone’s neatly written name.

They reminded Harry of—yes, a slightly grown-up and jaundiced thought for an eleven-year-old, but there you are, acceleration; he’d read all sorts—of a tattoo bearing a first lover’s name on a fallen woman’s body. Who writes their name on things destined to wash up in a charity shop, and why? Isn’t this itch to scrawl your signature everywhere—from the wall of a public loo to the inside of a pair of shorts—just absurd?

Take his schoolbag: signed ‘Jane.’ And she was strewn with little pink flowers, that Jane, and only the laziest bully alive would have missed the chance to call Harry a poof on her account. Harry was a whisker away from burning Jane on a ritual pyre the night before term. He wasn’t about to carry such baggage into secondary school, thank you kindly; the scars, the glasses and his oddness were quite enough. (The fallback plan, however, was to embrace his inner Jane and become the next David Bowie.)

And yet, by some inexplicable mercy, T.M. Riddle’s name didn’t rouse Harry’s usual distant loathing. In that name he seemed to glimpse a kinship, something almost sentimental, as though he’d found his grandfather’s war-time letters or his grandmother’s recipe book, stumbled across a family photograph—still black-and-white, yellowed and faded—or discovered a pressed flower between the pages of a volume of Yeats.

All of which were, of course, borrowed literary associations, second-hand surrogates for the real thing. Harry had never seen a single family photograph in his life (unless you count a snap of his pudgy cousin), had no idea whether his grandfather had ever fought in a war, or whether his grandmother had ever wielded a ladle, or whether anyone in the family loved Yeats besides Harry himself. He knew absolutely nothing about these people, and that ‘nothing’ felt like the gap left by a recently lost milk tooth—a raw socket your tongue can’t stop prodding.

Then he read: ‘T.M. Riddle,’ and something in that void stirred, twanged like a thin, quiet string, wrapped itself in the feeling of a bright but forgotten dream, and overwhelmed him with a déjà vu so strong it seemed—just a heartbeat more and something unimaginably important would swim into focus. As if Harry had seen an old friend’s name on paper—seen it and felt the lift of joy at an unexpected letter.

Harry had never had any friends at all. Truth be told, he didn’t need friends.

And yet he couldn’t shake the odd trembling inside as he took up a pen and wrote:

‘23rd June

Dear Diary,

Something amazing happened today.’

He was sitting in the cupboard. The light wasn’t on—the switch was outside, and his infuriating cousin had ‘kindly’ flicked it off within the first couple of minutes, as he always did. No matter: Harry had a torch, and he kept spare batteries on hand—usually nicked from the telly remote. A strip of carpet tacked along the bottom of the door served as reliable light camouflage. He hadn’t had a drink since lunch, so the embarrassing business of bodily needs wouldn’t trouble him till closer to night. For now, he could feel safe.

The cupboard under the stairs—nasty, cramped, airless and dark—was also a refuge: a disgusting but familiar shell into which Harry poured his vulnerable parts. Inside it, he could be honest with himself. The whole world stayed outside; here was Harry’s own world—tiny, threadbare, meagre—but subject to him alone. Motes of dust swirled in the bluish beam of the torch like particles of cosmic currents, adrift in a boundless abyss.

‘We were in London for Dudley’s birthday and went to the zoo. I liked it so much! Even the piglet—commonly, and by some mistake, known as my cousin—couldn’t spoil it. Especially the Reptile House. And there was one snake, a boa constrictor, huge, about twenty feet… I don’t even know how it happened, but I—’

Harry paused, frowning. He didn’t want to clutter the first page, hunting for the right turn of phrase. He had to get it right first go—but how?

‘I let the snake out of the cage—’

No, that came later. The weirdness, as his aunt put it, started earlier.

‘I talked to the snake, and—’

No. Snakes don’t talk. For one thing, they barely hear. For another, their mouths are hardly built for it.

One of the first books Harry had tackled on his own (he’d learned to read so early it had been classed as weirdness) was Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Stories. Among other things, it included a story about a snake controlled by its owner with a whistle. Whether it was his age or his impressionable streak, Harry was smitten with Holmes’s intellect. All the sharper the disappointment when, a couple of years later, he got round to the Britannica. Holmes had his own notions about taking in information (the occupational hazards of genius), but Harry didn’t give a fig whether his mental ‘attic’ was tidy or not. He read anything that fell into his hands and soon discovered that snakes are, in point of fact, both mute and deaf. Holmes’s reputation now had a shameful, snake-shaped hole (though Harry’s infatuation never quite vanished).

So—not speech. But something like communication had happened. Which meant—what? Mind to mind? Is that even possible?

The thought took his breath away. Lines from Simak and Wyndham, Van Vogt and Stapledon flashed through his memory, tangling into a strange skein. He knew—blimey—he wasn’t imagining it. It wasn’t a mistake, a fancy, a hallucination. If you can’t trust yourself, who can you trust?

‘I heard the snake’s mind-speech—’

Hold on—are all snakes telepaths?!

Well, that’s news. All right.

‘I accidentally overheard—’

And then the ink vanished.

Literally. The page cleared itself, leaving not a trace.

Harry’s jaw dropped. What a trick! A girl in his class, Millie Brown, bragged about a ‘magic’ pen whose ink could be rubbed away with a special rubber on the other end. Naturally, writing your homework (or anything school-related) with such a pen was out of the question, so the wonder was quite useless—but silly Millie showed off regardless.

His pen, however, was as ordinary as they came—perhaps worse. (Yes, deep down Harry considered ‘ordinary’ an insult—a mild one, like ‘get lost,’ but still.) A thin, uncomfortable, faceted, clear-plastic barrel, scratched, with a crack from Polkiss’s heel; a blue cap with disgusting tooth-dents (Harry had washed it twice with soap, yet the image of someone else’s slobbery mouth hovered over it)—no writing instrument could be more banal or tacky. He’d swiped it from a schoolbag in the cloakroom—the previous pen had been drowned in the loo by the same Polkiss. Nothing to suggest it was anything out of the ordinary, was there?

Could it be the diary, not the pen?

The diary had come to Harry no more legally than the pen. He didn’t care—beggars can’t be choosers, and his aunt so rarely remembered that stationery was essential for school that he could hardly count on her. Some things he cadged off careless classmates, some off Dudley, usually in dreadful nick. Most of it he had to ‘acquire’ from the stationery aisles of supermarkets, bookshops and charity stalls.

On that occasion (last Wednesday), Harry had been hunting for something decent in the second-hand bookshop—the only one in Little Whinging, and up till then he’d always paid properly there. But when he saw this particular diary lying in a wire basket among heaps of long-expired daily planners, he simply couldn’t resist.

The vanishing ink stopped being a delightful mystery in a heartbeat. Right there on the first page—headed ‘1st January 1943’ (as if it mattered; Harry wasn’t going to skip half the diary for the sake of a date, and the weekdays didn’t line up anyway)—words appeared, letter by letter, as though someone were writing from the far side of the sheet:

‘Greetings to you, stranger.

Strictly speaking, this is my diary. Still, be it so—I’ll grant you leave to use it.

How did you come by it, by the way?

What is your name?

And what happened at the zoo, then? It’s oddly long in the telling. Have you nodded off?’

The handwriting was infuriatingly beautiful. Perfect—slightly old-fashioned, perhaps, with all those long tails on the g’s and y’s—but flawless otherwise. Harry, with his chicken-scratch, could scarcely dream of such penmanship—and for some perverse reason he cared about that defect enough to spend a couple of seconds, even in an emergency like this, on a sharp stab of envy.

So. The diary was talking to him. Or rather—someone who claimed it was his diary. Somehow, this someone read what Harry wrote and answered him.

As nonsensical as snakes speaking English.

There had to be another explanation. Perhaps the object wasn’t really a diary. Or perhaps alien technology was involved. Harry rifled frantically through the mental pages of every science fiction novel he’d ever read while his hand, a bit shaky, scribbled:

‘How do you write there?

Do you see me?

Where are you?

Your diary—so that’s your name inside the cover?

I’m Harry.

Hi.’

This time he caught the moment the ink vanished: it seemed to sink into the paper, sucked up like water into a sponge. The reply came at once. Interesting—does it read even as you write? Or does it just need so little time to read? Who—or what—is it? A mutant with a super-brain? A computer?

‘Ah, these are compound charms of my own devising. Not to boast, but they’re fairly involved. Before I explain, I should like to know how much you understand. What year are you in at Hogwarts?

No, I don’t see.

Right here before you.

Yes. Tom Marvolo Riddle, at your service. May I have your full name, Harry? You’re not ashamed of your surname, I hope? Why omit it, then?

The zoo? Don’t keep me waiting.’

So not a computer. A mutant was still on the cards. On the other hand—‘charms’?

‘I don’t understand any of this. What’s Hogwarts? A secondary school? I’m not in a year, I’m only ten; eleven next month. What are charms?

Do you mean you’re INVISIBLE, or what?

I’m not ashamed. Potter. Harry James Potter, at your service.

The zoo thing—it’s a long story. I think I can somehow talk to snakes. I let one out, scared my cousin. He’s a pig. I got punished. Well, sort of. Just locked up, which isn’t so bad. I like being on my own. Just a bit bored.’

Without noticing, Harry was trembling from head to toe. Pure adrenaline sluiced into his blood, making his head spin in a pleasant way. At that moment, the whole world outside the cupboard could have winked out without a trace and he wouldn’t have shed a single regretful tear. Here, in Harry’s hands, was a secret and a miracle—hundreds of other people’s stories read, borrowed experiences and adventures had primed him perfectly for this moment. And here it was—a moment of truth and glory, proof of what Harry had always known and what others at least suspected, sensed about him because of his… weirdness.

Harry was special.

’What do you mean ‘don’t understand any of this’? You’re nearly eleven and don’t know what charms are? Are you having me on?

No, I see. You’re simply a little thick. What a pity, isn’t it?

‘In front of you’ means in front of you. Before your very eyes—that’s perfectly clear, isn’t it?

Not invisible. I’m in the diary, you half-wit. Inside it.

There—see? A dash of politeness doesn’t go amiss.

Pleased to make your acquaintance, Harry. Let’s drop the formality. Though I’m older, you may call me by my first name.

Right. Tell me more; I’m in no hurry. Especially the part about talking to snakes.

What’s your cousin’s name?

I see. I generally prefer solitude, too.

Bored? Do your parents lock you somewhere without books? You could hide a couple if that’s your usual punishment.’

Mutant—definitely a mutant; perhaps from the future, as Stapledon pictured. At least their culture wasn’t wildly different—books still existed. Or it might be a parallel world. No matter—Harry would work it out. But the arrogance of this person was something to behold. Shouldn’t they be speaking as equals? If they’d managed to make contact at all, wasn’t that, in itself, proof of Harry’s worth? Or was it an age thing? Harry would have sworn it wasn’t much of a gap. His correspondent didn’t sound anything like a man in his seventies. Not remotely.

‘Listen, clever clogs, pack it in. Yes, I don’t know what charms are. Get over it and explain properly.

WOW. So you’re, what… a consciousness inside a computer? Is that it?

You’re such a snob. Fine, agreed.

No, you first. How can you be inside a diary? Explain, please, I’m VERY interested!!!

Dudley. Dudley Vernon Dursley. Why do you want his name? I don’t get it.

Oh, yeah. I don’t much like people. Mostly they’re just trouble. I’d live on a desert island if I could, like Crusoe—that idiot always found something to whinge about!’

Harry’s first impulse—to investigate at once the phenomenon of a consciousness housed in an object that looked like a diary—evaporated under the weight of the last question. Tom (‘call me by my first name’—who even says that?) had struck a nerve.

‘OF COURSE I don’t have books in here, I borrow them from the library and read them there because if I bring anything home my nasty cousin ruins it or nicks it and throws it away, and I CAN’T risk losing my library card. I DID hide a couple, but it’s more complicated than you think, all right?

They’re not my parents; mine both died. And this, for pity’s sake, is a CUPBOARD, the size of a washing-machine box, no window, nothing. I even sleep on the floor now I’ve outgrown the cot, and I have to lie DIAGONALLY. One day I’ll be big enough to fill it COMPLETELY, I swear, and when that happens I’ll have to curl up, knees to ears and nose to navel. No reading light—just a bulb on the ceiling. No bedlinen, only a bare mattress. And my pillow—trust me, you wouldn’t want to see it; it’s like a rock and it STINKS. And the blanket’s got moth holes you can fit your thumb through. Plus it’s stuffy here in summer and winter, only in winter it’s COLD as well.

But you know, when I say it’s not so bad, I mean it.

At least here no one bothers me. No housework. No gardening. No cooking. And no shouting.

And YES, right now I am NOT bored in the slightest, that’s for sure!

Just hungry. They usually don’t feed me when I’m locked in here.’

Truth be told, Harry had ways of getting out of the cupboard. The least destructive, which simply ‘persuaded’ the latch to open, he’d mastered around five, when he’d had enough of the ‘Bedwetter’ nickname. Of course, he only used it at night. The other methods—particularly the one involving fire—were best never used at all, not even the first time he’d dreamed them up.

So, come night, Harry planned to slip out and find something in the fridge. Besides, an outing was inevitable, so why not grab a bite? A cup of tea wouldn’t go amiss either. He’d long since perfected the art of pilfering food a little at a time, so it was barely noticeable.

Having settled these plans, Harry decided Tom would definitely want to hear about the weirdness. Tom, meanwhile, was already writing:

‘Mind your language, Harry.

We probably got off on the wrong foot. Harry, what do you know about the wizarding world?

Mostly right. Consciousness and memory confined within this diary. Suspected as much for some time. What year is it now? The war is over, isn’t it?

Language, please. Talk like that and you’ll sound like a thug. And reputations have a way of running ahead of people.

It’s high-order magic. Circumstances compelled me to create a sort of copy of my personality and lodge it in this item. My original self faced death at the time, so… any risk was justified.

The answer’s simple: I’m trying to place your surname (or your cousin’s, since you mentioned him) among names I knew. I’ve never heard of the Dursleys, but the Potters are a fairly well-known pure-blood family, though hardly the most distinguished. And yet you claim to know nothing of charms. That’s inconsistent, and I want to understand how it’s possible.

I can tell you only that I grasp your situation better than you think. We’ll speak of it another time.

So you can talk to snakes? You promised to tell me.’

Harry took a moment to consider his reply. What war? Oh. Oh no. Dear Lord. He should have guessed at once that ‘1943’ was a clue. Perhaps that was when Tom had placed ‘a sort of copy of his personality,’ whatever exactly that meant, into the diary, thinking it a decent way to escape death.

Outside the cupboard, ordinary evening life ebbed and flowed—a telly muttering in the sitting room, the fridge door popping in the kitchen, water burbling in the loo, footsteps creaking on the stairs. The smell of fried potatoes seeped under the door. Inside the refuge, nothing happened—and that was soothing. The torch flickered faintly; the dust danced as before. The flattened mattress had long since taken the shape of Harry’s body, and the hardness of the floor beneath it pressed on every bone. Harry rolled onto his stomach and shifted the diary from his knees to the floor. The torch, set aside, cast deep, grotesque shadows with odd outlines. Harry clenched the pen tighter in his tired fingers and wrote:

’I think I KNOW ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the wizarding world?

1991. Sorry. The war ended ages ago, in ’45.

What happened to your ‘original self’ in the end? Did he die, or what?

What. The heck. Is a ‘pure-blood family’? And what’s that got to do with me?

All right. But don’t expect me to forget.

With one snake, technically, but—yes. We definitely spoke. That boa constrictor at the zoo today—it called me ‘amigo,’ can you believe it?’

Then, guided by intuition, he added:

‘Oh, and something else happened. One berk—my nasty cousin’s henchman—shoved me, I fell and got really furious, and THEN the terrarium glass just VANISHED, and the snake slipped out, and it was brilliant, I swear. Polkiss and Dudley squealed like pigs, though no one laid a finger on them. Worth any punishment. And it felt good to help the snake get away, if that’s what it wanted.

You know, I can do things like that, especially when I’m angry or upset.

I can also move things without touching them.’

The ink disappeared before he’d quite finished.

‘And animals obey you without any training.’

Wow. That didn’t look like a question, did it? He thought of Mrs Figg’s cats, Aunt Marge’s bulldog—and carefully confirmed:

‘Sometimes.’

‘And you can hurt people if you want to.’

Harry hadn’t meant to give that much away. The letters bled off the page, yet he kept staring at the blank. He wrote nothing back.

’No obligation to confess, but say ‘no’ if it isn’t true.’

Harry… didn’t say ‘no.’

‘I think even if you don’t know about the wizarding world, you already realise you’re different from those around you, don’t you?’

Yes.

‘You’re not like them. You’re special.’

Harry had always known it, and today—at last—he was sure.

‘That’s what charms are. Magic. You’re a wizard, Harry.’

Slowly, gently, Little Whinging was falling asleep. Lights winked out in identical houses behind identical hedges; dew settled on identical, well-kept lawns; and only the moonlight, like a mischievous boy, went rollicking over identical roof-slopes. Owls, shooting stars and oddly dressed gentlemen did not disturb the tranquillity of Privet Drive or its inhabitants. Only behind the tightly shut cupboard door under the stairs at number four did the faint beam of a pocket torch burn on through the night, until the last spare battery gave out.

By then, Harry James Potter already knew everything he was meant to know about himself.

Chapter Text

Over the next few weeks, Harry resembled a happy zombie. A zombie because he tried to spend as little time sleeping as humanly possible. Happy because he had acquired a secret.

And it wasn’t some grubby little secret like how Mark Dennis had a wank during lessons, or how Abby Williams was pregnant by either Jim Lewis or Dick Abrams, or how Reggie Warren and Eddie MacLachlan had been smoking dope in the bushes behind the gymnasium. And it certainly wasn’t some tedious, grown-up ‘secret’ like how Uncle Vernon fiddled his tax returns, or how Mr Graham, two doors down, was nicking electricity bypassing the meter, or how the headmaster kept a half-empty bottle of gin in the bottom drawer of his desk.

No, this was a real, proper Secret, the sort secrets ought to be.

But Tom was even more than the most proper secret in the world. He had become Harry’s Friend, and it had happened in a single night.

Looking back, Harry realised that the transition from ‘I’m not interested in the very concept of friendship’ to ‘Tom and I are best mates forever’ had been rather abrupt. But then again, if there was such a thing as love at first sight (and there was—Harry had read about it loads of times), then why couldn’t there be friendship at first, er, word? And there had been, no doubt about it; the thought of being separated from Tom now, even for one day, was about as appealing as the prospect of losing some part of his own body.

This gave rise to fears previously unknown to Harry. Before, he’d had precious little to hide—nothing in his possession that was quite so valuable and important—but now the lack of a secure hiding place tormented him hourly. There was absolutely no question of simply leaving Tom in the cupboard—anyone could pop in there at any time and do something dreadful to Harry’s things. In books, heroes usually made hiding places under floorboards or somewhere in the walls, but in the bloody cupboard, the walls were barely an inch thick, including the plaster, and the floor was just a thin layer of lino. Door, walls, floor, ceiling—every night Harry examined them afresh, hoping for inspiration, but it never came. Hiding the diary somewhere outside the cupboard seemed utterly impossible, unthinkable—he’d worry himself sick, wouldn’t be able to sit through even half a day at school, let alone a whole one, wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if he moved even two feet away from his treasure.

The upshot of these agonising and fruitless deliberations was that the diary now travelled everywhere with Harry. At first, he put it in his rucksack—Jane was granted the greatest honour of her pathetic existence, though she hardly deserved it—but then even the rucksack ceased to seem a reliable receptacle. Gordon, Malcolm, Dennis, and the other bullies could easily turn Jane inside out just for a laugh, as they’d done before, and during this nasty game, Tom might come to harm. Harry found the very thought of such desecration revolting. Now he carried the diary directly on his person, strapped with an elastic bandage between his vest and shirt. The outer layers of clothing—blazer or jumper, or both together—reliably concealed any suspicious outlines. Only this solution, temporary and imperfect though it was, brought Harry some measure of peace.

Besides the Secret and the Friend—or rather, the Secret Friend—Harry had also acquired a mystery, otherwise known as the Mystery of Origins.

For as long as he could remember, Harry had hated his parents. To start with, they were dead—had managed to kill themselves in a car crash whilst leaving Harry with a scar as a memento, and not just anywhere, but right on his face where it was impossible to miss. Harry harboured no particular illusions; the nickname ‘freak’ that had stuck to him thanks to his idiot cousin wasn’t connected solely to the scar. But without that dubious decoration, Harry’s life would clearly have been much easier.

And as if that weren’t enough, his parents, even whilst being dead, remained a blot on his reputation. Aunt Petunia never tired of reminding Harry that his father had been ‘worthless’ and ‘crackbrained,’ whilst his mother was ‘abnormal’—a ‘weirdo’ whose true, and very low, worth only Petunia knew. That was individually; together, the Potter couple were described more frankly: as ‘junkies,’ ‘alcoholics,’ and ‘washed-up hippies.’ Little Whinging was a quiet, respectable place, but even here, one could find opportunities to observe alcoholics, junkies, and washed-up hippies if one wished. Needless to say, Harry found such parentage completely uninspiring.

And finally, their greatest sin lay in the fact that Harry’s parents hadn’t left him so much as a brass farthing. He ate, drank, slept, received Dudley’s cast-offs and various rubbish from charity shop sales purely out of charity, like some bloody Dickensian orphan. And like a Dickensian orphan, he had to work off his guardians’ ‘kindness’ daily, hourly—the true ‘kindness’ of the parish beadle, ‘kindness’ armed with a bowl of thin gruel and a heavy cane for beatings.

Yes, Harry hated his parents, but until now this anger had been muffled, background noise, like the distant sound of rain, the ache of old dog bite wounds, and the throb of an improperly healed wrist; it had been barely glowing coals, gently simmering stew—present, but almost never commanding his full attention.

After his conversations with Tom, it had turned to fury. It had become the deafening roar of a downpour, soared to a piercing note, bubbled with bloody foam, and blazed high, like bonfires on Guy Fawkes Night.

What. The heck.

If the surname ‘Potter’ meant what it was supposed to mean, then his father had been a pureblood. His mother almost certainly belonged to the Muggle-born—the horror and hatred with which Aunt Petunia reacted to any weirdness spoke for themselves.

But his father.

All pureblood families were connected to each other through a complex web of marriage and kinship; absolutely everyone was some sort of distant cousin to everyone else, and a whole enormous crowd of people could have taken responsibility for caring for Harry after his useless parents’ deaths.

At the very least, there were his grandfather and grandmother on the Potter side, his great-grandmother on the Black side and her enormous clan in addition, and attached to the Blacks in turn came the Crabbes, the Prewetts, and the Rosiers—and those were only the ones Tom could remember off the top of his head.

So why, one might ask, was Harry living with Muggles?

Had his parents not bothered with any sort of will whatsoever?

By this time, Harry’s vocabulary had grown exponentially. He now had the proper word for his ‘dearly beloved’ aunt and uncle, and their revolting spawn, and whilst he was at it, for that little toerag Polkiss, for Dennis and Malcolm, for show-off Brown and moron Gordon. And that word was ’Muggles.’

Simpletons. Creatures helpless before a properly trained wizard, yet practically useless as well. The previous stage of evolution, already doomed by nature to extinction, but still numerous for now. Tom didn’t even need to explain in detail—Harry had already read all this many times over in his favourite books. He understood the concept perfectly.

In the long term, Muggles weren’t a problem. As soon as he received his Hogwarts letter—and he would receive it, there was no doubt about that, and Tom had already explained roughly how it would happen (it had worked out quite well, in a sense, that they were both half-bloods, only Tom’s mother had been the pureblood witch)—as soon as someone from the staff came to Harry and delivered the necessary documents, Harry would be able to leave the Muggle world behind forever. One way or another, he wouldn’t be returning to Privet Drive. Among wizards, he’d find a place better than this one.

Therefore, there wasn’t even much point in trying to put the fear of God into his Muggle cousin, his Muggle mates, or his aunt and uncle. Their shelf life was limited and consisted of a couple of weeks at most.

Given the circumstances, Harry took a philosophical approach to the continuation of his imprisonment in the cupboard. It was actually convenient. If only he didn’t have to attend that Muggle school, things would be perfect, but the holidays hadn’t arrived yet—on the contrary, all the fuss about end-of-year exams was in full swing. Until very recently, Harry would have seen them as his chance, a glimmer of hope for secondary school without Dudley and a better class than before—but now, naturally, he’d completely lost interest and was preparing half-heartedly. He had more important things to occupy himself with, and far more interesting ones at that.

He’d had to buy batteries. The money he’d scraped together however he could, from walking other people’s dogs to hunting for stray coins inside the sofa cushions, he was loath to spend, but the television remote in the sitting room simply couldn’t cover his increased lighting needs. If the batteries in it mysteriously ‘ran down’ every night, even the Muggles would smell a rat.

Harry begrudged the time spent sleeping. He begrudged time spent on anything that wasn’t Tom.

They were friends, after all.

’22nd July,

Dear Tom!’

This greeting had replaced ‘Dear Diary.’ Tom found it infinitely irritating, but he was also (Harry could somehow sense this, that was all) grateful for the precise date, since he himself had absolutely no way of knowing it.

And that, when you thought about it, was rather ghastly and uncomfortable.

When asked about how he spent his time inside the diary when he wasn’t talking to Harry, Tom had stated the following:

’Time feels different for me.

It’s not something you should worry about.’

Which, as Harry realised much later, had somehow transformed in his head into an assertion that things weren’t too bad—which Tom hadn’t actually said. And that in itself was very telling in a thoroughly unpleasant way, because if things really weren’t too bad, why not say so directly? What was the point of these careful, evasive formulations?

Harry was gradually beginning to understand that Tom was simply a master at concealing all sorts of dreadful things behind careful, evasive formulations.

So, providing today’s date was the least Harry could do, though it probably wasn’t nearly enough.

’Dear Tom,

Today I had to spend nearly the whole day at barmy old Mrs Figg’s. You probably remember her, since I’ve already told you about her—she’s the one with the broken leg. Today she was slightly less unbearable than usual...’

Harry had intended to move quickly from the comic episode with the old woman tripping over her own cat to the joyful news about finishing his school exams—but not a bit of it. Tom had suddenly become intensely interested in these very cats for some reason.

’Well, yes, six toes each. All of them. Ghastly business. I think it’s all the inbreeding...

Sort of mottled. No, the tail isn’t bald. Yes. There are tufts on their ears. Looks utterly ridiculous.

Clever? I wouldn’t say so. They don’t do anything really, just sleep mostly.’

’Harry,’ Tom concluded, having extracted every possible detail about the old woman’s pets, inside and out, and though it was only one line, it looked—for want of a better word—ominous, ’Harry, these animals aren’t cats, or only half-cats. I’m fairly certain they’re Kneazles. Kneazles are magical creatures. I’ll tell you about them later if you want, but right now the important thing is this: like other magical creatures, they don’t get along with Muggles. Your neighbour Mrs Figg is either a witch or a Squib. And you didn’t know this, and she never told you, am I right?’

Bloody right, that’s what.

’Blimey!

Blimey blimey BLIMEY!

Tom, you’re not mistaken, are you? You can’t be mistaken?!’

’Language, Harry.’

Which meant: stop talking like a Muggle. That is—stop using Muggle curse words. Because if you continue doing so, purebloods will pretend you’re eating crap right in front of them every single time. They were supposed to have never heard anything even remotely resembling Muggle profanity, and if they did hear it, that was it—shock, horror, heart attack. Which, as Tom explained, was ninety-nine point nine percent bollocks, but such were the rules of the game—just like how sixth-form girls supposedly had never clapped eyes on a man’s sausage—and you simply had to stick to these rules. Develop the habit.

It also meant that Tom wouldn’t answer until Harry corrected himself.

’Merlin’s underpants, Tom!’

’Unfortunately, there can be no mistake. These are Kneazles or part-Kneazles, which means their owner is a witch or a Squib.’

Harry collapsed onto his back, rolled about on his lumpy mattress, covered his face with the diary, and let out a quiet groan. Did she know or not that he was a wizard? If she knew—why had she kept quiet? Why hadn’t she protected him somehow? They were only Muggles, after all; surely there had to be some authority over them, surely it couldn’t be that a magical child could simply be thrown to a pack of Muggles and they could be allowed to treat him however they pleased... Why hadn’t she intervened? Couldn’t she see—what he was dressed in, how they treated him, didn’t she notice the bruises, didn’t she... Right, blast it, he simply didn’t have the strength to think about this right now.

’What’s a Squib?’

Few things in life pleased Tom as much as showing off his knowledge. And Harry was happy to give him opportunity after opportunity—it was mutually beneficial. Besides, this was what real friends did, wasn’t it? They gave each other chances to show off. Especially when there were girls around. Though it was fine without girls too.

Tom, as usual, didn’t disappoint:

’Imagine a child whose parents, even before his conception, opened an account at a goblin bank. Into this account they immediately deposited a tidy sum—let’s say fifty thousand Galleons. Enough for a whole lifetime, you’d think. But then the day of birth arrives—and it transpires that over the past nine months, the key to the vault at Gringotts has been lost. Desperate searches lead nowhere, and the child, whilst owning a fortune that could provide for him completely, remains a pauper with nothing but a hole in his pocket.

Here, the gold is his magic. A Squib is one who, whilst possessing magic, cannot make use of it in the slightest.

It’s a truly pitiful existence, and the birth of Squibs is a family’s worst nightmare. In the old days they were killed, and even now the old pureblood families are prepared to do almost anything to cover up their shame. Squibs are hidden away, exiled to distant estates, committed to sanatoriums with trumped-up diagnoses (and there they’re sometimes treated to death), abandoned to Muggles, or—yes—killed.

Less conservative wizards are prepared to accept a Squib, even help them get established in life. Some are palmed off into positions as caretakers and cleaners; others are found places in the Muggle world, especially if the family has money.

The problem is, you can’t identify a Squib while they’re still in nappies. Magical outbursts begin in children at different ages—there are late bloomers, too—and parents wait calmly until about age seven, still hope until about nine, know almost certainly by ten, but only if the child’s name doesn’t appear in the Book of Hogwarts at the stroke of midnight on their twelfth birthday. Only then is the sentence considered final.

Squibs can see enchanted buildings and interact with magical creatures; magical medicines work on them—and that’s all. Active spellcasting is impossible for them in any form, and no wand will respond in their hands.

If Arabella Figg is a Squib, then she has lived a long, unhappy life.’

Harry discovered that he couldn’t find much pity in himself for the bitter fate of Arabella Figg, a possible Squib. Instead, other thoughts swarmed in his head.

’And I was just... dumped like that, wasn’t I?

Just like that. With Muggles.

And kept locked up, like...’

’You’re not a Squib, Harry,’ Tom wrote quickly, and Harry gave a little sob; he hadn’t meant to, it just happened. ’You’re quite the opposite.’

And at that very moment, Harry desperately wished he could hear Tom’s voice someday. What sort of voice would he have, he wondered? Probably very warm.

Like a real elder brother.

Chapter Text

The first day of the summer holidays—the day Harry discovered Mrs Figg’s true, sly nature—also turned out to be the last day of the Prisoner of the Cupboard’s confinement. While Harry was trapped at the crackpot cat lady’s, his aunt was dragging his cousin round the shops, and by Monday evening, the Dursleys were immersed in a pleasant task: ensuring Porky’s new school uniform was ready. Fatso was so delighted with his progeny he actually shed a tear, while Harry was already savouring how he’d describe the cane and the boater to Tom: to his taste, Porky looked remarkably foolish in his attire (though Harry prudently kept that opinion to himself).

The next morning began with aunt Petunia fiddling with some of Dudley’s cast-offs in the kitchen. For some reason, she believed that plenty of dirty water and an even larger quantity of stench would somehow transform these sorry-looking rags into an acceptable set of school uniform for Harry. To be fair, this plan raised Harry’s skepticism, but aunt Petunia was determined to see it through, despite the protests of her son and husband (mostly about the smell—the final outcome didn’t concern them). Harry refrained from protesting; Muggles could amuse themselves as they pleased; in his future school, no one wore anything of the kind anyway.

And speaking of school, that same morning Harry received a most curious letter.

It arrived by ordinary Muggle post, along with the usual rubbish—bills and postcards—but the letter itself was anything but ordinary. Enclosed in a parchment envelope without a stamp, addressed in bright green ink and sealed with wax, it all but screamed who it was meant for simply by its appearance—and that’s without the trouble of reading the address; the latter left no doubt at all.

‘Mr H.J. Potter,
the cupboard under the stairs, 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey’

Well, it looked splendid at first sight, but there must be something wrong: Harry had, generally speaking, expected a personal visit from a member of staff. Stuffing the letter into his waistband of his house jeans and smoothing his T-shirt over it, he went back to the kitchen.

Breakfast seemed to drag on for an eternity, and then he had to wash up afterwards—and scrub the floor, the table, the sink, and every other surface remotely involved in the preparation and consumption of food. Harry solemnly swore to himself that, once he walked out of here for good, he would never again touch a rag or a sponge. That work could and should be done by magic, or by house-elves, if you happened to have any. Harry was curious to see even one; he had no doubt he would someday.

He desperately wished he could perform magic right now. How glorious it would be to wave a wand and make the things around him do exactly what he wanted! Accidental magic was all very well in its fashion, but it was limited—mere crumbs from the table of real, complex, varied magic. Before Tom, Harry hadn’t realised precisely what he’d been deprived of since childhood; now he did, all too clearly. The need for magic, once a mosquito-bite itch at the edge of his consciousness, shapeless and unrecognised, had turned into twitching phantom pains, into a nagging sense of loss and incompleteness. There was a way to make absolutely everything better with magic—and Harry, stuck with Muggles, was cut off from that entirely. He needed Cleaning Charms, and Mending Charms, and Concealment Charms, and—oh, Morgana, what a useful thing—Muggle-Repelling Charms, perfect for the diary, and healing, and water-repelling, and all the other charms too.

‘Soon,’ Harry told himself, ‘very soon I’ll have them. I just have to wait a little.’

In the privacy of his cupboard he switched on his torch and hurried to pull out the stiff, crackling envelope.

‘Dear Mr Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on 1st September. We await your owl no later than 31st July.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall,

Deputy Headmistress’

Adorned at the top with the Hogwarts crest and furnished with an ornate heading (which, on closer inspection, turned out to be a laughably long list of the Headmaster’s names and titles), the message was the very model of brevity. Harry felt a degree of bewilderment.

Where was the date of the visit? Was no one going to come at all? Had this Minerva McGonagall even realised that Harry lived with Muggles? She must have, since the letter hadn’t come by owl. Yet she expected a reply by magical post—what nonsense! It was lucky there was still nearly a week before the deadline. But never mind the reply—what about his school purchases? The list on the second sheet looked ominously extensive, and Harry hadn’t the faintest idea where he was supposed to get money even for a wand, let alone everything else.

A professor had come to Tom. Offered help and an escort. Brought a bursary from the school’s Board of Governors—barely enough, but it had covered the essentials.

To Harry they’d sent… this.

Abashed, he yanked up his shirt, rolled his T-shirt, pulled back the elasticated bandage, and drew out the precious diary.

’23rd July

Dear Tom!

You won’t believe what just happened…’

The explanation took a while. Harry had to copy out almost the whole letter into the diary—never had he so wished he could simply show Tom a thing. The perfunctory form letter—there was no other honest word for it—from the Hogwarts administration didn’t appeal to him either. Tom, however, immediately spotted the solution to the owl problem.

‘Life with Muggles is doing you no good,’ as soon as Harry had finished pouring out his troubles, Tom delivered his verdict without mercy. ‘Your brain shrivels by the day; now your memory is failing too. Tell me, forgetful child, where might one find the nearest post owl?’

Er…

‘Hint: the same place as the Kneazles.’

Blimey, what a dunce he was.

‘…don’t go on. I’ve got it. A witch or a Squib—if Mrs Figg keeps Kneazles, she either has an owl of her own or can summon one,’ Harry scratched his nose under his glasses. ‘I’ll wangle another visit to hers. The perfect chance for a heart-to-heart.’

And settle once and for all whether the old bag was merely a liar or a thoroughgoing piece of filth who couldn’t care less about the fates of small wizards. Over the past night, Harry had turned the information over in his mind about a million times, and if before Mrs Figg had earned his dislike, now antipathy became full hatred. Harry scowled.

‘Tom? Will you help me write a reply? To this McGonagall.’

Minerva McGonagall, the frustratingly careless Deputy Headmistress, had not, as yet, merited any special thanks for her efforts either. The reply intended for her was rather brief, in the style of her own epistle:

‘Dear Mrs McGonagall,

I am a complete orphan and have no funds for the items on the list.

Would you, as the school’s Deputy Headmistress, please inform the Board of Governors of my problem?

Awaiting your owl as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely,

Harry James Potter’

Harry had no parchment—he had to carefully tear the lower third off the letter with the offer. There was no envelope either—but Tom explained how to fold the letter into a cunning double triangle with the text hidden inside. He mentioned in passing that a friend had taught him that trick. The result looked pitifully enough to make you weep—but Tom insisted the parchment was enchanted and ordinary paper simply wouldn’t be taken by an owl. At least he approved of the pen—Harry now had a new, decent one, out of respect for Tom.

He’d lifted it from school as well, this time off the staffroom desk—a farewell keepsake, for a long bad memory, so to speak. A wizard was supposed to write with quill and ink (in class too—Harry didn’t like that), but it was still better than pencil. He addressed it: ‘To Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress, Hogwarts,’ and slipped the little triangle into his pocket.

Old Mrs Figg, it seemed, wasn’t expecting callers. She opened the door in a faded calico wrapper, her head stuffed with pink curlers—so many it looked like a brain bulging out, as in the comic books. The cats—all four—yowled in chorus behind her, hoping, no doubt, for an unscheduled dinner. Harry lowered his gaze and smiled modestly.

‘Good afternoon, Mrs Figg,’ he said sweetly, looking down at his trainers (formerly Dudley’s trainers, which had seen much better days). ‘I really need your help. Please, may I come in?’

In the cabbage-scented, cat-smelling old woman’s sitting room, they sipped weak, nasty tea while Harry pondered the neatest way to crack the horrid old fraud wide open.

‘Mrs Figg,’ he began, ‘your cats have always seemed cleverer than usual to me. And those tufts on their ears give them such a distinctive look! But I’ve forgotten the name of the breed. If I’m not mistaken… Kneazles?’ He held his breath.

‘Maine Coons, dear,’ the crone poured milk into her cup with an unflinching hand; Harry had the impression the milk had soured, though perhaps it was something else stinking—cat vomit in a corner, say. ‘The breed is called Maine Coon. You said you wanted to ask me a favour?’

‘I’ll never make a spy,’ thought Harry.

‘I need an owl.’

‘An owl? What an extraordinary wish. And what has that to do with me?’

This charade has gone on long enough.

‘Mrs Figg. Please. I need an owl. I’ve had a letter from school, and there’s very little time left to reply.’

In the background a cat (a Maine Coon—or perhaps a Kneazle after all) was struggling desperately to expel a hairball.

‘Ah, Harry,’ the cup clinked against cheap crockery and the old woman’s face, like a crumpled apricot, took on a particularly tearful look, ‘so you know everything?’

‘Ah, you cow,’ thought Harry, angry, ‘so you know everything. Just you wait. I’ll get to you someday.’

‘Yes. I already know everything. So—about the owl?’

‘I haven’t got one.’

He blinked.

‘I’m not a witch, dear,’ Mrs Figg hid behind her cup. ‘Mm, it’s awkward to talk about, isn’t it? I’m from a magical family, but I can’t do magic myself. That’s how it is. You’ll understand such things when you’re older.’

Fury kept the tears from coming, but Harry made an effort.

‘But, Mrs Figg! I really need one,’ he whinged. ‘What am I going to do?’

‘Well, dear,’ mumbled Mrs Figg, ‘why don’t you, er… why not send it from Diagon Alley? There’s certainly a public owlery there. Or… I’m sure Tom would be happy to help you.’

Something must have flashed across Harry’s face, because the old woman hastened to explain:

‘Oh—the innkeeper of the Leaky Cauldron. His name’s Tom.’

Harry exhaled. And was genuinely indignant, at that:

‘But how am I supposed to get there?! On my own? I’m a kid! And I’ve absolutely no money!’

It came out piercingly. The cats set up a thin‑voiced keening like a choir of castrati.

Mrs Figg broke.

‘I, I… all right! Let’s go!’

Having picked their way through Mrs Figg’s dwelling—every bit as eccentric and slovenly as the lady herself—the old woman and Harry found themselves on a skewed back step. The yard beyond, scarcely larger than a pocket handkerchief, was choked with elder, with only a gigantic crop of nettles—like Christmas trees—disputing the space. Mrs Figg, casting furtive glances about, plunged a hand down the front of her bodice. After a quick rummage she fished out a long silvery whistle on a thin chain. When she blew it—absolutely soundlessly, one might note—an owl fell upon her from above.

It was the most ordinary owl—not that Harry had seen many in his life, but this was exactly the kind that illustrated ‘Owls’ in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. A long‑eared owl, Asio otus. Brown, mottled plumage, feather tufts—indeed like long ears—on its head, and round honey‑yellow eyes. It looked not at all magical, but very put out. Mrs Figg transferred it to her shoulder and the owl began pecking at her curlers.

‘Dear, where’s your letter? Give it here.’

At sight of the pathetic triangle the old woman raised her eyebrows, but said nothing. The owl, when the missive was thrust into its beak, squirmed crossly and began to flap—first gingerly, then faster, wider and higher, like an irritated bat. In broad daylight the spectacle was particularly dismal. At last it heaved itself off—only the nettle tops swayed—and flew away. Harry wished it a safe journey with all his heart.

Before leaving he had to drink another cup of vile tea and listen once more to the story of how Mr Tibbles caught a frog, brought it indoors and then lost it. The tale was, in principle, amusing—the first three times. Harry did his best to behave properly and even praised the old woman’s chocolate cake—though, warned by bitter past experience, he did not eat it.

