Lover's Spittle - Amelinda, k3u - Harry Potter (2024)

Chapter 1: Prologue

Chapter Text

Lover's Spittle

Lover's Spit, 2018 Edition: Smaller, sh*ttier, and Uncut

—

“Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth, where no gin is for him? Shall one take up a snare from the earth, and have taken nothing at all?"

- Amos 3:5 (King James Version)

“All these people drinking lover's spit Swallowing words while giving head They listen to teeth to learn how to quit Tied to a night they never met”

- Broken Social Scene, "Lover's Spit"

—

Prologue

FACTORY69.ORG WAS NOT known for its moral contribution to society. Outside of niche internet subcultures, it wasn't known at all.

Ernie Macmillan discovered it by chance.

An uneventful day at the local strip with his best mate, Justin, was winding to a dull close, and Ernie half-jokingly suggested they find that horse-bonking p*rno everyone was going on about. Both boys feigned cluelessness about where to find said video; their interest in sex, though often brought up jocularly, was taboo to mention outside the comfort of humour. A quick perusal of the viral thirty- second clip became a gateway drug into a naughty evening, and within an hour they found what one article deemed 'the darkest corner of the browsable internet'.

No smut site could compare to Factory69. It was something called an imageboard website, a place where anonymous users could post anything they wanted, no matter how disturbed or illegal. There was normal p*rn, and BDSM p*rn, and p*rn of men cutting off their knobs. The content entertained them for hours until Justin's mum came round announcing dinner. The two went off to bed soon after.

“I don’t think we should look at that stuff anymore,” said Justin suddenly, when the lights had long gone out.

“Yeah,” Ernie agreed. “Me neither.”

But this was not true. In the weeks that followed, Ernie swelled with a sinister curiosity. He’d type in the first three letters – f a c – before spacing back, ashamed of himself. There was something about Factory69 that spoke to a deep, untouched part of him, a place he'd grazed with the tips of his fingers in mid-wank reverie. Alone in his room in the dead of night, hand down his trousers, he finally braved the adrenalin spike of fear and simply clicked.

And within a week, the website and all its dangerous quirks did not inspire fear at all.

Ernie learned the lingo: That fap meant wank, that kek meant lol, that all users could be categorized as a sort of fa*g. Ernie himself was a newfa*g—new to the forum, eager to explore. General content sufficed for newfa*gs. He initially stuck around lady p*rn and memes, and when feeling extra curious, snuck a glance at the LGBT section. This sort of thing became less thrilling by the day. He decided to try out the darker things, and was swept up quick by the sexist bits: Soviet-sounding redheads in kinky chains, schoolgirls bent and whipped. What was right, what was wrong, none of this mattered anymore. He was bored of the old Ernie. He needed newer, darker content that suited the newer, darker person he was becoming.

Many months passed before Ernie bothered to think critically about his actions. It was looking back, on the eve of his sixteenth birthday, that Ernie pinned the moment his conscience started to shift.

The gore forum. He’d never browsed it before, but he was hard now, right? He thought maybe he’d just have a look. A lot of the content here was posted by a namefa*g, a person who abused the tagging system to identify their posts within the community of nameless users.

This user appropriately christened himself gorefa*g. Anytime he reared up there was sure to be a sick photo captioned with ridiculous commentary. And the content was vile, even by Factory69 standards: a woman getting sawed in half; a kitten imploding from a fire work; a corpse with its eyes gouged out. As a special treat, there’d occasionally be a deep web hyperlink. (Ernie stopped clicking on these once he was greeted with a very real snuff film from a dusty Middle Eastern slum.)

Gorefa*g was prevalent on Factory69 but he didn’t earn infamy until he started posting original content. That was the stuff that made him special. The animal gore in itself was nothing new. Ernie often scrolled down his posts feeling mostly detached: a skinned cat here, a half-burnt live squirrel there, maybe a dog with its innards stretched out in gooey tendrils. No, the content itself was not unnerving to Ernie until he read several users confess: they could find no proof that the images were stolen from other sources.

GOREfa*g
>lmao i told u fa*gs it was oc

The existence of gorefa*g then became uniquely off-putting. He was not simply edgy; he was sad*stic. Casually and remorselessly, he described, step-by-step, how he lured off the animals before starting the real fun. His descriptions were never overstated, never felt fake nor unusually shocking. Gorefa*g’s attitude was in a constant flux. Sometimes he was matter-of-fact and amicable. At other times, if insulted, he was vulgar, and wrote strangely intimate rape threats with links to p*rnos that showed someone, somewhere committing the act.

Eventually, gorefa*g’s presence became too much, and Ernie lost his taste for the hard stuff.

He decided instead to hang around the anon crush thread. Most of the replies were cute photos along with a line or two about their crush. It was surprisingly sweet. Unlike the other threads, there was no scathing irony, no edgy death threats, no unexpected p*rn: just content that tendered a small reprieve from the darker side of life.

That was, until gorefa*g showed up.

It started as an innocent thread. People were sharing photos of their beloveds and sprinkling in cutesy commentary, when suddenly, amid the selfies, there was a creep shot photo of a child playing football in the park.

GOREfa*g
>i’m going to f*ck him

For the first time in Ernie’s six months of browsing, not one single user was amused.

Another photo came again, days later. The same little black-haired boy catching a frisbee with an older man. Both were smiling.

GOREfa*g
>gonna f*ck him while his dad watches then f*ck his dad too lol

Queasily, Ernie wrote back:

>seriously f*ck off, fa*ggot

The images became more frequent, the remarks obscener. Each time it was the same little boy: at school, at church, walking through a nondescript neighbourhood. Whether gorefa*g was plotting to really act or not, it couldn’t possibly be altogether fake, not with the regularity of his posts. But what could anyone do? It didn’t seem to matter if anyone responded or not; gorefa*g was persistent, and his posts were getting nastier by the day.

GOREfa*g
>aw he looks so cute all alone

This captioned a photo of the boy alone in his room. Ernie shut his laptop. Thought: Maybe that would be the worst if it. But then the next day, it happened again: the little boy in his room, stripped to his pants.

Summer hit and Ernie had endless hours to devote to his obsession (and parents who couldn't care less what he was doing so long as it didn’t bother them). He grouped up with a couple of others and began archiving gorefa*g's posts. Whatever their community was, it wasn't a place for true paedos, true predators. Ernie's fascination with gorefa*g became acute, but it was not inspired by the same spark which brought him, red-cheeked, to the risqué things; it was legitimate disgust, legitimate concern. He watched the threads with hawk-like keenness.

Gorefa*g had posted a lot of f*cked up sh*te in his day, but it was only upon seeing this – the post that set Factory69 into a furious tailspin to have gorefa*g investigated, properly, that Ernie decided against all obsession, he had to quit the website for good.

It was a photo of a photograph. The little boy was asleep in his bed, the camera right beside his face. Smeared over his printed image was an unmistakable white substance. And all gorefa*g wrote this time?

GOREfa*g

>soon

Chapter 2: The Arrest

Chapter Text

—

Chapter One

Summertime in the early aughts
In a small town in Yorkshire, England

-

“HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM!”

The villagers of Little Hangleton stood crowded on the cobblestone path that led to the Riddle House. Upright northerners that they were, they respected the flimsy, plastic police barricades amid the cry of bull-horned voices and high whirring sirens. Their shoulders clashed, but passively so. Onlookers rustled eagerly near the front, but with muttered apologies and averted eyes. It was a hot Sunday afternoon, and they were all in their church things. Their sun-blanched vantage of the hilltop would have to suffice until the local news clarified matters further.

Had anyone known then that this would not simply break Channel 4 but would indeed be among Britain’s top stories of the year, then perhaps their provincial sensibilities would’ve succumbed to the delicious thrill of international relevance.

“Please! Stop this! I have a son!”

Mr. Riddle’s pleading elicited no sympathy from the surrounding officers. They kept their guns trained on him as he lowered to his knees. He did not look the part of a predatory paedophile; he was handsome and expensively dressed, and his stately manor home was among the finest structures in town.

The sight of him cowering on his stoop inspired dark satisfaction in the pit of Constable Potter’s gut. He wished it was him cuffing and shoving Riddle. It was on direct orders that he remained seated, eyes narrowed, hands clenched tight around the faux-black leather steering wheel. ‘Too personal,’ said Sergeant Moody. ‘Wouldn’t want the media catching you doing your job, now, would you?’ Moody was among the most punitive spirits James Potter had ever met, and their contradictory opinions about the use of corporal punishment often put them at odds.

Today would mark the beginning of them seeing eye-to-eye. As Moody shouted at the dark lens of a long-necked camcorder, James did not feel embarrassed to be associated with Mad-Eye Moody, every local reporter's most loathed correspondent.

