Lily’s parents are terrifying. It
isn’t that they’re ugly—they’re quite pleasant on the eyes, even though they
seem to be getting on a bit in years—or that they’re nasty, like Severus’s mother
was attempting to be.
(Sirius deals with worse on a daily
basis. Eileen Snape has stiff competition before she is even remotely
terrifying.)
Lily’s parents are perfectly
polite, smiling, welcoming, and nice.
They’re bloody kind. Nobody is that kind.
It’s not fucking normal!
“It’s like the nursery story of the
two wizarding kids who find the old Muggle Grandmother’s house out in the
woods, and she lures them inside with smiles and candy before eating them,” Regulus
whispers when both Mr. and Mrs. Evans are out of the kitchen. They insisted on
feeding them before going off to do…whatever they’re off to do for the day.
Sirius was leery of the food before
Regulus reminded him of that story. Now he’s afraid to eat it at all.
“What are you talking about?” Lily
asks before biting into a sandwich. If she doesn’t need to run to the loo just
afterwards, Sirius will consider trying to eat his. “That isn’t how the story
goes.”
“There are two versions,” Severus
drawls, though Sirius notices that he’s all but guarding his food like a
firstie being taunted by seventh-years. “And yes, both of them are designed to
be as bigoted as possible against the other.”
“I’m so glad I had normal parents,”
Remus mutters.
“What’s the other version, then?”
Regulus asks.
“Two kids are abandoned in the
woods when their wicked stepmother convinces their father to leave them there,”
Lily begins to recite.
“And you think our version is bad?”
Sirius interrupts.
“Shut it, you!” Lily puts her
sandwich down. “They come across a house made of gingerbread, and since they’re
starving, begin to eat it. Then a kindly old grandmother type invites them
inside for shelter and real food, but it turns out she’s an evil witch who locks
them up in cages and starts fattening them up to eat them. But the girl tricks
the witch into leaning over to check the oven and shoves her in headfirst so
she and her brother can escape. Oh, and the father kicked the wicked stepmother
to the kerb in the meantime, so when they find their way home they all live
happily ever after.”
Sirius stares at her. “Which
version came first?” is the only thing he can think to ask.
“That’s what I wished to know,”
Severus says. “Nobody seems to know the answer. Not even Hogwarts’ library is
useful when it comes to the evolution of nursery tales. By the way, if you
think The Tale of the Three Brothers hasn’t
changed since it was written, you would be very wrong.”
“What’s The Tale of the Three Brothers?” Lily asks. Then it’s all of them
trying to explain a classic Wizarding nursery tale to someone who made it
through three years of Hogwarts schooling and still hasn’t heard the bloody story. Sirius gets distracted enough
that he eats the sandwich, but there is no telltale graininess or off taste
about it. It’s just oddly sliced and salted turkey with uniformly shaped cheese
on bread with some kind of spicy mustard. It’s not bad, really. At least it’s
simpler and quicker to eat than a family dinner or supper.
Regulus reminds him of reality by
wanting to know what the rest of the booby-traps are. “Come on. You warned us
about electricity. Why not the rest of them?”
Remus puts his head in his hands
again. “The electricity isn’t a booby trap, guys.”
“It’s…well.” Lily gets up and
toggles an odd switch on the wall. “It powers the lights. And it keeps
everything cool in the fridge.”
“Wait, that isn’t a cold box?”
Regulus bounces out of his seat and yanks open the cold box door to stick his
head in. Sirius is disturbingly reminded of the evil witch being shoved into
the oven. “There’s a light in here!” his muffled voice exclaims.
“How did you think non-magical
people kept their food from spoiling? Or how we cooked it?” Lily asks them in
exasperation. “Cave fires and ritual chanting?”
Sirius grimaces. “You don’t want me
to answer that question, because the answer is more insulting than that
nonsense.”
Lily throws up her arms in
frustration and growls out something that might be wandless hexes. “Severus!”
Severus smirks at them, an
expression Sirius can see now is a lot
nicer than Mrs. Eileen bloody Snape. He stands up, snagging a loaf of bread
wrapped in a noisy clear bag with colorful labeling. He gets out a uniform
slice and places it in a silver square on the counter. “Shove this lever down.