Home welcomed Harry as usual—with warmth and tenderness—that is, with a shrill ‘Boy! Where, for God’ sake, have you been?’ and a list of forced labours. Harry hoovered, peeled potatoes and scrubbed tiles like a robot. His thoughts were far away—drifting among the clouds with the owl, sliding back like snakes to Mrs Figg’s house. He couldn’t have said exactly what he wanted to do to her, for she never helped him in anything anyway—today barely counted and even then she’d had to be wheedled into that small effort—but he certainly wanted to do something nasty. She deserved it.

Before supper Harry went to shower—and nearly brained himself, because he managed to fall asleep standing under the warm spray. The lack of adequate sleep was becoming increasingly apparent, but Harry preferred not to notice. The closer night came, the more his nerves strung tight—he didn’t feel lively, but he wasn’t the least bit sleepy either. And tonight, the moment he was shut up in the shell of his cupboard and pulled out the diary, the exhaustion ebbed to the back of his mind and stopped mattering.

‘Still 23rd July

Dear Tom…’

For success in sending the reply to school Harry earned praise—Tom appreciated the performance he’d staged. They reviewed the plan again and agreed that if no one had turned up by Friday—not even an owl with another letter—then he’d have to make his own way to Diagon Alley. Harry thanked the powers above for Tom with all his heart—Tom knew what was where, understood school procedures, navigated the wizarding world effortlessly—Harry couldn’t imagine, and didn’t want to, how he’d be extricating himself from this mess without him.

Harry read the letter again, this time paying more attention to the list of books and equipment: ‘standard size two pewter cauldron? are there non‑standard ones? why are the scales specifically copper? a pointed hat, seriously? did you wear one? and what, does anyone truly choose a toad as a familiar?’. He turned over the ticket for the Hogwarts Express: ‘they stole WHAT? you’re joking? how do you steal an entire train?’. He admired the wax with the Hogwarts seal: ‘but why a badger? I mean—it’s just odd, isn’t it?’. Tom didn’t seem to mind answering Harry’s questions—on the contrary, he appeared to be genuinely amused, making frequent comments about his correspondent’s mental capacities. Tom, truth be told, was a terrible tease—but Harry liked that about him too.

Tom even told him something amusing about McGonagall—he’d known her as a girl, it turned out; she’d been two or three years younger and in Gryffindor House. Tom remembered her as a lively, cocksure lass who poured herself into Quidditch—a magical sport with convoluted rules and a preposterously high injury rate. It was odd to think about—odd, but funny. Now she was Deputy Headmistress.

But when the conversation turned to the Headmaster himself (formerly the Transfiguration professor), Tom went deadly serious. The chap with the name like a dog’s pedigree and a title longer than Merlin’s beard was no simple customer.

‘Harry,’ wrote Tom, and every curl of his hand seemed to exude an unease that made you shiver, ‘listen to me with the utmost attention.

This man is VERY DANGEROUS.’

From there it went straight into fairy‑tale territory—the ‘scarier and scarier’ bit. The titled old codger—Albus the Great and Terrible, Knight of This and That, Supreme Mugwump (supreme over whom? Harry would have to ask), in short, that chap—could read minds. Which, in itself, wasn’t an enormous deal; plenty could, including Tom, but the devil was in the details. The old man was better at Legilimency than most—and, crucially:

‘He can do it without your consent, on the sly.

So under no circumstances look him in the eyes—don’t make it easier for him to creep into your mind.’

And Tom, it seemed, considered Goodwin—i.e. Albus—either a paedophile, or a die‑hard prankster, or both at once:

‘Don’t eat or drink anything he offers.

Try not to be alone with him. If you end up alone—find an excuse to leave as soon as you can.’

And suspected him of working for MI5:

‘Don’t tell him anything without thinking three times.

Under no circumstances mention that you speak Parseltongue.

Best not to tell him anything about yourself at all—answer only direct questions, and as briefly as possible.’

Taken together… downright sinister.

‘When I was about your age I was foolish enough to blab something about my abilities to him. The one conversation in which I was careless. After that he hounded me for YEARS, watched my every move, wore me down with suspicion.’

Blimey.

‘You’re describing him as—I don’t know—some really evil version of Professor Xavier. Is he really that bad?’

‘Much WORSE.’

Tom underlined ‘worse’.

Harry wondered if he truly understood the comparison. As with the word ‘computer’—and a few similar cases—Harry wouldn’t have sworn that Tom somehow knew the meaning (theoretically impossible, and yet—Tom), or merely guessed from context. Harry had the impression Tom would rather bite his tongue off (metaphorically) than admit he hadn’t understood something.

‘Harry, he will hate you too if you give him the slightest pretext!

Be cautious. Do you understand?’

So—a super‑evil Professor X. Brilliant. Harry was in for it, clearly. Well. He’d rather liked Magneto anyway.

‘Yeah. All right. I’ve got you. I’ll try.’

‘Good lad,’ Tom thawed, and abruptly changed the subject:

‘Would you like me to show you one of my memories?’

Harry nearly jumped—but contented himself in the end with rolling quickly onto his stomach and clapping his hands over his mouth.

‘!!!

Do you even have to ask!

Of course I do—very much!

You can do that?

Why didn’t you before?

What do you need for it?’

Tom waited until Harry ran down a little and wrote back:

‘In that case, let’s try.

I can, but there are limits. You’ll see.

For this I’ll have to… take a sliver of your life force. I haven’t any magic of my own—only what you choose to share with me.

It doesn’t hurt. You won’t feel anything special, but for the next few days you’d best not try any magic; and you should sleep and eat more than usual. You may feel a little irritable and drowsy. In short, the risks are small, but it isn’t something to do often.

Well—do you agree?’

Harry most definitely agreed, and confirmed it as ardently as he could.

‘Good. Get comfortable, relax, look straight ahead and try not to think of anything. Let me know when you’re ready.’

Harry wriggled on his stomach and decided he was as comfortable as he was going to get—nothing on this wretched pallet would allow for better. He propped his head on his left hand, adjusted his glasses and firmly wrote ‘ready’, then honestly tried to relax and think of nothing.

For a second or two nothing happened, then the diary’s pages stirred as if in a draught—only there was no draught. The diary began to turn its own pages—faster, faster still, the leaves flickering by—and suddenly Harry realised that these weren’t pages—they were the spokes of a gigantic wheel spinning before him—and he also realised that somehow he could make out the gaps between the spokes, and that one could step into those gaps, and beyond them—darkness.

Harry stepped, and went in, into the darkness.

He dropped from a height of about a foot and a half, nearly fell, staggered—but kept his feet. The darkness gave way to bright sunlight.

Looking round, Harry saw a bustling city street. He didn’t know for certain where he was—London, perhaps?—but one thing was beyond doubt: this was the past. Old‑fashioned folk were going about their business without paying him the slightest heed, a boxy antique tram rattled along rails, and the milkman’s cart was pulled by a real live horse—a small, skinny, dun-colored mare.

‘Come on,’ someone said imperiously right beside him, and Harry turned.

He wasn’t warm. Neither his voice nor he himself: tall, handsome, arrogant, dangerous—anything but warm. And yet, in some unfathomable way he looked and sounded exactly like an elder brother. Harry found he couldn’t move.

Tom, who had already taken a step, stopped, turned and gave Harry a thoughtful once‑over. All Harry could do was stare back. His glasses fogged. Tom’s face took on a look of quiet amusement with a small sadistic note hidden in it. He raised an eyebrow.

‘You do keep surprising, don’t you? You know, many can recognise perfection when they see it, but you really are the first to cry.’

It was… so very Tom that Harry’s heart broke. Again.

‘May I touch you?’ he managed.

He longed to hug Tom—but Tom shook his head, still smiling lightly.

‘You can’t. We’re inside a memory—neither of us is really here. And I’m nowhere at all. I’m not even a ghost.’

Harry made an inarticulate, protesting noise; he hadn’t the strength for more. He’d meant something else—permission—because Tom was definitely not the sort to encourage being grabbed without prior, explicit consent. Tom either hadn’t understood him, or had understood only too well—and had answered about what was possible. What wasn’t. Harry would rather have been told no.

‘Follow me,’ Tom repeated. ‘I’ll show you something.’

‘Tall’ didn’t cover it—he literally blocked out the sun. Harry had to take two steps for every one of his, which meant not walking but practically trotting, like a short‑legged little dog, a Spitz or the like. His mantle—long, black, flowing—flared as he moved. His trousers had razor-sharp creases, a neatly tied knot showed at the V of his jumper, his polished Oxfords gleamed. The wavy lock falling on his brow bounced as he walked. He looked perfect—better than Harry had imagined—better than anyone.

‘And stop snivelling.’

They passed through rust‑eaten iron gates into a bare, empty yard before a rather dreary building with a square grey façade surrounded by high railings. The heavy front door swung open to them; a flustered girl in a stiffly starched apron crossed their way. Tom skirted her without a glance, as though she were furniture, crossed a hall tiled in black and white and plunged into a narrow, ill‑lit corridor—confident and purposeful, like Virgil leading Dante down into the depths of Hell. Harry could barely keep up with his swift stride. They climbed a stair, passed another corridor, gloomier than the last, and came to an end door at the corner, the last in a monotonous row. It stood half‑open.

The room beyond was like a coffin—both in atmosphere and in size. A high, grimy window seemed to swallow any light that came near it. A table and chair, pressed up against the sill, were squeezed between two narrow beds. The wallpaper hung in strips. A cupboard loomed like a monolith in the corner. A nasty smell rose from between the floorboards. On the left‑hand bed, on a soldier‑grey blanket, a boy sat reading a book.

Harry recognised him at once.

He was Harry’s age, at least to look at. Dark‑haired, thin, sullen. Dangerous. Not yet perfect, but it would come. The older Tom observed from the corner; cold eyes boring into Harry with curiosity, a gaze crawling across his face like a fly—Harry longed to brush it off.

‘Like it? Cosy, isn’t it?’

Harry swallowed.

‘No—sorry. What is this place, anyway?’

Not that he had no idea at all, but…

‘An orphanage. I live here.’ Tom smiled, very broadly, and, for some reason, Harry shuddered. ‘I said I understood your circumstances—well then. Now you can see with your own eyes—it’s true.’

Harry had no answer ready. For the first time it occurred to him that perhaps the Dursleys hadn’t been all that bad. Appalling, no question—but… Here the very notion of ‘bad’ acquired a new meaning and depth.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs, and a thin, jingling woman’s voice said, ‘We’ve come.’ The boy looked up and put aside his book. Tom seemed to gather himself, and anticipation flickered on his face, replaced by a mask of detached, cold amusement.

‘I brought you here for this, in fact. Watch closely; don’t miss anything.’

And Harry watched.

He saw eyes glittering with a mysterious sheen behind half‑moon spectacles.

He saw sternness and reproach in those eyes—and remembered eyes that had looked at him with stern reproof.

He saw the cupboard go up in flames—and broke into a cold sweat, imagining flames swallowing another cupboard, the one whose inner wall bore the crooked scrawl ‘Harry’s Room’.

He saw the sad pile of stolen tat dumped on the blanket—and pictured being forced to return, with apologies, the pens and rubbers, exercise books and pencils, torch and batteries, the bent tin horsemen and the figurine of Jack‑o’‑Lantern.

Being forced to hand over Tom.

‘And mind you: Hogwarts will not tolerate theft,’ the man in half‑moon spectacles was already telling him, and the long name and odd set of titles no longer seemed funny.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Harry. He was cold. His head swam. He’d missed dinner—wanted to read. The corridor smelt of gin—Mrs Cole was listening. She was always listening.

‘The Ministry punishes offenders severely,’ declaimed the clownishly dressed man in spectacles. He had bad teeth. Too many sweets. Harry didn’t like sweets.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘See you at Hogwarts, Tom,’ said the man who had robbed him in broad daylight and set his cupboard on fire.

‘I can talk to snakes,’ Harry answered—and only then remembered he wasn’t supposed to.

No one must learn his secret.

‘That’s quite enough,’ came a voice suddenly above Harry’s head.

It was Tom’s voice—serious, worried. Harry scrunched his eyes shut as hard as he could. He wanted desperately to cry.

‘Tom, Tom,’ he shouted, ‘wait—just a minute.’

‘What now, you insufferable child?’

Harry opened his eyes and found Tom—right in front of him. He had to tilt his head back—and back again; that’s how tall Tom was. The wizard in spectacles had gone. The sullen boy sat on the blanket, kicking the bed‑leg. Children squealed, sobbed and laughed beyond the door. The place smelt of boiled cabbage. Tom regarded him from above with concern.

‘I know I’ve asked before. But I’ll ask again—and this time will you please answer properly? Please,’ Harry was trembling. The dizziness hadn’t gone—if anything it was worse; the floor seemed to sway. ‘What happens to you when the diary is shut?’

‘I know I’ve answered before,’ Tom said coolly, a polite, empty expression dropping over his face like a mask. ‘But I’ll answer again—just this once—and you mustn’t ask me again. Nothing happens to me. When the diary is shut—I cease to exist. Every time.’

Harry nodded slowly.

‘Sorry. I understand. I won’t ask again. But…’

He drew a breath. The room now swayed, rocked and spun like a broken carousel. Harry clenched his fists and lifted his chin higher.

‘…I promise—no, I swear—that I’ll find a way to get you out of here.’

Tom smirked.

‘No need to fall to pieces. That’s not worth such ridiculous agitation.’

Harry didn’t like that answer.

‘Tom!’ he protested—but Tom only flashed him a contemptuous look.

’Harry! Don’t say things you don’t mean. Let Muggles say ‘I swear’ and then do nothing. It’s beneath a wizard. Don’t disgrace me—or yourself.’

‘But I do mean it,’ Harry insisted, fighting the wave of nausea. ‘I do. I’ll get you out of here. I don’t know how—but however it takes. I don’t care. By any means.’

‘Really?’ Tom seemed surprised—in a good way. Harry thought he liked that look on Tom’s face.

‘Definitely really.’

Tom’s grin widened:

‘Then promise as a wizard, not as a Muggle.’

‘I don’t know how…’

’Repeat after me: ‘I, Harry James Potter…‘’

‘…by my soul, my magic and the breath of my mouth, do swear…’

‘…to help Tom Marvolo Riddle…’

‘…to return to life, whatever it costs.’

‘And let magic be my witness in this.’

Tom still looked pleasantly surprised. And doubtful. And by the tiniest drop—as though he were happy. Harry loved him so much in that moment.

He flashed Tom a radiant, triumphant smile. And fainted.

Chapter Text

’26th July

Dear Tom...’

Harry had been in a foul mood all morning.

His head ached—a dull, heavy, persistent pain that throbbed behind his eyes and shot through his scar. He’d have given anything for some healing potion right now—or even just a couple of paracetamol, but alas, his only medicine was a cold, damp towel which he dutifully pressed to his forehead. His aunt had begrudged the ailing orphan paracetamol, and potions were about as easy to get as hen’s teeth.

Besides, Tom had been refusing to speak to Harry for three whole days. And with this, as Harry discovered with irritation, there was absolutely nothing he could do. Tom’s brief message, ’Go and rest,’ he’d received the morning before yesterday, was the last message Harry had read, after which the diary had fallen silent. More stubborn than he’d ever been, Harry continued writing to him roughly every half hour, but Tom, it seemed, was even more stubborn and wouldn’t respond.

To be fair, Tom’s words had made sense. That very morning before yesterday, Harry had barely escaped the clutches of a sticky nightmare in which he was descending some endless staircases somewhere, chasing after an enormous, daft snake. The snake kept running away, Harry got angry, the staircases played sliding puzzles with him, and at the end a spider suddenly appeared, fat as a cushion, and rather disgusting-looking, and squeaked in a thin, reedy voice:

‘Boy! Come on, get up! Get up at once!’

‘For Merlin’s sake, an arachnid! A talking one!’ Harry marvelled and finally woke up.

He’d overslept. The demands to get up immediately and prepare breakfast were actually coming from his furious aunt, not from an alien intelligent spider as Harry had fancied. His head was splitting. The toast burnt, and Harry was banished from the table without even being allowed a cup of tea. And Tom had told him to rest.

Harry decided out of spite that that was exactly what he’d do. He slept like the dead in his cupboard until noon, when his compassionate aunt extracted him from there with fresh curses and sent Harry to weed the flower beds in the blazing heat of the day. Crouching over the fading phlox, covered in soil up to his ears, Harry secretly scribbled: ’Tom?’ but got no answer.

Yesterday had been calmer, and Harry had recovered a little, although he was still having strange dreams at night — something about a flooded cave and children screaming for some reason. Tom didn’t answer. Aunt Petunia grumbled. Dudley systematically broke his birthday presents. Harry was bored out of his mind, so he went to bed early—the Dursleys hadn’t even finished watching the news on the telly in the sitting room.

Today the boycott continued. Harry thought this unfair—in his own opinion, he’d already rested quite enough. Besides, the thought about ‘when the diary is closed—I disappear’ kept nagging at him.

So why wouldn’t Tom respond?!

‘Tom?

Tom!

TOM

TomTomTom

Toooooooom’

Finally—at last, thank Merlin!—the ink was absorbed into the paper and disappeared.

’Well, that was brave,’ Tom wrote, but immediately added with obvious reproach:

’And incredibly stupid as well! Why should you have endured to the very end? In order to pass out afterwards? Overstraining your magic is reckless and dangerous, Harry!’

Harry only snorted, completely unimpressed. If he hadn’t seized the moment—who knows when Tom would have deigned to reveal even a little of his secrets? Knowing the horrible truth was, well, horrible, but much better than not knowing.

Tom erased what he’d written and continued:

’Did you think for even a second about what position I’d be in if you were hurt or even killed through your own carelessness?’

This made Harry settle down—he really hadn’t considered his behaviour from that angle.

‘Oh. Sorry! I understand.’

‘I hope so. But still, let me repeat, your endurance deserves praise. Godric could be proud of you, inappropriately brave child. But he won’t be’

Harry turned over on the lumpy, compressed mattress. Everything was working out, and that was excellent. He set aside the wet towel and rubbed his eyes under his glasses. The torch glowed, flickering faintly. Dust motes swirled. His aunt was clattering baking trays in the kitchen; there was a smell of pastry. The door was shut. The cupboard wrapped around Harry, like a mother’s womb—stifling, but safe and peaceful.

’Oh? Why not?’

Harry grinned. He knew which direction the conversation would flow next: they’d already discussed the Houses, and several times since Tom had first mentioned them. Harry had extracted a detailed account from him, then returned to the topic again and again seeking clarification. Tom—well, naturally—had his own firmly established vision of Harry’s future in the academic field.

’Because he won’t get you. Instead, Harry, you’ll be Salazar’s pride.’

At last someone acknowledged him. Let Harry know that he recognised his worth. This was so pleasant, simply balm for the soul. Harry wasn’t often told he could be a source of pride. Even when Harry thought he truly deserved it.

‘You’re so certain I’ll get into Slytherin?’

‘Of course. Where did that silly question come from?’

Harry bit his lip.

‘I’m just curious. There must be a reason why you don’t doubt it.’

Actually, he hoped Tom would say something nice again. Something complimentary about Harry. Tom was quite devoted to his House, and since he destined Harry for Slytherin House, he must suppose Harry possessed some virtues suited to that particular House.

‘Parseltongue, you dolt. It’s obvious, surely’

Perhaps—for those as clever as Tom. Harry sighed impatiently.

’And it’s obvious because...?’

’Parseltongue is considered Dark magic.’

Brilliant; was there anything even slightly cool in the world that wasn’t considered Dark magic? Or did being cool and brilliant automatically mean being Dark? Harry thought of Darth Vader and realised that perhaps it did.

’And is that true?’

’Of course not. It’s simply a language. The language of snakes, nothing more or less.’

Which still sounded mad, since snakes couldn’t have a language—in the sense of a language as such, with phonetics and lexicon and morphology and all that sort of thing. Tom had quite definitely stated that non-Parselmouths hear Parseltongue, they just don’t understand it, and this completely disproved the previous hypothesis about thought-speech. It was an enormous puzzle, and it fascinated Harry.

’Then I still don’t understand.’

Harry scratched his forehead. The headache had subsided, but his scar twinged occasionally.

’Then use your head.’

Tom was a devotee of the Socratic method and a natural teacher; if he wasn’t giving hints, that meant the answer was probably obvious.

’Bloody hell. Oh, I mean—Mordred and Morgana! Salazar was a Parselmouth, wasn’t he? I bet he was.’

Well, of course! He was the chief snake-lover of all time; he’d even made a snake his House symbol.

’Exactly so. Harry, how many Parselmouths do you think there are in Magical Britain?’

The question, if you really thought about it, already contained the answer.

’...not very many, eh?’

’Myself. You. One might say, at the present moment—only you.’

Harry knew he was special. There was nothing to be surprised about, really.

’Crikey. And this matters because...? No, don’t tell me off, wait. Because of Salazar again? No, I still don’t understand. Will you explain?’

’Because of Salazar, correct. There’s a well-known legend that his heir by blood and magic has the power to find and open a chamber hidden in the depths of Hogwarts, in which the greatest legacy of Slytherin is kept. For many years the entrance was considered lost, and even its very existence began to be doubted. But it’s not a fairy tale at all: the Chamber of Secrets and Slytherin’s legacy truly exist—and are ready to open to one who is worthy.’

Harry rubbed his forehead again. Aha!

’And the simplest way to recognise the worthy one is to look for a Parselmouth, right?’

’Exactly so.’

Harry thought about this. Then thought some more. And more.

’Ah, well, in that context it does make sense.

Wait.

Hang on.

Wait, wait.

No way.

NO BLOODY WAY!’

’Mind your language, Harry.’

’Yes. Quite so.’

Words couldn’t look smug, but somehow these did. Harry rolled his eyes. Tom. Bloody show-off. A proper elder brother, odious beyond belief and yet the best in the world. The heir, damn him, of Salazar Slytherin. Harry couldn’t wrap his head around it.

Harry had roughly a million questions (one of the first was—surely he and Tom weren’t blood relatives by any chance? Could there be two heirs from completely different families? Though Salazar had lived nearly a thousand years ago...), but he needed time to think before starting to ask them. For now, he returned to other questions—simpler ones, but no less pressing.

’Your argument has completely convinced me, but—’

’What is it now?’

’What if the Sorting Hat decides I’m not suited to Slytherin? I’m only a half-blood, after all. And—and anyway...’

Tom was certain he knew which House Harry would end up a student of, but Harry himself wasn’t so sure. Parseltongue was all very well, but what if it turned out that Harry was, well, somehow unworthy? That was all. The thought was terrifying, but real.

’Nonsense. If worst comes to worst, threaten to set it on fire.’

A-a-and, it was at moments like this that Harry could practically see some infernal switch clicking in Tom’s head, flipping to ‘I’m from an orphanage, I’m allowed’ (usually this switch was set to ‘I’m a refined lord and pureblood wizard, try proving otherwise’). But the suggested method rather interested him.

’Did that work for you?’

’Who said I had to?’

Certainly not Harry. If Tom wasn’t suitable for Slytherin—then Slytherin itself wasn’t suitable for Slytherin.

Harry was still pondering Salazar’s legacy, sprawled on his mattress and absent-mindedly playing with his pen (the open diary lay beside him, and Tom, clearly amusing himself, was drawing intertwining snakes and skulls on its pages), when the sound of the doorbell reached him.

‘Boy!’ Petunia shrieked from the kitchen. ‘Go and see who’s there!’

‘I’m not a servant,’ the ‘heir of Salazar by blood and magic’ muttered proudly, but still got up, took the diary, tugged down the enormous shirt that had once belonged to his cousin (anyone looking at it could have guessed why his cousin was nicknamed ‘Porky’), and shuffled off to answer the door.

On the threshold stood some unfamiliar dark-haired bloke, dressed all in black like a priest. He had a long face, an even longer nose, and long, greasy locks that reached his jaw. The bloke looked about thirty to thirty-five, which, in Harry’s estimation, was rather old. Harry and the unexpected visitor stared at each other without the slightest hint of cordiality.

***

Severus Tobias Snape, the youngest Potions Master in a century and a half (alas, Snape had long since ceased to feel remotely young, and his mastery was rather wasted on trifles), once a promising young scholar (that too was in the past—he hadn’t published anything for six years now), Hogwarts professor (though not even of the subject he actually favoured), acting Head of Slytherin House (to his enduring horror), and generally a man thoroughly disillusioned with life, had also been in a dreadful mood all morning.

Having surveyed the boy who’d opened the door of number four, Privet Drive, Snape involuntarily grimaced. The sight before him was hardly easy on the eyes. The child was bespectacled, disheveled, and dressed in some rubbish cast-offs: jeans—torn through; T-shirt—with a peeling print; shirt—covered in stains and faded besides. For a completely finished fashionable punk look, all that was missing was a safety pin somewhere in his nose and a tattoo on his forehead—though the safety pin, Severus suspected, even punks probably removed at home, and there was a scar on his forehead—it worked just as well as a tattoo.

‘Brainless attention-seeker, just like his father,’ Snape diagnosed. The only thing of Lily’s in the child were his eyes, and even those looked almost blasphemous on the Potter face. The punk gave an expressive sniff.

‘Good afternoon,’ he uttered with intonation far from courteous, ‘and you’re here to see whom?’

‘Apparently you,’ Snape sighed inwardly (he’d once been cured of sighing aloud by an excessively irritable acquaintance—try to sigh under the Cruciatus) and asked just for show:

‘Mr. Potter, I presume?’

The punk nodded thoughtfully and astounded him:

‘So you’re from the Board of Governors?’

‘No,’ Severus replied, wondering why the boy would think that. ‘Unfortunately for both of us, I am your future professor. My name is Severus Snape, I’m Professor of Potions and Head of Slytherin House. At the request,’ Snape grimaced in such a way that it would have been absurd not to guess—the request was of the sort one doesn’t refuse, ‘of our esteemed Headmaster, I’ve brought you the key to your vault at Gringotts. I assume you need money for your school things.’

‘More likely for the latest broomstick, or whatever else a spoiled little brat might desire,’ Severus continued mentally. ‘I don’t believe Petunia lacks the money for a dozen books, a robe, and a pewter cauldron. Though let them both choke on it.’

By the second ‘both,’ Snape meant the Headmaster. Behind the brief summary of the ‘request’ lay a disgraceful half-hour row that Minerva had given Albus about the damn key.

’Forgot? Forgot?!’ she’d shrieked like a banshee, and the windows in the Headmaster’s office had clinked ominously in response. ’What do you mean—you forgot to give them the key? In what sense—it got mislaid somewhere?! Albus, if you’ve lost Mordred’s key! I! Personally! Shall conduct a spring clean here! And throw out! All! The rubbish!!! So nothing else of yours can get mislaid! High time too!’

The Headmaster merely grunted and sighed reproachfully, looking over his glasses. In some ways, Snape rather understood the late Dark Lord—for every such sigh, one’s hands truly itched to deliver a Cruciatus.

Severus understood Minerva too. Everyone has their boiling point. Minerva’s sublimation temperature was remarkably high—she uncomplainingly shouldered the administrative work, negotiations with governors, most of the school correspondence, and absolutely all the bookkeeping (since Flitwick had declared he could just as well develop a hunchback over ledgers at Gringotts, and refused to touch the Hogwarts accounts). She met with Muggle-born first-years and their parents, and she compiled the lesson timetables. The daughter of a vicar, Minerva, even being a witch, seemed to continue believing that hard labour by the sweat of one’s brow saves the soul from perdition.

But the addition of a new ingredient had destroyed the fragile balance that had existed hitherto. Minerva shifted to gaseous state and spontaneously combusted in eleven seconds—exactly how long it took her to read the letter (although without an envelope, it was barely a note) from the great hero of Magical Britain, the blessed child—deliverer from the yoke of Dark forces, known in everyday life as Harry Potter.

Who had written that he had no money for school shopping. As it turned out—he’d written the absolute truth: money, if there was any, was only Muggle money, since the key to the Potter vault had peacefully spent all these ten years in the depths of the Headmaster’s office.

Severus had been present for the entire drama from beginning to end, and it entertained him, until the Headmaster turned upon him the gaze of his kind, watery eyes.

‘Severus, my boy,’ he began with another exaggeratedly heavy sigh, and Snape hastily took defensive positions.

’I won’t go. Send Minerva—she’s his Head of House.’

Minerva wasn’t Potter’s Head of House yet, but didn’t argue, only snorted in a thoroughly feline manner:

‘And you’ll deal with the Muggle-borns then, shall you, Severus? See for yourself, but I have two families on my list, not one—it’s an unequal exchange.’

‘I could send Hagrid,’ Albus immediately threw in his two Knuts’ worth, and Snape clutched his head. There was only one case in which one should send Hagrid to Muggle-borns—or to Potter, there wasn’t much difference: if one fine morning Severus finally snapped, poisoned all his colleagues at breakfast, and then finished himself on the pile of corpses. Sometimes he was rather tempted.

‘Stop the blackmail, Albus,’ he said with displeasure. ’Very well, I’ll go.’

And so Severus had ended up today on the doorstep of Petunia’s dwelling, where he was met by a young clone of the villain James, identical to the original down to his inexplicably charming manners—for instance, he didn’t even invite Severus in.

Snape extracted a small golden key from his pocket and held it out on his open palm to Potter.

’There you are.’

The punk snatched the key, pressed it to his chest, and immediately started whingeing::

’Professor, sir... And who’ll accompany me shopping? Or at least to the Leaky Cauldron?’

Oh no, Severus hadn’t signed up for that.

‘You, Mr Potter,’ he said sternly, ‘are not nearly as important a personage as you’ve evidently fancied yourself to be. Go with your guardians—what’s the problem?’

‘With Muggles!’ the boy exclaimed indignantly; Snape very much disliked the expression on his face—there was something... particular about it. Half-forgotten, but revoltingly familiar.

‘What’s your problem with Muggles, Mr Potter,’ he asked insidiously, ‘when your own mother was Muggle-born?’

‘My mother is dead, sir,’ he spat, ’and consequently has lost her right to a voice in the matter.’

That was quite enough. Severus began to shake—with fury, with hurt, and heaven knows what else. He spun on his heels and Apparated home to Cokeworth. He had fulfilled his task here completely.

...had even overfulfilled it, as became apparent a moment later. The disgusting boy doubled up at Snape’s feet. He was retching. With one hand he was still clutching Snape’s robes. Severus was flummoxed.

‘Have you gone mad?’ he asked the young suicide. ‘What if you’d splinched yourself?’

‘You don’t understand,’ the boy coughed and spat out a glob of saliva. ‘They won’t go anywhere with me. They hate wizards and magic both. Sir, you’re free to think whatever you like, but I’ve no reason to love Muggles. They’re awful, and mine are among the very worst.’

Severus decided not to respond to that—arguing with a brat would mean stooping too low.

‘Well, what am I supposed to do with you?’ he asked rhetorically. The boy started up. His glasses glinted, his Adam’s apple bobbed on his thin neck.

‘Professor! Please, now you’ll take me to the entrance to Diagon Alley, won’t you?’

‘I should take you not there,’ Snape felt his irritation mounting again, ‘but back home, where you belong.’

‘If you do that,’ Potter said seriously, the true son of his dreadful father, ‘then I’ll write to the Board of Governors again. And I’ll keep writing for the whole month until Hogwarts, if I have to, until they send me an escort. I’ll specifically request—you.’

Seized this time by genuine fury, Severus grabbed the wretch by the scruff of the neck and silently transported himself with him to the Leaky Cauldron.

‘It’s hard to refuse a hero,’ he hissed, holding the half-dead insolent upright by the scruff—whilst the boy kept trying to fall sideways and repeatedly swallowed saliva hastily—‘especially when he asks so touchingly. Off you go, Mr. Potter, enjoy yourself!’

With these words he shoved—a little more and one could have said ‘hurled’—Mordred’s spawn through the door that appeared as if from nowhere in the gap between a bookshop and a record shop.

***

The pub was dark, smoky, and, to put it bluntly, rather grubby. The few patrons huddled in corners. Behind the bar Harry saw a bald, wrinkled fellow with unkempt whiskers, no more presentable than his establishment. Harry, suppressing nausea and dizziness as he went, made straight for him—he didn’t plan to linger in this den a minute longer than necessary.

‘Excuse me?... Might I have a moment? I’d like to get to Diagon Alley—would you help?’

The barman—Harry had to keep reminding himself that he was also called Tom (which felt strange and quite wrong, as if other Toms had a right to exist in the world besides Tom)—looked up from smearing greasy marks across a tall pint glass. His eyes widened comically, his whiskers trembled, and he collapsed chest-first onto the bar as if intending to crawl over it and grab Harry.

‘Can it be?!’ he exclaimed in a strangled whisper. ’Is it you? Really you?’

Harry realised he’d definitely had quite enough for one day. Of course, he’d encountered before how adults could be absolutely delighted to amuse themselves at Harry’s expense (or other children’s, but their problems weren’t Harry’s concern), without constraining themselves with even the faintest hint of delicacy. But right now, another old fool putting on an act was the last straw. Harry lost his temper.

He too collapsed—admittedly not chest-first but cheek-first, though that was all he could manage to reach—onto the bar, goggled his eyes, and, responding by lowering his voice, declared passionately:

’No! It’s not me!’

The barman hiccupped. Harry continued, improvising as he went—for some reason he was reminded of the Admiral Benbow inn from Treasure Island; the atmosphere must have suggested it, and the style fitted rather well with the whole absurd scene—so Harry’s improvisation was born in the appropriate spirit.

‘I swear to God, sir, it’s not me! Don’t give me away, I beg you! I mustn’t be seen here!’

In his passion he even forgot to mention Merlin or Morgana, but the barman fortunately paid no attention to that. He leaned closer to Harry and also began muttering, anxiously twitching his whiskers:

‘I understand! I understand! Sir! But your scar—the thing is, sir, it’s rather conspicuous! If it weren’t for that, I truly wouldn’t have recognised you at all!’

Harry, whom an adult had called ‘sir’ for the first time in his life, was first surprised, then realised the barman was playing along with him, though the joke was beginning to get slightly out of hand.

The scar as well. Harry suppressed a martyred groan. That bloody thing really was trying to ruin his life, wasn’t it? He’d hoped that at least in the wizarding world such things would stop—but no.

‘What should I do, sir?’ he asked tragically, wondering how far the barman intended to take his jest.

‘Sir! My advice to you: disguise it somehow. And then—complete incognito, I assure you!’

Harry turned his best pleading expression on him—it worked without fail on Muggle teachers, especially women.

‘Sir,’ he stammered and blinked; his eyes filled with tears, which were not at all difficult to summon since Harry was still feeling queasy, ‘help me! Do think of something!’

The barman scratched his bald head. Then triumphantly raised a finger:

‘Sir! I think I know what we must do!’ and with these words he drew a magic wand from his sleeve.

Five minutes later, from an archway hidden behind a magical barrier (and behind dustbins, to Harry’s horror) at the dead end of Diagon Alley, emerged a boy with his head clumsily bandaged. His appearance was that of some drunk’s child, not least because of the untidy bandages wound up to his eyes—but also because of clothes obviously hand-me-downs. Having walked a dozen yards, he made sure the passage behind him had closed. Then the boy tore the bandage from his head.

‘Nutter!’ he declared with feeling, hurling it to the ground. ‘Salazar preserve us, what a bloody day this is turning out to be, eh?’

Chapter Text

Diagon Alley wasn’t actually diagonal—or straight, crooked or skew, for that matter—and it couldn’t be described by any simple geometric shape. It coiled like a snake in the grass, and every single building stood on a corner. Harry couldn’t understand for the life of him how such a result could be achieved using ordinary Euclidean geometry. It was impressive.

All the visible structures were shops, as expected, and each one sold something amazing and strange. Harry suspected that one could spend hours studying the local wares and that it would be at least as fascinating as a visit to the Natural History Museum. He forced himself to walk forward, so as not to get distracted. Fortunately, his destination was visible from afar—it towered above all the rooftops of the district, white and slightly curved like a solitary fang. Gringotts.

Near the tall wrought-iron doors leading into the bank stood...

Harry knew it was a goblin; Tom had told him about them. He’d even formed an image of what goblins looked like from those stories. As it turned out, he had imagined them very poorly. This goblin resembled a gargoyle that had escaped from a medieval cathedral portal, both in appearance and facial expression. Harry nervously cleared his throat.

’Hello?’

The goblin stared at him, but didn’t respond.

’Can I go in?’

The goblin bowed silently. It didn’t look like an obsequious gesture, but rather like a greeting before the start of a duel.

’Er, thank you, I think?’

Receiving no answer this time either, Harry forced himself to end this one-sided conversation and pulled the door handle. The heavy-looking panel opened unexpectedly easily, as if it had hydraulic assistance. Harry sighed, checked his pocket (the key was there) and went inside.

Inside, there were more goblins. Many of them. Harry looked around uncertainly for a free bank counter or something similar, and eventually approached the first counter that caught his eye. The goblin behind it was studying a thick ledger and running a ruler along the lines while making notes on a nearby piece of parchment. Harry took out the golden key and held it up to the bank clerk’s bent head.

’Excuse me?.. I need to access my vault.’

The vaults here were enormous—entire rooms you could walk into, unlike the tiny safe-deposit boxes Muggles used. Harry couldn’t wait to see one.

Without raising his head, the goblin grated,

’Name?’

’Harry James Potter.’

The goblin perked up. Producing a magnifying glass from somewhere—as if from thin air—he snatched the key from Harry and examined it from all sides.

’Everything appears to be in order. Wait here.’

He left through one of the many doors in the far wall of the banking hall, but soon returned with another goblin: swarthy, slant-eyed and bearded.

’Griphook will escort you.’

Griphook led Harry through another door, behind which was a tunnel that was rather reminiscent of a mine or the Underground, with roughly hewn rock walls and the track on the floor. In response to the goblin’s whistle, an empty cart trundled up by itself along the line. It turned out to be the local transport. Harry wondered how far the passage extended, how many such tunnels there were in total and where it all fitted in. From outside, the bank hadn’t looked large, and Harry could have sworn they hadn’t gone downwards.

The cart went on and on as if in one of Dudley’s computer games. Torches burned on the walls of the rocky corridor, stalactites hung from the ceiling and puddles periodically appeared on the floor. Once, there was even an entire lake with frighteningly black water. Finally, they stopped next to an unremarkable, low door. Harry, who was both desperately shy and burning with impatience, unlocked it with his small key.

Inside, there was gold. It was a real mountain, and Harry immediately remembered the parable about Squibs that Tom had told him.

‘Griphook, tell me... You must know. How much is there altogether?’

‘Fifty thousand, six hundred and twenty-five galleons,’ croaked Griphook, who had been silent until now. ’That’s counting coins of smaller denominations as well, naturally.’

Yes, there were piles of silver and copper coins in the corners—Harry hadn’t noticed them at first—dully gleaming.

’Enough for a whole lifetime...’

Harry seemed to hear Tom’s voice as if it were real. In the underground silence, the illusion was so complete that it seemed as if you could turn around and see a tall figure frozen behind you.

’...but the key to the vault at Gringotts has been lost—and the child, whilst owning a fortune that could provide for him completely, remains a pauper...’

’Where did I get them from?’

’From your parents—your father, more precisely. And he had them from his parents, and so on. Excellent clients, your whole family, Mr Potter, if you ask me.’

Harry only nodded silently, enchanted.

All his life, he had received nothing but scraps and hand-me-downs. He lived in a cupboard and was constantly reprimanded for every crust of bread. Out of charity, as they always told him. And meanwhile, he had this.

A blinding rage, white as the brightest light and hot as molten metal, was born somewhere in the depths of his consciousness. His mind was empty and scattered, filled with strange, wandering echoes.

They had taken the wizarding world away from Harry. For ten years, his magic had been stolen; he hadn’t even realised until he met Tom. Now it turned out they had robbed him even more literally.

’Tell me, Griphook. You wouldn’t happen to have some sort of pouch, would you? I didn’t bring anything with me.’

A pouch was found. It was expensive—five gold coins, or Galleons as they were called—and Harry thought it was a bit pricey, but it was worth every one. The pouch was magical: small and seemingly empty, it could hold everything Harry could see around him, including a quantity of gold that would have torn his pockets. Harry poured several handfuls of gold coins into the pouch without counting. He had to force himself to stop—he realised that he was unlikely to need it all at once. But stopping was difficult.

’Thank you, Griphook. I’m ready to go.’

The cart carried them away through tunnels and impenetrable darkness, past the underground lake and the smell of mould and weeping stone, and through the bustle of the banking hall towards the sunny day beyond. Harry emerged onto the street feeling subdued. His head was filled with thoughts.

He wasn’t poor. There was no need to beg or economise. He could afford new robes instead of second-hand ones, and the best potion ingredients and books. He could even have a golden cauldron instead of a pewter one. A wand—yes, he’d buy a wand right now. Tom had never even dreamed of such abundance—it was pleasant to exceed him in at least one thing.

Mordred and Morgana! Tom! He didn’t know anything yet!

Harry pressed his hand to his chest, feeling the reassuring weight of the diary beneath the layers of fabric. This sobered him a little. He needed to catch his breath. He turned his head; he’d seen a café nearby somewhere. Ah, there it was. He had no desire whatsoever to return to the dirty, dark pub, especially since the barman was a bit of a joker and clearly not right in the head.

He strode towards the striped awning where people were eating, drinking and showing each other their purchases. They were gossiping and laughing. They were all wizards. Harry was a wizard, too. This was his world. It was a world that belonged to him by rights. Finally, he felt in his proper place.

The waitress smiled at Harry and asked:

‘Where are your parents, little one?’

‘Shopping,’ Harry lied, not batting an eyelid. ‘Don’t worry, miss. They gave me money. Could you bring me some tea? I’ll wait for them here—it’s probably going to be a while.’

‘Of course,’ she replied, relaxing. ‘How about cucumber sandwiches? Or would you like to try our house trifle?’

Harry beamed. After all, he was just a little boy who had been poorly fed most of his life.

‘I would! If I may, both please,’ the woman smiled kindly at his enthusiasm. ’And treacle tart, if you have it!’