Tucked into the corner beside James’s odometer was small square photograph. Vibrant green eyes and an infectious ear-to-ear smile: his precious Harry. Righteous nausea swelled up him. He swallowed back dryly and adjusted his round-rimmed spectacles. Riddle was being shoved into the back of a chequered Focus that strobed blue light as the engine revved.

The handheld radio clipped at his belt crackled to life. “Potter? You there? It’s Longbottom.”

“Yeah,” said James. “I’m here.”

“Sergeant wants the kid taken in for questioning before we start raiding the house. I think it’s, uh… Well, better you than me.”

Riddle’s child was standing in the doorway, furrow-browed and typing into his mobile. James hadn’t noticed him there before. Poor kid. His history of setting fires and poking at roadkill had earned him a bad reputation around town. James now regretted that no one thought to glance twice at the Riddle family. Why else would a child do the things he did, if not for bad parenting?

“I’ve got him, Longbottom.” He unbuckled himself and spared one last look at his photo of Harry.

Three officers stood near the boy Riddle. They were all smirking uneasily. Minutes had passed since his father was taken off and it didn’t seem like the kid had looked up once.

“Hey,” James said. He bent on one knee and smiled. “It’s Tom, right?”

Tom peeked up, then went wide-eyed and gasped.

“Hey, it’s alright, it’s alright,” James told him soothingly.

“I’m James. Harry Potter’s dad. You remember Harry, right?”

“Er, yes,” Tom said meekly, pocketing his mobile. “I think so, sir.”

James tried his best to keep a smile, but it wasn’t easy. The boy looked so young in his little pink short-trousers. Couldn’t be much older than ten. His soft cherubic features looked upon James with apparent dread, and James, wincing, forced himself to speak with a confident voice.

“Hey, kid. I know this must be a confusing time for you, but I promise we’ll make sure you’re taken care of. Now how would you like to take a ride in a police car? I’ll even let you ring the siren.”

✦ ✦ ✦

In the interrogation room at the Greater Hangleton Constabulary, Thomas Riddle sat with his eyes fixed on the chain between his wrists. Never before had he been at odds with the law. He kept hoping, strangely, that this was some sort of elaborately cruel prank, for as unlikely as it was, it seemed more likely than the alternative—that he was, in fact, under arrest for a crime so heinous, it demanded armed-seizure and the attention of a camera crew.

The grey-panelled walls around him were dreary. The air tasted wet. All he could be grateful for was that there was no two-way mirror as he’d seen on the telly. In here, there was only him, a dangling lightbulb, a fold-out table, and another empty chair.

And then the door opened, and Sergeant Moody stepped in, grunting irascibly. He was a hunched man with gravelly cheeks and an unmoving glass eye. Riddle straightened his back.

“Hello, Sergeant,” he said evenly. “I do hope you have good reason for bringing me here today.”

“SHUT IT!”

The sergeant punctuated his bark with a heavy slap of files on the table top. Riddle did not flinch but tightened his jaw.

“Don’t play dumb, Riddle. We both know what you’ve done.”

“Sorry,” Riddle said stiffly, “but with all due respect, I don’t believe either of us know what’s really going on here.”

“Oh, really?”

Sergeant Moody peeled back the file and spread its topmost pages. The five images were laid out in a morbid flush—bodies without heads, a man set aflame, the rotting corpse of a child, naked. Riddle gasped and raised his arm to block his low peripheral view.

“That’s vile! Why on earth would you show me this?!”

The sergeant laughed in an unsettling throaty staccato.

“What’s wrong, Riddle? Don’t like it anymore, do you?”

"You think I’ve done this? I’ve never hurt anyone, not once in my life!”

“Oh, but you’ve thought about it, haven’t you?”

Sergeant Moody’s voice had a surreal knowing quality. He fingered through the pages and pulled out a section tabbed with a paper clip. “I’ve read all about what you planned to do with him. Go on. Have a look.”

Reluctantly, Riddle took the pages. His hesitant eyes locked on Sergeant Moody’s. He didn’t know what to expect. When he did manage to force his vision level with the pictures, he snorted, scowled.

Nothing so gruesome here. The first image was of a child kicking a football. His uniform was the striped purple of the local junior league team. In the next photograph, the camera was closer, but the child’s face was still blurred. Riddle stared at the clearest picture and easily recognised him.

“Yes, James and Lily Potter’s son,” Riddle said. “He can’t be… He’s not hurt, is he? I saw him with his mother at morning service.”

“Keep a close watch on him, do you?” Sergeant Moody snarled. “Christ. Just what are you accusing me of, Sergeant?”

“June twenty-seventh of this year,” read Sergeant Moody sharply, looking down at a page of text. “You wrote, l-o-l, can’t wait to f*ck him til he bleeds. Hope he screams too.”

Riddle snatched the paper from the sergeant’s hand. “I most certainly did not write that. What is this, anyway?” Down the page were bordered purple boxes with text inside. Someone had drawn, by hand, red circles around several of the boxes. He read through them one at a time.

GOREfa*g

>yeah he’s pretty hot

GOREfa*g

>i’d probably drink his piss just to see what he tastes like on the inside

GOREfa*g

>if i’m lucky maybe his dad will f*ck me too lolz

“Sergeant Moody.” Riddle set the page down and shook his head, bewildered. “I need you to believe me when I say that I have no clue what this is about.”

Sergeant Moody rolled his good eye. The other remained eerily in place. “We traced the IP to the computer at your house, Riddle. And don’t say it was a proxy. There were a number of photos that identified the area around your home.”

“Honestly, Sergeant, I don’t have any idea how that’s possible. I would never say anything like this about anyone, much less a child. I have a boy myself. If anyone were to talk about my Tommy in this way, I’d—”

Riddle stopped speaking, for he noticed in Sergeant Moody’s deepening frown a subtle shift in demeanour. And suddenly, Riddle did not feel as if he was entirely blameless in whatever it was the sergeant had laid out before him.

✦ ✦ ✦

Daddy always said: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!”

As Harry sat with his feet tucked in, his sketchbook propped on his knees, he let the logic of Daddy’s words calm his agitation. He just couldn’t get the shapes to look even! A football was meant to be a perfect, seamless pattern; black and white pentagons, curved in queues around the round surface. He tried again and again, then sighed. Eraser bits and worn pencil marks marred the once clean canvas and made the whole thing look ugly. Harry balled up the page and gave it a toss into the bin beside Miss Tonks’s desk.

“Nice shot,” she said. Her blue-lipstick smile was very weird, but Harry liked it. “Maybe you could be a basketball star, too.”

“Basketball?” Harry knew it was a compliment, but he couldn’t stop himself from responding in clipped words.

“Why would I want to play basketball? Football’s the greatest thing on earth! If I could, I’d skip all my classes and just play football all the time.”

“Oh, you’re right,” Miss Tonks said, slapping her forehead. “How could I be so silly?”

Harry shrugged and put his pencil back to work. By the time Daddy got back, he’d have the perfect drawing, something that would really make him smile. No bloody basketballs for them, thanks.

“Tonks.”

The older officer, Mrs. Vance, said this with a tinge of severity, and Miss Tonks stood at attention. “Yes, Inspector?”

“Come have a look,” she ordered. She was staring at her computer with her lips pouted out. The long-faced stretch of wrinkled lips reminded Harry very much of a monkey. “You’re sure the suspect has had his belongings confiscated?”

“Quite sure,” said Miss Tonks. She bent level with the computer and frowned. “Another post? But that can’t be possible…”

A shadowy form grew larger in the frosted glass door. Harry watched it, feeling in his heart that it would be Daddy on the other-side. And he was right! Daddy entered and said his hellos to all of the other officers. By his side was someone Harry didn’t expect to see.

“Harry,” said Daddy, “I’ve brought someone for you to play with.”

Tom Riddle looked over his mobile and nodded once at Harry, who smirked back uncertainly. He really hoped his warming cheeks did not look so blistering red as they felt.

Theirs was an odd connection. The two boys shared many things in common: the same homeroom teacher, the same Sunday School class, even the same Phys Ed section (Tom was quite clumsy at sport and tended to skive off, and though Tom did not know this, Harry had occasionally lied to coach on his behalf, saying he caught him crying in the loo).

However, though their paths criss-crossed all over, two years had passed since their last proper chat. Associating with Mad Tom became social suicide after he did that thing to Neville Longbottom’s rabbit.

Not that anyone liked him much before. It was always something with Tom. At church, when they were four or five, Tom often frightened the other children with his assertion that there was neither an afterlife nor a god. He even openly dared God to smite him if he spoke sacrilege! That was quite scary, Harry thought, but it also intrigued him. He wanted to hear more from him, befriend him.