No, it’s not a bloody booby trap,
Black!”
“I’m not touching that unless you
call me by my fucking name,” Sirius says in a flat voice, but he’s staring at
the silver square…thing.
“Sirius. Push the lever down or I
will hex you into thinking that your feet are your hands and your arse is your
ears.”
Sirius shrugs. “Okay.” He pushes
down on the black lever, which has some surprising resistance. The box eats the
bread. “The fuck?”
“Guys! Please stop swearing, my
parents are still in the house,” Lily
begs them.
Remus sighs and gets up. “I’m
putting the kettle on for tea. Introducing these two geniuses to Muggle Life is
going to take the rest of the afternoon.”
“Oi! We’re not that slow!” Regulus
protests, finally abandoning his exploration of the fridge to move on to the
switches. One is for the light over the sink, one is for the light over the
table, and one is for a light over the steps outside. Sirius would be annoyed
by the flickering lights, but he’s busy trying to figure out what the silver box
is doing to the bread, and also does it give the bread back, or just eat it?
Remus turns on a range that has odd
round coils that turn red when they get hot, and that heats the kettle.
“Electricity. Magic,” he says in a bone-dry voice when Sirius stares at him.
Then the silver box flings the
bread back out. Sirius jumps into Severus’s arms in a complete panic. “FUCK WHAT
THE FUCK!”
“Boys?” Mr. Evans peers into the
kitchen, his glasses lowered onto his nose. He’s doing such a great job of
Professor McGonagall’s Disapproving Stare that Sirius forgets to let go of
Severus, who is trying to pry him off with both hands. “Is anything the
matter?”
“Sorry, Dad!” Lily suddenly looks like
an innocent angel. No bloody wonder she never gets in trouble at school. “You
remember how I said Sirius and Regulus had never been Muggle anywhere before?
We’re introducing them to normal things, and some of it is a bit startling.”
Mr. Evans glances at the toaster,
the kettle on the glowing red coil, Sirius’s clinging, and Regulus’s hand still
resting on the switches. Then he smiles. “All right. Just try not to be so
vocal on the swearing, you lot. Your mother would roast all our ears.” Then he
vanishes again, leaving Sirius baffled.
No yelling. No screaming about
Proper Manners. No threats.
What kind of fucked-up place is
this, anyway?
“Please get off of me!” Severus yells.
Sirius finally remembers that he
isn’t supposed to cling to other people even when there are metal boxes that
spit out bread. “Uh. Sorry—wait, toast? That box makes toast? And you didn’t
have to put it on a toasting stick? I want a toaster. I want three toasters.”
“Why would you ever need three
toasters?” Remus asks, retrieving the kettle when it begins to whistle. Lily is
getting mugs out of the cabinet instead of a tea service. Sirius approves of
the mugs, too. Not delicate enough to break on accident by setting them down
wrong, but hefty enough to break someone else’s skull if he needed to defend
himself.
“Because then I would have more toast,” Sirius replies. “Who
wouldn’t want more toast?”
“I want lights. Electric lights.”
Regulus is staring up at the ceiling. “No more candle smoke or torches reeking
if the charms give it up. Oh, and the cold box with the light in it.”
“We’ve probably created monsters,”
Remus says in a dry voice as he hands tea to Severus.
Brain woke up certain that it’s Friday. Not sure why. It IS, however, Younger Podling’s 10th birthday. Soooo happy WAY early Friday, and have a gift on my podling’s birthday!
“Not all Muggle towns look like this,” is the first thing
Regulus says after they leave the train station.
“Oh thank Merlin,”
Sirius gasps in relief, because this place is a shithole. He has enough manners
not to say that to Lily, Remus, and Severus, who are waiting to meet them. It’s
probably on his face, anyway.
“I’m so glad I warned the intelligent of the pair
beforehand,” Severus says.
“So am I!” Sirius turns around in a circle, his jaw hanging
open. “What the fuck happened to this place?”
“Industrial pollution,” Lily says with a sigh.
“What the fuck is that?”
“Do you pay attention to anything, ever?” Remus asks,
grabbing Sirius’s arm when he stares at the blackened buildings too long.