In the shade of the awning, beside a lush potted plant—the plant was probably magical; it moved its leaves slightly out of time with the breeze and occasionally shot one of them into the air, where it would spin and twist before finally flying off into the blue sky—Harry took out the diary and laid it on the tablecloth. There was no pen—it was probably still in the cupboard—but Harry found a pencil in his pocket: a blunt, very small stub, a symbol of his entire previous life. Harry sipped his tea, bit into his sandwich and wrote:

’Still 26th July.

Dear Tom!

I’m about to tell you something—you won’t believe it!

I went to Gringotts...

No, wait. I’ll start from the beginning. A professor came to see me...’

The wretched pencil wrote feebly, of course, but Tom didn’t think to complain. He absorbed Harry’s narrative, barely interrupting and only occasionally throwing in clarifying questions. Harry wouldn’t have minded knowing the answers to many of them himself—for instance, who had kept the key to his vault all this time and what right did they have to do so? But these questions would have to be added to the growing list of things he needed to try to find out at Hogwarts somehow.

Hogwarts was a beacon, the Promised Land, El Dorado—it seemed that once he got there, all his problems would be solved. Harry knew this was an illusion, but the feeling persisted. He’d never even seen Hogwarts, but he yearned for it as a migratory bird is guided by its instincts, as a salmon recognises its native river from the taste of the water, or as a baby turtle crawls towards the ocean’s edge after digging itself out of the sand.

Refuge. Safety. Home. Tom loved Hogwarts devotedly, and because of him, Harry had come to love it too—sight unseen, even before their first meeting.

Once the tea had been drunk, the food eaten and Harry had finished recounting the events of the morning, Tom summarised:

’The news is excellent. This simplifies everything considerably. However, you still need to do what you came here for in the first place: acquire robes, equipment and the recommended books from the list—nothing’s changed there.’

Harry nearly groaned aloud. The list! He’d completely forgotten about it!

‘Tom! My letter is still in the cupboard. What should I do?’

‘Stop panicking,’ Tom chided. ‘I’m with you, and I remember everything. Don’t be so absent-minded in future, but for now, look:

First of all, go for a magic wand.

Then go for the mantles and choose something decent. Slytherin House judges on appearances.

At the bookshop, say you’re in your first year—they used to have ready-made sets of textbooks for each year.

You’ll find phials at the apothecary.

That leaves the cauldron, the scales, and the telescope.

Understood?’

Harry confirmed.

‘Then, forward. Conduct yourself worthily, Harry. I’ve no intention of blushing on your account.’

Harry, who was licking his fingers after eating the trifle, blushed and hastily wiped them with his serviette instead.

‘What’s that you have there, dear?’ the approaching waitress asked, nodding at the diary. ‘Surely not holiday homework?’

She waved her wand and the dirty crockery collected itself onto a tray. Harry suppressed the instant impulse to snap the diary shut and press it furiously to his chest. He carefully turned the cover and smiled just as carefully and deliberately.

‘No, this is personal. It’s nothing important.’

The waitress chuckled.

‘Oh, come now. You needn’t be embarrassed,’ she said with a wink. ‘Everyone goes through it. I wrote poetry at your age, too.’

‘In Merlin’s name,’ thought Harry, barely waiting for the waitress to leave before shoving the diary into its usual hiding place under the elastic bandages hidden by his clothes. ‘I should be more careful.’

He paid the bill—not forgetting to leave a tip—and left the café. Without delaying a minute longer, he set off in search of a purveyor of the most magical of goods.

A suitable sign was found quite quickly. It read, ‘Ollivanders: Fine Wands Since 382 BC.’ The gilt had almost completely peeled from the letters. The little shop looked decidedly shabby and hardly lived up to its boast. Harry surveyed it sceptically, but went in anyway.

The owner, Ollivander, turned out to be a white-eyed old man whose appearance Harry could have described as either ‘repulsive’ or ‘frightening’. He sized Harry up as if he were going to make him a suit, then made him touch wand after wand, which he drew from long, narrow cases that filled the whole counter. In some cases, nothing happened; in others, the wand spat out coloured sparks or grew warm or cold. Once, something crashed and exploded at the back of the shop. The next wand caught fire. Blood flowed from the next one.

It wasn’t clear what effects the seller was hoping to see, but evidently none of what had happened so far satisfied him. He became increasingly excited—his eyes glittered, he rubbed his dry palms and shifted from foot to foot, repeatedly saying, ‘So, so, so... And you’re a difficult customer, aren’t you?’ This was precisely how maniacs behaved in Harry’s imagination, and he felt increasingly uncomfortable.

‘Really?’ Though perhaps... Could it be? Why not!’

The old man’s speech finally lost all coherence. He rummaged under the counter and produced an incredibly dusty box. Inside was a wand, of course.

‘Phoenix feather and holly! Contradictory, bold, unusual!’ he proclaimed. ‘Come now, young man, try it!’

Harry finally understood what Ollivander was trying to achieve and what should have happened.

There was no wand. There was a continuation of his arm. It was a completion of his arm, as if it had always been incomplete until now. A golden radiance ran along the walls. His fingers grew warm.

‘Magnificent! Yes! You see! Splendid!’ The repulsive, frightening old man clenched his hands as if he were about to applaud from excess of feeling. ‘Seven Galleons, if you please!’ However, this is curious. Very, very curious!’

‘I don’t want to know what’s so curious, you old ghoul,’ thought Harry, counting out seven Galleons and dreaming only of escaping as quickly as possible with his new wand. But Ollivander forgot to ask his opinion. He continued as if talking to himself:

’Yes, curious... You see, the wand chooses the wizard, not the wizard the wand—this you know, of course. The thing is, this wand chose you specifically, yet its sister... I remember every wand I’ve sold—every single one. Yours has a core of phoenix feather, as I said. Well, this time the phoenix gave me two feathers from its tail, not one as is usual. The first went to you, but the second... Yes, there’s no point in hiding it—the second feather serves as the core of the wand that left that scar on your forehead.’

With these words, he poked his finger right at Harry’s forehead. His finger was thin and gnarled, with a long, pointed nail that resembled a claw. Harry was flummoxed.

‘You’re mistaken,’ he said. ‘I’ve had this scar since childhood. I was in an accident.’

‘No, you’re mistaken, Harry James Potter! Don’t look at me like that. I recognised you and your scar immediately,’ the old man said, smiling unpleasantly and showing yellowish teeth.

‘My scar—I should know better!’ Harry protested.

‘How do you know that you know?’ the shopkeeper asked Jesuitically. Harry couldn’t answer, and continued, getting worked up.

‘No matter how much you deny it, there’s one truth: that scar was left by the wand of a wizard who did great deeds. Yes, I don’t dispute that they were terrible!’ he shouted. ‘But at the same time, great ones!’ And I believe you are destined for a most curious fate. I shall watch with interest to see where it leads you, Harry James Potter!’

‘Whatever you say,’ muttered the thoroughly scandalised Harry, and he fled.

‘I’m having such luck with madmen today,’ he mused, slowly wandering along the street. ‘However, Merlin knows he’s right about some things.’ After all, he knows me from somewhere, and so does the barman. I just didn’t understand it at first. There’s some other mystery behind all this.’

He then realised that he had been shifting from foot to foot for some time, mindlessly staring at a shop window. Fortunately, the window displayed robes. Glancing briefly at the sign—‘Madame Malkin’s Mantles for All Occasions’—he went in.

A doorbell tinkled and a stocky, middle-aged woman dressed in a mauve robe hurried towards him. She smiled.

’Hogwarts, dear? And where are your parents?’

Harry was beginning to find this question tiresome. On the other hand, he had just discovered an interesting pattern: the two people who knew about him somehow hadn’t asked about his parents. Why might that be?

‘Buying my textbooks,’ he lied smoothly. ‘There’s no need to wait for them, madam. I’ve got money on me.’

‘Well then, if that’s the case, you’ve come to the right place,’ the woman said, leading Harry to a fitting platform and helping him climb onto it. ‘Three plain black cloaks and one for winter—that’s right, isn’t it, dear?’

‘Yes, please.’ It was strange looking down at an adult from the height of the platform. ‘One request: don’t stint on the fabric or anything else, please. I need to make a very good first impression... you understand?’ Harry smiled ingratiatingly. ’Money’s no object. I’m happy to pay extra.’

Madame Malkin (though, frankly, she didn’t look French, at least not by her accent) only snorted with amusement.

’Oh, Slytherin? I thought as much. You Slytherins, all you care about is how to pull the wool over people’s eyes. Very well, dear. We’ll do as you say. Let’s take your measurements, and you can come back in about two hours to collect them. Agreed?’

Ultimately, she talked Harry into buying an entire wardrobe, including shirts, trousers, jumpers, a waistcoat, gloves, a hat, a scarf, pyjamas, long socks, and underpants, which made Harry blush scarlet, but he didn’t dare object. According to her, ‘Of course your outfit is charming; however, most people wouldn’t appreciate such things. Believe me, I’d wear piercings and fishnet tights myself if I could’. Struck by the mental image of Madame (or was it just Mrs?) Malkin in fishnet tights, Harry meekly agreed with every word. Having left her with a large order, Harry left, promising to return later. He was dripping with sweat—the ordeal had been truly arduous—but at least he had more or less fulfilled Tom’s instructions.

But in the bookshop—it was called Flourish & Blotts—Harry was able to relax. They didn’t have ready-made sets of textbooks, but they did have lists of recommended texts for the first to fifth years. Everything worked out perfectly, then. Harry spent a truly magical hour and a half rummaging through endless mountains of books. It took enormous effort not to buy half the shop, but there were some things he simply couldn’t resist, such as Between Us Witches: the Best Household and Cosmetic Charms—cosmetic charms didn’t interest Harry, but household ones certainly did!—or How to Curse and Not to Be Cursed.

Only his firm belief that Hogwarts had its own library—one of the best in Magical Britain, as Tom proudly attested—stopped Harry from buying too many extracurricular publications. He still collected about half a dozen, though, and together with the textbooks, they would have represented considerable weight if the shopkeeper hadn’t kindly offered to shrink them. Harry gladly agreed—he liked useful magic, and it was fascinating to watch. The shrunken books, each the size of a matchbox, easily fit into a paper bag like the ones you get from the baker’s.

Finding himself on the street again, Harry pondered. He had to collect his clothes next, and the thought of the pile of kit he’d have was frightening, yet he still had other purchases ahead. He was sure he had passed somewhere at the very beginning of the alley, past a shop that sold suitcases. That was just what he needed.

Squeezed between an apothecary and a Quidditch supplies shop, the little shop, Trunks and Portmanteaux, itself resembled a battered trunk. Inside, it was unexpectedly spacious—Harry suspected extension charms were involved—and crammed to the ceiling with suitcases, bags and the titular goods: trunks and portmanteaux. There were tiny handbags barely bigger than a finger and trunks so large that one could probably pack an entire car—if anyone had such an absurd desire, of course. The shopkeeper, a young blonde man with crossed eyes, greeted Harry with the traditional question about his parents. Harry concluded from this that he was a sensible person who could be dealt with safely.

‘You see,’ Harry declared, ’I urgently need a suitcase or a trunk. But I don’t know which to choose. Could you show me what you have here?’

Having received assurances that the new customer wasn’t going to scrimp on money, the shopkeeper became very active. Over the next half hour, he and Harry reviewed the entire stock, with Harry marvelling at every item, amazed by the achievements of modern spatial magic. Most items were charmed to reduce their weight and contained undetectable extension charms. There were exotic variants too: trunks arranged like bookcases; suitcases containing Muggle items; portmanteaux with entire rooms inside; and a lady’s dressing case with a built-in triple mirror. But Harry was immediately smitten with a small, strange trunk with spider legs. It looked cryptozoological.

‘This is our pride,’ the shopkeeper informed him. ’Exclusive model, made by an American manufacturer to our specifications. It requires no levitation charms and can follow its owner everywhere—and I mean everywhere—it is resistant to shocks and knocks, and it has three isolated compartments with built-in sorting, cleaning, and pressing charms. A traveller’s dream! Take it; you won’t regret it.’

Harry knew he wouldn’t regret it. The trunk cost a fortune—a hundred and fifty Galleons—but he paid without a second thought.

As the day drew towards evening, the cross-eyed shopkeeper seemed to have few customers—in all this time, no one else had come in besides Harry—and they gradually fell into conversation.

‘Yes, we’re rather out of favour these days,’ the shopkeeper complained. ‘Probably our business will never be what it was. You know how hurtful it is when you haven’t done anything wrong in your life, but people turn round and walk away the moment they hear your surname? Prejudice is so sad...’

‘Tell me,’ Harry said casually, ‘have you ever heard of Harry Potter?’

The shopkeeper goggled.

‘Harry Potter?’

‘Well, yes. Everyone here seems to know him.’

The cross-eyed man squinted suspiciously. This looked ghastly on him.

‘Don’t you know?’

‘Imagine that, no. We only moved here recently, from very far away. My parents lived almost their whole lives in Peru, and I was actually born there.’

Harry quickly calculated the most remote place on earth from England.

‘Oh, fancy that! What a small world,’ the shopkeeper marvelled. ‘I have a cousin in Peru who’s a dragonologist and studies Vipertooth dragons. Well, that explains it then. Don’t worry; you’ll soon find your feet here. And Harry Potter—how could you not know him? He’s the Boy Who Lived.’

‘The boy who lived where?’ Harry didn’t understand.

‘Not where, but from what!’ his companion laughed. ’From the Killing Curse, of course! Oh, Merlin’s beard! Is there really someone who still doesn’t know this story? We think we’re the centre of the universe here, but it turns out... Well, listen. Ten years ago, there was a real war here in Magical Britain.’

It sounded like the Star Wars opening crawl, only without the solemn background music—and everything that followed was much the same. The only hitch came when they got to the villain’s name. It turned out it couldn’t be spoken.

‘What do you mean it can’t be spoken?’ Harry was astonished. ‘Is it cursed or something?’

The shopkeeper flinched and, for some reason, looked around.

‘Who knows for sure?’ he said vaguely. ’Maybe it is cursed. Though now, probably, it doesn’t matter anymore.’

’So how...?’

’Well, that’s how they said it: ‘He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’. Or this: ‘You-Know-Who’.’

’That’s not what I meant! What was his real name?’

The shopkeeper’s face contorted into a pitiful grimace.

‘I... can’t. I’m afraid,’ he whispered, almost in tears.

‘Well, at least write it down!’

Having finally deciphered the mysterious name scrawled on a bit of paper, Harry could barely suppress his laughter. The terror of Magical Britain, the darkest of Dark wizards—in whom, according to the cross-eyed man, ‘there was hardly anything human left’—was called... Voldemort.

Oh, thrice-greatest Merlin!

Why hadn’t he called himself the Darkwing Duck, for instance? It would have been no worse!

Harry learned even more entertaining things about him. Apparently, Lord Darkwing Duck—that is, Voldemort—had appeared to kill Harry’s parents, which he did quite successfully. He then tried to kill Harry with the Killing Curse (for the record, Harry was only fifteen months old at the time), but something went wrong and he mysteriously disappeared, leaving Harry with the fame of being the Boy Who Lived. Since then, Magical Britain has celebrated that day every year—well, it would have celebrated anyway, since it happened to be Halloween.

‘Wonderful story,’ Harry said sincerely when he’d finished listening. ’Thank you very much! However, I’d best be off; my parents will be waiting for me.’

He said farewell and left the shop, and the trunk trotted briskly after him. Some time later, Harry made some additions to his purchases: a cauldron (the standard pewter size two, as required), a pair of scales, a telescope and considerable supplies of parchment, quills and ink. Harry knew that if he wanted to keep up with the lessons at Hogwarts, he would need to improve his handwriting. He also bought phials—the apothecary was an absolutely charming little place, with a crocodile hanging from the ceiling and a tortoise shell in the corner, as well as various other dried and preserved creatures, just like in Shakespeare—as well as dragonhide gloves and a pointed hat for everyday wear. Finally, he felt ready to return to the merciless but professional embraces of ’Madame Malkin’s.’

’Blast me with a Thestral! Oh, sorry!’

Malkin slapped her plump palm against her lips. ’It slipped out accidentally, dear. You shouldn’t know such words. Remember that. But what’s that you have?’

Harry looked back proudly at his—pet? He couldn’t decide whether the trunk was alive. It was more like a cyber, but it definitely had a kind of pseudo-consciousness. Looking at his acquisition, he replied:

‘It’s a trunk. I’m calling it Trunk for now, but I might think of something better later. Do you like it too? Isn’t it lovely?’

‘Merlin,’ Malkin said in a weak voice. ‘Yes, of course. Where did you get it?’

‘I bought it!’

‘Well, I gathered you didn’t steal it!’ Dear boy, that’s a Dark artefact—as dark as they come. Who sold you such a thing?’

Harry scowled. His theory was confirmed: anything cool and brilliant in the world was immediately branded with that word.

‘A friend. We had a lovely chat. He has a cousin living in Peru.’

Malkin gasped and turned pale.

‘Rosier?! The wretch!’

Harry felt glum.

‘Madam,’ he said in a bored voice. ‘May I collect my order? How much do I owe?’

The woman looked at him angrily and sadly, and shook her head.

‘Well, perhaps it’s all right,’ she muttered doubtfully. ’Oh, dear boy... Yes, of course. Look, we’ll pack everything up now. Here are the shirts...’

Harry dutifully examined the clothes presented—by quantity, they rivalled an entire department in a Muggle department store, though judging by the prices, they should have come from a boutique. He commanded the trunk to open, and under Malkin’s disapproving gaze, he fed it the entire pile. The trunk clicked its lid contentedly and licked its lips. Malkin shuddered.

‘I hope,’ she declared emphatically, ‘your parents sort this out.’

‘Have no doubt, madam,’ Harry agreed. ‘Thank you; it’s been a pleasure doing business with you. Good day!’

The mention of parents came at an awkward moment. The merry shopping expedition was over, and only then did Harry wonder how he was going to get back to Privet Drive with such a companion. He would never manage to pass the trunk off as ordinary Muggle luggage.

He trudged back towards the Leaky Cauldron, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. The wand, hidden next to Tom, sent gentle waves of warmth as if trying to comfort him. Harry contemplated the magical shops slowly drifting past, and a dull mix of despair and irritation grew in his heart. Everything here felt right and good; why should he have to leave at all? He was a wizard, and this was a wizarding place—they suited each other. Returning to the Muggle world was like cutting himself in half with a blunt saw; the mere prospect was painful.

Wait a moment.

Struck by a sudden revelation, Harry stopped.

Did he actually need to return to the Muggles?

His gaze fixed on the announcement:

‘ROOMS TO LET.’

Chapter Text

Harry spent the evening of that seemingly endless day at the Leaky Cauldron.

Over the past few hours, the pub hadn’t become any cosier or more pleasant, but something else had changed: Harry had learned that Tom (the other Tom—blimey, this was still confusing), who turned out to be not just the barman but the innkeeper, was delighted to rent Harry a room on the second floor of his establishment. For a number of reasons, this decision seemed optimal.

The accommodation advert Harry had come across earlier belonged to another pub that looked much cleaner and more presentable than the Leaky Cauldron. The pub was called the White Wyvern, and it was run by a cheerful young witch with very long, very curly, and very red hair. Strange, lively music played in the main room, emanating from an enchanted music box in the corner. The box wound up with a key like a grandfather clock, and inside it a disc rotated like a clock face; like most things in wizarding households, it seemed very old-fashioned. And that pub served a wonderful drink called butterbeer, which Harry would have compared to eggnog if he’d ever tasted the latter in his life (but he hadn’t, so whilst being delighted, he managed without comparisons).

Alas, despite the generally pleasant atmosphere, this luxury was clearly not for him. Harry could easily concoct stories that allowed him to visit cafés and shops unimpeded, but he’d been unable to invent even one remotely acceptable reason why a small boy without parents might rent a room there for a whole month.

The proprietor of the Leaky Cauldron was simpler in this regard. He clearly had some notion about Harry in his head, and, as is usually the case with madmen, it corresponded rather poorly with reality. Taking advantage of this was simply a matter of technique. After a confused and inconsistent dialogue filled with exclamations of ‘Sir!’, Harry found himself in possession of dinner (of mediocre quality even by his modest standards), a hot water bottle (barely warm), and a room furnished simply and sparsely, but which boasted a window and a fireplace.

In both the furniture and the interior itself, there was something that hinted not at Shakespearean times, but at thoroughly medieval ones. The rough simplicity of every object, the general impression not of decrepitude but of wear, and a certain special aura that appears only in truly old things—an atmosphere borrowed from Time itself. The hint of antiquity was reinforced by such an ‘inconspicuous’ detail as the layer of rushes on the floor. Harry fervently hoped that no fleas or anything worse nested in them; the ‘carpet’ smelled surprisingly pleasant, incidentally—of tansy and something else cold and sharp, like wormwood.

Settling down at the unprepossessing table without a tablecloth, whose boards were smooth at the edges as if worn down by the flow of bygone days like water, and every crack in the wood seemed to preserve ingrained grease from feasts of the Arthurian era, Harry cautiously tried the roast (dreadful, as was to be expected from a dish whose name included the word ‘home-made’) and the porous grey bread (tasty), sipped milk from a tall glass (the glass also looked older than the Norman Conquest—heavy, thick-walled, of cloudy glass), and realised that he wanted to sleep more than eat.

He was swaying, everything swam before his eyes, thoughts scattered—quick little shadows like mice hiding in corners. Harry tried to chase one, but then his forehead rang against the tabletop, fortunately missing the plate. He straightened up with a groan. He needed to talk to Tom.

Fatigue retreated as soon as he took hold of the diary; this time was no exception, of course. Harry reverently turned the cover.

’Still 26th July

Dear Tom!

GUESS WHAT

I’ve found lodgings in the wizarding world!!!

Right, okay, in order.

Bought everything I needed, even more: robes (decent ones, as you said), other clothes too, books, a telescope, scales, a cauldron, ink—you’ve noticed that already, I think, and I’m writing with a QUILL now, so there...’

Writing with a quill, to tell the truth, turned out to be wildly inconvenient. Harry scratched his head, then tore a narrow long strip from the parchment and wound it around the shaft in several layers, creating a thickening that fitted much more cleverly in his fingers. Tom meanwhile had erased what he’d written and replied, as usual not sparing ‘compliments’:

’Indeed—it would be hard to miss.

You ought to devote some time to penmanship—your handwriting is absolutely dreadful. You don’t want this to cause you problems at Hogwarts, do you?’

Harry sighed heavily. He didn’t want that. But the prospect of toiling over copybooks didn’t appeal to him either.

’Yes, yes, I understand everything, honestly.

SO ANYWAY

I also bought a trunk—it’s brilliant, you should see it...’

Tom approved of the trunk, even praised Harry for his resourcefulness. And advised him not to listen to Malkin—technically, only artefacts specifically designed to cause harm to wizards, physical or psychological, could be called Dark. Which definitely didn’t apply to the trunk. For instance, locking charms on a door could seriously maim a burglar, but that didn’t make the door a Dark artefact. The whole essence lay in intention: a door’s business was to lock; any resulting damage was incidental. After all, one could poke one’s eye out with a fork if one tried.

Harry had rather thought so; he just wouldn’t have been able to express it so coherently and consistently.

Encouraged, Harry shared his thoughts about how every worthwhile piece of magic was immediately branded Dark; this earned ironic agreement from Tom:

‘The form is rather questionable, but essentially you’re probably right. We’re surrounded by hidebound minds thoroughly possessed by prejudices...’

The word ‘prejudices’ reminded Harry of another memory, and he hurried to relate to Tom the whole peculiar story he’d heard from Rosier that day. As he retold it, he supplied it with his own commentary, unable to help himself—almost everything related aroused scepticism.

For instance—how much sense was there in turning up at the home of a complete stranger and his wife with their infant child and cast Avada Kedavra at all three? And doing all this alone, under cover of night. Such things were either done as publicly as possible, for intimidation, or not done at all; otherwise it could only be considered an act of personal revenge. The follow-up question was—what had Harry’s parents done to offend their killer, if this was revenge? Or rather: why had they offended him to such an extent—that was the right question.

When Harry had supposed that his mother and father had died in a car accident, he’d been angry at them for abandoning him. Then he’d learned they were wizards, and his anger had increased, since only an extremely stupid, irresponsible wizard would allow himself to perish in a car accident. Now, alas, everything looked even worse. On one hand, at least the manner of death wasn’t overtly Muggle-ish (a special sort of shame for any wizard—to die in such a way, when you thought about it). On the other hand, a crash was an accident, but to ensure that Lord Pinochet personally came to kill you—well, they’d really had to work at that.

Couldn’t they find anyone in the resistance without infants? Had the victory of the resistance turned out to be more important than the welfare of their own child, who, after all, needed at least one living parent? Why hadn’t they gone deep underground? Why hadn’t they fled to another country? What sort of strange alternative thinking did one need to possess to know that you and your entire family were threatened with death—and sit tight?

’One should always consider more than one opinion,’ Tom noted rationally. ’I’ll wager that if these events really are so widely known, then at least something about them will be contained either in books on recent history or in texts of old newspaper articles. Tell me, the Daily Prophet office hasn’t moved, has it?’

Harry smacked his forehead and agreed with him enthusiastically. How had he not thought of that himself—rather than collecting idle gossip, he should have turned to written sources.

’Rumours are still important, though. They provide an unofficial, if you will—mythologised—version of events, processed by the mills of the human subconscious. The results can be surprising, of course, but people believe rumours more than newspapers. You were generally right to start with them, you just mustn’t stop now—you need to study the matter further, and only then form your own opinion.’

Harry propped his head on his hand. His eyes were sticking together. A solitary candle flickered on the table, emphasising the old-fashioned nature of the surroundings. His glasses pressed on his nose like two concrete slabs, his fingers were tired from the quill—even improved, it was devilishly unfamiliar. It was high time to go to bed, but Harry lacked the will to end their conversation. And there was something else he particularly wanted to tell Tom about.

’...Voldemort!

By Merlin, I’m not lying!

Can you imagine?

I thought I’d literally die laughing.

What do you think, it’s a pseudonym, isn’t it? But why is it so AWFUL—surely he could have thought of something better—actually, it seems hard NOT to think of something MUCH better, even without trying.’

Tom’s answer astounded him.

‘I,’ Tom wrote, ’would have done exactly the same thing. Look: ‘Lord Voldemort’ amuses you because it seems that this nom de plume is either excessively pompous or rather ridiculous, or perhaps both at once, correct? Excellent, and the more bombastic and stupid the better. When people stop laughing and start fearing, when terror robs them of the ability to speak aloud the name that seemed funny to them—then success can be considered fully achieved. Remember, your Rosier—ten years later he’s still unable to resist the fear that ‘Lord Voldemort’ instils in him. Yes, it’s silly, I don’t dispute that; but that’s rather the point.’

Harry... really did look at ‘Lord Voldemort’ with new eyes.

‘I never thought of that, not even close,’ he wrote. ‘Looks bloody perverted and clever. What pseudonym would you choose for yourself then?’

‘Probably some anagram,’ Tom replied after brief consideration. ‘They’ve always seemed utterly stupid to me. What about you? You’ll have to try hard to surpass such a thing. Come on, surprise me.’

Harry rubbed his face. His eyes ached, his scar itched, his head felt stuffed with cotton. ‘Just a bit more,’ he lied unconvincingly to himself, ‘literally five minutes, and I’ll go to bed.’

‘CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!’ he announced and wrinkled his brow. ‘Give me a second... right, now...’

So, anagrams... Hmm. Not a bad option.

‘Threy Raptor.’ No, rubbish. ‘Hrryr Teapot.’ Even worse. ‘Pher Traytor.’ ‘Y’ didn’t fit; it should be ‘I’. ‘Ptyorr Heart.’ Still nonsense. He was too tired for anagrams. His brain refused to work.

’Herr Tarotyp. Or Herr Tyoptar. Sorry, I don’t have the right letters for ‘Lord’. But if people start to fear THIS, it would mean that I am a god in their eyes.’

’You’ve clearly lost the competition,’ Tom responded; Harry could practically hear him chuckling, ’but you’ve grasped the principle, well done. Isn’t it time for bed, child? It’s been a long day.’

It certainly was time. Harry yawned heart-rendingly and finally closed the diary. However, once he found himself in bed, he realised he couldn’t fall asleep.

Everything was different.

The room was too large, with an enormous amount of empty space inside, with uncomfortably distant walls and an excessively high ceiling. It was unusually bright: light came from the street through the window—weak, but it was simply there, whereas usually it wasn’t, nor was the window itself. The rushes on the floor rustled barely audibly, and Harry wondered whether something was crawling in their thickness. The walls creaked very, very quietly—was it the wind, magic, or simply old age that was loosening the building like a tooth in the gum, dreaming of completely destroying it one day? Wind whistled in the chimney of the unlit fireplace. It smelled of wax from the extinguished candle, cut grass, mice, tansy, and dinner remnants. The mattress was springy and lump-free to boot, the pillow too high and too soft, the blanket the wrong thickness and weight.

Everything around was not as Harry was accustomed to, absolutely everything.

He discovered that, though it was better this way—objectively better, and much so—he somehow missed his cupboard. Harry had grown up in that cupboard, had taken its shape like a pumpkin ripening inside a bottle—not in one sense but in many—and now suddenly the cupboard was gone. He felt like a snail whose shell had been torn off. A caterpillar dragged into the light during pupation. A mollusc without its shell. A snake that had shed its skin. Time was needed to find new points of support in the changed, expanded world.

Harry lay gazing at the shadows on the ceiling and thinking about his possessions left in the cupboard. Everything except the Hogwarts letter was rubbish—clothes, bedding, a few notebooks, a few pencils, a pen, a torch, batteries, Jane, toy horsemen, and Pumpkin-Head Jack. Rubbish, by and large. But Harry found it unpleasant to imagine the Muggles touching his things with their hands, even though they had no value in his eyes. Simply... they were his. Muggles shouldn’t be allowed to touch them.

With these thoughts, his eyes finally closed.

He dreamed of darkness. The floor pitched and rolled. A child wailed heartbreakingly, someone prayed aloud, desperately mixing up words, someone sobbed. It smelled of urine and vomit. Fine dust trickled down onto his head, sticking to his skin. He heard something crash somewhere outside (and why had he decided it was ‘outside’? where was the ‘inside’ where he was located?), slam with all its might—and again, and again.

‘No,’ thought Harry, ’not like this. I don’t want to!’

...and woke up.

Sunlight beat through the window, bright patches from it lay on the walls and ceiling—sooty, with protruding beams, as biblical as everything else in the room. The blanket had bunched up at his feet, but Harry, who’d gone to sleep in new pyjamas, hadn’t grown cold during the night. He had no idea what time it was, but it felt like rather late morning.

Still lying in bed, Harry laughed with joy.

No one had come to wake him; he’d woken up himself. There was no need to prepare breakfast for the pig family, wash dishes, clean the kitchen. No need to do anything at all. The enormous day stretched before him, empty and sunny like this room.

Harry touched the diary lying under his pillow—naturally, it hadn’t disappeared during the night, but it was pleasant to confirm this once more—stretched, and jumped out of bed.

There was no bathroom here. He had to wash with a sponge in a basin, but the water in the jug, prepared the evening before, turned out to be unnaturally warm, almost hot. ‘Magic,’ Harry thought with delight. The soap produced suspiciously volatile, multicoloured bubbles. The towel became dry again as soon as he returned it to the washstand. Harry sighed with satisfaction.

He summoned his Trunk, peacefully dozing in the corner by the window, pulled out his new clothes and put them on. They didn’t fit very familiarly, but at least they were so similar to the things Tom wore. Trousers with creases, shirt, pullover, tie. With irritation, Harry noticed he’d forgotten to buy shoes—his trainers were so unsuited to the rest of his outfit that it hurt to look at. Never mind, it wasn’t too late to fix that. He threw a robe over everything else—one of the school ones, yesterday he hadn’t thought he’d need any others—and regretted that there was no mirror in the room.

The Muggle clothes he’d shed before sleep still lay in a heap on the floor. Harry didn’t want to even touch them; they seemed like skin he’d moulted from, but just touch it and it would grow back, tight, suffocating, dirty. He gave them a wide berth as he walked to the door. His wand lay in the pocket of his robe, the diary was bound to his chest under his shirt. Harry felt like a royal heir, no less.

Ah, well yes, he was one after all—Salazar’s heir, wasn’t he?

The pub’s proprietor, cleaning candle soot from a chandelier lowered from the ceiling (it turned out to be mounted on a movable pulley, and Harry hadn’t known such subtleties), grinned at the sight of Harry, twitching his moustache, and clapped his hands a couple of times.

‘Yes, sir!’ he said cheerfully. ’Complete incognito, sir! Don’t you worry! Breakfast?’

Harry smoothed his fringe, which he’d carefully combed over his forehead after washing, and nodded with an answering smile.

For breakfast he was served eggs, not too attractive to look at but quite decent to taste, and the best ingredient was that Harry hadn’t cooked them himself. There was no tea on the menu, only milk and beer, but Harry politely declined the latter.

Harry spent the time from breakfast to lunch most pleasantly. He acquired a pair of Oxfords, identical to those Tom wore, only smaller, of course. He wandered around Magical Menagerie for ages and almost decided to buy an owl, but ultimately rejected the idea—Hogwarts had an owlery, there was no point in acquiring his own postal bird. He listened to a runespoor arguing with itself in the pet shop’s terrarium (but made no comments, you never knew who might be listening). He bought various trifles he’d forgotten yesterday—a toothbrush, a shoe horn, handkerchiefs, a pocket mirror, and a comb. The witch from the haberdashery assured him that there was a potion to help tame even the most unruly hair; Harry bought that potion too.

‘Morgana,’ grumbled Madam Malkin when Harry appeared before her to replenish his collection of robes. ’That abomination is still with you?’

The trunk shifted on its legs. Harry scowled.

’He’s not an abomination. And not a Dark artefact. I was allowed to keep him.’

’My dear... Oh, by the way, what’s your name, my boy?’

Here Harry panicked slightly. Well now, here we go! No, he needed to think of something, introduce himself with another name. Surnames of supposed magical relatives flashed through his head. The Blacks suited best—an enormous family, a real constellation, considering their names. Unfortunately, Harry wasn’t strong in astronomy. But science fiction unexpectedly came to his aid. Sending mental greetings to a couple of favourite authors, Harry primly bowed his head and declared:

‘Fomalhaut Black, at your service. I beg your pardon for my rudeness, madam.’ One more Black in such a crowd wouldn’t be noticed, Harry reasoned.

Madam threw up her hands.

‘Of course! How didn’t I guess immediately! Another rebel in the family, I see? Just like Sirius... hmm, you look alike too. What is he to you—uncle?’

‘Half-uncle,’ Harry decided not to push his luck. He had no idea who Sirius was—Tom definitely hadn’t mentioned that name—but ‘half-’ suited almost everyone and everything.

‘Ah, so you’re Alphard’s grandson! Merlin, of course, well that explains everything,’ she caught her breath and wagged her finger at him. ’Still, be careful—Dark things are terribly dangerous. So, another mantle? What colour do you want? Personally I’d recommend green—it would suit your eyes wonderfully.’

Tom didn’t wear green mantles. Harry also insisted on black. Malkin was clearly disappointed but didn’t argue further.

‘And who is this Alphard?’ Harry mused on his way to the bookshop. ’I definitely need some sort of guide to all my relatives. Where could I possibly find such a thing?’

It turned out—closer than he thought. A reference book called The Sacred Twenty-Eight didn’t include the Potters, but the others, particularly the Blacks, were there. And Harry also became the owner of such important books as Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century (he pinned particular hopes on this one), A Modern History of Magic, and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts (the last was interesting to read just for its own sake).

Newspapers proved more difficult. The Daily Prophet office really hadn’t moved—Harry had walked past it several times already. And it seemed that back issues could only be found there—they weren’t in the bookshop. Perhaps they were available in the Hogwarts library, but Tom said he didn’t recall such a thing, which wasn’t encouraging. No, he needed to search here. But how to do it?

Lost in thought, Harry returned to the Leaky Cauldron and settled in his room.

Rosier’s version was confirmed.

More than that, it was enriched with tear-jerking details that were unclear how or from whom they became known. For instance, Harry could still understand how they’d managed to establish which of his parents died first—forensics and such, wizards probably had even more means to investigate possible clues. But who could know what last words Lily Potter said and what Lord Voldemort replied to her? Was there a Peeping Tom nearby, or what? Or was this artistic licence? If so, what was it doing in supposedly documentary books?

The mysteries weren’t decreasing. Harry pulled out his diary and began sharing the progress of his investigation with Tom.

’How I wish,’ he scrawled irritably, flexing his cramped fingers yet again, ’I could simply show you everything I’m reading. This is becoming dreadfully inconvenient.’

And also—and Harry didn’t write this but thought it, and not for the first time—when he went to school in just a month, he wouldn’t be able to communicate with Tom as often as now. If only because there he’d have to devote time to actually studying. And—for efficiency’s sake—he’d have to sleep at least a bit more. And Harry very much didn’t want to sacrifice conversations with Tom; but he didn’t know what could be done about it.

‘How lovely it would be if we could see each other, like in your memory then,’ Harry daydreamed. ‘So we wouldn’t have to write to each other, but talk properly... Don’t misunderstand,’ he caught himself, ‘I don’t mind at all, I very much enjoy corresponding with you. I’ll try to continue doing it as often as possible in future (you know why)...’

‘Because you don’t exist when the diary is closed, but I won’t remind you of that again—there’s no need,’ Harry mentally finished with a sigh, dipped his quill in the inkwell and continued:

’...but I was just thinking—hypothetically—how CONVENIENT it would be.’

’Actually, there is a way,’ Tom modestly remarked, having waited for the end of his melancholy outpourings.

The quill fell from Harry’s hand. Plopping onto the page, it left an enormous blot, which was immediately absorbed, however. Harry sat with his mouth open, unable to believe what he’d just read.

And...

’AND WHY FOR MERLIN’S SAKE HAVEN’T WE USED IT YET

?????

Tom?’

’The reason is quite substantial,’ Tom replied after a pause, as if reluctantly. ’I’ll say directly: this will require something rather disapproved of by society. Something not entirely legal. And if this is ever discovered—it will indeed be received very, very badly.

Do you remember our House motto, Harry?’

Of course he did. The main and only motto of Slytherin, now, always, and forever was:

’DON’T GET CAUGHT!’

’Exactly. So you must clearly understand what you’re getting into. Don’t agree if you’re not going to see it through to the end. But if you’re ready, if you’re really ready to get your hands dirty up to the elbows, transgress the law and commit an act highly reprehensible in society’s eyes—’

Harry rolled his eyes. This passion for bombast! It was damnably ineradicable in Tom.

’Yes, yes, I’m ready. Spill it already, please, or I think I’m about to have a fit.’

’Then let’s preserve your fragile health?’

’TOM!!!’

’All right, all right. So, here’s what I have in mind: there’s a possibility of creating my spiritual projection, a semblance of a ghost, which will be visible or invisible at will, able to move relatively freely whilst not straying too far from the physical anchor, which is the diary, and even perform magic within moderate limits. This won’t revive me and won’t bring me any closer to such a state, but at least it will allow us to interact freely, exactly as you want, and give me greater stability.’

Wow. Harry considered everything said.

’Sounds excellent, even too good. What’s the catch?’

Because Harry’s life was arranged such that there always had to be a catch.

’A human sacrifice will be required.’

Harry froze to the spot. And Tom... wasn’t joking about getting ‘dirty up to the elbows,’ was he.

‘Do you... we... have to kill someone?’

‘Not literally. But I’ll have to drink magic—completely, every last drop—from some wizard. As I’ve already told you, I myself don’t possess even a tiny particle of magical power—only what you voluntarily give me. This is enough to sustain me whilst you interact with me, but that’s all. Creating a spiritual projection will require much more, since parasitic losses in the process of transferring it from donor to me are inevitable. But if everything works as it should—I’ll acquire my own magic, independent of whether you’re writing in my diary at any given moment or not.’

Well, this was still better than murder—but only just. Harry would probably have preferred death to losing his magic.

‘So we’ll have to choose, and choose carefully—by no means does every wizard deserve such a cruel fate. No, it must be some scoundrel, a person empty and absolutely useless—to society, family, even to himself. We must think it through carefully...‘

And suddenly, Harry already knew the answer. Actually, nothing could be simpler.

‘...one who, whilst possessing magic, cannot make use of it in the slightest...’

‘Tom,’ Harry wrote hastily, in horror and delight at himself; at this very moment Salazar could definitely be proud of him, exactly as Tom had said, ‘Tom!

Does it absolutely have to be a wizard?

Or would a Squib do?’

Chapter Text

Preparing for the operation code-named ‘Squib’ took two days. It could have been less, but Harry talked Tom into one more exchange of memories. Actually, Harry forced him through cunning, acting like a true Slytherin (being Salazar’s heir turned out easier than he’d feared).

They had to somehow make the old woman take Tom in her hands and hold him for all the time he would be draining magic from her. Which, incidentally, wouldn’t be such a pleasant sensation—Harry had experienced a mild version of this firsthand and had a rough idea what it was like. Ideally, of course, she would agree voluntarily and stoically endure it all, but that was beyond all hope.

Harry felt not a glimmer of sympathy for Mrs Figg. On the contrary, the longer he thought about it, the more right and beautiful this solution seemed to him. The useless old woman had, to use Tom’s metaphor, mountains of gold she could never use, since she’d been born without the key to her own magic. Tom, conversely, had the key, but his ‘bank vault’ was completely empty, without a single stray coin. Depriving Figg of magic would do her no harm—she didn’t possess it anyway. For Tom it would bring untold benefit. However you looked at it, it all added up.

And besides—though Harry sincerely believed his original suggestion had nothing to do with this—the old hag owed him. Yes, he definitely had a score to settle with her for all those ten years when the little wizard was brought to her sitting room for babysitting, like a puppy or kitten, and she could take a good look at him—his clothes, his thinness, his bruises, his glasses held together with tape, all of him—but chose to see nothing and do nothing; and Harry intended to settle this score with her.

So, in the absence of voluntary consent, they had to think of a way to force the old woman through the necessary procedure. Should they break into the house while she was sleeping? Drug her? Stun her? How best to get close to her at all?