But that was impossible. Each year, a new revelation worsened Tom’s reputation: in the Scouts, it was his girlish refusal to play in the dirt; at school, it was his know-it-all attitude and perfect marks; and in general, it was that he was very quiet, except for when there was an opportunity to share his knowledge about how to dissolve a corpse in acid.

Yes, for many good reasons, it was bad luck hanging around Tom. His company was a virus. Get infected by it, and everyone would avoid you, too. Sometimes even Harry was playfully mocked by his teammates for his own awkward Tom encounter, back when they were only seven.

What no one could know was that Harry secretly relished this memory; that to him, the wriggle of a snake with its sheen scales glimmering, and the words said by Tom, his pronunciation hissy and high, were neither shameful nor unwanted. Tom was odd and smart-arsed and probably a bit mad, but he was as pretty as those boys on the telly, and in his dark eyes, there was a lively glint that spoke of wonder and mischief unrestrained.

“Hey,” said Daddy, cupping his hands in a clap, “I think there’s some ice cream left in the kitchen. How about we grab some?”

“Okay!” Harry agreed. He turned his drawing over so that no one could see, and then left with them, making sure Daddy stayed put in the middle so that his eyes did not drift too obviously in Tom’s periphery. Once they were in the kitchen, Daddy opened the great white freezer and dug around the ice.

“Let’s see… Tom, chocolate or vanilla?”

“No thank you, sir.”

Quite extraordinarily, Tom did not look up from his mobile to give this answer, but instead continued his furious typing. Wow! If Harry dared to so much as look off when Daddy asked a direct question, he would have received a stern admonishment. This small disruption of power livened Harry’s nerves, and against his better reason, he decided to test Tom’s method out for himself.

“No problem. How about you, Harry?”

Harry leaned back on the counter and gazed off, performing his best imitation of Tom’s coolness. “Whatever’s there, I suppose.”

Daddy’s sharp gaze turned to him. “Excuse me?” Maybe that sort of thing only worked when Tom did it.

“I’m sorry, sir. Chocolate, please,” Harry finally said, quite grateful that Tom seemed more interested in texting.

They left moments later for the children’s playroom. On the walk there, Harry licked absently at the side of his uneven cream mound, occasionally eyeing Tom askance. He was like a teenager, the way

he used that mobile! And it was one of the brand-new models too, with a touchable screen. No other kid Harry knew was allowed a mobile of his own. There must’ve been something seriously wrong with Tom’s parents.

That would explain all those weird questions Daddy asked earlier about Mr. Riddle’s conduct. Maybe Mr. Riddle was one of those perverts he heard Mummy warning him about… and maybe, somehow, Daddy was planning to adopt Tom into their own family! It would make sense, wouldn’t it? His stomach gave a hopeful squirm at the possibility.

“Alright, Harry,” Daddy said as the unlocked door creaked open, revealing the bright-lit, colourful room, “how about you get the paint brushes out? Tom—” He turned to him, smiling oddly, “you can join me at the table here.”

The playroom was a merry five-walled suite that shone bright with a rainbow-schemed mural of children and constables, hand-in-hand. Luna’s mummy painted it three summers ago. “The world is a canvass,” she had said while looking down at Harry with her large eyes, paint flecks on her freckly cheeks. Harry had turned away, frowning. Her transformation of the room seemed more like a betrayal than a service. Since his deepest and oldest memories, he knew these walls to be a bleak, coarse-textured white. Did everything in life need to be pretty? Weren’t some things alright the way they were?

Harry pulled open the cupboard and the thin wood shuddered. He gathered the basket of art supplies and met Daddy in the chair beside him, across from Tom, who was still texting.

“Why don’t we put that up for now?” Daddy suggested, an uncommon hesitance in his voice. Tom pocketed the device and looked up. “What would you like to know, sir?”

“You don’t need to be nervous.” Daddy allocated three sheets of paper and squirted paint into the ceramic paint dish. The brushes were up for grabs, so Harry took the thinnest one; surely Tom would want the large fan brush, since it was the coolest. “We can talk about whatever you’d like. You two are in school together, right?”

Tom glanced at Harry for the first time since they arrived, and with a fresh bloom of embarrassment, he wondered what Tom thought of him. Did he remember what he’d said all those years ago? Harry shoved his brush hairs into the black glob and started making aimless lines down his page.

“That is correct, sir,” Tom said politely.

“Good, good.” Daddy tapped his pointer on his empty page. “Do you have a favourite subject?”

“Maths.”

“Oh, really? Maybe you could help out Harry here.” Daddy made to ruffle his hair. Harry shirked away, grumbling, but acquiesced once the hand met his top. “Hates maths, this one.”

“I do not!” Harry tried to make his face look very, very irritated for Tom.

Yet Tom did not seem convinced. He smiled with an almost adult-like knowingness, a subtle sort of mockery that made Harry’s heart skip a beat. “I think most students hate it because they’re not very good. But it doesn’t matter. Maybe he can become a constable, too. My father says you don’t need an education to work here.”

Daddy frowned. “Well, that’s not entirely true—”

“I’m going to be a footballer,” Harry said suddenly. “I was already offered a trial with Leeds Academy.”

"Leeds?" Tom questioned. "Impressive. Not that I'm surprised, really. You're a striker, right? Jersey number seven?”

Harry’s mouth slipped open. “That’s right.”

"You don't play, do you, Tom?" Daddy asked. He co*cked his head to the side. "I've never seen you on any teams."

“My nan takes me round to watch the matches,” Tom said, leaning in. “We like to keep up on what's going on around town. Some say Cormac McLaggen’s the one bound for recruitment. I can see why. He is very tall, very quick. But Nan and I agree on one thing: He’s no Harry Potter.”

Harry felt very light-headed. “What do you mean?”

“Well, the way I see it,” Tom continued, an imperious determination saturating his words, “McLaggen’s little bit of natural talent won’t mean much in a couple of years. He might be quick, but he’s lazy. Daft. And you?"

Daddy's hand caught Harry's knee beneath the table and squeezed. "What about him?"

Tom's cloud-white cheeks mottled pink all over. His brown eyes were tensely focused. "I’ve seen you at it. You’ve got better instincts by far. What’s more, you’re a hard-worker. First on the field, last to go home. Isn’t that right?”

“Tom?”

Daddy’s snappish voice did something to Tom. His certain hold on Harry, almost hypnotic in its intensity, dissolved at once, and he shrunk down his seat and looked ten again.

Harry took a deep breath and quivered pleasantly. Tom had actually noticed him? “Yes, sir?” Tom asked faintly.

Daddy held his hand expectantly between them. His face showed the same no-nonsense outlook as when Harry disobeyed. "Hand me your mobile."

“Sir, I—”

“This is not a request, Tom. Hand me your mobile.”

Tom sucked in his bottom lip and hesitated for a good while, his brows inched in pensively. Ultimately, he obliged, and slid it over to Daddy.

“Father said I’m not allowed to…”

“Password, Riddle,” Daddy demanded unkindly. “If you don’t give it to me, I’ll just have our computer people break in. Would you prefer to do it that way?”

The bird-wing flutter of Tom’s eyelids made Harry feel deeply uncomfortable. He jerked his knee away from Daddy's grip. Why was he being so rude? There was no excuse for it. Harry had to speak up. He squeezed his fists to knots and braced himself for inevitable retaliation. But then Tom spoke instead.

“I don’t want to say it aloud, sir. May I write it?” Daddy nodded. “That’s fine.”

Resignation was apparent on Tom’s expressionless face. He took a pen from the basket and wrote five tiny letters on the bottom edge of his paper, then tore it off in a strip.

“I’m sorry for the trouble, sir. Could you please take me to my father now?”

Daddy kept one brow in a tight arch as he peered at Tom’s password. “Harry, would you go get Mrs. Vance for me? Don’t come back with her. Stay at my desk.”

“But Daddy, can I—”

“No, Harry. Go.”

Apologetically, Harry shrugged at Tom then went for the door, as slow as he could be without stirring Daddy’s temper. In his very last look over the room—its cheerful rainbows, its toothy portraits, its sheen red boxes and overlarge bead maze table—Harry saw that Tom was watching him, unblinking. Then he heard Daddy’s handcuffs clink and a powerful, unknowing instinct took over. He ran for Mrs. Vance without once looking back.

✦ ✦ ✦

“The content we’re about to show you is highly gruesome in nature. Viewer discretion is strongly advised.”

“This afternoon in the small village of Little Hangleton, a man by the name of Thomas Riddle was apprehended on allegations of intent to commit paedophilia, however—”

“Animals cut into pieces, snuff video footage of children as young as four—”

“—all of which was connected to user who called himself GOREfa*g on the popular website Factory69.org.”