“Unless it’s actively trying to kill me or has the potential
to make me dead? Not really,” Sirius replies. Severus turns around and gives
him an odd look that isn’t quite calculation, but he doesn’t know what it
means.
Then it becomes bug-eyed astonishment when Regulus tells
them the plan. “You actually want to meet
my Mother?” Severus asks in disbelief.
Regulus sighs and rolls his eyes. Sirius thinks he’s been practicing
Severus’s moods, even if those are usually jammed in Sarcastic. “That was the
plan, remember? What else did you expect us to do?”
“Fucking well bloody lie
about it, that’s what!” Severus retorts, hints of an accent that is definitely
not Pure-blood Posh leaking through. Sirius thinks that sounds a hell of a lot
more interesting than Magical Oxford nonsense.
Sirius stops gawping at buildings and stores—he does not
know what crisps are but he wants them immediately—to snort out laughter. “Snape.
Severus,” he corrects himself, because somehow during the Great Library Hunt
for Animagus Hints, he stopped calling Severus by his last name. It’s still a
bit odd. “Shading the truth, like Regulus did this morning, is one thing.
Outright lies? I’d rather not be poisoned for dinner, thank you.”
“Lie detector spells,” Regulus explains when the others look
horrified. “They’re in place in every public area of the house, though after
Uncle Alphard visited, I’m certain they’re only keyed to respond to myself and
Sirius.”
Sirius is about to respond to that when the buildings open
up. A narrow path leads to a grassy expanse that is sudden in its green openness. There is some rusting metal
something-or-others perched here and there on the grass determined to grow in
the midst of all these black-stained buildings, and kids are playing with a
spotted ball on the far side.
He doesn’t even realize he’s abandoned the others and walked
straight to the entrance to the field until he hears Remus trying to get his
attention. “What?”
“It’s a decent park, mate, but we still have a few blocks to
go,” Remus says.
Park. This is what a park is supposed to look like? Sirius
imagines the rusty things are probably not meant to be rusty, though some
mental kids are climbing all over it anyway. A park isn’t supposed to be an
ornamental patch no one visits. It’s a…a playground. He thinks he’s heard Lily
use the term.
“What do you see?” Lily asks curiously.
Sirius’s eyes are locked on kids their age who are running,
wild and free, even if the game they’re playing makes no sense at all. “Freedom.”
“But—they’re just playing,” Lily says, but Sirius doesn’t
know how to explain it any better than that.
Regulus tugs on Sirius’s arm. “Come on. They’re going to
think we’re perving on them, Sirius.”
“Right.” Sirius follows the others, but he does look back.
Once.
Severus’s house is the one they reach first, a little
cottage-looking house on a street named Spinner’s End. Mrs. Snape, one former
Eileen Prince, gives them a sour look when they enter her sitting room. She has
black hair and black eyes, like her son, but the resemblance ends after that.
Her nose looks like it’s been broken two or three times, her lips are so thin
they almost don’t exist, and she is plump where Severus insists upon
impersonating a well-fed rail. Sirius thinks Severus is pale, but Mrs. Snape
insists upon being sallow in a way that looks like jaundice.
“I thought you were taking this lot to be the Evans’ problem
today,” Mrs. Snape sneers at Severus.
Sirius glances at Severus. Okay, maybe Severus never needed
a mirror. Mrs. Snape could give the mirror itself tips on how to sneer to the
most vindictive, derisive effect. Severus is downright pleasant in comparison,
and that’s just entirely fucked up.
Regulus got them this far. Sirius is eldest, so he gets to
play his part now. “Hello, Madam Snape.” That causes Mrs. Snape to eye him like
a bug just wandered into the room and started speaking French. “My apologies. I’m
Sirius Black, and this is Regulus Black.” Regulus gives her his best charming
smile, which outshines Potter’s best efforts any day. “Our mother Walburga
Black wished for us to remember her to you. She recalls you from Hogwarts, you
see.”
“Walburga Black. Remembers who I am.” Mrs. Snape’s eyebrow
is climbing in disbelief. “Really.”
“Of course, Madam,” Sirius answers, adding a touch of
confusion to his voice. “Why would she not? Your presence is the very reason my
brother and myself were allowed to visit your village.”