Tom began by extracting from Harry every possible detail about Mrs Figg. How her house was arranged, how many rooms, which way the windows faced, whether there was a second floor, what her daily routine was, what habits Harry knew her to have, who she communicated with—and so on and so forth. Harry, to his own disappointment and Tom’s irritation, couldn’t properly answer a single question. Finally he lost his temper and suggested:

’Look, maybe you could look at my memories? Since you showed me yours, presumably it should work the other way too? You can see for yourself, I’m no use, but maybe we can squeeze more out of my memory when we study it together? If anyone’s capable of such a thing, it’s you!’

The idea aroused Tom’s scepticism.

‘Clumsy flattery, though I appreciate the attempt. However, I’m against new sessions of Legilimency with you—your tendency towards self-destruction makes them too dangerous. Last time you brought yourself to magical exhaustion, remember? What if something similar happens again?’

Harry sulked.

‘I’ll be more careful now, I promise! As soon as I feel something’s wrong, I’ll tell you immediately. And before I didn’t know what to pay attention to, but now I do. Please, Tom, let’s just try! Maybe nothing will work anyway, and here we are arguing.’

Tom was predictably stung by his ‘nothing will work’:

’Your mind, child, is a fortress without gates, any mind reader can penetrate it, and I most certainly can. Of course it will work, the question is rationality.’

Nevertheless, after another dozen assorted questions—questions Harry answered even more uselessly than the previous ones, quite unintentionally—Tom gave up and changed his mind.

Well, that is, he didn’t say outright: ‘All right, I think you’re right,’ but that was precisely the meaning.

’Perhaps I really should read you directly. You seem quite incapable of accessing your own memories properly. An unfortunate limitation, but we’ll return to discussing it another time. For now prepare to open your consciousness to me. Do you remember what to do, don’t you?’

Get comfortable, relax and think of nothing. Harry was especially good at the last part. The main thing was not to fall asleep accidentally. He shifted in his chair. Seemed all right.

’Yes. I’m basically ready, you may begin.’

The diary’s pages stirred. Harry peered into their accelerating flicker and prepared to step into the darkness at the right moment, but this time everything was different. The darkness itself splashed out to meet him—splashed out, overwhelmed and dragged him along.

He stood in Mrs Figg’s living room and looked at his younger self.

A thin, ragged boy in broken glasses entered the room and sat in the deep armchair, sinking into its cushions. Again, again and again. The boy grew older, details changed, but not the essence. Harry watched as if riveted, though the picture was distressing.

Tom meanwhile circled the living room, looked out the windows, for some reason rummaged on the shelf behind the chair, then went into the next room. His robes billowed and fluttered as he walked. You could hear him wandering through the house, opening doors in a proprietary manner. The boy in the chair drank tea. Mrs Figg showed him photographs of cats. Harry’s soul turned at the sight.

Tom returned, briskly crossed the living room, opened the front door, looked out at the street. The boy with the scar on his forehead sat in the chair. Before him a cup of tea grew cold. The old woman held out a photo album to him. Exhausted, full of anger, Harry closed his eyes for a second.

‘No!’ screamed a woman’s breaking voice. ‘Please, no! Not Harry!’

Darkness struck his eyes like a flash.

‘Please, not Harry!’ the unknown woman continued to plead through her sobs. ‘Kill me instead, me!’

‘I’ve heard this somewhere before,’ Harry thought, dissolving into the darkness; he was part of it, a dispassionate observer not even feeling curiosity, ‘as if something familiar.’

‘Stand aside, foolish girl,’ commanded another voice, high, cold, inhuman.

’Not Harry... Have mercy...’

The darkness was torn to shreds by blinding green light.

With a jerk, as if someone had grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, Harry came to himself.

Blood was seeping from his nose in thick, slow drops—right onto the diary. Harry feebly tried to wipe them away, but they’d already been absorbed—fortunately, without trace. Harry pinched the bridge of his nose. Strangely enough, otherwise he felt fine—no dizziness, no nausea. But he still felt like a puppy that had misbehaved. Something had clearly gone wrong, though he didn’t understand what.

Tom didn’t even scold him, contrary to expectation, only wrote:

’You really don’t know where to stop, do you?’

Harry had nothing to object to that.

And yet the benefit brought by viewing the memories couldn’t be denied. Tom didn’t elaborate, only remarked that he’d learned all the details he needed.

However, they didn’t devote all their time entirely to planning the scheme with the old woman. They had much to discuss between themselves.

’Tom, listen, I don’t want to insist, of course, but there’s one question you still haven’t answered.

What happened to your, as you called it, ‘main self’? Well, to the person you were before ending up in the diary. You said he was in mortal danger—so did he die in the end? Don’t you know?’

Actually, yes, Harry suspected Tom didn’t know—what else could explain such silence? Tom expressed himself evasively, which only confirmed Harry’s suspicions:

’There’s a question you haven’t answered either, and it’s directly connected to yours. How did my diary come to you? My first assumptions about this proved far from the truth—since you, as it turned out, were living with Muggles then and had no contact with the wizarding world at all. So how?’

Harry snorted. Once, a few weeks ago—though it felt like an eternity—he’d been too embarrassed to admit it; now it wasn’t a problem at all.

’I stole it. From a secondhand bookseller, a Muggle one, I think—he’d hardly keep a shop in Little Whinging if he were a wizard. So he’s a Muggle, I’m practically certain. And the shop’s quite ordinary—old books, nothing extremely rare or valuable. He doesn’t even have display cases, everything lies right on the counter and shelves. There was a pile of ancient expired diaries, sort of like a sale, and yours was lying among them, on top. I saw it and just couldn’t resist.’

Which, looking back, was a little strange, but impulsive theft was a shortcoming Harry knew and accepted in himself. Accepting yourself is very important, after all, everyone knows that.

’Most curious. The thing is, I intended to leave this phylactery with one close person—a devoted vassal, as I considered him then. I don’t know whether that other me acted differently in the end, or that person turned out to be other than I thought of him. Naturally, he was (or rather, is still, since he should still be alive and not even that old) a wizard. As you see, it all looks confused and not very good.

Answering your question, I have grounds to suppose that other me is dead. Were it otherwise, I wouldn’t have allowed such an important and valuable thing to end up where it ended up. Perhaps that vassal of mine is also dead—killed, for instance—and that would explain something. I need to know more, and rest assured, I’ll find out as soon as I can act more freely.’

Yes, evidently the idea of getting out of the diary had captivated Tom no less than Harry by this point. They returned to developing their plan.

The first step would be getting back to Little Whinging at all. Without needing to drag Trunk along and somehow hide it, this looked simpler, but still not as simple as a magical method—poof, and you’re already there. No, Harry would have to find his way using Muggle transport, and he had no idea how to approach this.

The result of a small brainstorming session was a trip to the bookshop neighbouring the Leaky Cauldron on the non-magical side, where Harry, to his satisfaction, discovered for sale a travel guide to London and the suburbs, including a map of trains, buses and the Underground. This useful little book he appropriated without pangs of conscience—too lazy to go to the bank again and figure out the subtleties of exchanging magical money for pounds sterling, though Tom had mentioned earlier that such a service existed at Gringotts.

With the guidebook things went smoothly. Harry plotted a route according to which he needed to use the Underground, a suburban train and his own legs. Then he still had to make another visit to Gringotts—he needed money for tickets; Harry didn’t want to travel without paying and risk being thrown off.

The second stage was developing a method for immobilising the target. Harry self-critically acknowledged he was unlikely to have the strength to overcome an adult in purely physical confrontation, even an old and weak one. Fortunately, there was no need for such Muggle methods.

’Stupefy! Blast it. Sorry, not you. Wait a second, I’m out of breath... Alright, once more. Stupefy!’

The rat squeaked and fell on its side. Harry wiped sweat from his face with his palm, but then remembered he was now a grown-up respectable wizard, and reached for his handkerchief.

Harry had acquired the rat at the Magical Menagerie, along with a cage, a bag of food and a packet of treats—the last were bought not from a desire to spoil his new pet, but from a sense of repentance, since Harry intended the rodent for a quite specific purpose that promised the rat few pleasant impressions in the near future. And yes, he felt sorry for the rat, unlike Mrs Figg.

The rat, which received the name Hole (without particular reason, Harry just liked how it sounded), was coal-black in colour and, according to the seller’s assurances, distinguished by great intelligence, like all familiars. The latter was even believable—Harry delivered a small speech intended to explain to Hole the concept of higher necessity, and noted with some surprise that the rat really didn’t try to dodge the red beam flying at it. To avoid unfortunate misunderstandings, Hole nevertheless remained in her cage—Harry planned to set her free or give her to someone when he finished, but not before. A premature escape would spoil his entire training.

’Finite. How are you there? Good, have a biscuit, I’ll rest for a bit. This is harder than it looks, isn’t it? Right, let’s go. Stupefy!’

Tom had taught him the spell, naturally. It was a bit unusual working out the wand movement scheme he’d drawn, but overall the theoretical part presented no difficulty for Harry. The practical side was worse—it worked, at least at first, every other time.

However, persistence and hard work, as usually happens, overcame everything—gradually Harry became more and more confident at knocking out the rat. He stopped only when not every third attempt was successful, but at least five out of six. Harry felt he was still far from perfection, but his legs simply wouldn’t hold him up. Magic took a surprising amount of strength.

Having fortified himself from the pub landlord’s bounty (he was, alas, unable to trudge somewhere with better food), Harry settled down with his diary.

’28th July, around three in the afternoon

Dear Tom!

I’ve almost (almost almost) mastered the spell. Had to take a break for now—can’t continue, my hands are shaking. Are all spells this difficult? I’m rather scared about my performance at Hogwarts now... Is it because I’m a half-blood?’ he wrote.

‘Clever boy, I never doubted you.’

Harry, greedy for praise, especially from Tom, bloomed, but the continuation made him snort indignantly:

‘Nonsense, you’re no weaker than others. It’s just that this is a fourth-year spell.’

‘Oh, you sly, secretive snake!’ Harry wrote in reply, spattering ink from his quill. ‘What stopped you mentioning this immediately? What if I’d failed completely?’

‘But it worked, didn’t it,’ Tom was hard to shame. ’We could have tried ‘Petrificus Totalus,’ but it’s weaker and less suitable for our purpose. And besides, you’re Salazar’s heir, expecting less of you would be strange.’

Well, how could you argue with that.

’Fine. What about the backup plan? You mentioned potions, but I don’t understand the first thing about them—at least, not yet.’

Tom, as usual, was only too happy to play teacher.

’I think in this case Confusing Draught or Dreamless Sleep would suit best. The first brings the drinker’s mind into a state of bewilderment and confusion, similar to the Confundus Charm, and you can guess the second’s effect from its name. Of these two, Confusing Draught is better, since its effect is almost instantaneous and it absorbs excellently through the skin. As for Dreamless Sleep, it needs some time to take effect, and moreover must definitely get onto the mucous membrane of the nose or mouth. So the choice is fairly obvious. I could write down recipes for both from memory, but you’re unlikely to brew them successfully—certain skills in working with ingredients are required, and all the subtleties can’t be explained in one evening. And there’s no need, it’s simpler to acquire ready-made potion.’

Harry nodded thoughtfully. There was definitely an apothecary in Diagon Alley—he’d already been to it—and it seemed there was more than one.

’Sounds logical. So—I arrive, she opens the door, I cast, if it works—hurray, if not—I spray potion in her face and try again until it works. Is that right?’

Because yes, such was the plan. Of course, the old bat wouldn’t calmly watch Harry mix something suspicious into her tea, and certainly wouldn’t sit quietly while he poured potion directly down her throat. Harry, with his Muggle background, was familiar with the concept of pepper sprays, and he gladly shared it with Tom, resulting in the acquisition at a haberdashery of a perfume atomiser—an old-fashioned crystal bottle with rubber tube and bulb, creating a fine cloud of tiny droplets. Here, as with pepper spray, the main thing was to quickly jump aside yourself, or it would be awkward.

‘Except for word choice—everything’s correct. Are your hands steady now, child? I think it’s time to return to training.’

Harry rose with a martyred groan and took up his wand again. Hole stopped cleaning her whiskers and stared at him reproachfully.

‘It’s necessary,’ Harry declared to her sternly, raising his wand. ’Do you think I enjoy this so much myself? Hmm, well actually—yes! Stupefy!’

For Confusing Draught, Tom sent Harry not to Diagon but to the alley neighbouring it, called for some reason Knockturn.

’They won’t sell it,’ he explained laconically. ’Agree, the potion’s not one an ordinary first-year might need. Respectable traders won’t deal with you. You’ll have to look in on the less law-abiding.’

It turned out the wizarding world had its own black market. And, as Harry began to suspect, its own drug trade, but that was a concern for another day, if it was his concern at all. Harry walked past the shop Thistle and Sword and, before reaching the public owlery (the very one Mrs Figg had once mentioned, Mordred bless her pathetic soul), turned into an archway between these two buildings.

The entrance to Knockturn Alley was hidden behind a grated gate, from which stone steps began, rising steeply upwards. The conservatism of the wizarding world once again played into Harry’s hands—the apothecary was located exactly where Tom remembered it: two houses down from Borgin & Burkes, opposite an establishment trading, according to its sign, in giant spiders (Harry marvelled in passing at such a narrowly specialised trade niche). The apothecary’s window, dirty and frightful as mortal sin, was decorated by a solitary dark glass phial and a bundle of some unidentifiable plants lying beside it, dry and bleached by light. The sign read: ‘Shaiveretche’s Poisons and Potions to Suit All Tastes.’ Harry pulled the door handle.

The apothecary, a thin, hunched old man whose appearance suggested abuse of some forbidden substances, glanced with interest at Trunk and grinned in what he probably considered a welcoming smile.

‘Good day to you, si-i-ir,’ he sang unctuously, ‘how may we serve you, what do you desire?’

‘Three ounces of Confusing Draught, and be quick about it, you scam,’ Harry replied. His flagrant rudeness was quite deliberate.

‘Reputation,’ Tom had said, ‘runs far ahead of a person. And appearance is half of reputation.’ Harry had applied maximum effort to creating his appearance. When in Rome, do as the Romans do, which in this case meant: being in Knockturn, act like a complete villain. For this visit he’d even specially acquired a hooded cloak, which he’d pulled almost to his nose. It didn’t add height, of course, but he hoped he’d at least somewhat managed to disguise his true age. You never know: for example, goblins aren’t tall either.

The apothecary chuckled but obediently rummaged under the counter and rattled scales.

‘Three Galleons from you, sir. Yes, and I see they speak truly. The most ancient and noble house hasn’t withered after all, hasn’t died out. Gratifying, gratifying...’

‘Cut the chatter,’ Harry advised him, counting out coins. The ‘most ancient and noble’ was what the Black family was called, and it was strange even to hear this epithet and the word ‘died out’ in one sentence. The apothecary broke into his disgusting smirk again and held out a heavy cut-glass bottle.

’Mum’s the word, sir! Do visit us again, we’re always delighted, sir...’

Harry only swept his cloak in response and departed without farewells. He’d even rehearsed this sweep beforehand today, and was quite proud that in practice he’d managed to execute it without mishap.

Acquiring the potion was a point of no return of sorts. From this moment no obstacles to implementing the plan remained.

The plan itself was straightforward and foolproof. Harry would go to Mrs Figg’s on Tuesday afternoon, no earlier than eleven but no later than two o’clock—no creeping about in the darkness of night and suchlike. No attempts to outwit—direct attack. A quick strike—get in fast, finish the job, get out fast. Harry was desperately nervous, but Tom seemed not to doubt success in the slightest, and this was somewhat calming.

All Monday Harry practised stunning the rat and corresponded with Tom, mainly about completely unrelated things, like whether there were books written in Parseltongue, or how to get permission to visit the Restricted Section in Hogwarts library, and then—then Tuesday came, which meant: time to act.

Harry set off wearing the very outfit that was gradually beginning to feel like his usual one—trousers, shirt, jumper, tie. Essentially, if you removed the robes, he looked almost like an ordinary little Muggle in school uniform. It was the holidays now, but still this didn’t seem like something that could attract attention. The atomiser with potion weighed down his left pocket. In the right lay money for the journey. Harry had bandaged his magic wand to his left forearm under his shirt—self-fixing elastic bandages were one of the few unconditionally useful things Muggles had invented, and for which he’d found no analogue yet in the wizarding world. He’d practised drawing the wand quickly—well, and Harry didn’t need to put it back quickly.

The journey passed without incident. The train from Paddington Station brought him to Little Whinging at ten past eleven in the morning; another twenty minutes were spent getting to Mrs Figg’s house. The closer Harry was to his goal, the more his steps slowed. He was shaking with excitement. Finally, he almost forced himself to climb the familiar porch and ring the doorbell. He didn’t know what he wanted more—for Mrs Figg to be home, or to be absent.

She was home.

She was wearing that chintz dressing gown again, once blue with clouds but now completely faded. Curlers clung to her head like fat pink caterpillars.

‘Oh, Harry, is that you?’ said Mrs Figg.

‘Stupefy,’ said Harry.

The wand in his hand was warm, his hand didn’t tremble. The flawless red beam, paid for by Hole’s long torments, burst from the tip. The old woman toppled backwards—mouth still half-open, eyes stuck mid-blink. In the depths of the house a cat mewed, others answered it. Harry stepped over the body, grabbed the faded clouds and dragged, straining with all his might. He needed to shift her at least two feet to close the door.

He had to struggle—she was heavy. Having shut the door, Harry didn’t allow himself even to catch his breath. He crashed to his knees, pulled up his jumper, unbuttoned his shirt at the chest, pulled away the elastic bandages and extracted Tom. He seized Mrs Figg’s hand, stiff and rigid under the spell’s effect, and pressed it to the diary’s open pages. For a second or two it seemed nothing was happening, but then a faint golden radiance enveloped both the diary and the figure lying on the floor, resembling now either a mannequin or a very large ugly doll.

It seemed to last forever. Harry’s heart was pounding frantically. There was ringing in his ears. His mouth went dry. He waited. And waited. And waited.

And then it was over.

The golden glow faded. Harry, after hesitating, closed the diary and returned it to its place. He buttoned his shirt, smoothed his jumper, straightened his tie. Smoothed his hair. Looked around for his magic wand—he’d thrown it aside when dragging the old woman across the floor, and it should be somewhere nearby. But the wand wasn’t there.

‘She won’t wake up,’ a calm, cold voice pronounced, and a wave of sharp goosebumps rolled along Harry’s spine. He gasped:

‘Tom!..’

‘Until someone cancels the spell,’ he continued.

He stood leaning against the wall, tall, commanding, composed—exactly as Harry remembered him, only even better, even more perfect, since now they weren’t inside a memory but in actual real reality. A strange smile wandered across his face. In his hands he was twirling Harry’s magic wand.

‘Thank you,’ Harry rejoiced and held out his hand.

‘You won’t need it anymore,’ Tom responded, continuing to lazily rotate the wand in his pale fingers. ‘I’ll do everything myself. Stand back.’

‘Do what?’ Harry was surprised. This wasn’t in the plan. Actually, the plan ended with taking magic from the old woman.

He nevertheless rose, took a step aside and stared at Tom expectantly. Tom peeled himself from the wall.

‘Revive her,’ he explained, ‘and erase her memory. You don’t know that spell yet. Finite,’ this he pronounced, already directing the wand towards the motionless Mrs Figg.

Contrary to expectation, nothing happened. Tom frowned almost imperceptibly.

‘Rennervate!’ and again nothing.

Tom frowned more deeply. With quick wand movements he cast several other spells at the old woman.

‘Anapneo!’

‘Inspectio Cordis!’

‘She’s dead,’ he concluded coldly. ’Her heart couldn’t take it. Or she simply outlived her time—Squibs live longer than Muggles because magic nourishes and strengthens them. Remove that sustenance, and this is the result. Let’s go, we have nothing more to do here.’

Harry felt sick. Well. It couldn’t be said he wasn’t prepared for something like this at all, and yet...

‘All right,’ he mumbled, wiping his sweaty palms on his trousers—he should have used his handkerchief, he automatically remembered, then immediately dismissed the thought—this wasn’t the time for manners. ‘All right, fine. Just give me back my wand, please. I feel strange without it somehow.’

‘One more minute,’ Tom responded concentratedly. He went out onto the porch, turned around, waited for Harry to follow, closed the door and pointed the wand at the sky.

‘Morsmordre!’

A stream of black smoke rose into the air, slowly forming into a strange image: a skull with a snake emerging from its mouth like a grotesque tongue.

‘Take it,’ Tom held out Harry’s magic wand, handle first, as one passes a knife, ‘and don’t treat it so carelessly in future. A wand is part of a wizard, treat it with respect.’

‘I know,’ Harry accepted the wand from his hand with relief. ’I won’t anymore, honestly. I just got a bit flustered.’

He began shoving the wand up his sleeve, under the bandages. Tom strode away from Mrs Figg’s house, and Harry, as before, had to almost run to keep up.

‘What did you do?’ he panted, nodding at the symbol hovering in the sky.

‘Something that will completely divert all suspicion from you,’ Tom answered with a fleeting smile. ‘Come on, it’s going to get very crowded here very soon.’

Harry nodded and quickened his pace as much as he could.

Chapter Text

Mundungus Fletcher was one of the first to notice the mark hovering above the neatly trimmed crowns of the ash trees. Or rather, he noticed several Muggles who were staring upwards somewhere, talking excitedly amongst themselves and pointing things out to each other. Mundungus shifted his gaze in the same direction—and was stunned.

His consciousness, as he ran without feeling the ground beneath his feet towards the familiar cottage, seemed unable to choose between two thoughts, each equally terrible. Forgotten fear, rising from the depths of consciousness like nausea, competed with fresh, poisonous and sharp fear, biting beneath his ribs.

There was a Dark Mark in the sky.

It was above Figgy’s house.

Mrs Figg, ‘Figgy’ as he called her, a Squib and great cat lover, had been collaborating with Fletcher for a good ten years now, and in that time they’d rubbed along so well with each other’s shortcomings that they’d become the closest of companions, if not friends. Had either of them been younger and more spirited—perhaps there would even have been an office romance, like something out of a spy novel; but reality had put paid to such development of their relationship. Mundungus took poor care of himself—his appearance, well described by the words ‘unkempt’ and ‘suspicious,’ was just right for illustrating leaflets with headlines like ’Beware the Pervert!’ or ’Children, Be Careful!’ Mrs Figg, having been widowed once, was no longer interested in members of the male sex—except, naturally, for cats. They were both real spies, but romance, espionage or any other kind, had completely passed them by.

Fletcher reached his destination quite out of breath. His side was stabbing. He glanced up briefly and shuddered just as briefly—there was no mistake, the skull in the sky was sticking out its snake-tongue as if teasing and mocking, noted just as briefly the absence of visible signs of destruction outside and threw open the cottage door—it wasn’t locked. Inside he discovered exactly what he’d expected but had wholeheartedly hoped not to see.

‘Figgy,’ Mundungus said plaintively, understanding perfectly clearly that she wouldn’t hear. ’Figgy, how could this happen?...’

Mrs Figg lay on her back on the floor of her hallway. Her raised arms were bent like the paws of a dead bird, her face frozen in a grimace of grotesque amazement. Her eyes remained half-open, and Fletcher couldn’t bear it—he lowered her eyelids, though he remembered that until the Aurors arrived, no one should touch anything here.

He didn’t want to leave—as if by staying nearby he could still help somehow, fix something—didn’t want to, but had to, because there were things more important than his personal grief.

Mundungus burst out the door and strode quickly along the street—he had no strength left for running, and he didn’t risk Apparating in sight of the ever-growing crowd of gawkers. Fletcher knew where he needed to hurry next, and his heart grew cold at the thought that here too he might already be too late.

Number four looked as usual—neat, respectable, sleepy. The rose bushes were fragrant, a solitary bee circled above them. The sun glittered in the windows. Fletcher, glancing about furtively, got out his wand. A detection spell cast through the hedge confirmed his worst fears.

Inside the cottage was one woman, a Muggle, and one child, also a Muggle. The wizard boy wasn’t with them.

Ignoring secrecy, Mundungus spun on his heel. Let them see—the Obliviators would have plenty to sort out anyway, and he’d somehow survive a reprimand from the Ministry officials. Fletcher transported himself home.

‘Owl or Floo?’ he thought feverishly. Floo was faster, owl was more reliable. Hoping for luck, Mundungus ignited a fire with a wand wave and threw in a pinch of Floo powder. Then he stuck his head in the grate.

‘Hogwarts, Headmaster’s office!‘

Alas, luck failed him—the Headmaster was apparently not in. Fletcher tried again, but he wasn’t at home either. Swearing irritably, Mundungus called over an owl that was dozing with the appearance of a stuffed bird on top of the sideboard.

The note to the head of the Order of the Phoenix, in which the secret agent, out of habitual caution, did without any greetings or signature (you never know exactly whose hands your message might fall into), was short:

‘A.F. is over. Noon today, the Mark. The boy has disappeared.’

‘Take this to Albus Dumbledore, and get a move on, you pest!‘

The owl, unceremoniously thrown out the window, flapped its wings frantically and flew away.

* * *

Mrs Vernon Dursley, née Petunia Evans, bustled about the kitchen in the most pleasant frame of mind. She was, one might say, even happy—happy for the first time in long, long ten years. Nothing could cloud her sunny mood—neither Diddy’s tantrums at breakfast, nor her husband’s grumbling about falling prices in the drill market. These were all trifles, beautiful in their ordinariness. In their normalcy. The most important thing was finally in order—the devilish boy had disappeared.

He’d disappeared in exactly the same way he’d appeared one wicked morning on the porch of their hitherto prosperous home—mysteriously, inexplicably and abnormally.

Petunia still distinctly remembered her shock when she’d cracked open the door to put out the empty milk bottles—and discovered something was preventing the door from opening. This something turned out to be an unconscious child, apparently Diddy’s age, but for some reason swaddled in a blanket like a baby. Petunia was truly terrified, thinking the child was dead, but he was warm, even hot. On his forehead a disgustingly-looking wound blazed in a zigzag. When she took him in her arms, the child stirred feebly and sneezed.

The next few days became a veritable nightmare for Petunia and all her family. The child turned out to be a boy—a boy without a birth certificate, without a medical card and insurance, without (without? who knows—since there was no medical card!) the vaccinations required for his age, without a whole heap of things necessary for a normal little boy—nappies, a cot, and pram at least, not to mention clothes and toys. He had only a name—Harry James Potter.

The name became known from a note someone had tucked into the folds of the blanket—and this too was abnormal: no one acts like this while in their right mind, since this is life, not a Victorian sentimental novel. The note, containing less useful information than a souvenir postcard, reported that the child named Harry James Potter was henceforth Petunia’s responsibility.

Had Petunia been a godless witch like her horrible younger sister, she would have cursed the deceased to eternal torments in hell—but the Lord, in His immeasurable mercy, preserved Mrs Dursley from this, and Lily had provided herself amply with torments in hell through her own efforts. Children, as Petunia decided with a sigh, don’t answer for their fathers’ sins, even ones as disgusting as James. Since God had sent her such a cross, it meant she should accept it and bear it patiently, as befits a good Christian woman.

But the cross proved heavier than Petunia had thought at first. No sooner had the necessary formalities been settled (and this had consumed a whole abyss of nerves, since explaining the appearance from nowhere of a year-old child without documents, let alone obtaining custody of him, was by no means simple), than the little brat immediately showed his character.

At first this wasn’t so noticeable. He was far too quiet—Petunia had never thought she’d ever want a child to cry, but this one didn’t cry at all, and there was something eerie in his silently gleaming bright green eyes. His first word was not ‘gee!’ (‘give’), like Diddy’s, or ‘mum,’ ‘dad,’ ‘mo’ (‘more’), or anything else equally sweet and spontaneous. No, looking at the Christmas tree in the sitting room, he’d said quietly and distinctly ‘illumination.’ This became his first word.

He developed abnormally quickly in general, especially compared to Diddy—for instance, they could both walk already, but this one didn’t walk like her little son, charmingly stomping and waddling, no, he held himself straight and confidently, like an adult; and he did much else not as he should—for example, he’d gone and somehow mysteriously taught himself to read. At three and a half years old, when Diddy had only managed to memorise his letters properly at five, already at preparatory school. The witch’s spawn, it seemed, had no need to be taught anything at all, and this was incredibly unnatural for a child.

Diddy loved cartoons, sweets, video games and running about with his mates. He liked bright toys. This boy loved nothing except ever more books, often quite beyond his years. He only ran if Diddy specifically dragged him out to play, literally forcing him to socialise with the neighbourhood children. He liked to huddle in tight, dark corners and sit there silently, sullenly, dreaming of goodness knows what. Diddy adored his food and easily put on weight. The foundling remained thin—whether he ate much or little, it seemed to make no difference to him. Diddy preferred T-shirts with pictures and couldn’t stand tights—would raise a terrible shriek when they had to be put on for warmth on winter walks. Lily’s son accepted any clothing indifferently—even the scratchiest woollen jumpers didn’t make him whine and scratch. He accepted everything indifferently in general, showing neither complaints nor gratitude.

Petunia tried—God knows she tried—to love them equally. But this proved beyond her strength.

First she gave the best bits to her son, and to the foundling—what remained. Then she stopped buying him clothes—he’d make do with Diddy’s hand-me-downs, he was thinner and shorter anyway. Toys soon shared the fate of clothes—the strange child could play quite peacefully with a deflated old ball, or even with some sticks and pebbles picked up from the street, and they occupied him perfectly well. The further this went, the more it seemed to Petunia that the alien boy was drinking, draining something from her son—something impossible even to explain, taking it and appropriating it for himself.

Dudley grew up an ordinary sweet little boy, a wonderful child, like other children his age, but still the very best of them, since he was hers, her own dear boy. So why did he constantly seem stupid, fat, lazy and capricious next to Harry? Harry, like a crooked mirror, distorted her Diddy by his very presence, and Petunia’s love, already forced, kept withering, gradually dwindling to nothing.

Well, and then, at three years and eight months, this began.

The curtains in the sitting room burst into flames first. Petunia in a panic—Dudley could be hurt!—tore them down and somehow stamped out the fire, irreparably ruining the carpet. Harry was sent to think about his behaviour in the cupboard under the stairs—and soon moved there permanently, since the next thing to catch fire was Dudley’s cot.

Petunia would have been glad to write off what was happening as an incredible coincidence, some unfortunate but natural cause, but she’d already been through all this once and knew too well what to expect.

Now the nightmare was returning.

A plate might start crawling across the table or simply split in two when the little demon thought his morning porridge wasn’t tasty enough. Spoons would fly up and bend, breadcrumbs would march across the tablecloth like a column of ants. Soap suds would escape from the sink and spread across the entire kitchen. Absolutely everything burned, even things that in principle couldn’t burn—like the porcelain soap dish and the sponge soaked right through with water. Vernon’s sister Marge’s bulldog, a cheerful and active dog, at some point began to fear the boy panically. The neighbour’s cats, Mrs Figg’s, would hide from him under the furniture, howling and hissing. The foundling’s hair, eternally untidy, couldn’t be tamed—after a haircut it would grow back in exactly one night. The school teacher’s hair turned out to be dyed blue—permanently, irreversibly, no henna helped. Children complained that during their games the boy also got up to all sorts of strange things.

What frightened Petunia most was the disappearance of that very deflated ball. Right before her eyes it vanished goodness knows where and never returned. What else could disappear without trace with similar ease? Or perhaps not what, but who?

Everything was like then, nearly a quarter century ago, but only worse. With Lily, at least, this had started around age nine. Her disgusting son wasn’t going to spare Petunia for so long.

She tried to find some control over him. She loaded him with housework, hoping to distract and at least physically tire out the little troublemaker. She locked him in the cupboard, hoping to calm the devilry bursting from him. She scolded him. She explained that abnormal abilities were from the devil, that he should not resort to them for his own sake and the salvation of his soul, if not for others’.

And it all seemed to help, but not completely, and there was always the possibility that suddenly, out of nowhere, without any warning or visible cause, it would happen again. Right on Diddy’s birthday the son of Satan had set a huge snake on him and his friend Piers. Petunia didn’t die of a heart attack only because she understood crystal clearly—she couldn’t allow herself to abandon Dudley alone with the horror being wrought.

She awaited the boy’s eleventh birthday like deliverance. Around this age Lily had been taken away by other sorcerers and taken away to where they belonged—as far as possible from normal God-fearing people. The same thing, Petunia supposed, should happen to Harry.

And finally, her prayers were answered.

Last Friday she was baking cakes for tea when she suddenly heard someone ring their doorbell. Petunia asked the boy to answer—who knows who’d come, neighbours or perhaps Marge had suddenly arrived, having recovered from her recent poisoning. For about five minutes she calmly occupied herself with icing for the cakes, but then the silence alarmed her.

No voices. No sound of footsteps. The door hadn’t slammed shut. Only the quiet whistle of wind blowing through the wide-open door.

Petunia came out to the threshold, wiping her hands on her apron. The mysterious visitor had vanished without showing himself to her. And with him the boy had evaporated without trace.

For another couple of days Petunia couldn’t believe it. She cautiously applied her new joy to herself, turning it from all sides like a long-awaited new outfit—what if it wasn’t everything yet, what if he’d return, what if this wasn’t what it seemed. She dimly remembered that Lily’s departure had been arranged somehow differently. It seemed some letter had come first, both to her and to that sullen son of an alcoholic she’d associated with. But perhaps Petunia was mixing something up after so many years.

Saturday passed, Sunday and Monday went by, and finally Petunia was certain—the trial sent by the Lord was over. She seemed to have grown wings behind her back.

It seemed even the whole house had somehow shaken itself, throwing off the heavy shroud of grim curse. Clean plates were clean in a new way, washed windows sparkled anew and cut flowers were fragrant anew. The scrubbed bath shone with new welcoming gleam. The breakfast bacon smelled tempting as never before, and its rind browned in a new way. Peace and quiet descended on number four Privet Drive, and Petunia enjoyed them with all her heart.

She was making shepherd’s pie when the doorbell rang. Rinsing her hands and drying them with a towel, Petunia went to the hall and unlocked the door. Her heart sank.

On the threshold stood one of them. Abnormal. A sorcerer. There was no mistaking it—velvet fez, peculiar spectacles, long grey beard into which bells were woven, bizarre clothing resembling an oriental robe, shoes with curved toes. Petunia shrieked and tried to slam the door. Not a chance.

‘Where is Harry?’ asked the demon-worshipper, easily holding the door with his bony, unexpectedly strong hand. He evidently didn’t consider it necessary to say hello. However, Petunia wasn’t in the mood for polite conversation either.

‘Go away! Get out!’ she tugged at the door. In vain.

‘Where is Harry, Petunia?’ somehow he knew her name, but she was seeing him for the first time in her life—and very much hoped it would be the last.

‘I don’t know! And I don’t want to know!’ she exclaimed with vexation. ’Look for him yourselves over there, if it’s so necessary—one of your lot took him away.’

The bearded man’s face contorted as if his stomach had suddenly begun to ache. He pulled a magic wand from the pocket of his robe—yes, thanks to Lily she knew what this object was and what it was terrible for—pointed it at the paled Petunia and said quietly:

’Legilimens.’

* * *

Severus Snape, sitting in the living room of his ramshackle house in Cokeworth, was enjoying a cup of Irish coffee in which whisky predominated over the titular ingredient—the coffee itself—in a ratio of seven to five. Precisely such dosage Severus personally considered optimal for the current time of day, calendar season and position of the heavenly bodies.

Someone—Minerva, for instance—reproached him with incipient alcoholism, but Severus found alcohol the lesser evil—at his disposal he always had both the skill and the possibility to concoct stupefying potions whose destructive effect on the psyche would be far deeper, more thorough and faster. Considering all circumstances, namely Severus’s past, present and supposed future, alcohol was a good compromise between the narcotic coma he dreamed of falling into and the soul-rending sobriety in which he was supposed to remain. Snape took another sip of his drink—and then the flame in the fireplace roared.

‘Severus,’ said Dumbledore’s head appearing among the tongues of green fire with concern, ’come urgently, I need you.’

The head disappeared. Severus delivered an elaborate profane tirade after it—a problematic childhood isn’t so easily struck from one’s biography—and finished the remaining coffee in a couple of gulps. He got no pleasure from it. The headmaster’s manner of jerking him about like a little dog on a lead for any reason worth having or not worth having was incredibly irritating.

Severus was ready to bet a Galleon against a Knut that ‘need’ in this case meant some trifling question, like coordinating supplies of Pepper-Up Potion for the hospital wing—because the headmaster liked reminding Severus of his power over him, because he valued his own time but not Severus’s time, and simply because he was so accustomed and found no reason to act otherwise. His own submissiveness infuriated Snape to the point of a nervous tic, but the network of oaths and vows that enwrapped him from head to foot like an Acromantula’s web didn’t allow him to rebel once more. Snape threw a handful of Floo powder into the fireplace with disgust and transported himself to the office—not office, but a jumble or curiosity cabinet, Minerva was thrice right—of the head of Hogwarts.

The room turned out to be unexpectedly crowded, and the composition of those present couldn’t fail to cause surprise.

Augusta Longbottom sat regally in the chair opposite the headmaster’s (this time without her famous hat, but the ghostly image of a vulture stuffed animal could still be made out above her crown, like some sort of obsessive hallucination). To the right of the venerable lady stuck out the grey head of Elphias Doge, resembling a ruffled dandelion, to the left—Dedalus Diggle’s invariable top hat.

Both had apparently perched on conjured chairs—there was usually only one chair for visitors here, but selected with taste: sitting in it, said visitor sank almost to the floor, and the strange semi-recumbent pose in which it seemed the knees were higher than the head usually produced a total demoralising effect. Especially in combination with the fact that the headmaster behind his desk towered over his interlocutor like a stern judge behind his throne. Augusta, as Severus noted with satisfaction, had transfigured this obscenity into the most ordinary chair with a high back.

Snape conjured another chair for himself with a casual wave of his wand, sat down and stared at Albus expectantly.

The headmaster ceremoniously stroked his beard. The idiotic bells clicked, and Snape’s eyelid twitched involuntarily in response. Someone sighed quietly—Diggle, it seemed.

‘My friends,’ Albus proclaimed pompously. His spectacles gleamed with light from the fireplace, making the eyes behind them almost invisible, ’we have gathered here because I am forced to inform you of terrible, but not unexpected news.’

He paused. Everyone waited patiently for the continuation. This was typical Albus—first announce urgency, then drag out time and stage a cheap spectacle. Having waited for complete and undivided attention to his words, the headmaster weightily concluded:

’He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has returned.’

Snape let out a protesting exclamation. Of course, he had immediately informed Albus about the changes occurring with the Mark, but this alone wasn’t yet reason to...

With an imperious gesture the headmaster stopped any words preparing to burst from him.

‘This afternoon,’ he continued grimly, and the reflection of the fireplace flames swirled in his half-moon glasses, ’Arabella Figg was killed, our long-time comrade-in-arms. The nature of the spell is not yet clear—it wasn’t Avada Kedavra—but undoubtedly the blackest magic was used. The Dark Mark was seen above the house where the murder was committed. At this moment it has also become known that three days ago Harry Potter, our little hero, was abducted from his own home by persons unknown. So that’s how matters stand. My dears, I would like to be mistaken, but there can be no mistake, alas. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has returned—and has already struck the first blow.’

The silence that thickened in the headmaster’s office after these words seemed not to be disturbed even by the sound of breathing.

‘Albus,’ old lady Longbottom finally creaked, ‘so what does this mean...’

‘Yes,’ he readily picked up. ‘We’re back in service, my friends. The Order of the Phoenix returns to life. Today Alastor isn’t here—he’s carrying out a special assignment—nor Emmeline and another of our friends, Mundungus, who departed to organise the funeral. I understand there are few of us left, and life has roughed us up properly, but there’s nothing to be done. Duty calls. Think who might become new members of the order, whom we should call to our banners, but be careful, since the enemy has surely learned his lesson and will try to infiltrate his agents into our ranks, as we once did to him.’

‘They’ll get bugger all if they do that,’ thought the ‘once-infiltrated agent,’ and aloud he snorted sceptically, ‘in a grandmaster game between two of the strongest mind-readers, only someone like me could become a double agent, and I don’t see any worthy competition among the young generation.’ Immediately after that Snape was visited by some vague bad premonition—Albus wasn’t planning to use him in such capacity again, was he? He wasn’t planning to, really?..

Because Severus, considering the oaths hanging on him, this would kill almost with guarantee. But, as Snape understood in the same second, and unbearable bitterness rose to his throat from within, for the greater good—why not, indeed.

‘Severus, my boy,’ the headmaster continued, having decided, apparently, to finish him off completely, ‘tell me, when you visited Harry, did you notice anything suspicious? How did everything go in general? By all accounts, you were the last to meet with the poor child.’

However much Snape had gone to pieces from his previous painful reflections, he pulled himself together instantly.

‘Absolutely normally,’ he lied without batting an eyelash. ‘Met, quarrelled, handed over the key, quarrelled again, departed home. The boy keeps his own counsel and harbours some strange prejudice against Muggles.’

‘And against me too, though he met me for the first time in his life. Did Petunia set him against me, perhaps? The little prude never liked me,’ Snape could have added, but didn’t. The life of a double agent had taught him to keep most of the information he’d gathered to himself. It was time to restore this thrice-cursed skill.

The headmaster sighed disappointedly and tugged his beard. The bells responded with a sad rustling chime.

‘And did he actually visit Diagon Alley at all?’

‘I don’t know,’ Severus gazed at the headmaster devotedly. His mental barriers were stronger than ever. Not that ‘I don’t know,’ Severus gazed at the headmaster devotedly. His mental barriers were stronger than ever. Not that he expected a sudden attempt from Albus to forcibly extract the needed memories—that was more the Dark Lord’s style—but there are overly cautious spies, and there are dead ones. Snape was still alive for now.

‘But he was planning to, wasn’t he?’ the headmaster continued probing.

‘I got the impression that yes.’