Three-hundred and seventy-six photos of little Harry Potter were found on the Riddle family hard drive. In a couple dozen, he was sleeping, oblivious that a boy with a camera phone was standing beside him, smiling. Neighbourhood animals thought to have runaway were found, guts strewn, with lifeless eyes and splayed-out paws.

Many users on Factory69 had archived the gorefa*g's activities a full half-year before there was enough evidence to alert the authorities. Upon the revelation that this was the doing of a child, and not a middle-age predator, their concern transformed into a once-in-a-lifetime blend of awe and amusem*nt.

Immortalised forevermore was the first internationally-watched swatting of their generation. Gorefa*g's image became an instant meme: a picture released by Mr. Riddle to the media of Tom at age 9, his lips spread wide in a gap-toothed smile, wearing a pale blue club-collared dress shirt. Users would post this alongside his most grisly of musings for the purposes of humour.

Not all who viewed such things thought it funny, however. Kids and teens across the globe found their technology privileges revoked upon gorefa*g’s meteoric rise to notoriety. Tom's name touched

lips in places he'd never see. Foreign superintendents discussed him at school board meetings. Evangelical Americans proselytised him as a cautionary tale. The internet would take the story and spin it a million ways; take the faces of the two boys, and put them in different contexts, imply motivations, suggest foul-play, and, behind rerouted IPs, fantasise about such.

But on the night of the arrest, when it was all so fresh and surreal, fathers confronted their sons with authentic concerns not yet overwrought by the speculation of strangers.

One pair sat on their couch by the blacked-out telly; the other in a holding cell at the constabulary.

Forbidden was Harry Potter to ever speak again to that horrible little menace, which would prove easy enough in the coming year. As part of his guilty plea for stalking, breaking-and-entering, animal cruelty, and the distribution of obscene content involving children, Tom Riddle was to be sent to an intensive yearlong reform programme in the south, and when he returned, Wycliffe Academy would approve Mr. Riddle’s request to advance his precocious son one year in the curriculum so that his contact with the Potter boy was limited.

For many years, both fathers would think this strange obsession a figment of the past, nothing to worry about moving forward, as their sons grew older and less vulnerable.

Constable Potter would misinterpret his son’s reluctance to discuss the incident as a sign of trauma. Mr. Riddle, equal in his ignorance, would not think that his 15-year-old son’s frequent disappearance had anything to do with the poor little boy from all those years ago.

Both fathers would see the best in their sons, hope for the best for their sons. And yet their sons would nevertheless become their own people, battened by infatuation, and longing, and lust; and love that was true.

Chapter 3: Casual Friday

Chapter Text

Many years ago
at All Saints Church, Little Hangleton

-

Beneath grey England skies, slow rivulets ran down the wide chapel gables, dripping arrhythmically on Harry’s left trainer. Chat and laughter echoed loud off yorkstone brick—adults talking, gossiping; children running wild in post-sermon ecstasy. Sunday afternoons were a familiar rhythm. Harry could usually be found among the others his age, bursting out of the haze and into the sun, the courtyard, the soft wind that smelled faintly of fennel and hogweed. The necessary hour spent with Priest Dippet’s low lumbering voice was—privately—Harry’s most dreaded moment of the week. He did not like to sit quiet and still, nor did he like the uncomfortably firm feel of iron-pressed trousers, clinging tight to his legs.

Today was an unusual Sunday for Harry. Rather than run around, screaming and chasing after Ron, he stood silent and alone, his back against the uneven jut of concrete bricks. His regard was set on the boy milling about in the nettles.

No one had seen Tom Riddle since Tuesday afternoon. During homeroom, Mrs. Sprout—their plump, kind-faced Science teacher—announced that Tom was ill in the hospital, but would give no further detail as to what sort of illness he had. Cancer? Pneumonia? A flesh-eating bacteria? Rumours abounded. By the manner in which Mrs. Sprout rung her hands, Harry knew it must’ve been quite serious.

But how serious? Well, Harry didn’t believe Seamus Finnigan’s lilting insistence that he’d actually been murdered, and that the police were withholding detail until further investigation. But he was scared enough by the prospect to ask Daddy at dinner.

Of course not, Harry. That’s not how it works. And at any rate, your mum said the boy is fine, so relax.

How cruel was Seamus’s lie, then! Poor Tom Riddle. Sick in the hospital, unaware that some bully was profiting off such sick slanders. At recess the next day, Harry confronted Seamus under a false pretence—that lying about the force was, in fact, a crime, and Seamus should “watch his mouth” next time round—and Seamus shot off insults like a Chinese firecracker. Ron was stepping in, fist- ready, when Draco Malfoy finally diffused the tension. His father worked at the real estate firm owned by Tom’s father, and the two had been to visit the night before:

He got bit by a viper. Right on the wrist. Saw it myself.

The playground went quiet. Then loud: laughter, high and righteous. A snake! Oh, how the others loved this! Harry sunk back near the monkey bar arch and sulked until the whistle rung in dismissal.

Everyone knew about Mad Tom’s peculiar affection for snakes. He swore he understood them. Claimed they spoke a language only he could understand. The others said this was a mental bluff, just another one of Tom’s tricks to scare them off. But Harry wasn’t so sure. Hadn’t the serpent spoke to Eve in the garden? Genesis 3:1, the fall of man:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to

the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

Quite hypocritical of everyone to assume that Tom was wrong while happily accepting all that Priest Dippet went on about. Of course, Harry himself was not convinced that Tom was a bona fide snake whisperer… but perhaps the claim deserved some benefit of the doubt? If true, it could mean Tom had powers. Powers! Like Spiderman or Aquaman or the Incredible Hulk!

And even if all of the others were right, and Tom truly was as mad as his sobriquet implied, did it mean he was undeserving of sympathy?

In typical Thursday evening routine, while Daddy was hard at work and Miss Dora Tonks—his favourite tutor, a recent police recruit—was busy with night class, Harry was set up in the waiting room as Mummy finished her shift. As he worked through his arithmetic sets, Harry overheard a nurse gossip about a little boy with a viper bite in Room 321 (hand swelled up like a balloon, I tell you, it was this big!).

Part curious, part determined, Harry scurried quick through antiseptic fumes and the bleak white lights, up to the where the nurses said he’d be. He was stopped short of the knob by a startling sound. Hiccupy, chesty, constant: the certain noise of true crying. Slowly, slowly, Harry turned his ear to the inchwide gap in the door.

“Tommy, please—” said a mature womanly voice. “I know how much you love them but this can’t go on, my love.” And at once, the crying grew louder and more pathetic.

The incongruence of brave, stoic, exceptional Mad Tom and crying pinched Harry with shame (though for what reason, exactly, he didn’t quite understand… the same funny rise of heat he felt when a telly character said or did something stupid, unexpectedly). He dashed back to waiting room and tapped his knee for a good while before deciding on a less invasive form of support. He used the lime green craft paper mandated for their photosynthesis project to pen an anonymous ‘get-well- soon’ letter with his best, sharpest map pencils, then quietly asked a pretty nurse to slip it into Tom’s room.

Now, as Harry stared at the back of Tom’s finely combed soot-black hair, he wondered what it meant to Tom, that letter. It took Harry a whole hour to get each loopy cursive letter completely right. He was deeply satisfied by the outcome (ancient-looking and spun out like twine). Did Tom realise how adult and professional his script looked? As clever as he was, it could not have gone completely unnoticed! An electric thrill whirled in Harry’s tummy just thinking about it. He could picture it so clearly: Tom, laid up there, IV in his arm, reading his words.

A cool breeze swept and bent the comfrey straws. Suddenly, Tom’s posture straightened upright, sharp and alert. Then he stooped and squatted and reached into the plants. Visible on his left forearm was a white wrap-around bandage.

He breathed odd sounds like a whisper: “Hass-hass-ahhh. Sssssss.”

Harry gasped; Tom wound up, bearing a delicate smile, and he held unto himself a wormy brown snake.

“What’s that, love?” Tom said, petting its teensy head with his little finger. “Sah-ah-sssss. What? Are you sure? Sssssss… Alright then. Let’s go see if they’ll listen.”

Scrunching back as flat as possible, Harry snuck further into his crevice. Air whizzed by his ears and intensified the dizzy thrill of his snooping. Another snake! Even after the bite! How brave he was. Tom did not seem to notice him as he passed in his excited dash to where the others were. Harry

waited a few seconds then followed nonchalantly into the throng his overhyped peers.

“Ha, look! Tommy’s finally come round!” cried Fred Weasley. His freckled lips were broad in a sneer that was identical to the boy at his side: his twin brother, George. Both stood in the courtyard centre with their admirers close at hand. “You know, Riddle, you cost me a pretty penny this week. Bet my whole allowance you’d kick the bucket.”