Mrs. Snape narrows her eyes. “I see. I hope you are not
expecting favors or the like from me. You must earn them.”
Sirius smiles. “As is properly Slytherin, of course. Should
I pass along any messages to my mother on your behalf?”
The woman is practically squinting at him now. “Tell her I’m
pleased to be recalled by such an…illustrious
family, and the Black scions are welcome whenever they wish to visit. As long
as they spend their time elsewhere,”
she adds, glaring at Severus.
“Thank you! I will pass that along properly,” Sirius says,
and then gladly beats a hasty retreat with the others.
“I have never, ever, ever heard you speak like that before
in my life,” Remus declares when they’re
beyond the Snape family garden’s boundary.
Sirius is sticking his tongue out of his mouth. “I knowf!
Geth ifth off!” He mimes removing rubbish from his tongue. “Ugh. I bloody well
hate that nonsense!”
“Thank you for speaking normally again. I wanted to stab
you,” Lily says, making an absolutely appalled face. “That is not how they speak in Wizarding London!”
“No, that’s not how they speak in Diagon Alley,” Regulus corrects
her. “Wizarding Pure-bloods in London are really that bad.”
“No, they’re worse. Ugh,” Sirius whines.
“Now will you knock off with how unnatural my accent is?”
Severus asks Lily.
Lily grins at Severus, which always makes her eyes seem
brighter. Sirius is still not convinced they’re not dating. “After hearing how
much worse and pretentious it could be? Sure, I’ll leave it be, Sev. After
this, meeting my parents should be easy!”
“Easy stressful or easy traumatizing?” Sirius asks.
“Easy confusing,” Remus says when Severus and Lily are
baffled by the question. “You’ll like electricity, by the way. Just don’t stick
anything metal into the outlets. Might kill you.”
“THEIR HOUSE IS BOOBY-TRAPPED, TOO?” Regulus and Sirius both
yell in horror.
Severus stares at Sirius hard from the corner of his eye. It’s
that odd, unidentifiable look again. “You weren’t kidding about the poison at
dinner, were you?”
“Huh? No, why? Who jokes about poison?” Sirius asks, still
trying to figure out how they’re going to deal with Yet Another Booby-Trapped
House. Regulus’s shoulders are hunched, ready for fucking mutated doxies behind
every closed door. “What other booby-traps do we need to worry about aside from
deadly electricity traps?”
Lily sighs while Remus plasters his hand over his eyes. “All
right, maybe this won’t be as easy as I thought,” she admits.
Harry studied my face with an intensity too painful to bear. Was it sadness I saw in his eyes? Pity? Worry? Regardless, I couldn’t see the one emotion that I deserved to have him focus on me— anger. After the way I had treated him during the past two weeks, it should have been anger. But it wasn’t, and I couldn’t understand why.
With tenderness I didn’t deserve, Harry stroked my face.
That was all I could handle. Carried by a sudden surge of energy and need, I crushed my mouth against his. Straddling him, I unzipped his jacket and worked it off.
“Talia,” he breathed out.
I cut him off with another kiss. It wasn’t words that I needed. Words would only lead to more feelings, and I couldn’t take the pain. I needed to feel good, and I knew of only one sure-fire way to accomplish that. I reached for the clasp of his pants.
Harry grabbed my wrists and pulled me away. “Talia, stop.”
I blinked. Never— and I mean never— had a man refused my advances at that point in an encounter. If we were alone and he was interested in me, it should have been inevitable. Granted, I had never before pursued a long-term relationship, but it was jarring nonetheless.
Harry’s face was flushed, and he was clearly aroused. Yet, he held me away from himself like something dangerous. “Not like this,” he panted, as if it took all of his self-control to speak those words. “Please, not like this.”
Embarrassment rushed through me like a cold wind, and I scrambled to my feet. I paced away from him, but was unsure of where to go or what to do next. We were in my quarters, so I couldn’t just leave. Part of me wanted to scream at him to go, but the rest of me desperately needed him to stay. I wrapped my arms around myself and crumpled to the deck. Sobs shook my whole body.