‘Albus,’ Augusta interjected, having listened silently but attentively to their dialogue until this moment, ‘now can you say where you’ve been hiding him all this time? Or is it still a secret?’

The old codgers sitting beside her mumbled something agreeable. They were curious too.

‘No, unfortunately, it’s no longer a secret at all,’ Albus sighed again. ‘Half the Ministry is now helping the Obliviators cope with the consequences of the Dark Mark’s appearance, what secrecy is there now. Harry lives with relatives on his mother’s side, in one of London’s suburbs. Quite a respectable family, there’s a second child there, also a boy, they’re the same age.’

‘On his mother’s side,’ Lady Longbottom repeated, scandalised. ’Albus, kick you with a Billywig, did you put him with Muggles?’

The further conversation moved away from the question dangerous for Severus, but instead descended into a sluggish row about the proper maintenance and upbringing of young heroes. The head-butting was conducted mainly between Albus and Augusta, of course—Diggle entered the conversation only once, to report that he’d once accidentally encountered Potter on the street (what use this information was to everyone else remained unclear). Doge only listened and nodded, maintaining his usual mild, apologetic facial expression. Severus from time to time helped each side with arguments—he didn’t want the argument to die down too quickly. He needed to think.

When the odious gathering—that is, the meeting of the recreated Order of the Phoenix, of course—came to an end, Severus already had a more or less ready plan of action. He knew for certain that no one had abducted the boy, and knew no less certainly where to begin searching for him—searches that should outpace all other searchers, if he hurried.

Only one thing remained unclear—to which of the two lords, dark or light, should he ultimately hand over his prey. Unfortunately, the option ‘split along the axial line’ wasn’t under consideration in this case. And how tempting it was.

* * *

‘Most curious rumours are going about,’ Narcissa announced, carelessly dropping her cloak to the floor (the house-elf would pick it up) and settling into the chair by the fireplace. ’Dobby, tea! No, I’ve changed my mind—bring sherry instead. And cheese with biscuits. And my cigarellos. So then... Luci, spare a minute, listen—you’ll like this.’

Lucius, frozen in the pose of Rodin’s ‘Thinker’ in the other chair, reluctantly came to. Rumours didn’t interest him greatly, but clever Narci wouldn’t have bothered him over a trifle. So it was worthwhile business, he really needed to pay attention and listen. Besides, there was little benefit from Lucius’s brooding—he’d been chasing a phantom shadow for over a month, all the old ideas had long exhausted themselves, and somehow no new ones were coming.

‘So then,’ Narcissa repeated, having achieved full attention, ’they’re telling the following. There’s a boy walking about Diagon—not very tall, black hair, eyes green as Avada Kedavra, dressed primly, carries himself like a Slytherin among Slytherins. And with the boy walks a trunk on legs—daft cow Malkin calls it a ‘horrible Dark artefact.’ I became curious and made enquiries. The artefact isn’t horrible, of course, and not exactly dark—but for instance, before a Ministry search I’d hide such a thing with friends, or they might not return it afterwards.’

Lucius settled more comfortably and also sipped his sherry—Dobby, though distinguished by his foolishness, had at least had the sense to bring two glasses, not one. Light from the fireplace refracted on the crystal decanter’s facets, lighting the wine inside alternately with white and crimson gold.

’Interesting? So. Next—more interesting. He was seen in Knockturn too, right in Shaiveretche’s apothecary—recognised by the trunk, the lad was trying to disguise himself, but he lacks experience. At the same time everyone’s firmly convinced the boy walks with his parents, and apparently they and their family have stopped at the Leaky Cauldron—that’s where he was encountered most often. But here’s the thing—no one has ever actually laid eyes on these parents.’

Narcissa sipped her wine, smiled slyly and bit into a biscuit. Today’s sky-blue dress, offset like clouds by white lace, turned her into a real fairy, especially combined with this smile.

’And the most interesting bit—for dessert. It turns out I have a new relative. Because the little boy is called—Fomalhaut. Black.’

Lucius’s eyebrows climbed of their own accord. An impostor? Who was this daredevil?

‘Now, darling, solve the riddle,’ Narcissa was enjoying his amazement. ‘Looks like a Black, walks like a Black, talks like a Black, introduced himself to everyone as a Black—but isn’t a Black. Who is it?’

Lucius smiled involuntarily.

‘A suicide?’

‘Wrong! It’s a Black. One-quarter. My second cousin once removed, through Dorea. Harry James Potter in person.’

‘Merlin!..’ was all Lucius could say. Of course! And how had he forgotten—his own son wasn’t the only one about to enter Hogwarts as a first year.

‘I find it delightful,’ Narcissa chirped enthusiastically. ’I’m very eager to make his acquaintance now. I even thought perhaps I’d be lucky enough to encounter such a marvel personally, but today in particular he’s nowhere to be seen. Never mind, still...’

Here the fireplace blazed green, interrupting her speech. Severus’s face appeared in the flames, looking as always like a sad Pierrot mask, only missing a teardrop in the corner of his eye.

‘Lucius,’ he greeted grimly. ‘Lady Narcissa, my compliments. Lucius, may I come through for a minute?’

Having received permission, he stepped into the fire and with a meagre gesture brushed soot from his robes. Narcissa rose.

‘I’ll leave you gentlemen alone, I think. Lovely to see you, Severus. Do visit us more often, Draco misses you.’

‘No, my lady,’ Snape said hollowly. ‘Please stay. My news concerns you too.’

‘What news?’ Narcissa perked up, sitting down again and elegantly arranging her skirt. ‘Dobby! Whisky for our guest, quickly.’

‘I’m only here for a minute,’ Snape repeated, but accepted the glass. ‘I wanted to inform you that Potter has slipped away from Dumbledore.’

‘We know!..’ the Malfoy spouses said in unison and exchanged glances. Severus raised an eyebrow and snorted.

’Really? And do you know about the Mark?’

At first Lucius didn’t understand.

‘You mean...’ he pointed meaningfully at his forearm, but this clearly wasn’t it: this news could no longer be considered news.

‘No,’ Severus replied with relish between sips of firewhisky, ‘I mean...’ and he pointed his finger upward, at the ceiling.

Narcissa’s lips formed the shape of a perfect ‘O.’ Lucius’s jaw dropped.

‘Today around noon they took out an old woman from the Order of the Fried Bird. And hung up the Mark, all proper and correct. The granny was a Squib, true enough, and Merlin knows what she was even doing with them, but the very fact. After all, it’s one of ours who did it, I’d stake my hand on it,’ Severus smiled grimly at his own joke. ‘No one came by to boast?’

The Malfoys exchanged glances again.

‘No,’ Narcissa answered thoughtfully. ’But why? After all this time... It’s a meaningless gesture. Unless...’

Here she paled and pressed her hands to her cheeks. Lucius thought he probably hadn’t a drop of blood in his face either.

‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘Now I understand. You think—so that’s it.’

‘That’s exactly what Dumbledore thinks too,’ Snape confirmed, setting his empty glass on the little table, which immediately filled again. ‘He’s just gathered everyone he could—and that’s precious little, truth be told, just old folk and invalids—and made a speech about how he’s returned.’

‘We’ve known for ages,’ Narcissa snapped, rubbing her hands as if they’d grown cold. ‘But where is he? Why hasn’t he summoned anyone yet?’

‘What makes you think he hasn’t summoned anyone?’ Severus smirked; it seemed the more he drank, the gloomier he became. ‘Would you—confess? Well, neither would I. Even to one’s own—I’m not sure.’

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Narcissa knocked back her glass of sherry like water. Snape glowered sullenly, staring fixedly at the fire dancing in the grate. Lucius watched him, biting his lip and barely restraining himself from starting to gnaw his nails. Finally he decided.

‘Severus,’ he groaned, ‘help me. I’ll owe you a life debt if you do.’

‘What’s happened?’ Snape frowned even more deeply.

‘The Lord left something with me for safekeeping,’ Lucius confessed, looking at the floor, and raised his eyes to Snape almost in tears, ‘and I managed to lose it.’

‘We’ll remember you young and handsome. Those who survive, of course,’ Snape quipped, but then shook his head. ‘Forgive me, my lady. Don’t take it to heart—everything will be fine. Now then,’ he turned to Lucius, ’tell me everything.’

* * *

Severus left the Malfoys much later than intended, slightly more drunk than he’d have liked, and thoughtful to the extreme. There was something in this whole story, as if some hook kept catching and slipping away again and again, impossible to grasp.

According to Lucius’s account, it went like this. The thing—it had the appearance of an old diary, but Severus, familiar with the Lord’s habits, immediately clarified:

‘Did he tell you what it was?’

To which he received the answer:

’He said, and I quote: ‘An old experiment of mine, essentially—a trinket.‘’

And since with such a description the ‘diary’ could be absolutely anything, including but not limited to a weapon of mass destruction, Severus decided to call it ‘the thing’ in his mind to avoid bias in his reasoning. So then, the thing had been handed to Dobby for this unconventionally-thinking house-elf to hide it, another quote: ’Somewhere no one would ever think to look.’

Snape knew a couple of purely Muggle words that described such a course of action with perfect accuracy. Putting it more delicately, Dobby’s inventiveness had taken after his master, that was for sure.

The aforementioned house-elf had carried out the order very diligently, but exactly to the extent of his understanding. He’d transported himself to a Muggle bookshop somewhere in the outskirts of London, found a group of externally similar objects there, and hidden the thing among them. By what principle exactly London and exactly this shop had been chosen, Dobby hadn’t been able to explain. When asked to return the thing—nothing came of it, because it had disappeared from there.

Lucius, learning of such a mishap, had arrived on the scene personally and interrogated the shopkeeper with all thoroughness. Alas, he couldn’t say anything useful—he’d seen neither the thing’s appearance nor its disappearance. It was a complete, dead end.

Since that very time, that is for over a month now, Lucius had been trying to come across any traces of the thing, using both search spells and more elaborate methods, up to and including advertisements in Muggle newspapers, but had achieved no success so far.

‘It’ll surface, one way or another,’ was all Severus could console him with after hearing Lucius’s sad tale. ‘I’ll never believe that an artefact made by him could simply disappear forever in such a stupid way. I don’t even rule out that some magic built into this contraption worked.’ And he really did think so, so it remained only to wait—but the trouble was, it was unknown how much time was allotted for waiting, so Malfoy’s nervousness was quite understandable.

In such thoughts Severus arrived at the Leaky Cauldron—by Floo, for variety. The establishment, which couldn’t boast abundant clientele on a weekday and at a relatively early hour—it was about six in the evening—was completely deserted. ‘Fortunate,’ Snape told himself and went straight to the bar.

The pub’s proprietor, when asked about the child staying with him, provided a surprise—he went into complete denial and declared he’d never seen any Potter in his life, especially not in his establishment. He had to resort to a session of forced mind-reading—a procedure that provided little pleasure to either participant—and then clean the old fool’s memory as well. Because of all this, and also because he was performing such mental gymnastics while not entirely sober, Severus earned a real migraine. Therefore, when he climbed the creaky stairs to the pub’s second floor where the guests’ rooms were located, the desire to tear the runaway boy to pieces almost prevailed, despite the absolutely unacceptable side effect of such a recipe of actions, that is, guaranteed death from violating an inviolable vow.

Severus staged his appearance dramatically. He kicked the door open and roared: ‘Potter!’ in the signature terrifying manner of the Terror of the Dungeons. The little wretch, who’d been lounging on the bed surrounded by a heap of books, was properly impressed—he cried out, jumped up, tripped over his own ankle, fell on all fours and finally rolled off the bed right under Severus’s feet.

‘Professor Snape,’ he babbled, getting up and taking another step forward by inertia, ’what are you doing he—’

But the end of the phrase escaped Severus, since the boy’s hand suddenly darted forward like a snake, and Severus’s skin was touched by the weightless, caressing mist of particles sprayed in the air. Snape hastily held his breath, but either it was too late, or the substance worked on contact—in short, it didn’t help.

‘Poisoned,’ Severus thought sadly. ‘What a humiliation.’

Then his thoughts became completely muddled, and everything sank into darkness.

Chapter Text

Travelling with Tom on public transport turned out to be a confusing experience. It was hard to believe that no one except Harry could see him. He looked completely real, alive, solid—only if you looked more carefully could you notice details that destroyed this picture.

A strange blurriness around the edges, as if Harry were looking at him through fogged glass. The absence of a shadow.

All the way Harry kept stealing glances at Tom. He seemed to experience no agitation about what had happened. He calmly, attentively studied the surrounding situation; one could only guess whether he was comparing what met his eyes with the city’s appearance fifty years ago, or was absorbed in some thoughts of his own. The forced silence—Harry couldn’t talk to an invisible companion without attracting the attention of those around him—only intensified this mystique.

At the Leaky Cauldron Harry barely forced himself to exchange a couple of meaningless polite phrases with the proprietor when crossing the pub’s common room. He practically ran up the stairs to his room on the second floor, and only then caught his breath. Finally, finally they were alone together again.

‘Did you know that would happen?’ he blurted out, barely entering. Tom walked past him to the fireplace, briefly surveying the room, then turned around. A closed, unreadable expression lay like a mask on his face. Yes, Harry couldn’t know what Tom was thinking, but he didn’t much like the result of his own journey reflections.

‘Did you know in advance or not?’ he repeated. ’Tell me!’

These last words, into which Harry had put all his spiritual turmoil, sounded strange—somehow unexpectedly commanding and deep, as if they’d echoed off the walls with heavy reverberations. Tom tilted his head to one side, and a mocking smile curved the corners of his mouth.

‘No,’ he answered with unexpected patience. ‘I supposed the possibility, but didn’t know in advance. Culpa lata, if you’re interested in legal qualification.’

‘Is that true? You’re not lying to me?’ Harry persisted, still not convinced. He himself didn’t know what was tormenting him so—the old woman was nothing, less than nothing, and honestly she’d fully deserved her fate, but... they hadn’t intended to kill her—Harry at least definitely hadn’t intended to—and now he felt as if Tom had violated some unspoken agreement. Which, if you thought about it, hadn’t existed at all, but again...

Tom’s mocking calm evaporated in an instant.

‘Listen to me carefully,’ he said with quiet fury in his voice, and Harry was pierced by a shiver from the sensation of some monstrous wrongness, ‘because I’ll say this once and won’t repeat it again.’

His smile resembled broken glass. The room seemed to darken.

‘I, Tom Marvolo Riddle, by the torn-to-shreds soul of mine, by the long-departed breath of my lips, and by the magical power I have stolen, do swear that I have never told you a single lie, Harry James Potter, and I never will. And let magic be my witness in this.’

Harry stared at Tom in horror; his tongue was paralysed.

‘I don’t tolerate lies, boy,’ Tom added coldly. ’And I don’t lie myself. Lies are what weak minds resort to. From our very first meeting I’ve told you only the truth.’

Harry nearly burst into tears. He hadn’t intended to drive things to such a point, he didn’t want to...

‘Forgive me! Tom! Forgive me, forgive me—I don’t know what came over me, I... I just...’ he couldn’t find the words. All this was a complete nightmare. How could he have doubted Tom? He didn’t doubt Tom, no, not for anything, after all this was—Tom. Tears flowed from under his glasses after all, and he covered his face with his hands.

‘I didn’t want to...’ he mumbled; sobs were choking him.

‘I think I understand,’ Tom said quite close, and that anger, that black searing ice could no longer be felt in his voice. Harry, trembling all over, cautiously took his hands from his face. His fogged glasses wouldn’t let him make out anything. He pulled them off and fumbled in his pockets, looking for a handkerchief. His nose was running.

‘You’ve been surrounded by nothing but liars all your life, and you’re too used to it,’ Tom continued.

His outburst had passed like a thunderstorm flying by, leaving behind only Harry’s wet face, which he was now clumsily wiping with his handkerchief, along with his glasses. When he put them on again and habitually raised his head, he saw Tom’s face turned toward him. From his height Tom looked thoughtfully at Harry, his brown eyes seeming dark and deep, like peat pools.

‘You constantly doubt. But I’m not like all of them,’ Tom lowered his voice almost to a whisper, and Harry exhaled in agreement. No one had ever known him as well as Tom. No one was closer to him. Tom was his Friend, always with him, inseparably. He was his Secret. His elder brother.

‘And don’t you lie to me either,’ at these words Tom grinned, and his grin looked frighteningly toothy. ’Otherwise you won’t like the consequences.’

Harry nodded convulsively. He usually told lies as naturally as he breathed, that couldn’t be denied, but not to Tom, surely. That would be... simply wrong, that’s all. Such a thing would never occur to him.

‘Now wash up, for Salazar’s sake. You look disgusting,’ Tom concluded matter-of-factly, turned away and, as if nothing had happened, stepped toward the table where stacks of books lay and Hole’s cage stood.

‘Tom,’ Harry called to him; his voice still broke slightly. ‘Tom!’

He glanced back, raising an eyebrow in a silent question. Harry approached him, timidly extending his hand.

‘I... still can’t touch you?’ he asked, desperately embarrassed but burning with unbearable need. Never in his life had he wanted anyone’s embrace; he wasn’t even sure if anyone had ever hugged him at all, even in early childhood—he didn’t remember this, and before Tom it hadn’t felt like something he’d missed out on. But now everything had changed.

Instead of answering, Tom extended his own hand toward Harry’s palm.

And their fingers passed right through each other.

‘How is this?...’ Harry was confused. He hadn’t expected this. ‘But how did you hold my wand then? And open the door, and...’

‘Like a poltergeist. We have one at Hogwarts, you’ll see him soon,’ Tom smiled palely. ’Up until today I existed in the most pitiful state, less than even a ghost—and now, look here, I’m fit to compete with a lowly mischievous spirit. A delightful career, don’t you agree?’

He turned back to the table again and began sorting through books, looking through titles. Harry only sighed bitterly and went to carry out the earlier given advice—washing up indeed wouldn’t hurt him. Having finished with this, he joined Tom, who had already opened Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century and was leafing through it at a speed that, as Harry sincerely hoped, didn’t mean reading—otherwise he was doomed to die on the spot from the blackest envy.

‘Occupy yourself with something,’ Tom said distantly. He looked up from the book, surveyed the table with a scattered glance and pulled toward himself a clean sheet of parchment and a quill. The construction Harry had built for his convenience made him raise his eyebrows. ‘Just give me something to write with first. Something normal, not this.’ Harry obediently pulled a freshly sharpened quill from Trunk.

Having fed Hole—the rat looked quite healthy, apparently multiple stunning hadn’t caused her any harm—Harry also took up reading. Since there was only one chair in the room, he kicked off his shoes and settled on the bed, leaning his back against the headboard and bending his knees. The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts turned out to be even more interesting than he’d thought, despite the author’s obvious bias, but gradually he began turning pages slower and slower. Finally, the open book fell softly from his hands. Harry sank into sleep.

He was in the air-raid shelter again. This time at least the light was on—dim, flickering, casting strange ugly shadows. People sat on cots arranged in long rows—singly, in pairs, whole families with small children. Opposite him Martha hunched. Her eyes were like those of a dead fish, and she stared with them right into his face, but it seemed she didn’t see him, but looked somewhere deep inside herself, finding something frightening there. Overhead, far above, cannonading could be heard—boom, boom, boom—a distant rumbling roar, and suddenly—it crashed so that everything around shook: the floor, cots, walls, people—and it started hammering—crack! crack! crack! crack! The light began flickering. Lime crumbled from the vaults. Unable to bear another minute of this hell, he lay down on his side on the cot and covered his head with a pillow.

‘I won’t die. I won’t die. I don’t want to die. I don’t...’

Harry opened his eyes.

Someone had removed his glasses from his nose—and thank Merlin, since sleeping in glasses was actually just dreadful. Someone had also wrapped him in the bedspread—you could say not so much ‘wrapped’ as ‘swaddled,’ turning him into something between a mummy and a caterpillar in a cocoon. The combination of care and mockery would have unmistakably suggested to Harry who this someone was—if only Harry hadn’t known anyway.

‘Salazar save us all, and this is your heir,’ the ‘someone’ commented lovingly from the direction of the headboard, obviously enjoying how Harry writhed, untangling himself from the bedspread, which proved more difficult than one might have thought. ’Get up and make yourself presentable. I need more books.’

The glasses were found on the windowsill. The book Harry had been reading before falling asleep had disappeared, but looking around, Harry discovered it on the table, in a pile of others, bookmarked in several places with narrow strips of parchment. While Harry slept, Tom had evidently not wasted time—two other history books had also acquired bookmarks, and the written sheets of parchment now represented a stack a quarter of an inch thick. It seemed that speed did mean reading after all. Harry remembered his early hypotheses—mutant with superintelligence or computer—and wrinkled his nose. Mutant and computer, undoubtedly.

Having gathered himself under Tom’s mocking commentary—he promised to help Harry learn some household charms from the manual Between Us Witches—Harry went downstairs, once again exchanged bows with the barman and hurried on a raid to the bookshop. Tom strode ahead, Trunk trotted behind, and altogether this really did remind Harry of some armed detachment or a nobleman’s retinue. They passed through the enchanted archway—Harry had long since learned to go through it himself, there really was nothing difficult about it at all—and emerged onto the cobblestones of Diagon Alley.

‘Nothing has changed here at all,’ Tom remarked in a strange tone, and Harry pricked up his ears, but no further commentary followed.

They purposefully stormed into Flourish & Blotts, grabbed another couple of dozen volumes on history—rather, Harry grabbed them while Tom indicated which to take—and several others that Harry had been eyeing earlier but had decided to postpone purchasing. Trunk accepted its new burden, and all three headed back to the Leaky Cauldron.

There Harry unloaded what already resembled a small library onto the table and left Tom to study the haul, whilst he himself went downstairs in search of some sort of sustenance. Having swallowed an unappetising lunch that corresponded more in time to either afternoon tea or early dinner, he returned to his room. Tom seemed not to have noticed his brief absence at all, and Harry made a mental note—to study how far he could move away from his diary without feeling discomfort. However, even if he forgot, Tom would surely be interested in this question too.

Harry smoothed out the crumpled bedspread, witness to his recent shame, dragged The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi—actually this was a textbook, but it looked terribly tempting—as well as everything else he wanted to at least glance through today onto the bed, and settled comfortably in this book nest, anticipating a good evening. But he wasn’t allowed to read for long.

Heavy footsteps creaked along the corridor. Harry paid them no attention—he wasn’t the only guest, someone was constantly walking about outside the door, even in the depths of night; but these particular footsteps stopped opposite his door, followed by a powerful blow that tore the latch bodily from the doorframe. In the doorway rose a figure in a billowing black cloak. It reeked of alcohol. The room filled with a low, velvety, bloodthirsty roar—this is how a panther would speak, if it possessed a human voice:

’Pooooottterrrrr!’

This sudden apparition caught Harry off guard; to his shame, from fright and surprise he cried out.

Only having already jumped to his feet did he recognise with amazement in the uninvited guest the hook-nosed professor—what was it he taught again? potions, it seemed... hmm, and his distillation cube was clearly not idle—with whom they’d immediately quarrelled when he’d arrived to give Harry the key to the bank vault. This unexpected discovery floored him, in direct sense—the mattress sprang, one of Harry’s legs caught on the other, he crashed onto all fours and tumbled off the bed.

His wand fell from his sleeve. No, didn’t fall—it was pulled out; following it with his gaze, Harry saw it glide across the rush-strewn floor toward Tom, who stood with a concentrated face by the fireplace.

‘Knock him out with the potion,’ Tom commanded loudly and clearly, dropping to one knee. His fingers touched the wand’s handle.

Probably Harry should have asked ‘what?’ or ‘why?’—but everything happened so suddenly that he simply obeyed. The potion still lay in the left pocket of his trousers. He rose, genuinely swaying—the fall had been quite hard—stepped forward, as if trying to recover his balance, whilst at the same time slipping his hand into his pocket, feeling for the vial.

‘He’s drunk, apparently, that’s good,’ Harry thought so quickly and so coolly that he would have been surprised at himself, but there was no time for surprise. ‘If only I could distract him with something. I could try to talk him round. Yes, exactly, and his name was...’

‘Professor Snape!’ Harry bleated, employing all his acting talent. His forearm tensed in readiness, his fingers clenched around the rubber bulb. ‘What are you doing here?’

And on the word ‘doing’ he whipped out the vial and sprayed the Confusing Draught right into the face of the man who would be his teacher for the next seven years. But there was no time to be horrified by this deed either. Harry leapt back to the window. The professor crossed his eyes to his nose, sadly twisted his mouth and began to sway.

Tom, with Harry’s wand in his hand, went round behind him and slammed the door shut.

‘Stand there. Wait. Silently,’ he instructed tersely and turned to the professor, pointing the wand at his face. ‘Obliviate!’

A whole eternity passed—in reality, probably several minutes, but they seemed incredibly long to Harry. Then the wand lowered. Snape straightened, his face smoothed and acquired a calm, even somehow peaceful expression. He turned around, no longer swaying, and walked out. The door opened and closed again behind him, its latch hanging on a single nail, making a pitiful clinking sound. Tom traced something quick and casual with the wand tip.

‘Reparo!’ he said, and the latch fell into place—good as new.

‘That’s all,’ Tom spun the wand in his fingers and smiled unexpectedly. ‘It’s all over, Harry, unfreeze, it’s safe now.’

‘You wiped his memory!’ Harry guessed. ‘Blimey, that’s clever. And, er... how far back?’

‘Correct,’ Tom agreed, still playing with the wand; it seemed to give him pleasure simply to touch it. ‘I wiped everything up to the moment when he gave you the key. He won’t remember that he brought you here, and his visit today—either. Fortunate that he seems to have already lied to someone that that’s how it was. But I didn’t go deeper and work out what was what there. He’ll have a gap in his memory anyway, and if it comes out too long—anyone would be suspicious, let alone an experienced mind mage. And this man is just that. His Occlumency barriers are impressive—I could barely get through them, even with the potion.’

‘And if it hadn’t worked?’ Harry asked in horror, having only just managed to rejoice at the thought that attacking a teacher wouldn’t become his calling card at Hogwarts.

Tom favoured him with a condescending look:

‘But it had.’

‘Well yes, after all you’re Salazar’s heir, and it would be strange to expect less of you,’ Harry couldn’t resist the sarcasm. He vengefully used the exact same argument that Tom had used when teaching Harry the Stupefy spell. Tom saluted him with the wand.

‘Exactly,’ he seemed not to notice the irony at all; or perhaps—preferred to ignore it. Harry sighed.

‘The wand,’ he requested, extending his hand. ‘Please, give it back. Actually, I wouldn’t mind doing something about this. You should have your own—is that possible?’

Tom returned the wand to him with some reluctance, as it seemed to Harry, but without objections—as before, handle first.

‘I’m working on it,’ he answered vaguely. ‘In general—yes, it’s possible.’

‘Interesting,’ Harry mused, putting the wand up his sleeve. ‘And when you’re invisible—will it be visible? What a strange sight that must be.’

‘It won’t be,’ Tom shook his head. ‘The principle of unity of parts and whole operates here. Animagi, for instance. Their clothing and wand remain with them, just as worn amulets do—all of this transforms as a whole when transitioning to animal form, and transforms back in exactly the same way. It would be amusing if they had to disentangle their heads from sleeves or, worse still, changing torn trousers every single time. Not to mention the wand—they’d probably carry it in their teeth, claws and beaks then.’

Harry giggled.

‘But fortunately, nothing of the sort happens. My wand will be visible or invisible together with me, as long as I’m holding it in my hands.’

Harry thought. Tom walked about the room, straightened his mantle and sat down at the table again. Guessing that he would now dive into another book, Harry asked:

‘So we need to buy you a wand?’

‘No,’ Tom replied without raising his head; he was sorting through his notes. ‘I already have a wand. And I even have an idea where to look for it now.’

‘But the other you—isn’t it with him?’ Harry was confused, but then understood. ‘Oh. The other you is dead. You know this for certain now, don’t you?’

‘Exactly right,’ Tom looked up at him. ‘I don’t know what to feel about it, but now I’m completely certain.’

‘Found it in one of these books?’ Harry was surprised, but not greatly. Tom should have grown up to be a powerful wizard.

‘One day,’ Harry decided conceitedly, ‘my name will be in a book too.’ Then he remembered that it already was. Even in more than one. The thought wasn’t terribly cheerful—he wanted real fame, the fame of an unsurpassed spellcaster, not... this.

‘Cool,’ he smiled, driving away sad thoughts, ‘show me later which one.’

‘Language,’ Tom frowned. Harry rolled his eyes in suffering.

‘Yes, yes, I know. Sorry. By Salazar’s name, show me later where you found him! Will that do?’

‘Quite,’ Tom smiled back at him. ‘Yes, Harry. I’ll certainly show you.’

Satisfied with this answer, Harry returned to his books.

They sat up late. When dusk thickened, Harry was about to light a candle, but Tom snorted—and showed him the ‘lumos’ spell. First the simple version, which lit a light at the wand tip, then—the enhanced one, where instead of a light there was a whole searchlight, and finally—variations creating coloured lights and many freely floating orbs of light dancing in the air like fireflies. By their magical radiance they peacefully read until midnight struck—a dull, measured chiming had reached them from time to time from the direction of the window before, and Harry had involuntarily wondered where it came from—surely not a church lurking somewhere here. ‘Those are the clocks on Gringotts,’ Tom explained, looking up from his studies for a second.

It was surprisingly pleasant to be near him. When the only means of communication had been writing in the diary, Harry simply couldn’t stop, and they would talk and talk, for hours. Now the need for words seemed to have disappeared—not completely, of course, but Harry no longer needed to chatter with Tom; his presence alone seemed enough.

But the midnight chiming gave Harry a new thought.

‘It’s my birthday,’ he said, setting aside Ghost Animals of Britain and stretching with relish. ‘It’s just begun.’

Tom propped his head on his hand.

‘Happy birthday?’ he suggested. ‘I don’t know what one’s supposed to do. They didn’t celebrate them at the orphanage. Besides, mine’s New Year’s Eve, so it gets lost in all the other celebrations.’

‘I know,’ Harry pulled his knees to his chest and hugged them. ‘But I’ve never celebrated either. My Muggles... I don’t even want to tell you about it.’

‘Don’t continue—I understand,’ Tom shook his head. The curling strand of hair, as always, fell over his forehead, eyes glinted from beneath it, and now, sitting at the table surrounded by books in the scattered dim light that stole shadows, he looked alive, so alive—and it was so hurtful to know this wasn’t true.

‘But I’d like to try,’ Harry rested his chin on his knees and sighed.

‘As you wish,’ Tom agreed easily. ’What do you want to do?’

Harry didn’t think long.

‘Visit the house where I was born. And where I lived when I was very small,’ he announced decisively. ‘I don’t remember anything at all, but there was a time once... I don’t love my parents, you know. You’re supposed to love them, but I’m too angry. And I never knew them at all, and still don’t. Anyway... I think I don’t understand myself what I want to say,’ he finished confusedly.

‘The house in Godric’s Hollow? Why not,’ Tom sat up straighter and interlaced the fingers of both hands under his chin. ‘An excellent idea. To speak frankly, I’d be interested to look at it. After all, it’s a historic place.’

Harry groaned angrily:

‘Don’t you start!’

‘I’m sure you have a monument there too,’ Tom teased. ‘Very well. Shall we go there in the morning?’

Harry glanced at the window. The moon, still almost full but already waning at the edge, crept over the rooftops of Diagon Alley, and in the sky, not bleached by Muggle lights, stars sparkled like bright sharp sparks.

‘I want to go now. Right now. May I?’

‘Are you asking my permission?’ Tom seemed almost surprised. Harry thought this flattered him.

‘You were a prefect at Hogwarts,’ he teased in return. ‘And anyway, you’re older.’

‘Gratifying that you still remember that,’ Tom said sarcastically, rising. ‘But we’re not at Hogwarts yet. If you’ve decided—don’t delay. Will you travel by Floo?’

Inspired, Harry got up from the bed, put on his shoes and took his cloak from the nail hammered into the wall.

‘How else? I don’t know how to Apparate yet. Or do you have strength enough for two?’

Tom shook his head and smirked:

’Not the slightest desire to test it. The result could be... minced-like.

The innkeeper, who was passing the time by doing a crossword, watched as latecomers nursed their pints and helped themselves to free peanuts. He raised his gaze to Harry.

‘Sir?’ he was surprised.

‘Sir! Don’t you know if there’s a public fireplace in Godric’s Hollow?’

There was a fireplace—also in a drinking establishment. Harry, using such transport for the first time, was nervous, but Tom (his Tom, not the barman, damn these identical names) prompted him how to act There was a fireplace—also in a drinking establishment. Harry, using such transport for the first time, was nervous, but Tom (his Tom, not the barman, damn these identical names) prompted him how to act:

‘There’s the Floo powder in the pot. Scoop up a pinch. No, that’s too little. Now that’s enough. You throw it in the fire and say the fireplace address aloud. Speak clearly and distinctly, or it’ll dump you Merlin knows where. Go!’

‘The Star and Hops!’ Harry said as clearly and distinctly as he could, stepping into the green flames that had leapt high. He was whirled, spun, as if on a maddened carousel. Fireplace grates flashed past, flashes of green swirled from all sides like a blizzard whirlwind, but not cold, not hot—nothing at all. And suddenly he was ejected head-first through one of the grates and landed on the floor, hitting his knees painfully and covered all over with soot. A second later Tom appeared beside him too—in perfect order, as far as Harry could judge by his appearance. Harry clumsily got up, dusting himself off, and looked around.

The pub on this side turned out to be quite tiny, only four tables—whitewashed walls, a red wood bar, a blackened plank ceiling and wrought-iron decorations on the walls. One could feel the establishment was purely for locals.

He quickly greeted the innkeeper, a blonde stout witch in a dark blue mantle, and went out, followed by the gazes of the patrons—all four tables were occupied, at one they were playing cards, at the others drinking beer and eating something like very thick soup.

Primeval darkness reigned in the street—not a single lamp, only the same moon shining from the sky. A long double row of houses with pointed roofs and tall chimney stacks stretched as far as the eye could see—the settlement turned out to be larger than Harry had thought. He walked slowly forward, looking about constantly, then finally got out his wand and managed to light lumos on the third try—he could be proud of himself, now he knew a whole two spells. Three, if you counted Finite. Much more to come.

His wanderings were brief. Harry froze before a sagging gate. The hedge had grown out of control—what would Aunt Petunia say when she saw such a disgraceful sight?—and had completely lost its shape. The grass on the former lawn had grown waist-high. Ivy, like a shaggy dark carpet, covered the cracked walls. Nature was imperiously claiming its rights here—the house looked wild, grim, abandoned—which it was, essentially. Above Harry’s head, brushing his hair with its wing, a bat flashed by. Somewhere in the darkness an owl hooted with laughter, another answered with its thoughtful ‘hoo-hoo.’

‘Yes,’ said Harry, having seen enough. ’Quite a monument. I rather like it.’

Tom whistled grimly behind him.

Instead of half the second floor gaped a hole. No, not even a hole—a huge gaping chasm, as if from a direct hit by an artillery shell. The roof had partially collapsed—apparently the snows and rains that had penetrated inside hadn’t been merciful to the beams and rafters. Windows gaped with the absence of glass. The door was blackened with rot.

However, a memorial plaque with a copper lustre gleamed on the entrance gate, which was grey with wood mould and flakes of peeled paint. Harry lowered his eyes and read what was written there.

‘On this spot, on the night of 31st October, 1981, Lily and James Potter gave their lives. Their son, Harry, remains the only wizard to have survived the Killing Curse. This house, invisible to Muggles, has been left in its ruined state as a monument to the Potters and as a reminder of the violence that tore their family apart.’

The edges of the plaque and all the space under the inscription were covered with graffiti.

‘Long live Harry Potter’

‘If you’re reading this, Harry, we all support you!’

‘Good luck, Harry, wherever you are’

‘Thank you, Harry!’

‘I love Harry Potter’

’Let Mordred love you, bloody morons! Tom, how do you say ‘shove such love up your arse’ in a non-Muggle way?’

’You can put it just like that. That body part is the same for Muggles and wizards.’

The path had grown over and long since merged with the lawn, its presence betrayed only by the crunch of gravel hiding in the tufts of grass. When Harry reached the porch, his shoes were completely wet from the night dew, which did nothing to improve his mood.

The door, swollen from countless rains, didn’t want to give, but finally opened with a strained nasty creak—not completely, about a quarter of the way, but Harry was thin, and it was enough for him to slip through into the hall. Inside the picture was even more depressing—a mildewed ceiling, peeling, darkened wallpaper. Half-collapsed furniture lurked in one corner, while elsewhere it remained intact. Every cupboard resembled a coffin, every little table—a tombstone.

‘The bedrooms should be upstairs,’ Tom remarked, turning his head. His hands were idly shoved in his mantle pockets, like a visitor in a museum.

Harry followed him, carefully stepping on the warped stairs. The staircase groaned and shook as if about to collapse right under his feet, but he still managed to reach the second floor safely. The door to the room without a ceiling was open. The starry sky sparkling overhead made it somewhat fairytale-like, though actually it was horrific. This was a nursery.

Almost nothing had survived here—fragments, scraps, complete mess. Only by the far wall stood a little cot—half the bars in its high railing were missing, but still, undoubtedly, this was it. Above the cot on the wall hung an alphabet, once probably cheerful and colourful. Harry didn’t remember it at all.

Neither it, nor the cot, nor the room—everything was unfamiliar, as if from someone else’s life. But it was his life. Harry felt... disappointed, probably. He couldn’t have said exactly himself.

Tom, who had followed him into the ruined nursery, for some reason circled around the cot, looked into corners, rummaged through debris on the floor—and suddenly, bending down, picked something up.

‘And here it is,’ he said; his voice sounded very strange.

‘Hm?’ Harry tore himself away from examining the cot.

‘Have you ever wondered,’ Tom asked, turning some thin long object in his fingers, ‘exactly how a wand chooses a wizard? There must be some affinity between its core and your magic. That’s precisely why conjuring with someone else’s wand is so exhaustingly difficult, sometimes even impossible—there’s no compatibility. But there are exceptions too.’

‘What are you getting at now?’ Harry didn’t understand. Tom was periodically seized by the desire to give him a spontaneous lecture, of course, but this time it was rather unexpected.

‘You’re still rather thick,’ Tom noted tenderly. ’I wasn’t wrong about that from the start. I’ve been waiting and waiting—for you to guess, but you’re still not even close, are you?’

Harry listened to him with growing amazement. Humiliation sessions were quite in Tom’s spirit too, but usually they were followed by explanations.

They followed now as well.

‘I,’ said Tom, ‘can use your wand. Easily, as if it were my own. What do you think that means?’

Harry pondered his previous words.

‘That there’s affinity... well, with magic. Hey, wait, that really is interesting!‘

Tom smirked—in the half-darkness his teeth gleamed wetly.

‘Really,’ he repeated, savouring every syllable. ‘What wand do you have, Harry? You must remember—it can’t be that Ollivander didn’t mention it.’

‘Holly and phoenix feather,’ Harry reported. ‘And yours?’

‘Yew. And phoenix feather. Come now, you’re so close. Still haven’t guessed? Very well. There are wands—this is rare, an exception rather than the rule, but still they exist—which are customarily called sisters. And what makes them so is the...’

‘Co... re...’ Harry mumbled slowly, as if in a dream. Something stirred in his memory, something he’d heard about these very cores. And there was something about phoenix feathers there too. In his brain a memory flashed—the bony finger of the white-eyed old man pressing into his forehead, right into his scar.

And suddenly he understood.

‘Ah,’ said Tom, who had been watching him attentively, ‘finally.’

That thing in his hands, this thin long object that he was so lovingly fingering, was a wand. Tom raised it and briefly traced glowing red letters in the air:

‘Tom Marvolo Riddle.’

And then the letters flickered and rearranged themselves in a new order:

‘Lord Voldemort.’

Chapter Text

Harry froze. He couldn’t move. His brain was experiencing some private version of a railway accident where a dozen carriages were folding into a space meant for only one. As if a faulty telephone line had suddenly switched on and several fax machines had begun spitting out paper simultaneously. As if a whole crowd of people, silent until now, had suddenly begun talking all at once, and he needed to listen to each one. All available resources of his consciousness were completely occupied processing new—actually, old—information.

God, Merlin, Tom had told him practically directly. And he’d even explained exactly how he’d chosen that name and why.

And worse still, after that Harry had composed his own silly-but-potentially-ominous anagram. He’d even complained to Tom that his name had letters for ‘Lord’ whilst Harry’s didn’t.

Harry remembered how he’d asked Tom to show him which book he’d found the name of his second, more adult version in, and nearly burst out laughing. It seemed now he knew, it seemed now he could show it himself—which one. Not just one, like Harry’s name.

The lumos had gone out at some point, and Harry hadn’t noticed when. The scarlet letters had faded too. They stood amidst the ruins, under the stars, in darkness. Wind rustled through ivy leaves, night birds cried in the distance.

‘The wand chooses the wizard,’ Ollivander had said. And Tom had just explained to Harry how it chose. Harry’s wand had chosen another wizard—and he hadn’t thought to ask why such a thing was even possible.

‘What an idiot I truly am,’ he voiced the conclusion of his reflections. ’But you know, I always felt it. Right from the very beginning, do you believe?’

In the surrounding gloom it wasn’t visible, but Harry got a distinct impression that Tom was surprised. He made a questioning sound.

‘You...’ Harry was embarrassed, but forced himself to finish, ’...you’re like my brother. Elder brother. If our magic is so similar, then in some sense that’s how it is, isn’t it?’

This seemed not to be the conclusion Tom had expected from him. He made a strange strangled sound, like laughter cut off before it could properly sound, stepped smoothly to one side and moved about the room, circling around Harry. Harry noticed he couldn’t hear his footsteps—no steps, no rustle of cloak, no sound of breathing; Tom glided in the darkness with the silence of a shadow.

‘Is this what you want to talk about?’ he asked with curiosity.

‘What else?’ Harry was surprised in turn.

‘For instance, about the fact that I killed your parents?’ Oh, Harry had an answer to that. This dilemma had been left so far behind that it didn’t even flicker in his metaphorical rear-view mirror.