“Your whole allowance?” This was said skeptically, coolly. Tom eyed Fred from top to bottom. “So probably not much, then. All things considered.”

Several onlookers laughed and ‘oohed’. Harry covered his own smile.

George pointed at Tom’s cradled chest. “What’s that you’ve got there? Steal from the donation jar again?”

“Well,” Tom said, raising his hand high, “since you’ve asked—”

The snake coiled up and snapped its head, that impossible gesture of nature: fast, unreal, exotic. Harry’s heart skipped.

“MAKE A RUN FOR IT!”

The children scattered out in all directions. Little hands up and flailing, like on a rollercoaster, complete with horror-happy shouts and shrieks. Harry edged up closer, foot by foot, dodging the wildly giggling Ginny Weasley only to clash with Neville Longbottom, whose great fat tears sopped into Harry’s shirt before he could politely push him off.

Neither Fred nor George recoiled at the snake’s reveal. They were as intrepid as Tom, if not more so, but also less openly bizarre in their antics—water balloons, mean name-calling, the typical fare. They committed harmless pranks. Innocuous and trivial little boys. Or at least that was what everyone believed. Harry knew from his many sleepovers with their younger brother, Ron, that the twins were no less deserving of recrimination than Tom. Outwardly they seemed harmless. Howswiftly would that change if anyone knew the truth? Would they become the ‘Mad Weasleys’ if Harry let slip that the reason Ron nearly died of pneumonia was because they tied him to a streetlamp during a winter storm?

“Come on, Riddle,” coaxed George. “You can speak to snakes, right? Tell us what he’s saying.”

“She’s a girl, actually.” Tom extended his snake-hand demonstratively. “And she’s got quite powerful venom, so I wouldn’t joke too much, if I were you.”

Fred laughed jeeringly. “I’m not stupid, Riddle. That’s a baby grass snake. It hasn’t got any venom. Not that I expect you’d know.” He nodded at Tom’s arm. Laughter ensued from the spectators: Lee Jordan and Marcus Flint and Oliver Wood—friends in their years who were made less kind by the twin’s presence.

At last, Harry spoke out: “Knock it off, Fred. You’re just jealous that you haven’t got the guts to tame a snake.”

The comment was received strangely by the crowd. Their expressions went blank and curious; no one ever bothered sticking up for Mad Tom. It wasn’t like when someone called Neville a fatty or something. Tom was so unique, so upright and invulnerable with those clever eyes. There was no general sense that Tom really minded the scrutiny he faced.

But Harry felt differently now. The bed-bound cries in the hospital filled Harry with strange dread

and new insights, the sudden clarity that Tom was as human as the rest of them, a kid who maybe had hopes and dreams and insecurities. How different their social landscape looked now with its upraised eyebrows and disbelieving murmurs.

Harry faced the twins with his bottom lip sternly tightened. There was a curious look from George; a disdainful one from Fred.

“You can’t tame a snake, dick head.”

“You think not?” Tom asked. He was smiling daringly. “Let’s test that for ourselves.” He hissed again as he had before, making hoarse whistle-like noises. The snake flitted its tongue as if in comprehension. “You hear that? She says she’s feeling hungry.”

With his last word, Tom reeled back his fist, and the twins lost their cool. They jumped off in different directions and grunted swears Mrs. Weasley would certainly not approve of. Just as Tom was about to thrust his hand forward, however, an adult hand that seemed to come from nowhere grabbed him firm around the wrist.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” exclaimed Mr. Riddle. “Tom, let that go!”

“Wait!”

Tom yanked himself free of his father and stumbled forward. He enfolded the snake in two hands and protectively curled over it. “She’s trying to tell me something. Ssss. It’s a prophecy!”

Mr. Riddle glanced around, frowning. The other grownups were watching.

“Oh?” Tom said brightly, his ear down in the snake’s space. He glanced up and found Harry’s eyes – an act Harry thought at first to be in error, because never before had Tom shown him any interest. But it was no error. Straight at him, Tom smiled. He pinched the snake between his fingers and shook it so that its long tail wiggled like a noodle. “She says I’m going to marry you, Harry Potter.”

“Honestly, Tom!”

Mr. Riddle slapped Tom’s hand hard—quite hard—and out flew the serpent. Tom leapt headfirst after it but was thwarted. Mr. Riddle snatched him by the waist and lifted up. His feet kicked futilely in the air, the soles of his brogues moving up and down.

“Let me down, please! Father! She needs me!”

“Let’s go, Harry.”

Looming over Harry was the unexpectedly grim face of Daddy. Harry palmed his cheeks to hide their colour and nodded compliantly.

In the fringe of his vision, the snake was slithering quickly over the pavement. His stomach squirmed foul and strange. If the snake really did say that, then it would have bothered looking back, wouldn’t it have? As Daddy ushered him away, he twisted his neck and squinted: seeking the Riddles, the snake, any wry hint that they were more than they seemed, that this moment meant something beyond odd gibbering and silly boyhood fantasy.

But Mad Tom was gone, and the snake had disappeared into the yellow grass.

✦ ✦ ✦

“Funny boy, that Tom Riddle,” Mummy said later as she carved a slice from the rotisserie chicken. It was a typical Potter dinner complete with his uncles Sirius and Remus, friends of Mummy and Daddy who were fixtures as certain as blood.

Still, the fact that they were family did not permit Mummy to bring up a topic that was, to Harry, still as sore as split knee. He pressed his lips and spun a pea round the blue woodland print on his dinner plate.

The comment was sure to start a discussion that wouldn’t soon end. Despite claims to the contrary, all of the adults in Harry’s life loved nothing more than to chatter about others in the village, and especially the well-known ones, like Mr. Riddle, whose name was that of celebrity, plastered on shop signs and benches and even the billing board that led into town. Advertised in block print over an aerial shot of the Dales: RIDDLE ESTATE AGENTS, MAKE NORTHERN YORKSHIRE YOUR HOME.

“Yes, quite funny,” agreed Uncle Remus. He tapped an idle pinkie on his water glass.

“Well…” Uncle Sirius let out a breathy puff: a small laugh that signalled danger for Harry. “Guess we’ll be having him over for dinner soon.” He bumped his shoulder against Harry’s. “Seeing as you’re engaged and all.”

“Whatever.”

“Haha!” Uncle Sirius draped an arm around Harry and hugged him closer, a strong limb that kept Harry still, despite his squirming protest. “Don’t worry, champ. Just having a laugh at your expense. We know you wouldn’t go for a nutter. Now that dentist’s girl…” He wriggled his brows suggestively.

“I do not like Hermione! She’s just my friend!” Harry gave a violent shake and broke free. And despite himself, he could not help but add: “And Tom Riddle isn’t a nutter, really. He’s the cleverest boy in our year. Everyone just likes to bully him because he’s got the best grades.”

The table clunked. Daddy had settled his cup on it—a bit too forcefully—and was now holding it there, fingers pressing white around the clear glass. “He your friend?”

Daddy’s curious tone wasn’t cruel but there was no doubt an edge of judgement there. Harry shrugged and reclaimed his fork for more casual pea-shoving.

“I just feel bad for him, is all.”

“Have you tried befriending him?” Mummy asked kindly. Her smile and inward lean mellowed Harry’s nervousness somewhat. But then Daddy spoke again.

“Look,” he opened his palms in gesture, a flashy sort of motion like jazz hands, “I don’t doubt he’s a clever boy and all, but there are more important things in life than book-smarts, Harry. You should look for friends who have it good where it counts, right here,” Daddy curled his fingers in and touched the centre of chest. “Friends, family, a purpose in your community—all that comes from the heart, not the brain.”

Harry saw his father only in a peripherals. The little abused pea suffered a mighty smash from his fork prongs.

“The Riddle boy, he’s—” Daddy paused in a hesitant abrupt stop, as if he was about to say something nasty, then thought better of himself. He waved dismissively. “Well, he’ll find his way eventually. But you shouldn’t worry about it. Now finish your food.” He nodded at the plate. “Never was a footballer who didn’t eat his veg, was there?”

✦ ✦ ✦

Tom steered right at the divide: west went to Catterick, and east to Little Hangleton.

There was once a wooden sign that stated so, but over the course of his fifteen years, its letters had been weatherworn, then vandalized (swastikas, tit*, the ‘r’ drawn over to “Catterdick”), and then eventually knocked down by a drunkard on an off-road Polaris who was found dead in a ditch. Sad, sad, sad. Tom tried to picture it as he continued down the gravel. His rubber tires crunched the rocks and spit up clouds on the very same dirt the man had driven in that last hour of life. Papers never showed his face, so imagination was all Tom had. Was the man fat and lumpy, or wiry and strange? Could he have been schizophrenic? Blind? End-stage syphilitic? Oh, now that was a bad one, syphilis. Could rot you from the inside out. Was that how it was for the man? Gnarling sores, painful pisses, blistering wounds that seeped green-grey puss?