A moment later, Harry was there, folding me into his embrace once more. “It’s okay,” he soothed. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
But it wasn’t okay. Captain Janeway and Chakotay were gone forever, and the whole goddamn thing had been my fault. I was the one who found the planet. I had suggested we change course to investigate. Apart from that, Janeway and Chakotay would still be on Voyager, where they belonged.
Instead, they were gone, and I was the one to blame.
The first problem in the Grand Plan of Learning to Become Animagi isn’t the plan itself. That part is pretty straight-forward, even if entails more reading about higher-level Transfiguration magic than he would like to be doing over a summer…or ever, really. He’s a good student, but there is a time and a place and that time is not in July.
Everyone else disagrees. Sirius Black’s friends are wankers. His brother is a wanker who won’t let him sleep in, as they have to comb the family library for useful books before anyone else in the house stumbles out of their bedrooms for the day. Regulus nearly loses his fingers to a biting book with metal fucking teeth before Sirius obliterates the book with his wand.
He didn’t mean to obliterate the book so much as he didn’t want it to eat his baby brother. Regulus wraps his fingers in bandages before they hurriedly hide the evidence of the unlamented death of 1,0001 Ways To Transfigure the Dead.
“Why?” Sirius asks when he sees the cover.
“I thought it might have something useful,” Regulus protests. “We’re trying to figure out how to turn one of us who is cursed into an Animagi, and they don’t exactly talk about Animagi Werewolves in the standard books.”
Sirius looks at the family library. He doesn’t think anything in this room has ever been a standard anything.
No, the difficult part is getting them all together in the same place. They could probably sneak Severus past their parents, Aunt Cassiopeia, and Uncle Pollux. Severus would just need to use his mother’s name, a Pure-Blood ringer, instead of his father’s. Remus’s father is a famous wizard for dealing with Dark creatures, but Lyall Lupin is Irish, so that’s…probably not worth chancing.
Lily Evans doesn’t have a chance in hell of getting into 12 Grimmauld Place. There are curses built into the windows and doorways specifically to execute any Muggle-born who tries to enter. All Sirius knows about how those terrifying things work is that they’re tied to Pollux.
Maybe the stupid things will die when Pollux does. That’s a nice thought.
The other problem is that their parents are suspicious of anything Sirius does, even after he Sorted Slytherin, and don’t want him to leave the fucking house. Sirius sulks in his room for hours at a time over that one, chewing on the edge of his thumb. Short of running away, he can’t get out of this house short of brilliance.
Running away isn’t an option; Regulus would be on his own against the four terrifying twats they’re related to—or worse, Regulus would come with Sirius, and then the Black Family would get the Wizengamot involved. The Wizengamot would send out every Auror who has ever Aurored (including the dead ones) until precious Regulus was found and properly returned to his loving family. Sirius would be thrown in Azkaban at age fourteen for kidnapping.
Regulus solves their difficulties, because Regulus Black is a conniving little shit who probably needed to be put in Ravenclaw to stave off some of the connivingness. Either way, it gets them out of the house, so Sirius will take it. Even while he tries not to gape at his brother’s sheer fucking audacity.
“Mother, I wish to visit a Pure-blood friend of mine who lives northwest of London,” Regulus says in that perfectly snooty way of speaking that their parents insist upon. Regulus doesn’t do it at school anymore, or in private, or Sirius would have punched him in the face. (Again.)
Mother looks up from the tarot cards she is busy laying out. Sirius glances at the layout and knows that his mother has absolutely zero talent for Divination, else there would be some hint that her sons were up to mischief. Instead, he’s pretty sure those cards are talking about her waistline relating to the weather. “You’ve only completed your first year of Hogwarts, darling. You’re a bit young to be traveling on your own, even if using the safety of the Floo.”
“I’m aware, but I’ve had some thoughts on the matter. You see, my friend is of the Prince line.”
Mother raises an eyebrow. “I see. I wasn’t aware there was anyone from that illustrious line remaining.”
“Just the one, I’m afraid,” Regulus says with the perfect amount of deference. “His mother was disowned by her parents when she made a foolish childhood blunder and mixed her blood with someone unworthy. However, she is raising him to all of the proper Pureblood traditions. He is the smartest Slytherin in our year, and quite effective with a wand.”
Sirius almost breaks face and glares at Regulus for that. The hell he is. Severus and Sirius are tied for that honor, thank you!