‘Voldemort killed my parents,’ he said, emphasising the invented name with his intonation, ‘not you.‘

‘I am Voldemort!’ Tom protested.

‘Well, technically—yes,’ Harry argued, ‘but actually—no. How old are you, Tom?’

‘Sixteen,’ he answered in a voice that suggested serious doubts about Harry’s sanity.

‘And you, er... became a diary in nineteen forty-three,’ Harry continued developing his thought. He had to turn his head following Tom as he paced back and forth, and this was annoying. ‘My parents died in nineteen eighty-one. That’s four decades’ difference.’

Earlier Harry had somehow thought that Tom’s ‘other self,’ who had been in ‘mortal danger,’ had died—and Tom had indeed confirmed that he had died—then too, during the war, or shortly after. But it turned out everything had worked out quite differently.

‘He’s a grown man. Was. With his own separate life. And he’s not you at all.’

‘But your parents are still dead,’ Tom insisted with some unhealthy stubbornness. ‘Murdered.’

‘They were part of an organisation that was trying to kill him. You. It might have been self-defence altogether. Well, or, you know, mutual destruction, something like that,’ Harry had thought this through earlier, and from his point of view both sides were equally good here. After all, he’d shared these thoughts with Tom, surely he hadn’t forgotten? ’By the way, as you remember, no one really knows what actually happened then, there were no witnesses.’

Tom snorted, but didn’t continue arguing, switching to something else:

‘Granted. Frankly speaking, this wasn’t the reaction I expected, but overall I agree with you. I wouldn’t want you to decide that I’m eager to test whether the Killing Curse would actually bounce off you.’

‘Would it bounce off?’ Harry asked with interest.

‘No,’ Tom answered emphatically. ‘That’s categorically impossible. If I wanted to kill you—you’d be dead. There was no Killing Curse, I’d stake anything on it.’

‘You see,’ Harry shrugged. ‘I know you wish me no harm.’

And he meant every word he said. The thought that Tom would want to kill him seemed absurd.

‘Such confidence,’ Tom marvelled, stopping, and Harry could practically hear his toothy grin in the darkness. ‘I confess, it wasn’t always so. At first I really did consider what I might do with you—whether to drain your magic dry, or perhaps seize your body?’

Harry swallowed. Unexpected.

’And... how long did this ‘at first’ last?′ he asked. Tom approached closer and shook his head, his eyes glinting with reflected moonlight.

‘About... five minutes?’ he suggested cheerfully. ‘You came in with trumps, I must note. Learning that you were a Parselmouth, I became interested. It seemed promising.’

‘And then you realised you didn’t want to harm me,’ Harry rejoiced, raising his head. Tom’s silhouette, black against the blackness of the surrounding space, towered over him. Stars burned like a halo around his head.

‘Not at all,’ Tom objected, his tone of voice tender and condescending, ‘then I decided I’d subjugate your mind. Make you do whatever might occur to me—open Hogwarts’ Chamber of Secrets, for instance.’

‘But now,’ Harry insisted, losing confidence inwardly, ‘you don’t want that? To subjugate my mind?’

Because it sounded, honestly, very bad. And frightening.

‘Of course not,’ Tom assured him with a chuckle, taking another step forward. Now they stood almost close together, so close that Harry could make out the lights in his pupils. ‘Why would I now? You offered me so much more yourself. You shared your magic so generously that I had to restrain you, not allowing you to give too much. You voluntarily swore to resurrect me. You brought me a sacrifice—a human sacrifice. None of my knights served me as faithfully as you have. There’s no need whatsoever for a subjugation spell.’

This, Harry decided, was the most sinister explanation of friendship that human history had ever known. Mr Darcy with his love declarations paled in comparison.

‘Dark Lord, eh?’ he thought even with some admiration; Tom’s ability to create atmosphere with words alone was unprecedented.

He shivered with cold shoulders and waved his wand, lighting lumos again. The bright light made him squint painfully; Tom didn’t even flinch.

‘So anyway,’ Harry remembered, blinking at the magical light, ‘our magic—do you know why it’s so similar?’

Tom shook his head, his lips pursing thoughtfully.

‘I haven’t the slightest idea. There are cases when something similar happens, but none of them resembles ours.’

‘Oh?’ Harry adjusted his glasses in expectation of another lecture. ‘What cases?’

‘Magical twins, for instance. These are children born with one magic between them—they’re so physically similar that neither their own parents nor identification spells or blood-seeking can distinguish them. It also happens that wizards appear in the same family with a difference of several generations whose magic can master the same wand or personal artefact.’

‘So we might be related after all,’ Harry concluded. ‘I kept thinking about this when I learned about Parselmouths. That’s the explanation, isn’t it?’

‘Are you accusing your mother of marital infidelity?’ Tom raised his eyebrows. ‘Possibly... but I don’t think that’s it.’

‘What then?’ Harry didn’t quite understand the nature of Tom’s expressed doubts. Conceiving a child not by one’s husband—well yes, not very good, but adults did this more often than was conventionally acknowledged. And the timing worked out perfectly.

‘What if Voldemort didn’t know I was his son,’ a new theory came to Harry’s mind, straight from his aunt’s favourite novels, ‘and then he f-o-u-n-d out, and came here, but my parents didn’t want to give me up, and that’s when they killed each other!’

‘Speculation,’ he cut himself off, ‘no evidence, no proper facts either.’

‘You tell me,’ Tom shrugged. ‘A fresh perspective on the problem might be useful.’

‘The facts are these,’ Harry said thoughtfully, responding more to his thoughts than to him, ‘ten years ago three adult wizards and one child met in this house. Everyone except the child ended up dead. What else happened here that night, exactly how and why—not one living soul knows.’

‘But I intend to find out,’ Tom said ominously. ‘Let’s get out of here, your teeth are already chattering. Or do you intend to admire it some more?’

‘Nothing to admire here,’ Harry grumbled, ‘stupid idea it was. At least you came for the wand, but I—don’t even know why. By the way,’ he added, ‘if I hadn’t dragged you here myself, how would you have managed?’

‘I assure you, I had some ideas in reserve,’ Tom also lit lumos, and by the light of two pale blue flames they went out the door and began descending the rickety staircase.

‘Slippery as an eel,’ Harry complained, ‘don’t want to answer—just say so.’

‘I’m not an eel!’ Tom’s answer could have filled a small pool with disdain.

‘Yes, sorry. A basilisk, at minimum,’ Harry, crushing debris lying on the floor, made his way to the front door, stuck fast in a partially open position. ‘Tom! Is it possible... if ghosts exist, does that mean there’s a possibility of summoning the souls of the dead?’

‘Want to talk to your parents?’ he guessed.

‘Well—yes? They should know what happened, shouldn’t they?’ Harry closed the creaking gate, glancing irritably at the plaque covered with vandals’ graffiti.

The moon, now moved to zenith, shone brighter, and the overgrown privet bushes seemed bathed in silver. Dew glimmered on the tall grass, black as coal shadows lay in patches everywhere.

‘Well, such a possibility does indeed exist,’ Tom stepped onto the darkening road. Moonlight played on his hair. ‘But it’s not that simple. Necromancy is a secret, forbidden and unnatural art...‘

‘...and therefore I’ve studied it thoroughly?’ Harry prompted. He again had to walk much faster than was comfortable, hurrying to keep up with Tom’s long strides.

‘No,’ Tom snorted, but one could feel the assumption flattered him.

‘Why not?’ Harry was even a little disappointed. Somehow he’d got used to Tom knowing absolutely everything.

‘There were other tasks enough. However, it’s not too late to catch up. But returning to methods, there’s one amusing legend...’

To the retelling of the story of the three brothers and the Deathly Hallows they almost reached the Star and Hops. Harry very much liked the fairy tale—both in itself and for its potential.

‘Tom! There it is,’ he exclaimed, nearly jumping with excitement, ‘the Resurrection Stone! Isn’t that exactly what we need?... I mean, you say that girl, the middle brother’s bride, was sad, pining, and all the rest—but you, you’re nothing like her at all! You didn’t go beyond any veil, why would it pull you there? For you the stone might work. It should work!’

Tom rubbed his chin with his hand and looked at Harry thoughtfully.

‘It’s only a legend,’ he noted coolly. ‘A children’s fairy tale, if you will.’

‘The Chamber of Secrets was also considered a fairy tale!’ Harry didn’t give up. ’But you found it!’

Here he had to fall silent because they’d arrived. The pub was still open, but inside only the card-playing company remained. The yawning witch behind the bar silently nodded when Harry handed her two Knuts for Floo powder. He already much more boldly than before scooped up the grey, slightly sparkling powder and commanded:

’The Leaky Cauldron!’

The common room, empty and shrouded in shadows, met them with silence. The barman had long gone to sleep. Benches and chairs pushed close to tables looked unusually tidy; their wood gleamed in the firelight. A mouse ran across the rushes covering the floor. One could feel the hour was very late, and when they went up to their room, Harry was drawn to sleep with irresistible force. He barely managed to wash. Tom, who had again settled with a book by the table, didn’t even raise his head whilst he bustled about, collecting books from the bed. The last thing Harry saw before falling into slumber was his quiet, dark figure framed by tiny flying lights summoned by magic.

In his sleep he walked through Hogwarts corridors. Darkness sparingly diluted by the light of enchanted oil lamps embraced him comfortably, like his own skin. Stone slabs passed beneath his feet with barely audible rustling, his cloak rustled, stirring slightly in the habitual, inevitable draught, the sound of his breathing echoed vibratingly from vaults and walls. He smiled—night was his time, these corridors his kingdom, and the weight of the badge on his right lapel, unnoticeable but at the same time so tangible, only emphasised his right to this power. Quiet. Gloomy. Deserted. No one sees anything. No one will interfere. If they catch him here—an extremely unlikely situation, but what if—he’ll say that...

Something tickled his nose. Harry sneezed and opened his eyes.

A sunbeam that had broken through the window glazed with small squares crept across his face, warm and bright as summer itself. Weightless dust motes floated in the beam, and this was so similar—and simultaneously not at all—to their circling in the light of the dim torch illuminating the cupboard under the stairs. Harry sat up in bed and stretched.

‘What did you dream about?’ Tom asked with interest, raising his head from his book. Harry was first indignant that he seemed not to have gone to bed at all—and only then remembered with horror and regret that Tom didn’t need to. He couldn’t sleep even if he wanted to, even if he felt such a need. ‘You were laughing in your sleep.’

‘Don’t remember?’ Harry rubbed his face with his hands and looked for his glasses. They were found under the pillow, next to the diary. ’Must have been something good, if I was laughing. In any case, I’m in a truly excellent mood.’

The excellent mood didn’t last long, alas.

After breakfast—milk and scrambled eggs again, but Harry wasn’t thinking of complaining—he returned to his room and recreated yesterday’s book paradise on the bed. Ghost Animals of Britain had ended almost too quickly, and now he lovingly sorted through the rest of his treasures, feeling like a dragon on a pile of gold coins. So many books—and all his own. They didn’t need to be returned to a library, didn’t need to be finished by a certain deadline—he could read them in any order, return to them again and again at will. No one could take them from him, tear them, soil them, hide them, throw them away. There was no one who would command him to go hoover or peel potatoes. Harry was in a state close to complete bliss, and it was in this state that he reached for the volume Natural Nobility. Genealogy of Wizarding Families—an elegant edition in pale green morocco binding decorated with gold embossing.

To someone else this reading might have seemed boring, but Harry felt in it the possibility of satisfying his still unabated need to find roots, to fill that emptiness felt in place of his connection to magical kin. Who were they, these people standing on each other’s shoulders in a pyramid of generations crowned by his own shaggy and bespectacled person? How did they love, befriend, fight, feud, where did they live and where did they travel? How had that thread stretched through the abyss of time, the thread of blood and magic that connected them all? He wanted to know everything, even about his father and mother who had so let him down—what life had they lived, where had they stumbled so terribly that they’d destroyed themselves whilst young?

Unlike the Sacred Twenty-Eight, which ended in the mid-fifties—possibly more recent editions existed, but this is what Harry had got—Natural Nobility embraced the period right up to the early eighties, and at first this seemed quite convenient to Harry. However, some two hundred pages later, his rosy mood evaporated without trace. The further he read, the worse it got—and then he came across something that made him instantly understand the meaning of the phrase ‘his hair stood on end.’

‘Salazar preserve us,’ said Harry, staring unseeing at the wall before him and slowly, faintly turning pale.

The tone of this exclamation was apparently such that it left no doubt—something very bad had happened. In any case, Tom, who had been leafing through some tome as thick as a fist whilst thoughtfully tapping his chin with the tip of his quill, immediately set aside both quill and book and stared at him, raising his eyebrows questioningly.

‘How difficult do you think it would be to flee to the continent?’ Harry asked him. ‘Oh wait, no, that won’t do. She’d reach me through the Malfoys. Merlin, Tom, I’m a dead man.’

‘I’m sure you’re being dramatic,’ Tom chuckled, but Harry hotly objected:

’Not at all! You remember the Blacks? Of course you remember the Blacks! Well then, how’s this: their main line has completely died out! Only my damned—well, sorry, never mind, don’t pull that face—only my second cousin once removed, Sirius, remains, and he, imagine, is currently languishing in Azkaban with no chance of getting out and somehow continuing the line. And somewhere through the wall from him sits auntie Bellatrix too—first cousin once removed, but that doesn’t matter—but the other two, Narcissa and Andromeda, are quite free, and do you know what they’ll do to me?’

Tom, chuckling, shook his head. He didn’t look particularly impressed. Harry, getting worked up, continued:

‘Yes, that’s just it, I don’t know either, but you’re aware of their wonderful family’s reputation.’

‘Black madness was a byword even in my time,’ Tom agreed. ‘But why do you expect them to pounce on you with anything besides familial embraces?’

‘Did you not listen?!’ Harry was indignant, crossing his arms over his chest. ‘The line has died out! There are no Blacks left! Oh, Merlin’s beard, and I thought—well now, I’ll disappear into Britain’s largest magical family, no one will even notice! But it turns out I’d be more conspicuous than a middle finger sticking out of a fist, and the remnants of the Black family will certainly decide that this obscene gesture was directed personally at them. I’ve shown myself in Diagon Alley everywhere I possibly could. Malkin, the daft cow, has already recorded me as Alphard’s grandson—and he never had children at all. I’m an impostor, Tom! What a nightmare. What will happen when Lady Malfoy learns of this? She’ll personally come to disembowel whoever declared himself, essentially, the sole heir of the Black family!’

Tom shook his head. Now he too seemed to grasp the situation.

‘I didn’t know Narcissa, but Walburga is only a year older than me. When I moved to fifth year, she was already betrothed to Orion. And these are presumably their children? Let me read it.’

He leafed through Natural Nobility, occasionally humming. Harry nervously chewed his nails, watching him from the bed.

‘Yes, Fomalhaut Black,’ Tom concluded, snapping the book shut, ‘I really don’t envy you. I’m sure the rumours have already spread.’

‘Terrible,’ Harry looked at Tom with tears trembling in his eyes. ‘What am I to do? Perhaps I should buy a tent, run away and live in the forest? I can’t stay here, they’ll find me here! Track me down! Look, Snape already came.’

‘Snape won’t come again,’ Tom shook his head, ‘I guarantee that. And as for the tent... I’ve no desire to fall into such asceticism.’

‘Why not?’ Harry was surprised. ‘I’ll cook for myself, I can do that. And clean too, especially now I have a magic wand. I’ll definitely learn everything in a month, you’ll see!’

‘There are no books there,’ Tom said curtly.

The argument was compelling. Their proximity to the bookshop had spoiled them.

‘Moreover,’ Tom continued, and a slow, wild smile illuminated his face, ‘I know a better option. I’m not sure it will work, but it’s worth trying.’

‘Eh?’ Harry responded eloquently.

‘You see, you really are a Black—a quarter, through your grandmother Dorea. In an ordinary situation this would mean nothing, but since things stand as they are, it’s worth attempting. Besides, the benefits are wonderfully great...’ Tom rubbed his chin, his face taking on a calculating expression.

‘Do speak properly, for Salazar’s sake!’ Harry pleaded.

‘The darkest place is under the candlestick,’ Tom announced dramatically. ‘I suggest you take refuge where Lady Malfoy will look last of all.’

‘Under her skirt?’ Harry joked weakly.

‘Almost like that,’ Tom nodded affirmatively. ’In the Black family mansion.’

By midday a thunderstorm had broken over London. Harry had his first chance to experience water-repelling charms on himself, and the impression was strange—droplets rolled off him like water spray off a rubber boot, and some even bounced off entirely, like peas. He realised he’d completely forgotten to buy an umbrella; and also realised he didn’t need one—and probably never would in his entire life. Tom walked beside him, calm and composed as usual, treading the asphalt as if the entire city down to the last brick belonged to him alone. This aura of authority remarkably didn’t dissipate even during the Underground journey.

The mansion on Grimmauld Place turned out to be a tall, gloomy, Gothic-style building rising in a row of other equally tall, old-fashioned houses greyed by weather. Its elongated narrow windows, barred at the bottom, looked at Harry like dark unwelcoming eyes. Water streamed from the roof slopes, unable to drain fast enough through the gutters. The front door was black as tar. Black tiles went well with black window frames and jambs. When Harry stepped onto the high granite steps of the porch, the sky was illuminated by a branching flash of lilac-white lightning. The thunder clap that followed completely drowned out the knock of the door knocker.

Yes, exactly—instead of a bell, a real door knocker hung on the leaf, made in the form of a snake biting its own tail, once apparently brightly gleaming with its silver scales, but now almost merged in colour with the door. The black paint up close also showed signs of decay—a fine web of cracks and peeling pieces. The house was poorly maintained. No one had been here for too long.

Harry froze, holding his breath. For the door that had a knocker to knock with had no door handle. It either opened itself or didn’t, and only the master of the house decided this. But now the master was dragging out his days somewhere in an impregnable fortress in the middle of the North Sea, blown by winds and flooded by rains, guarded by terrible creatures that drained human souls. The dead beyond the Styx were not as far away as the last of the Black line was from his ancestral nest. Harry waited. And waited. And hoped.

And the door opened.

A new thunderclap crashed overhead, and a lightning flash lit up the sky behind him, as Harry stepped into the house.

Chapter Text

As soon as Harry crossed the threshold, the door banged shut behind him with a metallic clang, like the spring of a trap snapping. Pitch darkness closed in. The heavy, stale fug of an abandoned house wrapped itself around him—it smelt of mould, damp must, old rags and caked dust. He whispered, a little nervously, ‘Lumos,’ and gave his wand a flick.

If Tom’s cupboard at the orphanage had been unpleasantly coffin-like, this was a proper crypt. It felt as though the dead were lurking somewhere in the house. The first word that sprang to mind at the sight of the place was ‘funereal’. The second was ‘filthy’.

The hall, tiled the colour of soot and papered in dark grey stripes, turned out not to be all that large—it barely had room for a coat stand and a bulky, oddly shaped stand for umbrellas and walking-sticks. Off to the left loomed a pair of massive double doors; just beyond them a staircase rose steeply and ended at a carved gallery from which, by the look of it, you could get to the floor above. In the corner beneath the stairs a small table lurked with a tray for calling cards. Two corridors—one straight ahead, the other to the right—led off from the hall, and in the pier between them hung velvet curtains, plainly moth-eaten; they must have been hiding yet another doorway. From the very high ceiling a chandelier dangled on a chain, swaddled in a whole veil of cobwebs. On the walls Harry noticed odd metal contraptions he couldn’t at first place—only when a yellowish flame suddenly sprang up in them, shaped like a forked fish-tail, did he realise they were gas sconces.

By their light, Lumos was no longer needed, and Harry let it fade, though he was in no hurry to pocket his wand—it lent him the confidence and sense of safety of a loaded pistol in the hand. Tom appeared at his side silently, like a ghost. He hadn’t followed Harry through the door; he simply materialised beside him as he had when travelling by Floo, only this time with a slight delay, as though something—the magic of the house, or something else—had got in his way. Harry didn’t have time to ask.

Those very curtains in the pier to the right suddenly drew themselves apart, and Harry was blasted by a piercing shriek, as loud as a klaxon and as pleasant to the ear as a nail scraping on glass:

‘Mudblood! Filthy rabble! How dare you defile—’

‘Silencio,’ said Tom, and Harry found himself faintly surprised by how easily his quiet, measured voice carried over the hysterical screeching.

In the sudden hush Harry caught his breath, and only then noticed something he had at first taken for a window. A heartbeat later he realised it was a portrait, life-sized—the most realistic and at the same time the most ghastly portrait one could imagine (not that Harry had seen many in his life, but this one would have stood out among the rest if only for its ability to wail like a siren), and it was this, it seemed, that the threadbare velvet rags had been hiding.

‘Merlin,’ he mumbled. ‘Tom, what is it?’

‘Ah,’ Tom answered almost cheerfully, ’something new—wasn’t here in my day. Meet, Harry, a magical portrait. You see, in the wizarding world it’s common practice to enchant canvases so the people painted on them behave as if alive.’

He put his wand away, stepped forward and studied the silenced picture with interest. From the canvas an elderly woman in a widow’s cap glared at Harry, shaking a tiny withered fist and moving her lips in silence. A heavy, almost square jaw with a stubborn dimple, and brows set low over eyes that were altogether too pale, did nothing to make her a beauty; nor did the jaundiced cast of her skin, unflatteringly set off by a lilac dress, add to the old lady’s appeal. Cocking his head and shoving his hands in his pockets, Tom went on in the tone of a seasoned guide:

‘They can move, talk, even shift from picture to picture. And to lend verisimilitude, a cast of the subject’s personality is embedded in the portrait during its making.’

The last words rang uncannily familiar. Harry started.

’A ‘cast of personality’? Rather like…’

‘Yes,’ Tom smiled grimly, ’rather like me—only, of course, far more primitive.’

The old woman abruptly ceased her antics, froze, and then, with a strangely helpless, almost childlike gesture, lifted her clasped hands to her mouth, as if about to burst into tears. Her eyes flicked to Tom and stuck to his face—it was as though she had only just noticed him and simply couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

‘So it’s… an alarm, is it?’ Harry rubbed his forehead.

Tom shrugged. ‘Likely. This particular specimen is inordinately loud, but usually they’re fairly biddable, though given to gossiping among themselves. Hogwarts is full of them. Do bear in mind that many a portrait is only too keen to tattle to the staff when it gets the chance, so keep an eye on the walls and don’t get caught.’

’Got it. ‘Don’t get caught’!′ Harry nodded, echoing Tom’s Slytherin motto. The gaps in his own knowledge of the wizarding world weighed on him—there seemed no end to them, and Harry hadn’t the faintest idea where or when the next one would ambush him.

Tom turned his head. ‘This way,’ he ran lightly up the stairs. ’Skip the second step from the bottom—it used to bite. And careful—that clock doesn’t care for strangers; let me bring it to heel first.’

Harry followed Tom carefully, just as he’d been told.

The whole house was like a training ground or an obstacle course rigged up by a desperately bored madman. Something in the window drapes gave off an unpleasant droning; the sideboard clacked in a way that put one in mind of dentures; behind the skirting boards came the patter of scurrying clawed feet (Harry instantly thought of the Trunk he’d left at the Leaky Cauldron with strict instructions to sit tight and behave). Along the staircase, like hunting trophies, hung carefully medallion-framed, mummified heads of small humanoids with long snouts and large triangular ears (‘house-elves,’ Tom identified them in passing, without embarking on an explanation of so exotic a form of final repose). All told, the place was a perfect fit for a family famed as utterly unhinged Dark wizards. Even so, the self-styled Fomalhaut Black, as it turned out, could feel comparatively safe here.

Every so often Harry heard, ‘step away’, ‘freeze’, ‘don’t touch’—it was as if Tom carried in his head a map of all the traps and surprises hidden here; he navigated them with the easy assurance of someone who knows every crack in the wallpaper, though he didn’t stop grumbling that everything had been shifted round and changed.

Tom piloted Harry through the rooms like a harbour pilot along a well-known channel—the drawing room, a large bedroom, two smaller ones, three smaller still, an attic crammed with junk, an incredibly old-fashioned lavatory (Harry took the opportunity to check it was in working order—the magic did what it ought), a sumptuous temple to ablutions you could hardly bring yourself to call merely a bathroom, an empty dressing room (‘there’s a boggart in there,’ Tom clicked his tongue, nodding at the trembling wardrobe). They worked their way through every storey from bottom to top, and from the top down again, until they found themselves back on the ground floor, where the dining room was—those double doors near the entrance led into it. The old woman’s portrait was still staring, wringing her hands, but she made no further attempt to deafen them—either the alarm was a one-off and had spent itself, or the silencing curse was still holding. Tom towed Harry past and turned into one of the corridors—the shorter one.

‘And now for the really interesting bit,’ he announced briskly. ‘Let’s see if the old password still works.’

‘Password?..’ Harry rubbed his forehead again. The dense, almost reconnaissance-grade tour had set his head spinning. ‘How is it you know this place like the back of your hand? It feels like your house, not the Blacks’.’

Tom bestowed a patronising smirk on him. ‘I lived here. Stayed with Orion in the holidays, once for three weeks and another time for nearly four,’ he folded his arms, tapping his elbow with his fingers. ‘Our darling Headmaster Dippet, I’ll have you know, chose to ignore the rather pressing fact there was a brutal war on. Muggle-borns and I were still packed off home for the hols—in my case, to the orphanage—and whoever survived the Luftwaffe’s bombs, survived. Others weren’t so lucky. But that’s a tale for another time.’

He nodded at a fresh pair of double doors, even more massive and ornate than the previous ones. The carving on the dark wood formed a pattern in which you could make out horned serpents snarled in the branches of a flowering shrub.

’Say: ‘Toujours pur’,′ Harry, thanks to Natural Nobility, recognised the Blacks’ family motto.

‘Toujours pur,’ he repeated obediently, but the doors remained unmoving. Like the front door, as Harry only now noticed, there was neither handle nor keyhole.

‘Well, it’s been a good long while; no wonder they’ve changed the password,’ Tom frowned, disappointed, then instructed: ‘Try calling the house-elf. What was her name… Nanny. Go on. Say it.’

‘Nanny?’ Harry called uncertainly. Silence answered.

‘Hm. Quite. She was already old,’ Tom rubbed his lower lip, thoughtful. ‘What about… Kreacher.’

‘Kreacher!’ This time Harry’s cry was followed by a soft pop.

The stunted, almost naked creature that appeared before them looked a match for the neglected, quietly crumbling house. Bald, stooped, with drooping ears and red, watering eyes, with scaly patches on his skin, altogether ill and crooked-looking, Kreacher inspired in Harry at first glance an irresistible urge to whisk him off to the vet’s and have him put to sleep, to spare him the suffering. The house-elf rubbed his shrivelled paws and began swaying and muttering—like a frog beginning to croak—in a low, half-intelligible voice:

‘My mistress’s house defiled, oh, poor mistress, if she only knew, if she only knew what she would say to poor old Kreacher…’ For all the plaintive words, his tone was angry, almost threatening. ‘Standing there and gawping, filthy mud-blooded spawn, Kreacher doesn’t even know its name. What is it doing here? Kreacher doesn’t know…’

‘Er…’ Harry looked helplessly at Tom. Surely this wasn’t normal for a house-elf? He’d imagined them… rather more user-friendly.

‘There’s something seriously wrong with him,’ Tom answered his unspoken question. ‘I imagine he’s gone soft in the head from loneliness and age. Introduce yourself.’
Harry cleared his throat and turned to the house-elf. The creature seemed to be off in a world of his own—alas, it looked as though Tom was quite right.

‘Oh, the shame… Poor old Kreacher, what is he to do…’

‘My name is Harry James Potter, Kreacher,’ Harry cut into the unbroken mutter. ‘I’m… a relation of your master’s, as it were.’

‘Can it be true?’ the elf babbled, even more agitated than before. ‘Is it Harry Potter? Kreacher sees the scar—then it is true, it is the boy who stopped the Dark Lord… Kreacher wonders how he did it…’

‘If only I knew! I wonder myself how I did it!’ Harry snapped. The last thing he needed was a house-elf harping on about his ‘deed’, honestly.

‘Enough,’ Tom cut across them both. His wand was already in his hand—Harry hadn’t noticed him draw it. ’I shall show myself to him now, and you tell him to look into my eyes.’

But Harry didn’t get as far as giving any order. An instant later Kreacher dropped to his knees and began fervently sweeping the floor with his drooping ears.

‘Mistress!’ he wailed. ‘Mistress did not live to see her joy! Oh, how she would have rejoiced, my poor lady… Old Kreacher is so glad… Mistress would have been so happy…’

‘Ah,’ Tom murmured, a slightly cruel smile curving the corners of his mouth, ’it seems I carry some weight in this house. The mistress is Walburga?’

Still bowing like a wind-up toy, Kreacher mumbled assent. Tom’s smile grew harder.

‘Remind me,’ he said to Harry, ‘what was it they sent Sirius down for life in Azkaban?’

‘Blew one Peter Pettigrew to bits and, for good measure, a dozen Muggles as well,’ Harry reported. ’Did the slaughter right in the middle of a crowded street, and when they arrested him he laughed his head off and yelled, ‘I did it!‘’ He snorted, then added on his own account: ‘I reckon he was on something… I mean—drunk as a lord. Think he was one of your followers?’

‘A touch over the top, but we are speaking of a Black,’ Tom sighed, almost meekly. ’And many others dashed off to do foolish things the moment I died.’

Tom’s way of saying ‘I’ when he meant Voldemort annoyed and muddled Harry no end. He sighed as well.

‘Right, then, what do I do? Order him to look you in the eye?’

‘No need now. I think he’ll be more obedient,’ Tom smiled again. ‘But saner—hardly. Kreacher, do you know the password to the library?’

‘Kreacher does not know… Kreacher is bad…’ the elf whined. ‘Kreacher advises asking the mistress’s portrait… poor mistress, her plaits turned white with grief, oh, how she suffered, my unhappy lady, how sad she did not live to see…’

‘Be silent,’ Tom said, with distaste, ’and take me to the portrait.’

To both his and Harry’s surprise, they found themselves back in the hall.

‘This one?’ Tom asked, in a curiously tight voice, looking at the jaundiced old crone in the cap. Kreacher muttered something affirmative.

‘My lord,’ the old woman whispered, dropping into an old-fashioned curtsy. Tears glimmered in her eyes. For the briefest instant a flicker of horror crossed Tom’s face before it was smothered under a mask of chilly detachment.

‘Burga,’ he said indifferently. ‘The password to the library, if you please.’

‘Je vis dans l’espoir,’ she answered, her voice slightly trembling. ‘My lord, I knew you at once… but how can it be?’

Tom did not deign to reply—he merely turned on his heel and headed back to the library, not even looking round to see if Harry was following. And Harry did follow—if only to say:

‘I thought she recognised you as well, by the way. Maybe not straight off, but when you silenced her—she stared as if her eyes would fall out!’

Tom grimaced. ‘Let me in, loquacious child.’

‘Je vis dans l’espoir,’ Harry repeated carefully, hoping he hadn’t mangled the unfamiliar words. The carved door swung open without a sound.

‘What you’re suggesting is impossible,’ Tom tossed over his shoulder as he made for the depths of a fairly large room, its walls crammed up to the ceiling with incredibly dusty volumes. Gas sconces obligingly flared in the piers, and Kreacher hopped off to yank the curtains apart. Harry, to his own surprise, burst into a ringing sneeze, and Tom, apparently noticing the filth about them for the first time, flicked his wand.

‘Tergeo! Kreacher, clean the lot, at once.’

‘Why impossible?’ Harry asked, easing himself onto the sofa in the middle of the room.

Opposite the sofa stood a carved rectangular table and two more armchairs. The floor was covered by a patterned Oriental rug with a fringe. Kreacher, still chuntering away to himself—it sounded exactly like a stomach rumbling—set to clicking his fingers. It looked daft, but it worked almost at once: the layer of dust and cobwebs smothering everything began to melt before their eyes.

‘I become visible only when I choose to be so,’ Tom answered absently, running his fingertips along the spines on the shelf he had made for so determinedly, ‘and to those I choose to see me.’ He pulled out a book, then another, then another.

Harry thought for a moment. ‘And… are you sure that applies to portraits? I mean, given you were created—don’t take offence—by similar magic?’

Tom froze for a second and made a noncommittal noise.

‘I’ve never examined the matter from that angle,’ he said at last—which, translated from Tom-speak into plain English, undoubtedly meant: ‘You’re probably right.’ Harry grinned. An Inquiry into the Possibility of Reversing the Physical and Metaphysical Consequences of Natural Death, in Particular, the Reintegration of Essence and Matter, proclaimed the quaintly florid title of the tome he had pulled at random. No wonder the Blacks’ library was locked behind a password.

‘Kreacher,’ he asked briskly, ’is the fireplace in working order? I’d like to fetch a few things from the inn.’

In the end, the fireplace wasn’t needed. It turned out a house-elf could go practically anywhere and fetch or bring his wizard’s belongings. What’s more, elves could Apparate with people in tow, though Harry held off on that for the time being, while making a firm mental note of it.

Choosing as his bedroom a room almost under the roof—for no particular reason; traipsing up and down to the fourth floor every time wasn’t exactly convenient, but he simply liked the view from the window, and, besides, the room wasn’t under the stairs in any sense of the phrase—Harry told Kreacher to put it to rights or at least into a relatively clean state if perfection was out of reach. He had no wish to take up a rag himself, mindful of the solemn promise he’d made to himself in the house on Privet Drive never again to lay a hand on a rag or a sponge, and the cleaning charm wasn’t coming to him yet. In the course of tidying, Kreacher kept nipping up to the attic, shoving the former occupant’s things into corners, but Harry didn’t hinder him in the least—he understood how hard it must be for the old house-elf to accept the changes in his life. Senile even by the most charitable standards, Kreacher nevertheless loved and remembered the family’s second son, dead before his time.

Regulus. For this had been his bedroom, once.

The smaller of the two on the top floor, filthy and dilapidated, it still spoke of former splendour. Done out in every conceivable shade of green and silver, with the family crest and motto hanging over the headboard, it was every bit as pointedly Slytherin as the room across the landing was Gryffindor (Harry wondered who had slept in that one; all signs pointed to Sirius, which was… simply odd). A collage of yellowed newspaper cuttings—all about Voldemort—merely underscored what was plain enough already: the whole, now entirely extinct, family were fiercely taken with Tom’s ideas (another Tom, the elder—blast it, Toms were multiplying before his eyes, and no razor of Ockham’s would tame the plague).

Waiting until the last token of former days—a plaque reading ‘Do not enter without the express permission of Regulus Arcturus Black’—had vanished up into the attic, Harry climbed down from the wide window-seat where he had been passing the time flipping through Natural Nobility and whistled for Trunk. Unlike the Leaky Cauldron, here he had the use of an actual wardrobe—the pub had afforded no more than some wrought nails hammered into the wall—and, better still, here there was a house-elf, who could at last solve the pressing laundry problem; Trunk’s cleaning charms did have their limits. Making Trunk a nest by the window—it looked, of course, perfectly at home in the room—Harry breathed out in satisfaction and, all but whistling, headed back to the library.

That August Harry spent in the Blacks’ townhouse before setting off for Hogwarts could only be called merry. In truth, he would have named it one of the best months of his life—at any rate among those he could remember; the very early years didn’t count.

Most of the time he and Tom spent in the library. Cleaned by Kreacher’s efforts by the end of the first day, it had become almost cosy despite the general gloom of the décor—in its own particular, slightly sinister way, which was only lightly compromised by a heap of cushions, a tea-tray and a basket of baked goods (caraway seed cake Kreacher did to perfection; even aunt Petunia would have been hard put to find fault).
Tom set about the study of necromancy in earnest—evidently he hadn’t been joking about it being ‘not too late to catch up’—breaking off only when some side-route to bringing back someone long dead presented itself along the way. Harry did his best to help, though his focus never lasted long; there was far too much else about that was interesting. Honestly—how’s one meant to resist a book gloriously titled Feeble-minded Muggles? Or Crackpot Magic for Barmy Warlocks? Quite. Even so, Harry tried not to spread himself too thin.

From time to time he and Tom compared notes.

’…the Philosopher’s Stone… no, it’s an excellent option, but recreating it’s out of the question—looks like Flamel’s success was sheer happenstance…’

’Or down to some irreproducible factors—a unique configuration of the heavenly bodies, say. Or he misremembered the list and order of ingredients. Sloppiness in one’s lab notebook never did anyone any good.’

’Or he sneezed into the cauldron and was too embarrassed to admit it. Or he dropped something in by accident, like Fleming when he discovered penicillin. Hang on, what other alchemist? Don’t tell me you don’t know Fleming?!’

’…from a living unicorn? That sounds utterly revolting.’

’And it saddles you with an irreversible curse, which, well, will kill you anyway.’

’I fail to see the point.’

’So do I.’

’…and, er, what happens to the host’s personality? It doesn’t just disappear, does it?’

’You’d have to keep it under control, yes.’

’Feels like a last-ditch option if ever there was one.’

’Have I mentioned the body will start to rot the moment you move in?’

’The very, very last ditch!’

’…the flesh of the servant, willingly given… hmmm.’

’Don’t you even think about it, all right? And let me see. So… Blood of the enemy… well, that won’t be a problem, I reckon… bone of the father…’

’That either.’

’What’s a ‘homunculus’, exactly? That’s something out of alchemy, isn’t it?’

‘And there we shall have problems. Pretty serious ones. You see… Turn the page.’

‘Ugh!’

‘Quite. I’m not a vain man, but—ugh.‘

‘…perhaps we should simply rob Flamel?’

‘’Rob’? What a provocative word… I’d prefer ‘expropriate’.’

‘Meaning you’ve any ideas how to find him at all?’

‘I’m working on it.’

‘Well, I haven’t. What a pity…’

However, ‘most of the time’ didn’t mean ‘all the time’. Periodically Harry needed proper food, something more substantial than tea, and right after eating it was devilishly hard to concentrate on reading. And Kreacher simply couldn’t manage to put the whole house to rights on his own. His whingeing ‘Kreacher is old… Kreacher finds it hard…’ usually served as the signal for Tom to join the fun—if only in the capacity of a snide commentator.

Harry waged a stubborn war against doxies—tiny winged beasts that looked like the unholy offspring of a biting fly and a Disney fairy; they were the ones responsible for the horrid droning in the curtains, and, as it turned out, they were the culprits chewing any fabric they could get their teeth into, not moths at all. The campaign was long and bloody—pedigreed specimens, fattened on heavy embroidered tapestries, came swarming out of the folds, trying to take a chunk out of his fingers and neatly dodging the reeking jets of Doxycide—but Harry pushed them back methodically, floor by floor, until at last he had complete victory.

They also got rid of the spider colony—at least in the dining-room sideboard; Tom declared their presence there unhygienic. The spiders were evicted to the attic, where they were shortly joined by Hole. Once ceremoniously released from her cage, the rat flatly refused to go anywhere at all, so she was left on her former rations and allowed to roam the house at will; she chose the attic of her own accord and settled in there comfortably, quietly nibbling on spiders (though she was never actually caught in the act, so this remained only one of Harry’s suspicions).

The most fun—and the most bother—was the boggart. As Tom explained, it was a spectre that, for the sake of feeding and self-defence, took the form of whatever the approaching person feared most of all. There was a charm specifically for banishing such a pest, meant to turn the terrifying into the ridiculous. One had to visualise one’s fear in as comic a guise as possible while saying ‘Riddikulus’, drawing a double circular motion with the wand. Harry became genuinely interested in the question of what a boggart looks like when no one’s looking at it, and he and Tom spent a while on the observer’s conundrum, which left Harry with a general grasp of Zen Buddhist koans and Tom with a superficial notion of superposition. Then it was time for practice.

Having learnt his lesson from previous experience, Tom flatly refused to say in which year at Hogwarts they learnt this spell (Harry knew only that it wasn’t first year—he’d thumbed the textbook). Tom’s evasions boiled down to the claim that the programme had been drastically simplified for the benefit of the thick. In addition—Harry ground his teeth, his foreboding proving spot-on—the Heir of Salazar ought to be ashamed not to excel here. Mustering all his courage, the Heir stepped out to do battle with embodied fear.

The boggart had holed up in a tall wardrobe in a desolately empty dressing room. Walburga had used this room once upon a time—her bedroom, the shrine to the late lady tenderly curated by Kreacher, was next door on the same landing, which also boasted two portraits of elaborately dressed ladies (one was called Araminta and the other didn’t speak English at all) and a long-dead ficus tree in a pot. Tom kept threatening to revive the ficus, hence its continued presence. Otherwise it was plain that the dressing room was far—really far—cleaner than on their first visit. The gas sconce burned welcomingly. The wardrobe shook, its door clattering. Harry clenched his wand tighter. He took a step and…

Any thought at all, every prepared line, the spell itself—everything flew out of his head.

This could not, simply could not, be made funny. Never, under any circumstances.

Harry, unable to stifle a gasp, turned away. He glanced into the doorway and found Tom with his eyes. The sight helped, a little. But to look back—there—took a monstrous effort. Slowly, forcing himself, in jerks, he made his gaze fall again on…

Tom Riddle’s dead body, lying on the floor before the wardrobe, mutilated, the head ruined, and yet recognisable enough that there could be no mistake. The body seemed horribly real. Even the blood smelt like blood. Harry felt sick.

‘I’m afraid,’ he said, swallowing bitter saliva between every word, ‘I’m having trouble with the visualising. I can’t think of anything.’

‘The standard advice in such cases is to work in a group, or at least as a pair,’ Tom, who had been waiting in the corridor so as not to throw off Harry or the boggart by accident, peered through the open door and took in the scene.

‘However,’ he went on with a chuckle, stepping into the dressing room and strolling closer, ‘one must admit that in our particular case this advice is of somewhat limited use.’

He reached ‘limited use’ just as he stopped beside Harry, so close their robe sleeves touched and merged into one. The boggart showed no inclination to act—the corpse remained a corpse, dead and appalling.

‘Why?’ Harry forced out, carefully controlling his breathing. The boggart was having a splendid supper tonight.