Tom had to smile. Somehow the face of one Peter Pettigrew kept popping up when he imagined that dead bloke. Absolute madness, putting his face there.

Although Mr. Pettigrew was indeed very stupid. The papers in Tom’s rucksack sufficed as hard proof. A degree in IT from Leeds must’ve been rather easy to get back in the ‘80s. The man knew nothing of formal logic, had no feel for the beauty of sequence. What he did, a monkey could do; and yet he was the Head of Technology at the Little Hangleton Constabulary, and Tom would be forced to spend the upcoming Monday in the brutal square build of Wycliffe Academy.

But Tom would have the last laugh. He could already feel it building in his stomach. This day—his last at the Meynard Group, a lame little tech consulting firm in Greater Hangleton where he acquired an internship (unpaid)—was rounding nicely with opportunities, professional and personal. Best now not to think about the former, however. Those tittles were dotted; he had better places to be.

A stray rock bucked his wheel. He tightened his clutch on the handlebar and pedalled harder to mount a rolling incline. The Little Hangleton outskirts rose to slow view: red-bricked estate houses, all crammed together with identical white doors and angled wooden awnings. Father owned some of them. The recent acquisition of Parkinson Letting Agency put into his custody quite a few old tired sh*teholes—some estate complexes; the old steel mill; an abandoned shopping strip.

Our lovely village is on the rise, Father liked to say, citing shifts in demography and economy. This convinced no one. The growth of the area was due to the rise of housing fees in Leeds, full stop. No one would choose Hangleton on an impulse of interest. Why would they? It was the same marshy limestone grasslands that sprawled for miles, bare of architectural distinction or beauty, and, excepting a gruesome murder in the 30s, lacking any historic significance of any sort. Tom himself was the closest thing they had to a tourist attraction (a truth which he simply accepted as a fact of life; the scandal of his youth was not a chapter of the past, but an ineluctable part of his present).

Sun had not yet set. The sky was painted in pale baby blue and the September winds of a cold front whipped across Tom’s cheeks as he sped up quicker, passing through the droll city centre—Tesco,

Poundland, a second-hand charity shop, The Hog’s Head Pub—and attracting a few lazy head turns from the loitering children. Their collective gaze followed him, blatant and unabashed. Tom knew them each by the names of their families. They were from the Creeveys and Patils and Corners: meaningless people with meaningless jobs.

Tom cut a sharp right at Crawley Street and braked softly for a gentle downhill slide along the newly laid pavement. Father had convinced the council in Greater Hangleton to invest in infrastructure development. The result was a patchwork of progress, some roads sparkling new, some still uneven with thick-ridged cracks that protruded in plateau edges.

Look at our little village! Bet your great-grandfather would faint, if he could see all the progress we’ve made! Oh, I’ll bet he’s smiling in his grave!

Near the pavement’s end, Tom steered to the bike trail, a thin long stretch of sand worn bleak in the grass. Minutes beyond the parish, the copses swallowed him up into a belly of washed brown bark and yellow-edged leaves. In a week’s time, the green would give out—to more yellow, burnt orange, deep red reminiscent of holly—but for now, there were still hints of summer, and he could pretend it was everlasting.

He ended his journey where the elevation peaked: not very high in their the level swampy lands, but high enough to give vantage to the lowest valley, where there was nothing but white lines and netted goals and a canopied set up of purple bleachers. The local football pitch. Alone there now was an unmistakable moving dot. Tom kicked down the metallic stand of his bike and stretched off, extending out long limbs, letting the blood flow nice and warm before his next venture—the fixed trunk of a rowan tree, grown queerly to the side in a permanent bend. It was solid and mature with slim leaves that dangled with clusters of tart red berries. Tom favoured it for its seat, bark swooping back as if designed for man. He pulled himself up, careful not to scrape his leather Oxfords, and tugged the rucksack around to his lap. Out came headphones, his MacBook Pro and a compact monocular—the perfect makings of a lovely Friday afternoon.

All that ruined it was the possibility of certain orange-topped intruders. He searched around for a moment, then settled himself and typed: ‘I see you, my love. We are alone at long last. I missed you. Did you miss me? Of course you did.’

✦ ✦ ✦

Trick shot hustle: one, two, three.

Harry leapt and swung his leg overhead, weightless until his hands caught him behind in a buffer to the fall. Again. He hopped up, gave it another go. This time he was quicker, better angled for a shot, but not yet perfect. He went again and again, each few attempts improved: faster, stronger, more more more. Rapidly, he hiked the ball with his toe, sent it rolling in the air, an arch that fell to his chest. He bumped it off his sternum with a far lean back and a jolting spring upright, then leapt, swung over, and hit it right in the centre—and into the furthest right corner of the net, it wooshed. He grinned but not too jubilantly: practice is practice, but a game is something else. Let it happen when it counted. Then he’d celebrate.

His private drilling continued thirty minutes more before his teammates showed up. Cormac McLaggen arrived in a waltz of co*cky swagger. The others flocked to him for empty natter about a rumour that he’d been contacted by Leeds United. Harry didn’t bother to listen in. He opted for a small water break at a bench that was far from earshot. All he could hear were mumbles and the

occasionally barking trill of Cormac’s carrying laughter, which was bold for no reason at all except to prove that he was around, having a good time. Harry ran his hands down his face: mopping sweat at his hairline, grazing the old scar there, wiping dust off his prescription goggles.

This improved his view of the others, unfortunately. Cormac stood flanked by Michael Corner and Roger Davies. They were Cormac's favourite chums, likely not because he cared about them, but because they were sparer of muscle and good-looks and therefore made Cormac more compelling by comparison. Not that Harry would call Cormac handsome. He had a flash of something attractive with his square jaw and sturdy build, but his eyes were set deep and his lips were too thin, and his close-cropped blond cut was unsuited for the breadth of his forehead.

“Oi!” Cormac called into a half-cupped hand. “Potter! Get over here!”

Harry obliged while grinning with routine amity. Up close Harry was reminded that Cormac ordered his jersey too small so that it squeezed tight on his great biceps (cosmetic muscles that weren’t as strong as they looked). To each their own, said the loudest voice in his head. A smaller one, buried deep, shuffled beneath shame and reason and the sheer weight of so many years, had a different opinion: He’s no Harry Potter.

“Eyy, good to see you, Potter!” said Corner with a light punch at his shoulder. “Missed you this week.”

“Yeah.” Cormac crossed his arms. He had an accusatory glint in his eyes though his smile was toothy and welcome. “Where were you again?”

“I was visiting my mum’s family,” Harry clarified. The dry assumption that he was skipping out was something he deftly ignored. “They live down in Surrey.”

“Ah.” Cormac spread out his arms to suggest a hug that neither boy acted on completing. “Glad to have you back. And you know, since we’ve got a couple of minutes before Coach shows up, I’ve actually been meaning to ask you something.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. That Hermione Granger. Your friend. She’s not dating Ron Weasley, is she?”

The textured glaze over his pale brown eyes sent alerts down Harry’s spine. Obvious enough was Cormac’s intention—but why? Boys like Cormac never showed much interest in girls like Hermione.

“No, she’s not,” Harry said after a brief pause. “You like her?” He shrugged. “Dunno yet. But I like the way she looks.”

Davies giggled at Corner. He was squeezing the air in front of his chest in a dramatic impression of Hermione’s breasts (which had unexpectedly ballooned in late June; before, she'd been as flat as Harry). The crudeness of their humour did not resonate well with Harry—because he was protective, yes, but also because it implied something about the nature of boys which stirred up a sore fear inside him. He swallowed, shook his head.

“Well, she’s an amazing girl,” Harry said with an eye of disapproval. “If you decide to like her, it should be for the right reasons.”

And with that, he left the three to their own futile words and reasons. Harry noticed—vaguely—that Cormac frowned at him, but falsely assumed it was because he had not joined in on the fun; that there was a competition in Cormac’s mind beyond the domain of football did not occur once to Harry, who was sprinting in the next breath, thinking only of the upcoming game: recruiters, cameras, fame in the horizon.

✦ ✦ ✦

“He said what?”

Hermione pointed at her open mouth and gagged. Around her room, they were all sat: Harry and Ron on the bed, Neville on the bean bag, and Luna on Ginny’s lap on the floor. The room was very Hermione in mood. The walls had quotes about success—DO YOUR BEST! and STUDY, RINSE, REPEAT—and the bookshelves were stuffed with titles about words Harry barely thought about, like ‘human rights’ and ‘international treaty law.’ It was only by the framed photos that Harry finally understood why the thick meathead had a sudden interest in Hermione.