“That would be Eileen, then.” Mother hums under her breath. “I did think Eileen quite sensible in school, if a bit dull. Is her son dull?”
“Quite the opposite, Mother,” Regulus assures her, smiling. “But my thought, given your concerns…do you not think that Sirius might also benefit from socializing with another properly raised Pure-blood? One of Sirius’s own age, and one who is being raised to the correct standards one should attain in life?”
Mother looks sharply at Sirius. Sirius widens his eyes a bit and lifts his shoulders to say that he knows nothing about Regulus’s idea. He is very, very good at lying to his parents. It means he’s still alive. “Do know of whom Regulus speaks, Sirius?”
“I do, Mother. He isn’t…” Sirius nearly bites his lip. No, that won’t do at all. That will set off her shrieking about deportment. “Severus Prince and I did not get along at first due to my friendship with James Potter. Then…we didn’t want to concern you.”
Mother puts down her deck of cards. “Concern me about what?”
“James Potter and his friend Peter Pettigrew attacked Regulus. I believe they forgot in their idiocy that Regulus is my brother, and thus not to be touched. Severus helped me to stop them, and to take immediate revenge.” There. Lily helped, too, but he doesn’t dare mention Lily. Then he’d have to wrack his own brains for a Pure-blood name that might conceivably have a red-headed witch Sirius’s age, which is a doomed task. His mother knows all of the witches who are Sirius’s age, since she wants to marry him off to one the day he turns seventeen.
“You retaliated against a Potter and a Pettigrew.” Mother looks pleased. “Blood-traitors, the both of them. It is good to know that you are seeing sense at last, Sirius.”
Sirius tries not to gag audibly.
“If you promise that no harm will come to Regulus, I will give the two of you leave to visit the Prince household whenever you like during this summer…unless we have other plans, of course.”
Now he isn’t gagging. He’s trying not to choke on disbelief. No screaming? No wailing? No guilt? “I promise Regulus that I won’t let anything or anyone harm him,” Sirius says.
Mother looks pleased at his wording instead of offended. Sirius wonders if he woke up in the wrong reality. “Very good. Run along. If you choose to visit the Prince household today, return in time to properly wash for supper.”
“Yes, Mother,” Regulus and Sirius chorus together. Then Regulus says, “I don’t know if it will be today, Mother. I need to write to Severus and ask for proper permission. One does not simply invite themselves into another wizard’s house without due cause.”
Mother nods and waves them off, picking up her cards again. Sirius wonders if she knows that the cards are now claiming that their house will be carried off in a sudden flood.
“I can’t believe that worked,” Sirius says to Regulus the moment they are upstairs, safe in Sirius’s bedroom. It’s the one they keep free of listening spells, as Sirius is the Misbehaving Rebel. If Regulus started doing the same too soon, the family would be suspicious.
“Of course it worked. While you were busy screaming at Mother, I was busy learning how to flatter her.” Regulus grabs Sirius’s copy of the enspelled paper, a quill, and an old slate to use as a table. “I’m asking Severus if their family is hooked up to the Floo Network.”
“I really doubt it,” Sirius says, remembering what little they’ve been told about Tobias Snape. Sirius has nothing against Muggles, but Severus’s father sounds like he would get on just fine with Pollux. “We’ll have to take the train to Cokeworth. Lily and Severus mentioned that it takes a bit over an hour as long as we’re not traveling during peak times. Whatever peak times are.”
“Morning and evening commute,” Regulus mutters, still busy writing. “No, they’re not on the Floo Network. Severus is trying to convince his mother that it’s necessary and they don’t have to tell his dad a thing about it, but she keeps refusing. Oh, Remus arrived at Lily’s house last night. Severus says Lily’s parents are trying to adopt a werewolf who already has parents, and that Lily’s sister despises Remus already because the werewolf has been granted the guest bedroom. Claims it’s bad enough that ‘the Snape boy’ is allowed to sully the house. Petunia Evans sounds like she’s going to be fun.”
Sirius grimaces. “Tobias Snape as a match for Pollux on one side, and Cassiopeia has her match in Lily’s older sister on the other. Yes, that sounds wonderful. We should shove them both out in front of an oncoming train.”