‘In the ordinary situation,’ Tom put a weight on the word ‘ordinary’, ‘two observers force a boggart to try to frighten both at once—the creature isn’t exactly bright—and the hybridised features are, in themselves, more amusing than frightening. The larger the group, the clearer the effect.’

‘Not funny,’ Harry judged, taking off his glasses to polish them.

‘Of course not,’ Tom agreed easily.

‘Is that because you’re… bodiless? Not quite a person?’ Harry asked in spite of himself. Tom, standing beside him and discoursing matter-of-factly, calmed him. Better still would have been taking his hand—which was impossible.

‘No,’ Tom grinned in his trademark way: wide, toothy and joyless. ‘It’s simply that this is my boggart too. The details differ, but this will do nicely. As you see, it feels no need to change.’

‘But you did this at Hogwarts, right? I don’t believe you failed the practical,’ Harry rubbed his forehead. ‘How did you manage to make your own death funny?’

‘I didn’t,’ Tom raised his wand. ‘I burnt it to blazes. New lesson for today: we learn the Incendio charm.’

That one Muggleish ‘to blazes’ from fastidious Tom told Harry a fair bit. For instance, that of the two of them in that room, the boggart was not working only on him. When the writhing black blotches on the floor had finally burnt out—extra work for Kreacher there—Tom remarked, with melancholy:

‘Had you been in fourth year… Merlin take it, third would have done, and had I, of course, still been alive—you’d have been wearing my Mark before nightfall. For this alone. Do you see?’

‘Your Mark?’ Harry didn’t catch on at first. ‘What mark… ohhh, wait. Even then?’ He didn’t know how to respond. Again, as with that ‘there’s no need whatsoever for a subjugation spell’, it was Tom’s way of saying good things in a very bad way. Harry considered it, considered it again—and decided he felt flattered.

‘Thank you, Tom,’ he said. ‘I think I understand.’

Without a word, they turned and walked out, leaving the scorched patch behind them.

Chapter Text

A quiet, warm, untroubled August night was settling over Little Whinging, gently and imperceptibly swaddling the identical houses in dusk, like a glass marble wrapped in cotton wool.

The sitting room of number four, Privet Drive—already sunk deep into evening darkness—was lit only by the rhythmic flicker of the television screen. Those bluish, unreliable patches of light picked out first one detail of the room, then another, as though composing a curious mosaic or turning a kaleidoscope. The Dursley family, in full complement, were intently giving themselves over to their evening repose.

Mr Dursley, in slippers and a pin‑striped, no‑nonsense pair of pyjamas, had settled, as usual, into a deep, soft armchair. His moustache—stiff as a brush and every bit as thick—had been combed with care. Mrs Dursley had, no less habitually, taken up her spot in the corner of the sofa. She, too, was kitted out for bed—a long, roomy nightdress with a flannel dressing gown thrown over it. Her hair, set on curlers, was covered by a faded blue kerchief. Mrs Dursley’s left hand rested on her son’s shoulder—Dudley had commandeered the rest of the sofa, lying on his side with his head on his mother’s lap. His pyjamas, emblazoned with the Superman logo, were blue; his face, pink; his hair, damp from the shower.

It looked for all the world as though the three of them were quietly watching television—exactly as they had on the endless procession of evenings leading up to this one, and, no doubt, as they would on many a night to come. And yet something was wrong; something, tonight, was not as it had been. Look a fraction closer, and the respectable little picture of family leisure began to crack and crumble to dust.

Glazed, unblinking eyes. No movement. Silence. A thread of drool trickling from the corner of a mouth. The television on with the sound off. The remote fallen from a slack, boneless hand.

Even so, the muffled, fainting hush of the sitting room—barely ruffled by the hum of the fridge in the kitchen—was not absolute. From further off, there came, at intervals, the sound of footsteps and voices—voices so out of place in Privet Drive in general, and in this God‑fearing household in particular, that one might have taken them for no more than a random, foolish dream.

‘Mordred!’ said one voice, hoarse, as though its owner had drunk himself senseless for years, or had once had his vocal cords badly damaged (and perhaps both). ‘All right? Let’s have another go—both wands. I start, you take it up. Ready? Priori Incantatem!’

A second’s silence followed. Then the other voice—deep velvet and dark honey, with a drop of poison mixed in—answered the first:

‘Alastor, we’re wasting our time. This wasn’t a spell. There was an artefact here. Even I can sense… residual emanations. And you, with that Eye of yours, can surely see them.’

‘I can see them!’ snapped back the first voice, in which a guard dog’s angry growl tangled with the fruitless wheeze of a cracked recorder. ‘Know what else I can see? We’ve cocked it up—we’ve lost the lad! Careless idiots, the lot of us—and I’m the chief idiot,’ he added bitterly.

‘Commendably self‑aware,’ observed the baritone, coldly, though not without irony; but the one named Alastor refused to be knocked off his line and finished:

‘We trusted the Muggles! Oh, of course—there’s the outcome. All that blood protection—pixies up the—’

Here he launched into a particularly filthy construction concerning Mordred’s complicated love life and the Cornish pixies. His companion hummed three bars under his breath, as a man will when engaged upon delicate, intricate work and yet forced to be distracted.

‘How would you characterise the artefact?’ he asked, with the dispassionate curiosity of a boffin peering into the core of a nuclear reactor.

‘I’ve no idea!’ the hoarse voice growled and whistled at him. ‘I’ve never seen such muck in my life! It looks like a bit of everything got muddled in—like a portrait that someone, almost finished, went and cursed for seven years’ bad luck, then for some reason reworked into a binding parchment, then thought better of it halfway, laced it with mind‑desiccating charms and topped the lot with a runic shield. I’m telling you and you’re not listening—we’ve lost the lad. Think it was planted? Not a chance. No, he brought this crap here himself.’

‘I take your point; there’s no need to boil over,’ the rich baritone grew even chillier than before. ‘And now you’ll excuse me.’

Footsteps sounded; over them, a muffled: ‘Accio, Harry Potter’s blood!’ But straightaway, the tread of proprietorial feet drew near the sitting room—and if anyone retained coherent memories of that evening, none of them were Dursleys.

***

‘Since sorcery wrought upon human blood is apt to bend toward ill, a man must approach it with a heart purged of turmoil and stain. The chamber should be censed with a sprig of rosemary. Most propitious is the last quarter of the moon at the waning of the year…’

Severus remembered perfectly the first time he had brewed this potion.

It hadn’t been a test. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary or of note—just another routine assignment, one more in a string of such; but what made it special, at once and for ever, was the touch of a strong, aristocratically narrow hand upon his shoulder and the fondly mocking: ‘Well done, Severus.’ The hand, weightless‑warm, had been barely perceptible through three layers of cloth, yet the mark it left seemed to burn on his skin like sun‑scorch.

By then he knew he’d been noticed; he had worked like a man possessed, tireless and asking no mercy. He received his Mark a month later, and for an entirely different reason. And yet it was this that remained. A wizard of the mind ought to be master of his emotions, but when emotions fuse with memory the result is often beyond calculation.

Three grains of fresh heather blossom rattled into the cauldron; a glass rod traced seven stirs left to right, and Severus turned the small hourglass. Next addition in one minute.

In part, Severus loved the night‑long vigils at the cauldron—how else? Daylight was devoured almost whole by the little monsters called students, and any crumbs left over the Headmaster appropriated; so only at night—and he loved the nights for the chance to put his thoughts in order.

Even as a child he had thought best in silence, alone with a softly simmering potion, as though by following the recipe step by step he could distil an idea step by step, precipitating out the salts of emotion and setting each judgement in its proper vial.

Later, this even became his anchor in Occlumency. Everyone sought perfect calm and focus in their own way—some ran, some stood beneath a waterfall, some practised breathing exercises or contemplated a blank wall in silence. Snape knew a man who made the taste of a sherbet lemon the focus of his mind. For Severus, it was enough to take his place, in thought, at the cauldron.

One drop of widow’s tears infused with native gold; then, very slowly, grain by grain, nine grains of fire‑moth eggs. Three stirs with a bone spatula.

Snape cast Tempus and checked the time—the next stage did not fall neatly into the intervals of a standard hourglass, and he had no patience with approximation. He always conjured Tempus as a Muggle digital clock with seconds—at first out of contrariness; then because it proved convenient; and then, simply, out of habit.

Thus the facts known to him, slowly cleared of impurities, began to show the peculiar attraction that always revealed the marrying ingredients of a potion. At first not obvious, the affinity, with due reflection, grew plain.

The first fact was the child glimpsed in another man’s memory. Pitying Lucius—crushed by a careless blunder—Snape had gone to the ill‑starred bookshop and put the shopkeeper’s recollection through a very fine sieve a second time. Nothing in it about the diary—Lucius had been right—but there, in the memory, was a boy whom Malfoy did not know by sight and was unlikely to recognise from any description; but Severus would not have mistaken him even blind drunk. The boy was Harry James Potter. Snape took note.

Potter’s—the-boy‑who—appearance at the same point in space and time as the disappearance of an artefact entrusted for safekeeping by the Dark Lord, looked like a coincidence. But the sort of coincidence that draws the eye, and you lay it aside to see whether a pattern emerges.

And in this case it did, together with the second fact that had come into Severus’s hands today.

This second fact was a return visit to Petunia’s family nest, on which the Headmaster had insisted; and he had foisted Alastor Mad-Not-Only-The-Eye Moody on him as a partner and—Snape had no illusions—as a minder. Moody it was who spotted the traces left in the Dursleys’ house by some enchanted object. Correction: by a highly intricate enchanted object of unknown nature and purpose. And this time, too, there was a curious balance, only in reverse symmetry: the artefact had appeared, the boy had disappeared.

Still a coincidence—but already a very nasty one. The sort for which you draft contingency plans headed, ‘This Will Never Be Needed, But—’. Snape would lose count of how often they came in handy.

A primary flight feather of a wandering pigeon, an eel’s tooth, the right wing of a swallowtail. Nine stirs with a wand of copper‑plated silver; then lower the flame by a third. Severus fastidiously assessed the potion’s colour and viscosity. It looked right. And the steam from the cauldron smelt right—a blend of burnt coffee and seaweed. Neither, of course, featured in the mixture, but only the most primitive decoctions preserved unchanged the taste and scent of their components.

Let us assume the coincidence was no coincidence at all. The thing came into Potter’s hands—and he evaporated. Causes? Consequences? Necessary measures? Tiny bubbles rose and burst at the surface. Snape pondered, intent.

The Dark Mark over Little Whinging. The missing Potter child, the child of the Prophecy, a fact known only to three people in this world and one more—on the other, or wherever he happened to reside at present. The Headmaster’s secret burned his stomach like accidentally swallowed acid. He, Albus and Sybill were bound by an oath—but what bound the Dark Lord? Had he confided in anyone? Not his way, quite—but one could not rule it out.

Suppose the artefact fell into the boy’s hands and his whereabouts ceased to be a secret. A kind of beacon, able to slip past blood protection—though such a thing was thought impossible. Was that it? But in that case they’d have found two corpses under the Mark. Potter was alive—Snape was, after all, still breathing; the vow to preserve the boy’s life, even at the cost of his own, was still in force.

Then—an execution deferred? Or was the kidnapping not for revenge at all? Or—given the air of mystery about the diary-like object—had the boy gone with his captor of his own accord?

Severus doubted it. Even the children of his House—calculating little snakes—would not, when running, leave absolutely all their belongings behind. Almost everyone going on the hop snatched something sentimental, and a first-year least of all would abandon his Hogwarts letter and his train ticket. Yes, one could get onto Platform Nine and Three-Quarters perfectly well without that ticket; indeed, in Snape’s recollection no one ever actually checked them. But… he’d certainly have taken it. Any child would—especially one raised in… what Severus had seen there.

One drachm of wormwood seed, three mistletoe berries, astragalus root and a snowdrop leaf. Mix with an obsidian knife. Only the final addition remained. Severus doused the flame. Steam rose from the liquid in the cauldron; dim, pale-blue sparks flared in the depths, curling in a spiral.

The boy’s blood, gathered in the house, was whispering Snape a story he would rather not have heard; he disliked the new shape the world was assuming under the force of that tale. It is unpleasant for anyone to be wrong. And Snape’s error was of the sort he had made before, which made it sting all the more. But to refuse to acknowledge it would have been stupider still.

Blood on the floor. Puddles, chains of fallen drops, smeared streaks. Common enough—perhaps a touch too much of it, but children do get into things. Blood in the bathroom, ground into cracks and gaps—stranger, but let it pass. Yet there were traces that could not be mistaken: the marks left by beatings. Stains on door jambs. Spatters on the walls—slanting, interlaced fans. Spatters on the ceiling. Had someone, a quarter of a century ago, tried to find every drop of Severus’s blood spilt within the cottage walls at Cokeworth, the result would have been painfully similar. A vile, unacceptable truth now fit into small vial number five, thin-walled and clear.

‘We’ve cocked it up—we’ve lost the lad,’ Moody had frothed, spraying spittle; and Snape, at the same time, had been thinking: ‘I ought to have guessed.’ And also: ‘What have you done.’ And: ‘This as well—for the greater good?’ By then he had had a very good look at the cupboard.

A cage. A pen for a beast in which there had been, after all, no beast.

Dark. Reeking of every substance a human body can exude. Lacking even a pretence of a window and practically empty, save for a mattress and a pillow that ought, on hygienic grounds, to have been burnt, and a moth-eaten woollen blanket. In the corner—a shoebox with a heap of broken toys, a torch, pens and stubs of coloured pencils. Clothes on a hook, a girlish-looking rucksack, a stack of exercise books. A fuse box on one wall, a scuffed narrow shelf on another, and straight opposite the entrance: ‘Harry's Room,’ scrawled on the wall in a child’s hand. And it really was Harry’s room. Snape had examined the minds of Petunia, Vernon and Dudley very carefully indeed. There was no mistake. Not that Severus hadn’t already made enough.

Now, perhaps, he was to make another. Disobey the Headmaster—and die of a broken oath. Obey his order and track Potter by means of a blood-seeking potion—and very likely die of the same. Cradling in his palm a phial with microscopic flakes of dried blood, Severus gazed into the cauldron. The potion was ready, but his thoughts had not simmered down to an acceptable answer. At last he pulled the stopper and tipped the final ingredient into the sparkling blue.

In an instant the potion heaved. The colour shifted to a dark, venous red, then paled to scarlet and settled into an opalescent violet. The reaction quieted. The final stage remained: to use it as intended.

Snape cleaned the worktable and instruments, put everything back in its place, and took out a fresh sheet of parchment. He did not hurry—in truth, he was stalling. But at last the preparations were complete. Taking up a standard number three ladle, Severus drew off two ounces of the potion and poured it slowly, in a controlled stream, onto the sheet.

***

‘Too late. A day, perhaps less,’ Emmeline Vance pressed together her already narrow lips. ‘He was definitely still there around noon yesterday. After that—nothing.’

Statuesque, tall, full-bosomed, she looked like a valkyrie, ready at any moment to step without a qualm into the thick of the fiercest battle. The hair gone early grey at the temples lent her features a stern severity, and the dark green mantle set off the icy grey of her eyes. A quintessentially Slytherin palette, though Snape knew perfectly well she had been a Ravenclaw.

Another meeting—already the fifth in three days—of the Order of the Fried Bird was proceeding in its usual fashion: that is, neither one thing nor the other. Severus suppressed a yawn with difficulty—there had been no sleep to be had, and plenty of running about. Including round the late Figg’s house, positively begging to be noticed by the Ministry; but such niceties had never troubled the Headmaster. No useful traces there, of course. Someone had tossed off a feeble, single Stupefy, and then some Dark artefact had been set to work again—but whether it was the same one that had pinged with Potter, or another, neither Moody nor, still less, Severus could say. It looked like a variant of a ‘soul-box’—a rare and nasty piece of work used to siphon off life-force. They’d been banned two centuries ago; Snape hadn’t thought anyone still had them tucked away.

‘The room’s paid for till the end of the month,’ Vance went on. ‘But I don’t think he’ll return, though I’ve hung signalling charms there just in case. He tidied the place to a fare-thee-well—as if no one had ever lived there.’

The Headmaster sighed in gentle reproof, as though Emmeline might have avoided the failure had she worked better and faster. In point of fact, she probably could have—but luck mattered too, and they had been abominably unlucky in the hunt for Potter. Snape drummed his fingers on the chair arm.

‘The potion doesn’t work,’ he reported in turn. ‘Potter is either under a Fidelius, or in a place protected by Unfindable and Unplottable charms. Nothing for it, Albus; I did warn you.’

There were, it must be said, plenty of places in magical Britain that were unfindable and unplottable. Take the Blacks’ ancestral townhouse, for a start. But that one was warded with paranoiac thoroughness—Sirius’s father had seen to that. Other old families had not denied themselves a bolt-hole for the direst emergency either; and not always an obvious one—often a modest hunting lodge somewhere in Needwood Forest saved lives far better than the most heavily warded manor. They might even be freshly wrought wards, laid on specially for Potter—who could tell.

When last night (strictly speaking, already this morning) the map that should have appeared on the potion-treated sheet failed to show, Severus felt a surge of genuine gratitude to the higher powers. To present himself to an unknown Death Eater (for who else could it be, honestly), acting either on the Dark Lord’s direct order or on his own reading of the Lord’s potential wishes, and try to wrest Potter from him—Snape felt himself decidedly unready.

He hated to play a hand with nothing in it—and at present he had nothing with which to try to barter for the boy’s life, and his own into the bargain. The bloody Order of the Phoenix still had no actions in preparation, no plans of any shape, no recruits—absolutely bugger-all was happening, beyond hareing about in search of a missing child; and the semi-farcical tales of those efforts would serve, at best, to amuse Lucius—not the Dark Lord.

Let something—anything—of substance accrue, and then…

What had happened the last time he had tried to purchase someone’s life that way was something Severus tried his utmost not to think about.

A sigh—one that practically begged for a Cruciatus—rolled through the Headmaster’s office. Albus smoothed his beard—the little bells tinkled—and asked, pensively:

‘Emmeline, my dear girl, who did help Harry to get to Diagon, after all?’

‘Unknown,’ she shook her head, lips pinching again for a heartbeat. ‘Whoever I asked, they all swore Harry had been living at the Leaky with his parents. A flat lie—and its source is the boy himself. He was hiding, Albus; even hid his name, I tell you.’

Yes—‘Fomalhaut Black’ had made Severus laugh inwardly. It was clear now how the Malfoys had got wind of Potter’s bolt—no doubt the rumours were brought to Narcissa the next day. No, the next hour.

‘Could’ve been Figgy?’ sniffed Mundungus Fletcher, who had kept out of it till then. ‘And that’s why they killed her…’

He drooped altogether and, unembarrassed, fished out a hip flask of brandy. Severus, to tell the truth, wouldn’t have said no either, but hadn’t thought to bring any, and the Headmaster offered his guests nothing but tea.

Guests, indeed. Subordinates, soldiers, pawns. Getting drunk with such was a bit much; one might let the Chief Warlock’s authority slip.

‘Severus, what do you say?’—there, you see, spoke too soon. Snape grimaced.

‘I advised appealing to his rightful guardians. But Potter did not. Albus, we’ve been over this.’

Potter, literally, had dropped: ’With Muggles?’—and pulled such a contemptuous face, so typically pure‑blood, that memories of cherished classmates rose bitter in Severus’s throat. Now, in light of the newly uncovered circumstances, he understood perfectly why the boy had said it. A pity the understanding had come too late. Then, when the brat had spat an insult at Lily, Snape had simply bolted—home, into the welcoming arms of a bottle, and the rest of the day dissolved in the soft oblivion alcohol affords.

If, instead, he had asked, for instance: ‘Do they hurt you?’

Who could say where that unspoken conversation might have led. But there was no profit in regrets.

So: Severus did not know who had helped Potter. Petunia did not know who had helped Potter. Vernon and Dudley had not been at home at all at the time. The boy had opened the door to Severus, taken the key from him and… found himself at the Leaky Cauldron—where the barman also did not know who had helped him and had seen no one with him! Was it really Figg who had had a hand in it? And why hadn’t he taken his things? Afraid to go back?

In the rented rooms above the pub the troublesome child had lived not quite a week—five days and nights, and another half‑day. All that time he had apparently believed he was hiding from pursuit—yes, even a deaf‑blind man could have traced him, but he was a child, after all; professionalism was hardly to be expected. On the sixth day, by noon, the boy vanished. This time—with all his belongings; and he had not reappeared since. Snape rubbed his temples. A migraine seemed to be starting.

‘…close our ranks… redouble our efforts… Minister Fudge’s blindness…’ the Headmaster was declaiming meanwhile; Severus listened with half an ear. He needed to warn Lucius that the diary’s trail, it seemed, had turned up after all. And to try to ferret out which of their own might have snatched the boy—or helped him bolt.

Ah yes—and there was one more person who needed to learn a thing or two.

***

Minerva McGonagall was not one to shirk her duties. Some—Severus, for instance—might reproach her for indifference to the children of her own House, but one had to understand that under Godric’s red‑and‑gold banner there had, from time immemorial, gathered the most troublesome, prank‑prone and reckless pupils in Hogwarts.

Had Minerva continued to react as sharply to all the scrapes her little lions managed to get up to as she had in her first years as Head of House, she’d have ended with a burst heart—or in St Mungo’s secure ward. There were simply too many pranks, and too many with them, every blessed day.

The balance of involvement and sternness had taken a long time to find, but the hard‑won equilibrium yielded a motto: ‘It’ll sort itself out.’ So long as there was no accidental decapitation or grindylows being bred in the bath, problems were left to the prefects to settle—or to melt away of their own accord (which happened more often than Severus, naturally suspicious and thin‑skinned like all Slytherins, imagined). Snowed under with administrative chores, Minerva was a busy woman; besides, there was neither time nor strength for foolishness.

But there remained matters that a Head of House had to face in person.

Severus had not been generous with explanations. Astonishing her by his visit—usually getting the Potions Master into the Deputy’s office was no easier than coaxing a nundu into a cat‑carrier—Snape had handed her a phial of memory and said:

‘Minerva, acquaint yourself with this. It concerns you. And it’s important.’ And then he departed, his robes flaring behind him.

His stagey way of walking and that dramatic clutching at his temples Minerva disapproved of separately—one ought to be simpler, without all that… theatre.

She set the memory aside till evening—Severus had said ‘important’, not ‘urgent’. And quite right—after what she saw, it would have been difficult to refocus on a petition to the Board of Governors.

Petitions were a headache all their own—yet again, for the umpteenth year, she was having to beg a bursary for another Weasley. When five of them had ended up round Gryffindor’s neck, Minerva had wanted to stitch shut, with stout thread, that bottomless hole from which they all kept popping into the light of day. Molly, a devout Catholic (not that she’d admit it, but God brands the rogue—red‑haired Irish are hard to miss), was fruitful and multiplying to a degree that had the nargles in the Forbidden Forest green with envy. All well and good—save that the family were not exactly industrious, and they never had enough money to kit out even one of their brood for school. Once the two eldest had graduated it became a touch easier, but fresh consignments of Weasleys were due this year and the next. And as if that were not enough, the Board was now chaired by none other than His Lordship Malfoy. From him, Minerva sensed, you’d not wheedle snow in winter—let alone five charitable bursaries for one family.

Be that as it may, the petition was drafted, the accounts sifted, the letters read; and in the gathering dusk, lighting an enchanted candle (far more economical and sensible than keeping up a Lumos, as certain poseurs did), Minerva at last reached her first cup of tea of the day and, afterwards, finally, Severus’s phial.

What presented itself before her eyes knocked her off her stride. She… had not encountered the like for the first time. Truth be told, there were few years when Hogwarts did not admit at least one first‑year with hasty St Mungo’s patch‑ups and a tidied memory. The latter Minerva disapproved of, but such was Albus’s policy. He thought it wrong that children should be frightened themselves, suffering dreadful recollections, and, above all, that they should frighten other children who might never have clapped eyes on a single Muggle—like those same Weasleys.

No one was proud of it, but facts were facts. Only this particular boy…

She had known. She had felt it. She had told Albus—don’t. She had taken against the whole family, root and branch—call it intuition, which any Animagus trusted at least in part; but the name didn’t matter. She had simply known in her bones—nothing good would come of it. And nothing good had.

The cupboard. The traces of beatings. Choice ‘quotations’ from Petunia’s memory (watching a memory inside another memory was deeply unpleasant; it made her head spin), and like fragments sliced from the minds of Vernon and Dudley. The last were especially monstrous: it was Dudley who had seen, start to finish, the ‘game’ with the dog. Dudley had enjoyed himself. It seemed that was when the little droplets of blood had appeared on the ceiling. Magical surges—and fresh beatings. A sea of unending cruelty broke over Minerva. For the first time, she embraced Albus’s view with all her heart. This was indeed better forgotten. By all involved.

After six cups of tea in a row—the last three with a little brandy, and by ‘a little’ one meant ‘about half a cup’—Minerva came to a firm decision.

One way or another, she had to save the child. It could not go on. Everything Albus had said was sound and sensible; the boy ought to have been shielded in early childhood from his fame, from being insufferably spoiled and the other pitfalls of his special status—but the Dursleys had proved simply the wrong choice, full stop. Harry needed another home, and Minerva would find it. Lady Longbottom would help, in the end. By the next summer holidays Harry would have a normal family.

And if not, Minerva would take on the duty herself. Yes, she was no longer young—if not frankly old; yes, sorrow had knocked her about; yes, she had never had children of her own. But once Harry became one of Gryffindor’s charges, he would be her child, and she would do whatever was needful to ensure his protection.

Magical Britain—the whole wizarding world, for that matter—owed this boy a debt. It was time to pay it, and Minerva would see it paid properly.

Alone with her reflection in the windowpane, Minerva McGonagall raised her cup in salute. As though to seal her silent vow, a bright, tailed star tore from the high heavens, fell straight into the Black Lake, and went out.

Chapter Text

The clock on the tower of King’s Cross showed half past ten in the morning when Harry, mustering his courage, stepped beneath its high, arched vaults. From the front, the building looked like a surviving fragment of a Roman aqueduct—or else a medieval bridge with two spans that had, quite suddenly, lost both its banks and the river beneath. Inside, the impression shifted: the glass roof, divided into an endless grid of square panes, suggested a colossal, truly gigantic greenhouse; Harry had seen one like it at Kew Gardens, where they’d once—about a million years ago, in some entirely different life—been taken on a school trip.

After a month shut away in the Grimmauld Place townhouse, the swarming, humming throng inside the station was overwhelming. Dozens of people were streaming rapidly in every direction, dragging wheeled suitcases, hefting rucksacks, leading children by the hand, shoving luggage trolleys and prams, and carrying armfuls of flowers and befuddled dogs. All of them were, at once, shuffling, coughing, stamping, laughing, and talking very loudly. Harry felt as though several currents of a river were washing over him at once; it made his head spin. Disoriented, he clung with his eyes to Tom, striding unseen by anyone else at his side.

Behind them, now this passenger, now that, hurrying about their business, suddenly checked, stumbled, or wobbled, then began peering about in puzzlement, casting suspicious looks at the floor, their own feet, other people’s luggage trolleys, or someone’s dachshund on a lead. By the time the longed‑for pillar between platforms Nine and Ten hove into view ahead, the peculiar wake trailing behind Harry and Tom had already spawned two blazing rows (someone had been doused to the hilt with coffee, and someone else had lost a suitcase wheel) and one potential romantic introduction (a girl who had tripped, flinging out her arms, fell straight onto a bespectacled blond studying the departures board—and he, to his own astonishment, managed to catch her). The cause of all this confusion, of course, was Trunk.

Hidden under an invisibility charm of Tom’s casting, Trunk trotted faithfully after Harry—but unlike Tom, it was by no means incorporeal, and so kept shouldering people out of the way or jabbing them with a corner, and now and then even tripping them with one of its clawed spider‑legs. Perhaps—just perhaps—they ought to have disguised it as an ordinary suitcase; but Tom knew no suitable glamour for the illusion, and neither of them had bothered to hunt one up. Others had to pay for their carelessness now, but neither Harry nor Tom were plagued by conscience—one was focused on cleaving a path to Platform Nine and Three‑Quarters, and as for the other’s capacity for remorse, the entire wizarding world could have told a tale or two.

Harry’s nerves peaked right before the pillar. Tom had said he had to keep his stride firm and not doubt he would pass through. Magic—any magic, not only this business with the barrier—rested on will and intent; hesitation was death to it.

‘There’s a door there,’ Harry told himself firmly, screwing his eyes shut for safety’s sake. ‘There’s a door, and I’m walking through it now.’

He took a step forward, felt no resistance at all, took another, bolder—and…

The noise around him changed. He distinctly heard an owl hoot. Something whisked by his feet, brushing him with a soft, woolly flank. A child laughed nearby and an indignant voice yelled, ‘Oh, Mu‑um!’ Harry opened his eyes.

‘There it is,’ Tom said cheerfully, and Harry looked round, hungry for the sight. ‘Platform Nine and Three‑Quarters.’

A bright scarlet locomotive was snorting steam like a kettle boiled dry. The carriages behind it looked as though they’d run away from a museum, they were so boxy and ungainly. All along the platform, wherever you looked, grown‑ups in robes of the most outlandish colours were milling, while children of all ages, dressed in anything that came to hand, darted to and fro. Overhead, owls wheeled—so the hooting hadn’t been his imagination—and at his feet cats twined, every one the spit of Mrs Figg’s pets, even down to the ear‑tufts. Harry breathed out in delight.

‘Finite.’ Drawing his wand from his sleeve, he tapped Trunk, cancelling the invisibility. Trunk shook itself like a big dog. Harry set off along the train, not without difficulty, threading his way through the crush.

He found an empty compartment in the fourth carriage. Harry sank with satisfaction onto a plump, old‑fashioned seat, suppressing the urge to bounce on it. Trunk nimbly scrambled onto the luggage rack and went still there, tucking its legs under itself.

‘I think I’ll leave you for a bit,’ Tom said, shoving his hands into his robe pockets. ‘I want to have a look round.’

‘Won’t you get your fill at Hogwarts?’ Harry protested; he didn’t much fancy being left on his own just now. ‘They all go to the terminus, I promise you!’

‘It won’t be the same,’ Tom smiled, enigmatically, hitched a shoulder and whistled out through the open compartment door—gone in a flash.

‘Off to the prefects’ carriage to wallow in nostalgia,’ Harry thought crossly, and slid the door shut. It was almost quiet.

He watched through the window as the crowd on the platform slowly thinned, as those staying behind waved and those departing gave them hasty kisses; then the train jerked, swayed, and began to move off, slowly and smoothly gathering speed. A strange feeling came over Harry—the feeling you have when you’re leaving somewhere for good and you know it. He imagined what lay ahead and, at the same time, couldn’t imagine it; he felt glad, sad and anxious, all jumbled together, and his heart seemed to pause in his chest, gripped by excitement, as though in someone’s invisible fist.

He wasn’t allowed to meditate on the view long. The compartment door slid open without a knock, and a shock of carroty hair poked in. The nose beneath it bore a dirty smudge; freckles were scattered thickly over the cheeks.

‘Is this seat free?’ its owner asked, nodding at the place opposite Harry. ‘There’s nowhere at all in the others.’

Harry hesitated, then nodded, and the unknown fellow‑traveller squeezed in. He was about Harry’s age—thin, big‑handed and gawky—wearing track‑suit bottoms, a check jacket and a bright red jumper which, in combination with his flame‑coloured hair, made you want to rub your eyes. He sat down quickly, shot Harry a sidelong look, and at once looked away, pretending to be riveted by something outside. Harry looked, too—there wasn’t much to see yet; the train was creeping past a line of sheds and brick walls, and every so often adjacent tracks with goods trains on them flashed by.

‘Oi, Ron!’ Two absolutely identical, slightly older lads—ginger and freckled as well—poked their heads round the door again. ‘We’re off… Lee Jordan’s two carriages up… he’s brought a giant tarantula,’ they said, rather comically finishing each other’s sentences, like actors reading a well‑rehearsed two‑hander. So that, Harry supposed, was what magical twins looked like; Tom had mentioned them before.

‘All right, go on,’ mumbled the boy called Ron, and darted another glance at Harry.

‘Hullo,’ the twins said to Harry, in turn, and smiled identical smiles. ‘We’re Fred… and George Weasley… and this is our brother Ron.’

Feeling very awkward, Harry stood a touch and nodded.

‘Harry James Potter,’ he said, introducing himself.

‘Wicked,’ breathed the twin on the right (Harry thought that was George), and the one on the left clicked his tongue. ‘Pleasure, Harry. See you later.’ They vanished, and Ron blurted, at once:

‘Are you really Harry Potter?!’

Harry bristled. ‘Here we go,’ he thought—and Ron obliged.

‘D’you really have—?’ He jabbed a finger at Harry’s face.

‘Have what?’ Harry asked, rather sharply, fighting the urge to rap that impertinently extended finger.

‘Well, you know… the scar?’

‘Yes,’ said Harry. His new acquaintance stared at him expectantly; Harry hadn’t the faintest what he wanted.

‘And do you remember how—?’ Ron persisted—but at least he lowered his finger.

‘I don’t,’ Harry disclaimed.

‘Not anything at all?’ Ron looked disappointed. The conversation was threatening to fizzle out just as it began, so Harry asked—knowing the answer already, but desperate to shift the focus from himself to anything else:

‘So those were your brothers… is everyone in your family a witch or wizard?’

‘Er… yeah. I reckon so,’ Ron decided, after thought.

Of course they were—the Weasleys had cropped up in the very first genealogical compendium Harry had read, in the Sacred Twenty‑Eight. But this wasn’t quite how he’d imagined the offspring of a venerable pure‑blood line. Ron’s jumper cuffs were frayed; his jacket was patched at the elbows; his track‑suit bottoms were rumpled; and his entirely mismatched boots were in sore need of a proper clean. Not to mention the black smear on his nose.

‘’Spose,’ Ron went on, ‘Mum’s got a cousin who’s a Muggle, but we never talk about him. He’s an accountant.’ Ron sniffed his grubby nose.

‘A Squib,’ Harry guessed; aloud, purely to keep things going, he said:

‘I wouldn’t have minded an older wizard brother.’ He was thinking, of course, of Tom.

‘I’ve got five,’ Ron said with disgust. ‘I’m the sixth. When you’ve five brothers you never get anything new. So I’m off to school with everything second‑hand…’ He launched into a long complaint about life, and Harry—who had, at first, felt a twinge of sympathy, knowing all too well what it meant to wear other people’s cast‑offs—ended up thoroughly downcast.

‘Everyone expects me to do no worse than my brothers…’ Ron was confiding, and Harry couldn’t help wondering whether he was really this frank with everyone after five minutes’ acquaintance. Meanwhile, Ron fished from the inner pocket of his jacket a greasy, grey‑brown rat. The rat was sleeping serenely. One toe was missing from one paw; its pelt was mottled with bald patches and unhealthy‑looking scabs.

‘He’s called Scabbers, and he’s absolutely useless.’ Harry, mentally comparing Scabbers with sleek, elegant, anthracite‑glossy Hole, could scarcely disagree with that assessment.

‘They gave Percy an owl when they found out he was going to be a prefect, and I wanted one too, only Mum and Dad haven’t the mon—’ Ron broke off, flushed, and finished, lamely: ‘I mean, I got a rat instead.’ He went an even deeper red and finally shut up.

The awkward silence was broken by a knock at the compartment door.

‘Anything off the trolley, dears?’ smiled a witch with dimples. She wore a severe, floor‑length robe; her hair was twisted into an elaborate knot atop her head; and she was pushing a trolley like an air hostess (Harry had only ever seen such things in films—and then only in snatches, since his sole way of watching telly had been peering through a crack in the door). ‘Let’s sweeten life a little, shall we?’

Harry rubbed his hands, delighted. Wizarding sweets interested him less for their taste than for the mere fact they were wizarding sweets; so he piled up a bit of everything: Chocolate Frogs, Cauldron Cakes, Liquorice Wands, pumpkin pasties, Exploding chewing gum, Every‑Flavour Beans (these looked especially promising—the label proclaimed: ‘Bertie Bott’s—Really EVERY flavour!’), and whatever else the trolley offered.

‘Blimey! Are you that hungry?’ Ron goggled, and Harry rolled his eyes. Even his own notions of etiquette—unceasingly criticised by Tom—were sufficient to keep him from commenting on someone else’s appetite out loud.

‘No—I’m that curious,’ he said, dumping the sweets onto the seat beside him.

‘And I’ve only got smoked‑meat sandwiches…’ Ron whinged. Harry frowned—he hadn’t factored in a scrounger when he’d been stocking up.

‘D’you want one?’ After a moment’s hesitation he parted with a packet of sugar quills. The redhead brightened at once, tore open the wrapping and stuffed into his mouth a queer, fluffy lolly—indeed the spitting image of a feather.

‘Fanks,’ he gurgled—and, mercifully, refrained from further conversation with his mouth full.

Harry unwrapped a Chocolate Frog. Eating a sweet that kicked its legs was odd—but fun, on the whole. Inside the box he found a collector’s card. Right—Tom had told him about them; Harry had already managed to forget. ‘Albus Percival Wulfic Brian Dumbledore,’ the caption read. The card was empty—the super‑villain version of Professor X was off gallivanting on some other card.

‘What if these can spy like the portraits do?’ Harry thought, alarmed, and thrust the insert at Ron, quickly.

‘You don’t, by any chance, collect these? Here—have it.’

Ron crunched up the remains of his sugar quill.

‘Don’t you? I’ll take it, then. I’ve got him already, mind—but I might trade. If only I got Agrippa…’ He cast the line; Harry, the second time round, didn’t bite.

There was another knock at the door.

‘Come in,’ Harry called, and the door slid aside.

On the threshold stood a fair‑haired, light‑eyed boy, taller than Harry (almost all his contemporaries were taller than Harry—even the weedy Ron), but just as narrow in the shoulders and fine‑boned. His pale face looked crafty, like a ferret’s. Behind him, in the corridor, two dark‑haired lumps shifted from foot to foot—thickset lads with simple, not to say dull, faces; one wider and heavier than the other. Typical henchmen—of the sort Harry had seen a hundred times at his Muggle school, not least among his odious cousin’s crowd. Their mere presence announced the pecking order—this fair ferret fancied himself a power. Sweeping the compartment with a quick, appraising glance, he drawled, oddly stretching the words, almost singing them:

‘The whole train is abuzz that the hero of magical Britain is riding in this compartment.’ He suddenly winked at Harry with his left eye, and the ‘hero’—whose past with school ‘top lads’ was a doleful chronicle—perked up a touch. ‘So I hastened to pay my respects to a national celebrity. Draco Lucius Malfoy’—the blond inclined his head in a neat, measured nod—‘at your service. And these’—he flicked a languid hand over his shoulder—‘are Crabbe and Goyle. They’re with me.’

‘Malfoy! So this is Lady Narcissa’s son,’ Harry’s mental cogs whirred at top speed. ‘Doesn’t look in a rush to bite my nose off—good start. I ought to build bridges, carefully—especially as he’s walked straight in…’

He didn’t get to finish the thought.

‘Do one, Draco Lucius Malfoy,’ Ron grated, in a tone of utmost unfriendliness; his face was slowly flushing again. ‘You’re not welcome here, got it?’

Harry was taken aback.

‘Why not welcome?’ he snapped.

‘Because he’s a Malfoy,’ Ron explained with great ‘clarity’, by now the colour of a tomato. ‘A stinking slug. Best not even talk to them, Harry. You don’t know what sort they are.’

Not that Harry could exactly dispute the last statement—but he took a dim view of being told what to do.

‘I’ll decide for myself whom I’m glad to see, and whom I’ll talk to—and whom I won’t.’ He caught himself finishing with a smirk—and he knew perfectly well whose repertoire he’d borrowed that particular smirk from.

Ron sprang up, fists clenched.

‘I thought you—!’ he accused, incoherently. ‘And you—!’

‘And I thought it was just a heap of rags in the corner,’ Malfoy cut in, eager to join the squabble. ‘Turns out it’s a Weasley—you just can’t tell which by number. Seventeenth? Fifty‑sixth? Sorry—so easy to lose count.’ There was so little regret in that ‘sorry’ you’d not have found it with a magnifying glass. ‘If you don’t like the company—off you go yourself,’ he finished, tilting his nose. Goyle grunted, approvingly, and ostentatiously flexed his knuckles; Crabbe rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck.

‘Fisticuffs incoming,’ Harry thought. Ron, it seemed, had come to the same conclusion.

‘Oh, stuff you!’ he shouted hotly, then rounded on Harry. ‘Harry—come on!’

‘Not a chance,’ Harry said, burrowing deeper into his corner by the window.

‘Oh, is that how it is—!’ For a second it seemed Ron might spit at him; instead, he merely twitched his shoulders and, aggressively shoving past the boys in the doorway, actually stormed off. Harry let out a breath. Physical showdowns had never been his element.

‘Sorry about the scene,’ Harry said to the three remaining lads. ‘He seemed reasonable at first. I hardly need to introduce myself, do I?’ He managed a wan smile. ‘Looks like every dog knows me…’

‘Harry James Potter… also known as Fomalhaut Black, if I’m not mistaken,’ Malfoy piped up at once, with such a nasty little smirk that Harry realised at once—Lady Narcissa was not in the dark about the self‑styled Black heir.

He groaned.

‘Please, please, don’t. I just… gossip is the most ghastly thing in the world, isn’t it?’

‘You know,’ Malfoy came into the compartment and sat down opposite Harry, looking pleased with himself; Crabbe and Goyle silently dropped onto the seats either side of him. ‘Maman is now simply dying to make your acquaintance.’ He curved his lips into a serpent’s smile; if Tom showed all his teeth before taking a bite, Malfoy, it seemed, preferred to keep his fangs sheathed till the last. ‘And although you do not, in fact, bear the Black family name, you are our kin, and therefore a Black of sorts.’

Well—Malfoy was hardly discovering America for Harry there.

‘Yes, yes, my grandmother…’ he began—but Malfoy cut in again:

‘Yes—and besides, Sirius is your godfather.’