She was no longer the wiry little girl with jutting braces, as depicted in their group shot at Flamingo Land the summer prior. Hermione had big breasts, a small waist, and a big pearly smile, and her once-frizzed black coils were now tamed into sleek braids.

Ron scoffed and flipped a page deeper into his rugby magazine. “What a bloody wanker. Remember that time Alicia Spinnet caught him sneaking into the girls' loo?”

“Yeah, I remember that,” Ginny said. “f*cking creep.”

“What did he even want to do in there?” Neville questioned.

With a loud pat on her legs, Hermione gave a beleaguered sigh. “Who knows? Catch a glimpse of something, no doubt.”

(It went mutually known and yet unmentioned that Cormac had been seven at the time.)

“If he really wanted to be a footballer—” Harry started. He was picking disinterestedly at his nails, as if this was a casual thought and not a repetitive one. “Then he’d focus more on the next match and less on girls who are way too good for him. But that’s just how he is. He never puts in as much effort as the rest of us.”

This was shamelessly untrue; next to Harry, Cormac likely worked the hardest, and it was difficult to say who was the better of the two. Harry had form and precision, but Cormac had speed and aggression, and though Coach did not admit it outright, he invested more time in shaping Cormac’s versatility than he did any other member. Favouritism, Dad said. Shameless favouritism. We’ll get him showed though, eh? Yes, we certainly will…

Hermione ran a finger through her braids, a curious lip twisted up her cheek. “I wonder how I should make it clear to him that I’m not interested. Maybe you could just tell him I’m gay.”

“Hey!” Ginny shouted. She curled her freckly arm tighter around Luna’s waist. “Don’t use being gay as an excuse to chicken out.”

“I have an idea,” said Luna in her serene faint voice. “You could tell him that a witch doctor cursed you to a loveless life, and that any man who you have feelings for will be forced to suffer a most painful death.”

Ron hummed thoughtfully. “Sounds mental but I bet it’d work.”

“Oh, Harry,” Hermione sighed, turning to him. “Couldn’t you just tell him that I’m not interested before he starts coming onto me? I’m rubbish at all this romance stuff. This is the most important year of our academic lives, you know. Can’t have distractions mucking about, can we?”

“Yeah. And hey,” Neville said, a change of subject evident in his tone. He was holding his mobile face-out. “Did you guys see the email from the Headmaster? They’re introducing something called Casual Friday this year. That means we can wear whatever we want…” He smiled uneasily and pinched his knit jumper. “Guess maybe I should buy something a bit more, uh… I mean, a bit less

—”

“Grandpa-ish?” Ginny supplied. And everyone—including Neville—laughed, though from Harry it was a perfunctory act. The nearness of school meant the game was two weeks off, and whenever this jolt struck him, all else faded to irrelevance.

✦ ✦ ✦

School started again as it had each year before: excitedly shuffling to homeroom, cross-referencing schedules with classmates, labelling fresh notebooks with a careful SEAMUS FINNIGAN at the bottom left-hand corner. Each teacher drilled the same speech about the importance of their upcoming A Levels, and yet the fear of failure that would bloom certain in April meant nothing to Seamus at the moment. He settled back into the bleary-eyed mornings and the tedious lectures, and the enthusiastic evenings with Dean Thomas down by the ravine, tossing pebbles into the green- black shallow water, talking about everything and nothing at the same time.

His summer was spent in Cork with his mum’s mum, Granny Clodagh. Though Dean had intended to come visit, the plan fell through—money was scarce, and then Dean’s sister was sick, and then Mrs. Thomas really needed help running the shop since her clerk quit without notice. Partway through the holiday, pride was all that stopped Seamus from returning home early; all year, he openly longed for Ireland when it suited his complaints about life in Little Hangleton, with all its emptiness and its petty trifling residents. If he returned prematurely, what could he possibly say? That his grandma’s house smelled funny? That there wasn’t much to do in Cork? That he had nothing in common with his cousins, who—though kind and worth a laugh—never ceased in their gentle jeering at him as a ‘Plastic Paddy’?

Before the summer, he’d have been writhing at the implication that he was a Brit at heart. But what about it? He no longer knew what to think. He was four when his mam met Walden; five when they’d moved in. Seamus could barely remember his life Ireland beyond the smattering of meaningless memories all blurred around the edges. What he recollected most prominently about childhood started with Dippet’s sermons, and Leeds Christmas markets, and the playground of Pemberton Primary, the place where he first saw the dimple-cheeked smile. Name’s Dean. Dean Thomas. You Scottish or something? Are ya deaf? I’m Irish! That’s cool. I heard you’ve got leprechauns in Ireland. Is it true?

“I dunno about that Mr. Quirrell, mate,” Dean said. He was lying back in the leaves with his hands linked beneath his head. “Don’t know if I can trust a white man in a turban.”

Seamus said something affirmative and went on to insult each teacher, one by one, freely and fluently as he could do only in Dean’s company. When the skies faded to pink, they rode back into town along an unmarked trail through the fringe of the woods. Little Hangleton may have lacked a coastline and a purpose, but—staring at Dean in the lead, stooped in concentration—Seamus couldn’t say it had nothing to offer.

✦ ✦ ✦

“Ah, Seamus! Would you mind grabbing the biscuit tray for me? Should be in the cupboard.”

Distantly, Seamus later wondered how he could be stupid enough to think Little Hangleton was better than Cork. He was one foot in the door when he spotted the white crochet linen tablecloth draped over the armchair. That could only mean one thing.

He met Nanna—his step-dad’s mum, no blood between them—in the kitchen and tended to each of her tasks: wiping down the cabinets, laying out the doilies, dusting the crystal candelabra that’d been resting dormant for the past month. Nanna was a stout old girl with a great grey beehive and varicose veins the size of twigs. She acted charming enough when she needed something, but was otherwise a most unpleasant person to talk to, always complaining about her arthritis and the way that things had changed since she was a girl. Mostly, she left Seamus alone, but tonight marked the return of the Little Hangleton Tea & Dining Society.

Which wasn’t a bloody society at all. Not that it mattered. Still had to clean their bloody dinnerware, didn't he?

Violet Macnair watched the slu*t’s son from the corner of her eye. He was careless in his washing up of the silver—dusting and polishing with the same side of the scrap cloth, not bothering with the underside of the sugar dish. Couldn’t do a bloody thing right, could he? Ridiculous. Back at his age, her grandmother would’ve boxed her ears for doing such a piss poor job on the antique family silver.

The antique set of chase acanthus was inherited through three generations of Macnairs before her, crafted right here in Little Hangleton, back before the loss of industry, when having a talent mattered as more than a parlour trick to flash up like that little braggart tarts she’d be entertaining tonight. Of course, Seamus wasn’t a Macnair, so why would he care? Walden—Violet’s eldest and least favourite son whose sole redemption was his willingness to remain in their ancestral home—had failed to produce a real heir, and now that he was approaching forty, it was unlikely he ever would. This, Violet thought, was her greatest regret: Bringing up such awful rotten children. Her other sons rarely bothered to bring round their legitimate offspring, and really, they weren’t any more respectable than gobby, grubby Seamus.

“You know, Seamus—”

See-mus. That was how she said it. Seamus was used to it by now.

“—if you’d just take the varnish from the cabinet and give it a gloss over, it’d do the trick. Oh! Wait! That should be them now. Hurry, put it down!”

A light thud from the door had echoed thrice, knock knock knock, and Nanna was racing for the door. She smoothed her pale wrinkled hands down the satin front of her wrap dress so that it tugged down the polka fabric gathering beneath the flap of her sagging stomach. Then, with a small huff of resolve, she opened the door for her guests. It was Miriam Diggory who arrived first. She stepped in and kissed Nanna’s cheeks, a warm cast to her fair complexion; she was a cute old lady, tiny in her floral prints, never controversial. Nothing at all like Druella Black, who was the next to arrive,

curling a bony thin hand around the bulb of an ornate walking stick. She entered with a loud and laborious sigh, and called behind for another woman, her sister-in-law and the infamous town hag, Walburga Black. Upon first glance of Nanna, she exclaimed: “My God, Violet! You must do something about that dip in the walkway. I nearly fell and then what might have happened? I might have cracked a hip, that’s what!”

“Oh, Walburga my dear, I’m so sorry,” said Nanna nervously. Her commanding, bitter personality always shrivelled to deference in the presence of wealthier, more distinguished women. “If I’ve told Walden to fix it once, I’ve told him a thousand times, but you know how sons can be.”

“Do I?” asked Walburga briskly with a foop down to one of the wooden dinner table chairs. Before Nanna could respond, another woman burst in without knock or warning.