Regulus glances up at him. “Sometimes you sound way too much like our father.”
Sirius stares back in horror. “Please never say that to me again.”
“Only if you deserve it,” Regulus replies happily. “Oh, Severus says if we go to King’s Cross Station now, we’ll arrive in time for lunch.”
“What do we tell Mother?” Sirius asks.
It can’t be that difficult to buy Muggle train tickets. He has a bit of Muggle money set aside thanks to his Uncle Alphard, who is possibly one of the only decent adult relatives they have.
“We’ll take the Floo to King’s Cross, is what,” Regulus says, rolling up the scroll before getting up to hide it in Sirius’s charmed desk drawer. They’re the only two who can open that drawer. It won’t open for anything else unless the entire desk is destroyed by Fiendfyre.
He is that paranoid for a reason, thanks.
“And the elves?” Sirius asks, knowing how much Kreacher worships their mother.
“The elves like me. If I tell them that we’re off to see a Pure-blood with Mother’s permission, they won’t say a thing to her about the first place we went. She would have to know to ask specifically.” Regulus grins at Sirius. “Why did the Hat put you in Slytherin? You’re bad at planning!”
Sirius throws his hands up into the air in frustration. “I don’t know! I asked it not to!”
Buying a Muggle train ticket really is that bloody complicated. If Regulus hadn’t brought his charmed scroll so he could ask Lily how to buy tickets, they would be wandering around King’s Cross until the Hogwarts Express arrives in September.
At least Sirius did have enough money—more than enough. Alphard should really explain a bit more about Muggle currency. Sirius thinks he might have enough in Muggle folded notes that he could convert them at Gringotts and rent a nice flat in Diagon Alley for a month.
It occurs to him about halfway out to Cokeworth that maybe Alphard is giving him untraceable Muggle money for exactly that sort of reason. Sirius isn’t certain if that makes him happy, or if it’s terrifying that his uncle feels the need to leave Sirius with these sorts of…of contingencies.
Do Aurors know how to search by Muggle means to find missing wizarding kids? Or do they just rely on the Trace? Regulus and Sirius’s wands don’t even have the stupid Trace. That’s only placed on Muggle-born wands. What would Aurors do without that big shining magical hint?
When the train pulls up to the station in Cokeworth, Sirius realizes something that makes his stomach turn over. He has yet to see his first Muggle town or his first Muggle household, and he’s already beginning to make plans to get himself and Regulus the fuck out of 12 Grimmauld Place.
The moment someone finally—finally!—put quill to the pages
of the diary for the first time, Tom fully intended to drain them dry, reclaim
his inheritance as well as his body, and continue on with his plans. His true
self hadn’t bothered to update the diary since its creation, but he’d decided
upon realizing his Slytherin heritage that there was only one place for him in
Wizarding Britain.
If Muggle Britain can have a Queen, Wizarding Britain can
have a King.
Being perpetually sixteen is irritating enough. To be
sixteen and having things be dull as shit
for decades is intolerable.
Her name is Ginevra Weasley. Ginny.
It’s a bit of surprise to know that there are any Weasleys
left. He always thought the family rather weak, and that was aside from their
politically poor classification as Blood Traitors. Instead, there are seven
Weasley children and their parents, a Weasley married to a Prewett. There are a
number of Prewetts lurking about still, as well.
Odd. The weak should have been the first to fall. He’s been
planning his rule for a long time, after all.
Tom does use the diary’s magic to claim her consciousness
once, and it is absolutely glorious to move again, to see the school…to greet
the ancient basilisk once more. His friend. His only friend. It’s difficult to
get the proper sibilance of Parseltongue from the lips of one who wasn’t born
to speak it, but he does quite well. Her lips and tongue are ideal for it, not
yet molded by school and age into thinking of words as being only specific,
limited sounds.
Tom pretends to be kind when this eleven-year-old girl
writes of girlish nonsense. The concerns of the young and the innocent. He has
never been innocent. He was never allowed to be.
Then Ginny writes a single line one day before book and
quill are both abandoned.
Tom, I’m afraid.
That is all. Three words.
Fear.
Tom knows what it’s like to fear. He fears Dumbledore, who
came to him and terrorized him before telling Tom that he was a wizard.