Harry’s mouth fell open.

‘What? I didn’t know,’ he muttered, stunned.

‘I see there’s a lot you don’t know,’ Malfoy drawled, swinging his legs. ‘How, for Mordred’s sake, did you end up palling around with a blood traitor?’

Harry stared at him in horror.

‘Hang on—what? No…’ Oh, Morgana’s tits! No wonder the ginger had struck him as an exceptionally unpleasant specimen.

‘Yes, yes. Everyone knows what the Weasleys are. Where’s Bumbledore been keeping you all this time—under a Fidelius, that you’re so cut off?’

Harry tensed. ‘Bumbledore’? That was Dumbledore, surely. But why did Malfoy think he’d been hiding him? And—‘under a Fidelius’? He set the unfamiliar word aside for later and chose to answer the part he understood.

‘But in the Sacred Twenty‑Eight…’

Malfoy threw up his hands.

‘Ah, that loathsome libel,’ he pronounced. ‘Potter, you can’t believe absolutely everything you read. Everyone knows that nasty booklet was scribbled by our Nott’s great‑grandfather, settling personal scores. The Malfoys aren’t in it at all—and do you know why? Envy, that’s why! He accused my family of being related to Veela. I am, of course, divinely handsome and irresistibly attractive’—he ran his fingers through his fair locks, slicking them back like a model on a photoshoot—‘but I assure you, no dalliances with non‑humans were involved.’

‘Merlin,’ was all Harry could manage.

‘So—yes, it’s plain you’ve yet to get the lay of the land here,’ Malfoy said, eyes narrowing lazily. ‘And I daresay a bit of help wouldn’t go amiss.’

He pushed himself up a touch on the little table and held out his hand.

‘How do you fancy becoming my friend, Harry James Potter?’

Harry stared at the offered palm. A friend. Until now, he’d had just the one—Tom. And yet…

‘Upon mature consideration, I’ve no objection to your becoming my friend, Draco Lucius Malfoy,’ he said, solemnly, and shook the thin, pale hand.

Draco burst out laughing.

‘Merlin, the key word in that whole sentence, for you, is ‘my’, isn’t it? Maman will be absolutely taken with you!’ He cocked his head, smirking; then pulled a wheedling face:

‘Listen—I’ve been dying to ask: where—?’

‘Over there,’ Harry caught his meaning. Trunk scuttled down the wall from the luggage rack, pattered over to him, and settled, tucking its legs back under its base.

Crabbe and Goyle sighed in unison with admiration. Malfoy’s eyes lit up.

‘Mordred and Morgana! That’s cool!’

Harry, shocked by the phrasing, gave a little giggle.

‘Wash your mouth out with soap, ugh,’ he couldn’t help saying. ‘You’ve picked up a Muggle word from somewhere.’

Draco stuck out the tongue in question with an obscenely mischievous look.

‘Clean, see? Merlin, you’re a bore. Seriously—who are your guardians? Surely not Bumbledore himself—he’s a proper Muggle‑lover. So who did he palm you off on? We’ve had all sorts of rumours flying about.’

Malfoy’s minions, meanwhile, weren’t wasting time—Goyle, on Harry’s right, dug a packet of Every‑Flavour Beans out of his robe pocket and began picking through them with fussy care. Crabbe followed suit not a heartbeat later. The effect was rather like popcorn in a cinema—the audience, though silent, was clearly enjoying the show.

Harry rubbed his forehead, thinking. To tell—or not? And if so—what?

‘The truth,’ he decided. ‘Only presented properly.’

‘All right—since we’re friends now, I’ll tell you. But you must promise not to blab—it isn’t for everyone.’

Malfoy sobered and sat up straighter.

‘An oath?’

‘Praise Merlin for Tom,’ Harry thought for the umpteenth time. Without him he’d not even have known what oath Draco meant.

‘No—your word will do. And you two,’ he addressed Crabbe and Goyle, ‘keep schtum as well—agreed?’

‘Mouths zipped!’ Draco promised for them. The henchmen nodded solemnly, still munching sweets.

Harry drew a breath. The others held theirs, expectant.

‘I was raised… by the Dark Lord.’

Goyle’s sweet packet slipped from his hand and thumped to the floor. Malfoy’s eyes went glassy. Crabbe gave a soft whistle.

‘How…?’ Malfoy came to. ‘What…? Is he… is he alive?!’

‘Now that,’ Harry said, shaking his head weightily, savouring their bewildered faces, ‘really does take an oath. Not my secret to tell.’

‘My father,’ Draco burst out, ‘has to know about this!’

‘He knows—rest assured,’ Harry checked him. ‘And if he doesn’t—then that’s how it was meant to be. Don’t get underfoot, Malfoy.’

Before he could answer, the compartment door slid open again—this time without a knock.

‘What is this, a public thoroughfare?’ Harry fumed inwardly, taking in the new arrival—a sharp‑nosed, wide‑mouthed girl with an incredible mane of curly hair; it billowed round her head like a thundercloud and seemed to move of its own accord. She wore a school robe, under which jeans and trainers stuck out.

‘Have you seen a toad?’ she asked severely, without so much as a hello.

‘There’s one sitting right there. Puffed up—my compliments,’ Harry pointed at Draco, who had, in fact, scowled and puffed his cheeks a little. The visitor frowned in reproof, and Harry smiled at her, shrugging:

‘I’m joking. No toads here—but we’ve got Chocolate Frogs. Want one?’

The girl’s eyes lit with desire.

‘Sweets are bad for your teeth,’ she said, swallowing. ‘My parents are dentists—I know all about it! Give me one, please.’

‘Muggle‑born,’ Harry realised. Alas, from a networking standpoint that meant ‘useless’. The Frog was wasted.

‘What d’you want a toad for?’ he asked, despite himself. Merlin—had the mudblood really chosen a toad as a familiar?

‘A boy called Neville’s lost his, and I’m helping look for it.’ She unwrapped the Frog, watched with interest as it tried to hop out of her hands, then bit down decisively. She spoke very fast, almost gabbling, as if afraid her mouth wouldn’t keep up with her thoughts.

‘You might at least introduce yourself, fair stranger,’ Draco sang out, wrinkling his nose. ‘I’m Malfoy; opposite me, Potter; and these are Goyle and Crabbe.’

‘Hermione Granger.’ In three bites the girl finished the chocolate and blissfully licked her lips. ‘Are you really Harry Potter?’ She examined Harry very closely. ‘I’ve read about you. Your name’s in Modern Magical History, and in The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, and in Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century.’

‘Is it indeed,’ Harry said, sardonic.

‘Good heavens—don’t you know?’ she marvelled. ‘In your place I’d have read everything there is about me. Oh—do you know which House you’ll be in yet? I’ve looked into it, and I do hope for Gryffindor. Seems the best option. I’ve heard Dumbledore himself was in that House once. Mind you, I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn’t be bad either…’

‘Granger…’ Harry cut in. ‘Hermione—if you’ll allow me to call you that?’ She nodded and opened her mouth again, but he didn’t let her slip another word in:

‘Excellent. Hermione—tell me: do you like pain?’

She was taken aback. ‘No?’

‘How lovely!’ Harry beamed. ‘Because I very much don’t want to have to curse you.’

She seemed struck dumb—at last. Buoyed by success, Harry went on:

‘Or rather—don’t get me wrong—I do want to; but I’ve no experience, you see, and I’m nervous, and I really believe a first time ought to be with someone special, and we scarcely know each other yet.’

He admired the way her mouth rounded in fright. Malfoy and his back‑ups, praise Merlin, didn’t spoil the performance—sat quiet as mice; Crabbe and Goyle even stopped chewing.

Alas, the mudblood came round quickly. She could take a punch.

‘You talk like a Dark wizard,’ she declared, frowning till her brows met.

Harry shrugged.

‘Well—yes? You know, I’m set on Slytherin, and all its lot are by default taken for terribly evil sorcerers,’ he explained, patiently. ‘If I can’t avoid the label, why should I act otherwise? Why not be a Dark wizard, if I’m branded one without a thought? Being a Dark wizard is fun.’

Granger narrowed her eyes, sceptical.

‘What makes you think that?’

‘You’re Muggle‑born and, by the look of it, you like books—have you read about Raistlin Majere?’

She had—Harry could see her thinking.

‘Elric of Melniboné? Sauron?’

‘You’re strange,’ Granger said quietly. A smear of chocolate lingered by her lip. Her front teeth, Harry noted, were a touch large, which made her look a bit like some sort of rodent. ‘And I’m not sure I like you. In any case, I’d better go on looking for Neville’s toad.’

She turned and went—almost bolted—from the compartment. She didn’t thank him for the treat—but in her world, it seemed, saying ‘thank you’ to Dark wizards counted as bad manners.

The door hadn’t even slid shut when Draco was already laughing—so hard he had to clutch his stomach.

‘Merlin,’ he gasped, scarcely breathing, ‘Potter…’

Crabbe and Goyle backed him up with muffled grunts. Harry, flattered, grinned and reached for the sweets.

‘Argument beyond praise,’ Draco pronounced, once he’d recovered the power of speech. ‘I particularly liked the offer to curse her.’

‘Well, if he was telling the truth…’ Crabbe ventured. It was the first time Harry had heard his voice; till now the Malfoy minion had kept quiet—either trying to look grimmer, or simply shy; the voice turned out high and thin, quite at odds with the burly frame.

‘There was never any doubt Potter wasn’t lying,’ Malfoy cut him off. ‘And now, less than ever. Isn’t that right, lads?’

Crabbe shut up, and he and Goyle both nodded. Harry unwrapped a Cauldron Cake, looked it over fondly, and took a bite. Inside was a runny caramel filling. Draco surveyed the company, all with their mouths full, sighed sorrowfully and plunged a hand into Goyle’s packet.

‘Oh,’ he said as soon as he tried a bean, pulling a suffering face and breathing through his mouth. ‘Got pepper!’

Yes—turns out the legend about ‘really every’ flavour was gospel truth; the barmy manufacturer had stuffed his beans with every twisted filling imaginable. Just the sort of thing Harry had expected of wizarding treats. He got into the swing of it quickly, and he and Draco had a good laugh at each other’s faces after the next bean that tasted of broccoli, earwax or offal. Over the sweets their talk drifted into lighter chatter.

‘Listen,’ Harry said to Draco, ‘I’ve been meaning to ask—why do you talk so oddly? Be-e-e so-o-o kind,’ he mimicked.

Draco rubbed the back of his head, embarrassed.

‘Keep this under your hat,’ he asked, ‘but I’ll tell you. When I was little I stammered horribly. And a stammering wizard, as you can imagine, is a walking joke. In real life—and in a fight especially—it’s practically a disability. So a mediwizard worked with me, and this is what we ended up with.’

Harry felt guilty at once.

‘Oh, pack it in,’ he mumbled, clapping Draco on the shoulder in apology. ‘It’s even rather handsome. Stylish, sort of.’

Malfoy rolled his eyes and made it clear what he thought of that ‘stylish’.

The views outside were changing. The endless fields of typical countryside had given way to sheer cliffs and thick forest. They had been travelling for hours; dusk was falling. Harry realised, with amazement, that he was having a perfectly decent time—for the first time he could remember, a decent time in company not of a book but of other children (Tom belonged to his own, separate category; there was simply nothing to compare being with him to).

Yes—the only downer was that Tom still hadn’t come back; otherwise, everything was, on the whole, fine. Harry wondered where Tom could be now—roaming the train? Still holed up in the prefects’ carriage? Parked in the driver’s cab? Why had he needed to vanish for so long?

‘Looks like we’re nearly there,’ Malfoy remarked, brushing crumbs from his robe (Harry had been generous and broken bread—or rather, a pumpkin pasty—with his new friend); and right on cue, the train began to slow.

‘We’ll be arriving at Hogwarts in five minutes,’ a loud voice announced, and Harry craned about, trying to work out where it was coming from. ‘Please leave your luggage on the train; it will be brought up to the school separately.’

Trunk, which had been lying still, stirred, gave a hop and flexed its legs. Harry shooed it back up onto the luggage rack.

He slipped the last Chocolate Frog into his pocket; on the table and seats only empty wrappers and Ron’s half‑finished packet of sugar quills were left strewn about. The four boys stepped out into the corridor, already heaving with people. At last the train braked, and after a couple of minutes of confused jostling Harry spilled out of the carriage with relief.

He found himself on a small, completely unlit platform. Other pupils were bustling and chattering all around, their robes merging with the rapidly thickening darkness so they looked like a gathering of shadows. The air was rather fresh; a damp wind was blowing, smelling of open water. Suddenly, at the far end of the platform, a great paraffin lamp flared.

‘First years! First years, this way!’ boomed a powerful, deep voice from somewhere above—like a sound out of a barrel—and the dancing light, for a moment, picked out an enormous beard with small, widely spaced eyes glinting over it. ‘Oi there—first years—over here!’

‘A giant,’ Harry realised, seized by a mixture of terror and awe. ‘By Merlin—an actual one!’

‘Alright, are we all here?’ the giant—perhaps not a full‑blooded one; he looked, at a guess, ten or eleven feet tall, no more, but formidable enough—said briskly. ‘Then follow me! And mind your step!’

How one was meant to mind one’s step when you couldn’t see a thing, Harry didn’t know; but he dutifully trailed after the others, slipping and stumbling along a narrow path that plunged steeply down. Trees rustled invisibly to either side; overhead the sky stretched like a black tent stitched with sequins—and with every second it grew blacker, while the sequins above grew more and more. The pupils fell quiet; only concentrated puffing could be heard, and someone behind let loose a few hefty sneezes in succession.

‘Careful! Everyone over here! Now—look! There it is—Hogwarts!’ the giant proclaimed. A collective gasp of wonder answered him, rippling through the dark.

Harry gasped no less rapturously himself. Mouth agape, he stared ahead—stared and could not drink his fill.

He had probably asked Tom a dozen times to show him a memory of Hogwarts. Tom had always refused. ‘I don’t want to spoil your first impression,’ he’d said—and now Harry understood why.

He was standing at the very edge of a lake that stretched left and right as far as the eye could see—the shoreline’s outline drowned in the dark, and only the ripple on the water, visible by the gleam of starlight alone, hinted at its bounds. And on the far side, atop a cliff, rose a castle straight out of a fairy‑tale.

Slender towers—Harry counted five—with steeply pointed roofs pierced the sky. A multitude of lancet windows studded the walls, all lit with a trembling golden fire. Curving galleries twined aloft, vying in their caprice with the sweeps of the flying buttresses. Delicate crenellations crowned each curtain wall.

Shining like a vision filled with supernal light; lovely as a dream fulfilled, and beckoning like a dream unattainable—Hogwarts seemed to sail towards him, cleaving the starry dark: a phantom ship, the very opposite of the Flying Dutchman, a ship laden to the gunwales with warmth and happiness.

And as he looked at it, tears in his eyes and not the least ashamed of them, Harry could think only one thing.

‘At last, I’m home.’

Chapter Text

Tough, leathery ivy leaves playfully brushed Harry’s head and he angrily flicked away a coiling tendril from his face. ‘Duck! Duck down!’ the giant was calling, somewhere ahead at the head of the flotilla of enchanted little boats ferrying the prospective students to Hogwarts.

The boats, round and short‑waisted like walnut shells, seated four apiece and took the whole of Harry and Draco’s party nicely. Crabbe and Goyle, two abreast in the bows, looked about with solemn interest. Draco, beside Harry, folded his arms and hunched his shoulders—he seemed a touch afraid of toppling into the lake. Harry couldn’t blame him—the little craft rocked, swayed and pirouetted; and no sooner had they slipped into a cleft in the rock masked by vegetation than something behind them fell into the water with a tremendous splash. A woeful cry followed: ‘Oh no, Trevor!’—which only heightened the drama. Thankfully, a second later the curly‑haired mudblood’s patter—‘Got him! Here’s your toad!’—made it clear the alarming noise had been nothing more than a runaway pet, and not a schoolboy sinking without trace.

The ivy‑choked cleft opened into a tunnel driven straight through the rock. Torches sprang to life on the walls of their own accord (Tom had told Harry they were enchanted to react to human presence). The half‑flooded gallery ended at a small underground landing where their escort told them to disembark and briskly checked the boats, handing a forgotten pointed hat to one person, a glove to another, and, to Neville, a discontentedly croaking Trevor.

In Neville’s shoes, Harry would have resigned himself to the fact that he and the toad were not meant to be together; but Neville seemed more stubborn and persistent than you’d expect from someone who’d chosen such a useless familiar. The amphibian, clutched to his chest, feebly windmilled its legs. Its owner—whom Harry finally had the chance to look over properly—proved to be a plump lad with a round face and round, sleepily blinking eyes that put Harry in mind of a cow’s.

The flames burning over the landing and all along the walls drowned the giant’s paraffin lamp—the light shrank, dimmed, and was barely noticeable by comparison. The giant himself, however, stood revealed in all his glory: the darkness no longer hid his colossal height; and it turned out he was not only bearded but exceedingly hairy besides—altogether reminiscent of a rearing bear that some malign whim had shod in soft lace‑up boots and buttoned into a gamekeeper’s coat.

Once he’d finished with the boats, the giant led them through a lofty arch sunk in the rock—beyond it lay a long, steep flight of stone steps. At the very top stood a door, studded with crossing iron bands, so monumental it looked more like a set of castle gates. The moment the giant banged the knocker a couple of times, the gates swung wide. Before the first‑years, huddling nervously and craning like chicks, stood a spare, elderly woman in moss‑green robes, with black hair frosted with grey at the temples. Her lips were pursed in disapproval; her eyes were watery and cold; and her nose was hooked. In Harry’s view, this was exactly how a wicked witch ought to look.

‘Professor McGonagall,’ the giant said, as respectfully and meekly as a being of his build could contrive, ‘the first‑years.’

She swept them with a stern look that said, ‘Don’t you dare start anything,’ and said, curtly:

‘Thank you, Hagrid. I’ll take them from here. Children, this way.’

She led them across a huge, cave‑like hall paved with flagstones. At the far end a grand marble staircase could be seen; from a pair of double doors on the right, not quite shut, there leaked the sort of clamour only a crowd of children at fever pitch can produce. As it turned out, however, they weren’t heading there at all, but into a small, empty chamber, where Professor McGonagall gave them a preliminary briefing.

‘Welcome to Hogwarts,’ she began, looking, for some reason, almost exclusively at Harry—who at once pricked up his ears. Wizards like half‑batty Ollivander and that barmy barman Tom, who had the odd knack of spotting the boy‑with‑the‑famous‑scar at a glance, generally behaved in decidedly eccentric fashion. Well, there were only two such examples—but both were striking enough.

‘Shortly we’ll begin the Start‑of‑Term Feast,’ McGonagall was saying, ‘but first you are to be Sorted…’ She went on to explain the school Houses, stressed that from now on their House would be their family, outlined the points system, and advised them to tidy themselves up and collect their thoughts.

‘I shall be back in a minute. Please keep quiet,’ she finished, again giving Harry a pointed look—and indeed left.

The brand‑new first‑years, who had spent the whole of her talk jostling and breathing nervously down one another’s necks, clearly had neither the strength nor the inclination to follow a single piece of advice, and therefore did precisely the opposite—burst out chatting, loudly and excitedly.

‘How do they do the choosing?’ peeped a timid little voice. It was promptly answered by another, speaking in tones of doom:

‘There’ll probably be some sort of ordeal!’

‘I heard it really hurts,’ a third voice broke in—cracking and trembling—and, to Harry’s amazement, he recognised Ron.

‘You have to beat a troll!’

‘Not beat—talk round! And not a troll—a hat!’

‘What? You have to beat a hat?!’

All this nonsense was being shouted over Hermione Granger’s unending machine‑gun patter as she reeled off spells she had already learnt and wondered aloud which one they’d ask her to perform for the Sorting.

Draco, who had been separated from Harry in the crush, wriggled closer and rolled his eyes meaningfully.

‘Muggles with wands,’ he said—and Harry couldn’t help agreeing in part. Ron’s contribution impressed him particularly; it was one thing to know that blood‑traitors renounced magical learning and tradition so zealously they scarcely counted as wizards any more, and quite another to see a demonstration. By the look of it, Weasley’s grasp of what was about to happen was on a level with the Muggle‑borns—and perhaps worse, since, like it or not, he came of a wizarding family.

‘I reckon quite a few were brought up as Muggles until their letter came,’ Harry observed, sagely. Draco pulled a sour face.

‘Ghastly.’

‘Agreed.’

Their orderly chat was cut off by a scream that chilled the blood.

One of the first‑years, furthest from the door, was shrieking—and with reason: through the wall before her there oozed the pearl‑white, translucent outline of a dumpy little monk in a friar’s habit, his face contorted in a ghastly grimace.

‘He’s coming! He’s coming!’ the ghost howled, in chorus with the still‑howling girl—and it was plain that what his features expressed was nothing but sheer, unalloyed terror. ‘He’s here already!’

A score more ghosts burst from the walls. They scattered in all directions and whirled about the room, sowing panic.

‘He’s here! He’s coming! Save yourselves! He’s coming! Run!’ they wailed, shooting straight through the bewildered and frightened children. An icy draught sprang up. Some were openly crying now. Then, with a single moan of animal fear, the whirlwind of ghosts swept away, soaking into the pores of the stonework like water into sand.

Some small part of Harry had already guessed what must follow; so he was not as surprised as he might have been when another ghost stepped into the room—this one through the door. Unlike the pearly, shining shades, he was in full colour and more or less solid to the eye—only he cast no shadow.

‘Ah,’ he said, with a crooked smile, ‘seems I gave them a bit of a fright.’

And of course it was Tom.

‘What do you think you’re playing at?’ Harry hissed, snakelike, pushing his way through his slowly recovering year‑mates. Luckily, in the still‑swelling hubbub he could speak hardly lowering his voice at all. Time was short—Draco, who’d watched him with surprise, had started squeezing along in his wake. From Draco’s point of view, Harry must have been behaving oddly, making straight for a door that had opened of its own accord.

‘Experimenting,’ Tom said, one brow arched, clear amusement on his face. ‘Exploring uncharted edges of magic—what else would you call it? Later,’ he cut Harry off the moment he opened his mouth to paint his views of the matter in vivid colours. Panting, Draco leaned into Harry’s shoulder, and Harry had to admit Tom was right—and hold his tongue.

Just then McGonagall returned. The babbling, overwrought crush did not meet with her approval.

‘Silence!’ she barked, in such a parade‑ground tone that everyone did, indeed, fall instantly quiet. ‘Form up—at once. And follow me!’

In twos they passed through the doors they’d seen before, and Draco—who had managed to pair up with Harry—began jabbing him in the ribs with breathless delight.

‘Blimey!’

‘Cor…’

‘Look—look!’

A vast hall—even larger than the cyclopean entrance hall—spread before them. Four long tables ran its length, pupils seated at each—juniors nearer the doors, seniors farther in. The golden dishes on the tablecloths—oddly, still empty—shone, throwing back the light of hundreds of candles floating in the air. And above them, where the vaulted ceiling ought by rights to have been, there stretched a bottomless, star‑strewn sky, mesmerising in its beauty.

‘It’s specially enchanted… I read about it in Hogwarts: A History,’ came Hermione Granger’s irrepressible whisper from behind.

At the far end of the hall, on a dais beneath a vast school crest that covered the wall, stood the high table, where adult witches and wizards—presumably the staff—were seated. Among them, dead centre in a high‑backed chair, sat a long‑bearded, long‑haired, grey‑as‑a‑badger old man in very familiar half‑moon spectacles. His robes were crimson, patterned with tailed comets that actually moved, and an embroidered fez perched on his head. Tiny bells braided into his beard completed the picture of a harmless eccentric—only Harry wasn’t buying it. He’d already twigged who this was: the super‑evil Professor X himself, in the headmasterial flesh.

On either side of Hogwarts’ head sat figures no less striking. A grey‑haired witch with a round, kindly face, wrapped in tartan robes, propped her cheek on a plump hand and gazed about with a vague smile. Next to her a woman thin as a rake had her eyes downcast, as though trying to make something out at the bottom of her goblet; the very thick lenses of her spectacles, which distorted her eyes, and the several layers of lacy shawls on her shoulders made her look like a dragonfly that had folded its wings in sorrow.

On the Headmaster’s other hand, a wizard with a luxuriant, curly beard turned out to be a dwarf—Harry wondered whether this was the result of ‘dalliances with non‑humans’, as Draco had put it earlier, or an inborn condition. The fellow in the next chair looked like Frankenstein’s monster—or a Picasso come to life: he had one eye, one arm, one ear and only half a nose, and the riot of crossing scars made his face look roughly pieced together from scraps. To his left (the side with the surviving arm), a young wizard in a robe with purple piping and a purple turban was clearly unwell—his pale face twitched in a constant tic. A nondescript, middle‑aged blonde and a short, curly‑haired brunette in spectacles, further along the table, kept casting him anxious glances.

The hook‑nosed Potions master was there too. Harry sincerely hoped Tom hadn’t made a dog’s breakfast of wiping his memory—but by the look of it all was well; at any rate, the man wasn’t leaping up, wand out, to fling accusations. He just sat there, slouched back in his chair, staring at the ceiling with the air of someone long since and utterly bored of the world. At the far end of the table Harry also spotted Hagrid, darting excited, beetle‑like eyes and grinning into his beard. The seats beside him were taken by a striking dark‑skinned witch in a sparkling orange robe and a tall, close‑cropped woman with a coarse, mannish face. One place was empty—presumably Professor McGonagall’s.

All this Harry took in while McGonagall led him and the rest of the first‑years along the long House tables and set them with their backs to the staff and their faces to the hall. Tom, who had slipped in through the doors at the tail of the fledgling students’ procession, moved off to one side and now stood with his arms folded, not far from Snape. When Harry glanced his way, Tom nodded to him, smiling—not so much encouraging as mocking—but Harry appreciated it all the same. He felt sick with nerves—the fateful encounter with the Hat was upon him.

The Sorting Hat, by legend—oh, Tom had never missed a single legend tied to his alma mater; after his stories reading Hogwarts: A History was a waste of time—had belonged to Godric Gryffindor himself, who at some point had had the brilliant idea of enchanting it to read the minds of would‑be students. And, looking at it, its venerable age was easy to credit—the patches alone! It could plainly have done with a thorough clean—but Harry decided that might risk damaging the magic worked into the artefact. Given its purpose, the spell‑weave must be exquisitely delicate and fine.

McGonagall placed the headgear—carried in both hands with almost reverent care—on an ordinary little stool, cleared her throat and unrolled a long parchment scroll. A degree of quiet fell—at least the loud chatter shrank to a faint sussuration. The Hat stirred, arched as though stretching—and sang.

While Godric’s legacy croaked its uneven, not overly tuneful (nor very well rhymed, if one were picky) account of the virtues of the Hogwarts Houses, Harry thought. It had belatedly dawned on him how awkward things would be with his classmates and Tom both about.

They’d only be able to talk properly in private—and how much privacy did one get in House dormitories, or in a common room? Not to mention classrooms or the library (and talking in a library was sacrilege in itself—it existed for other purposes). So he needed to find some other place, secluded enough that no one would poke their nose in, and cosy enough to spend, evidently, a fair chunk of time there. On that score, Harry would have to rely on a hint from Tom—no one, likely not even the staff, knew these walls better than he did.

His first thought—the Chamber of Secrets—he dismissed at once. Open it too often and it would cease to be Secret; besides, the theatre of opening it would be squandered.

By the by—what would Tom do with himself while Harry was in lessons? He couldn’t be planning to sit through the entire first‑year syllabus again—and that at a minimum, for they’d precious few sound ideas for bringing him back, and those they had needed creative tinkering. Most likely, Harry decided, rumours would soon spread that the library had acquired its very own poltergeist. A fairly spiteful one, no doubt, should anyone lay hands on a book Tom had marked out. The Restricted Section shouldn’t be too crowded in any case, and, by Tom’s assurances, the most interesting volumes were shelved there. He wondered whether Tom could smuggle a couple out.

But Harry’s thoughts were cut off by the hush that fell. The Hat’s song had ended—the Sorting was about to begin.

‘When I call your name—step forward, sit down and put it on. We’ll start!’ McGonagall commanded, firm as you please, and dropped her gaze to the parchment, which proved to be the roll of first‑years. ‘Abbott, Hannah!’

Harry shivered. Draco, shifting from foot to foot beside him, let out a small sigh—he was doing his best not to show it, but Malfoy was jittery too. Crabbe kept tugging at his ear; Goyle gnawed nervously at the knuckle of his bent forefinger. The other newcomers could hardly stand still either; Hermione Granger was about to burst. She kept rising on tiptoe and settling back on her heels, shaking her mane so constantly that Neville—whose surname Harry had yet to learn—standing behind her had to keep spitting out loose curls. The pudgy boy submitted to the assault of the hair‑monster with apathetic resignation. As Harry noticed, he’d already managed to mislay his toad again.

‘Boot, Terry!’

‘Ravenclaw!’

The Sorting went on. Goyle’s name was called—sent off with a pat on the shoulder, he sat under the Hat but moments before being dispatched to Slytherin. Crabbe drew a noisy breath and started worrying the other ear. When Granger’s turn came she all but ran to the stool.

‘Gryffindor!’ the Hat pronounced—rather to Harry’s surprise. Everything about Granger screamed an absolute swot—straight to Ravenclaw. What had gone awry? His surprise swiftly curdled into a fresh bout of nerves: what if something went awry for him too? Draco wasn’t helping—his teeth were quite audibly chattering.

‘Crabbe, Vincent!’

Crabbe, eyes skewed with anxiety, crossed the fateful line successfully enough—so there were two of them at Salazar’s table now. They were grinning with relief and waving at Draco like clockwork toys.

‘Longbottom, Neville!’

So Longbottom was the hapless toad‑owner. He distinguished himself twice: he stumbled as he stepped out of the line and nearly fell; and, after the verdict of ‘Gryffindor’ delighted him so much he almost carried the Hat off to his new House table, he had to turn back midway to return it. And again ‘Gryffindor’ left Harry rather puzzled. He knew, of course, that Godric’s House ran on dunderheadedness and derring‑do—but there’d been precious little sign of derring‑do in Neville so far. Perhaps the toad had put in a good word.

Meanwhile the queue shuffled on.

‘Malfoy, Draco!’ came at last—and Harry saw, then, that befriending this boy had been a capital idea.

As Draco walked—no, not walked; he practically strutted, and Harry was reminded again of the fashion‑model comparison—towards the Hat. His back was ruler‑straight, shoulders proudly squared; and when he turned as he sat, his face wore such lofty composure that no one would ever have guessed how badly he’d been rattled a moment before. Harry had seen that kind of mastery over oneself in Tom; only Tom’s mask looked native, like chainmail worn always and without thought, whereas Draco had gone from jelly to solid stone in the space of a second.

‘Slytherin!’ Harry clapped, delighted—drawing puzzled side‑glances from those nearby. The not‑yet‑Sorted didn’t applaud—only those seated in the hall greeted their new Housemates. Harry couldn’t have cared less.

‘Parkinson, Pansy!’

‘Slytherin!’

‘Patil, Padma!’

‘Ravenclaw!’

‘Patil, Parvati!’

‘Gryffindor!’

McGonagall had got as far as P—Judgement Day drew near, and everyone who might have supported him was either already at the Slytherin table or standing vexingly far off. Harry glanced back at Tom again. He looked bored and cold—hands clasped behind his back, eyes sliding indifferently over the hall. As though sensing Harry’s look, he turned his head and gave the smallest nod.

‘Potter, Harry!’ However steeled he was for the phrase, Harry still started. As if on cue, every head in the hall turned to stare. A few even stood to get a better view. Whispers rose from all sides—some not whispers at all:

‘Is that him?’

‘The very one?’

‘What did she say—Potter?’

‘Where’s Potter?’

‘Hurrah for Harry Potter!’

‘Merlin—it really is him?’

‘Nightmare,’ Harry thought; it was exactly like a bad dream—only lacking the part where he suddenly discovered he was starkers.

He sat down. The Hat, far too big for his head, slithered down over his nose. Harry screwed his eyes shut.

‘Well, well,’ came the familiar rasping voice—but soft this time, like someone leaning in at his ear; the effect was oddly, unnervingly intimate. ‘Well, well—let’s see what we have here… you’re no simple case, my lad. Now—where shall I put you?’

‘I’ll set you on fire!’ Harry blurted—silently—and only then realised in horror that nerves had made him mix up his line.

***

The strange, unnatural, disquieting sound dragged Severus out of his half‑doze. It took him about a second—a delay that, in other circumstances, could have proved fatal—to work out what the sound was; and when he did, Snape was taken aback. It was laughter—and it was coming from that singing bit of cast‑off Godric the wag had bequeathed.

The Sorting Hat was laughing.

‘Slytherin!’ it yelled—and a nasty chill touched the Head of that House’s heart. Even before the first‑year on the stool had lifted the Hat off his head, Snape knew whose face he was about to see.

And of course it was Harry Didn't-take-after-his-mum Potter.

Up to that very moment, the chief concern of the evening had been not falling asleep face‑first into his plate. He wanted sleep beyond belief—perhaps even more than he wanted to drink himself into a stupor; mistrusting himself, Severus had even made a point of sitting with his back against the chair—so that if his wits did slip for a minute or two, he’d at least keep up the appearance of a decent posture. The monstrous strain of the past weeks had suddenly let go—and the backlash had hit, as was only to be expected.

When, this morning, the latest check with the potion—an exercise that had turned into a useless daily routine—up and worked, Snape hadn’t believed his eyes. The map showed Muggle London, King’s Cross Station, and a moving dot that, beyond any doubt, was heading for the famous Platform Nine and Three‑Quarters. A couple of minutes later the view changed and confirmed it—so it was. The boy had been found—and what’s more, he was on his way to Hogwarts.

A great weight slid off Severus’s chest. Whoever had taken the child (or whomever he’d run away with—there was that to be sorted yet), they had no wish to see him dead. If they were letting Potter go to school at all, then he was in friendly—odd as it sounded—hands. The boy would live—and that meant Severus would live a bit longer too. The meagre, hard‑won scraps of intelligence on the Order of the Phoenix were, for the moment, surplus to requirements. There was no one to bargain with—and nothing, happily, to bargain for. The riddle of Potter’s disappearance—intriguing in itself—could wait.

From this evening on, Minerva—who had, most conveniently, taken to heart the famous orphan’s hard childhood—was to take over responsibility for the child, lock, stock and barrel. Potter’s future House had never been in doubt for anyone—his parents, the trimming of the world’s evil in the cradle, even the difficult temperament—well, where else with such a bundle? Hufflepuff? No—Gryffindor in spirit would soon be Gryffindor in name; then the cards would be in Minerva’s hands—she was used to it. As for Snape himself, he had only two tasks: report to the Headmaster, and somehow endure the Sorting and the feast to follow. After that he could drink and sleep. He’d even decided in advance to skip breakfast—a precious forty minutes of extra sleep; he could have wept for the thought of it.

He did not, however, rush to gladden the Head of the Order with his news. First he sent a note to Lucius. It read:

‘You‑Know‑Who is on the train with your son. Possibly that You‑Know‑What is with him. I shall try to learn more.’

Even that said far too much to anyone in the know; but Snape had a way of near‑guaranteeing a message’s safe arrival. In the course of the overlong hunt for something like a little notebook, Lucius had ordered Dobby to obey Severus as he would his master—and had yet to rescind the order. Snape tapped a finger on the lectern at which he’d been writing and summoned a school house‑elf.

‘Pop to Malfoy Manor, find Dobby and bring him here. Tell him I command it,’ he ordered. A minute later the note was on its way to its addressee, and Severus himself—to the Headmaster’s office. He braced for an afternoon of pointless palavering.

If his forebodings were wrong, it was only in underestimation—the emergency meeting of the Order of the Phoenix did not keep them waiting. Five minutes would have done—to declare the search over; indeed, there was no need even to meet for that. But of course everyone urgently had to discuss the new facts. Which, to tell the truth, didn’t exist at all—first the boy needed to be questioned properly, and—why not, for Mordred’s sake—given at least a light reading. A couple of drops of Veritaserum in the tea, too, always did wonders for a subject’s frankness. But for that they’d have to summon up patience till evening—and patience was precisely what no one was keen to show.

The ‘abducted’ hypothesis—authored by the Headmaster and the lead theory thus far—collapsed like a house of cards, and in its place came ‘ran away from home’. How? Why? What for? Everyone had a theory of their own—each more fanciful and far‑fetched than the last.
In the view of Moody—by now irretrievably barmy—Potter, tempted by a mysterious Dark wizard, had plunged into the depths of depravity and evil, personally smashed the blood wards on the house, then done a runner to become that warlock’s apprentice, and was now riding to Hogwarts brimful of cunning plans to seize the school—and, while he was at it, the rest of the world. The ex‑Auror’s paranoia was playing him a cruel trick; yet the theory had a certain grand sweep—like most conspiracy fancies, it explained absolutely everything. Thankfully, no one much took to it—Snape had no desire to be the one to abduct the ‘warlock’s apprentice’ at speed and go on the run with him to escape the ensuing witch‑hunt.

More down‑to‑earth Vance reckoned that on first setting foot in Diagon Alley, Potter had heard his life story from other mouths and been so terrified of pursuit by the Dark Lord’s surviving supporters—or perhaps he’d even met one of them, say that Malfoy chap—that in a panic he holed up first in the Leaky Cauldron and then properly went to ground. Where and how, she found hard to explain; but she supposed the boy might have friends in the Muggle world whom the Headmaster’s tail—by some oversight—hadn’t been aware of.

The tail, in the person of the shifty Fletcher, repudiated these vile insinuations and, for his part, suggested that it was old Mrs Figg who had brought Potter to the Leaky Cauldron—only to be put to a cruel death by the resurrected Dark Lord. Before dying, however, she had contrived to signal to the boy not to return under any circumstances; and he, dutifully following the fallen heroine’s injunction, hid as best he could until a kindly soul took the orphan in. The soul, obviously, was from an old family—only they were in the habit of living in places where blood‑tracking didn’t work. The Weasleys, for instance—they could have dyed the lad’s hair ginger so he blended into the horde of their offspring, and then seen him onto the Hogwarts Express themselves. As with Alastor, Snape was mesmerised by the flight of fancy. There was a sort of noble madness in it, even a touch of psychology—Fat Molly could quite easily have pulled a stunt like that. But in that case Albus would certainly have known.

The Headmaster himself was in no hurry to scatter hypotheses. He asked—demanded—Severus speak, though Severus had hoped to sit it out.

Why not Elphias Doge, whose contribution had amounted to two lines—‘May I have some more tea?’ and, to Moody’s effusions, ‘He’s a good boy’? Why not Dedalus Diggle, who did nothing but ooh and aah, mopping his sweating face every other minute, and very nearly keeled over during Moody’s barn‑burner? Why not, finally, drag along Lady Longbottom—excused on grounds of seeing her grandson off—and ask her view? But no; they hauled Snape out, busy or not, as per ruddy usual.

It fell to him to carry the can for the useless old wrinklies—him, the ill‑starred double agent whose past would not stop serving as a stick to beat him with. Severus reshuffled his cards and decided to lead with hearts—to see how much the Headmaster actually knew of what had gone on in the boy’s foster home.

‘It’s possible Potter had a falling‑out with his relatives,’ he said, closely watching Albus’s face. ‘Children often run away from home to escape ill‑treatment.’

Kindly old eyes peered at Severus through the spectacles, clear as day; not the faintest flicker of worry or embarrassment crossed the bearded face.

‘Now, now, Severus,’ the Headmaster chided, gently reproachful. ‘I’m quite certain all was well in that family. We did keep an eye on the boy—didn’t we, Mundungus?’

‘Like he was me own,’ the man agreed fervently, lighting his pipe. The room filled with the smell of burning socks. Snape winced—the delicate nose of a Potions‑master suffered particularly.

So he did know, by the look of it. Mordred—how filthy. Severus pretended to swallow every word and tried another tack:

‘In that case… could sudden fame have turned the boy’s head? Picture it—he’s in Diagon Alley, everyone recognising him, shaking his hand, thanking him, fêting him as a hero. Small wonder he’d want to bask in the crowd’s adoration for a while. One word leads to another, and before you know it there’s an invitation to visit. In youth, friendships—often the least suitable—spring up in a heartbeat. You, of all people, know that.’

The Headmaster took the dig without demur—didn’t even tug his beard.

‘You may be right, Severus,’ he said, thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps we’ve all grown too used to very bad things and can no longer grasp how the world—and oneself—appear to a carefree childhood.’

Or perhaps he didn’t know after all, Severus revised—and felt low.

The babble, of course, went on for ages yet; but everything ends. Alas, the Order’s conclave broke up late enough that Snape hadn’t even half an hour left for a kip.

Being one of the first into the Great Hall, Severus assumed the carefully considered posture on his chair that would prevent him slumping should sleep ambush him—and let events proceed without his participation. Truth be told, he didn’t even hear Potter’s name called; the Sorting, he was sure, held no surprises. Nor did it—until that dreadful laughter.

Potter, rising from the stool with the Hat in his hands, shot Severus a frightened glance. Against his will, Snape stared back with matching panic—praying it didn’t show too plainly on his face.

Salazar—whom Severus’s over‑sentimental charges liked to call the ‘Patron’—was, in fact, Salazar the Prick, as the Head of Slytherin had long suspected. The next seven years loomed before his mind’s eye in the very blackest colours. He hated the boy; he pitied him; he had pledged to keep him alive at any price—well then, Severus, here’s the national hero dumped squarely in your lap; isn’t that damned convenient? ‘Do sod off,’ Snape thought at Salazar—and looked away.

The boy—at whom a trio at his newly acquired House table were waving like mad—turned and flashed his friends a victory sign. Looking closer, Severus nearly groaned—among the wavers was his godson.

‘We’ve got Potter! Er… hooray, I suppose?’ someone said, bleakly, into the general hush.

For the first time in Severus’s memory, no Sorting drew a single clap. There were puzzled looks and a low murmur—that was all that fell to the most famous child in Magical Britain as, head in spectacles held proudly high, he strode to the Slytherin table—and sat down at it.