Dumbledore who never trusted him, who always looked at Tom as if he’d created
all the mischief in the world. Tom had done nothing those first few years to
deserve that. Nothing! He came to the bloody school resolved to be great and
discovered that to be great meant to be scolded, to be frowned upon for wishing
to learn beyond the set limits of classes. He feared those who were older and
more powerful than himself until he’d learned to become more powerful than
they.
Tom gathers up the ink she used for those three words and
leaves her a message: Why?
It’s quite a while before Ginny answers him. There are rumors that the last time this
ruddy Chamber was opened, they were on the verge of shutting down the school
until they caught the one responsible. I don’t want to go home. I hate it there.
Oh, that is definitely interesting. What is so terrible about home? Tome asks while thinking, At least you had one.
I’m just “Baby Ginny”
there. I’m not a person. I’m the little sister, the youngest daughter, the baby
of the family. No one wants to talk about what I like, even if it’s bloody
Quidditch—and the gits all like Quidditch! But no, the baby girl can’t discuss
the big grown-up game with the big boys.
I hate it. I hate that
my mother looks at me and sees fragile, precious, and female, but nothing else
unless it’s a marriage commodity. I think Mum is already plotting to marry me
off to Harry! I hate that my father is just so absent, that he has more
interest in Muggle things than in me. I’m only eleven, but I’m not stupid!
I deserve to exist as a person.
Don’t I?
That is when Tom makes a dreadful, terrible blunder.
He doesn’t just write platitudes and reassurances. He speaks to her.
Everyone deserves to
exist. I’m rather fond of it, myself.
There is a long pause. You’re
not just a diary, are you?
Tom feels…is that pleasure? Is there depth to this girl that
he was ignoring in favor of his other goals? Depth that he could use?
I’m a magical recording
of Tom Riddle, a real person who attended this school in the 1940s. I would
have graduated in 1945. I believe I am considered dead now.
That’s a terrible
shame, Ginny writes. I’d hate to be
aware of my own death like that. Has Hogwarts changed overly much since you
were made, Tom?
Dumbledore, Tom
replies in the most scathing handwriting he can form. It literally drips down
the page.
Not so much, then. I think you’d like Professor McGonagall.
She is never ridiculous.
Perhaps, Tom
agrees. We went to school together. She
isn’t the way you’ve written of her now, but no, she was never ridiculous. Minerva
had never turned her nose up at him, either.
He hasn’t thought on that in a long time. He only remembered
the hatred. The fear. The desire to become himself again.
Besides. I am a
Slytherin.
Oh, Ginny writes
back at once. There is amusement in her writing. Then Professor Snape would definitely like you. He can’t stand the rest
of us, but he treats his Slytherins like gold.
Not like Slughorn,
then? Tom asks curiously.
Who the bloody hell is
Slughorn?
HE DOESN’T TEACH HERE
ANYMORE?
Tom would dance if he could. Slughorn might have taught him
how to make himself, how to store these lovely copies and set them aside if
they are needed…but that man was an utter fool. What idiot tells a
fifteen-year-old student how to craft a bit of magic made from murder? Someone
looking to curry favor and unable to look beyond the bridge of his bulbous
nose, that’s who. Fucking idiot.
That was quite the
rant, Ginny writes. Tom catches himself and realizes every single bit of
those thoughts revealed themselves on his pages. Shit.
Magic made from
murder, Ginny continues. Sounds
unpleasant.I know murder is a
powerful vehicle for magic, but not what sorts.
Tom makes his second blunder. He falls in love with
a pragmatic, intelligent, vicious fucking Gryffindor Weasley.
Bonus chapter going up because of a few absolutely wonderful people
who are helping to save my ass financially this week. The drywall
contractor taking care of the work I can’t do right now found another
problem today. *whimper* That’s problem number four. Problems are
expensive. There will be photo updates this weekend for those keeping
track of the SAGA OF THE 2ND FLOOR APARTMENT.
At least it no
longer reeks up there because of filthy ex-tenants and their
not-ever-cleaning nonsense. It just smells like fresh drywall, spackling
mud, and pine instead. (Yes, those totally do count as nice smells!)
There's a Mirror on the Wall 