“Have you put on the kettle yet?” asked Augusta Longbottom as the door slammed behind her. She took off her wide-brimmed cloche and dusted the crumbs of fallen autumn leaves. “My mouth is bone dry. Haven’t had a sip all evening.”

“Nor have I!” cried Walburga.

And Miriam Diggory, quietly: “Oh, that would be lovely.”

“Yes, yes! Of course!” Nanna turned to Seamus, wrinkly fake smile wide. “Seamus, please. Would you be a dear?”

Seamus withheld an eye roll and nodded. In the kitchen, beside the heated oven, where biscuits baked, he filled the electric kettle, clicked on the lever, and leaned on the counter with crossed arms. Their conversation carried through the small corridor separating the dining room.

“And where is Mary?”

“Could be she won’t show up. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Oh, she’s coming.” This quaky, kind voice was recognizable as Miriam Diggory’s. “Saw her at the bakery. She said she wouldn’t miss it for the world. And my, did she look lovely!”

Nanna’s high laugh cut cruel. “Well, no one ever said the Riddles were ugly, physically.”

There were pleased hums of approval from at least a couple of the ladies. Seamus snorted and cut off the bubbling kettle as it attempted to gurgle louder than what was a fun turn in their chit-chat.

“Speaking of the Riddles, I don’t suppose you ladies heard what happened with that poor Chester Creevey?”

“The pasties man? I haven’t heard, no.”

“Shutting down—yes, I know, it’s terrible isn’t it? I don’t eat carbs myself, but it’s still a shame. Such a kind little man! But that will teach you to take loans from Thomas Riddle, won’t it? What does he care if you have a wife and two children to feed? His child will never go without, you can bet your life savings on that.”

“Materially, yes. Of course there’s no telling what really goes on in that house…” A sharp knock: abrupt, curt, resounding.

“That’ll be her now.”

Seamus swallowed down his smile and poured the hot water into the ornate-handed copper kettle. The sooner the ladies had their bloody tea, the sooner he could disappear into the solace of his haven. He kept his gaze low like some eighteenth century orderly as he poured their cups. Too busy with their greetings, not one of them bothered to acknowledge him until he reached the woman sitting proud at the helm of the table.

“Ah. Seamus Finnigan.”

Mary Riddle smiled. Her wine coloured lipstick was precisely applied and made more radiant her gleaming smile. Though her hair was snow-white and her face faintly wrinkled, her bearing glowed with bright youthful exuberance, and she held herself with a dignified, straight-backed posture. She lifted a courteous hand for Seamus. Mechanically, he obliged.

“How very lovely it is to see you. Tommy tells me Wycliffe is off to a fresh start. Has the new year been kind to you as well?”

“Reckon so, yeah.” Seamus was well-aware of what Mad Tom thought of him, and quite sure his nan knew it, too. Question was: Did she know what Seamus thought of him?

“Well,” she said slowly, fully, “I do hope you have fun tomorrow. Casual Friday, correct? What a swell idea of Dumbledore's. Fashion reflects the highest order of man. Wouldn’t you all agree?”

Seamus said nothing.

Kindly old woman though she may’ve seemed to a stranger, lurking in her spruce-blue eyes was that certain cruel, callous, mocking spark that he knew all too well in eyes a darker shade.

✦ ✦ ✦

Video Title: GOREfa*g SPOTTED
Uploaded by patil2003

[A thirty-five second clip. Gorefa*g riding his bike through his hometown of Little Hangleton. Artificial close-up zoom of his face: mid-adolescent and pale with high and hollow cheeks.]

penis.envy.xoxo
omg gorefa*g is getting so old??

Hitler’s Erection
10/10 would f*ck

Catherinecats
…y’all freaks really still stanning this psychopath just bc he’s a cis white boy huh? lmao bye

LeedsUnitedFan713, response to Catherinecats:
you literally don't even know him? xD

bitchez, response to Catherinecats:

stupid fat c*nt

DarkGore666, response to Catherinecats:
f*cking bitch I hope you get raped and murdered and left in a ditch

Superwomanwhoah:
Aww he looks really cute… If you see this, gorefa*g, I hope you’re doing okay!!!!!! (^_^)

✦ ✦ ✦

‘You look so beautiful today. I didn’t have long to look. Your friends always stand in the way. I wish they were dead. I wish it was just me and you. I wish I could take you to the supply closet on the fourth floor and carefully take off your clothes and’

“Mobile phones away, Mr. Riddle.”

Though he said this sternly, Mr. Slughorn kept his eye on Tom a second more and winked. Playful man. Always on Tom’s side, but had to keep up appearances. Tom saved his draft and slid his mobile into his pocket. There was absolutely, positively nothing that Mr. Slughorn could teach Tom that he did not already know. He waddled to the blackboard and began writing equations, and Tom wrote in his notebook the remainder of the message he would later type out.

‘kiss you until you turn red all over. I want to taste you. Every part of you. Inside and out.’

Surrounding Tom were mouth-breathing imbeciles who, in addition to lacking anything remotely close to an intelligent thought, evidently lacked a concept of style. Seriously, what the f*ck? Was he the only one seeing this? Bell bottom jeans; adidas tracksuits; cheap polos with off-brand logos on the breast. For Christ’s sake, Anthony Goldstein’s trousers had a studded cross on the arse. And that little bow tie suspenders ensemble Seamus-f*cking-Finnigan dared? Tom could vomit.

Maths soon ended and it was time for lunch, which meant it was time for Tom to disappear briefly to the basem*nt boys’ loo—wank—then reappear in Mr. Slughorn’s room.

“Ah, Tom,” said Mr. Slughorn, a clap of his hands. “Glad you decided to join me again today.”

He said this every day since fourth-form, when Tom first integrated Mr. Slughorn into his daily routine. Tufty, round and fat, Mr. Slughorn was a Cambridge educated chemist of variable talents across the sciences. Possibly, he was the only other person in all of Little Hangleton who cared at all about programming in a meaningful sense. Their bond was one of symbiosis: Mr. Slughorn knew that Tom would one day surpass the quaint provincial beat of Little Hangleton, and Tom knew that, in the meantime, it was beneficial to have a few solid allies in positions of power. In another world, in another decade, Tom could have been the favourite child of Wycliffe’s faculty—a Prefect, even. Mr. Slughorn commented once, absent-mindedly, that the most brilliant minds were often those of the tortured variety. (And when Tom stared off, Mr. Slughorn cleared his throat and clarified that he was speaking generally.)

“Make any new progress on your top secret project?”

“I think so, sir.”

Mr. Slughorn was sitting at his desk and crinkling into a biscuits packet. Decorated over the cheap sheen wood of his desk were photographs of students spanning generations. Among them, Tom spotted his favourite, a carefree grin from decades ago. Like father like son, you beautiful charmers.

“I wonder when you’ll share a couple of details with your most valued instructor.”

“Soon,” Tom said, breaking contact with the photo of James Potter’s class. “Although I suppose it wouldn’t be saying too much to tell you that my current interest is in prescriptive analytics.”

“Interesting.” Mr. Slughorn patted his stomach thoughtfully. “Very interesting. And your internship this summer was with the Meynard Group who, if I’m not mistaken, work primarily with law enforcement agencies.” He wagged his finger and laughed like Santa: ho ho ho. “Am I getting warmer?”

Tom smiled. “I fear I’ve said too much.”

On a mount in the corner of the roof, the telly—previously dull with the bouncing Wycliffe Academy logo—flickered to movement. Each day during lunch there was a pre-recorded announcement from the Digital Media department.

“Hello, Wycliffe Academy!” said Lavender Brown in a stale presentational voice. “We hope you’ve had a good first week back and that you’re enjoying the perks of Casual Friday.” The camera panned out and she made a model’s pose. As if anyone really needed a shot of her hideous leopard pantsuit. “Please heed the announcements as—”

A crossed-out megaphone flashed on screen; Mr. Slughorn sighed and set the remote on his desk. “Can’t stand these bloody broadcasts.” He chuckled. “Though I see you’re enjoying Casual Friday yourself.”

Tom looked down at his outfit: a well-coordinated button down and shorts combination. Tasteful. Why did Mr. Slughorn sound amused? “Yes. I suppose so.”

Their conversation continued in a random direction for the remaining lunch period. Mr. Slughorn had recently completed reading the biography of Grace Hopper, and so he shared his most interesting insights. Tom didn’t mention that he’d read the book, too, because the unattractive backdrop to the memory was something he’d rather not poke around (concrete walls, drab barred window, a single compact fluorescent strip). So he listened attentively, nodding when necessary. When came the bell chime, he feigned disappointment quite well with a shrug and a sigh.

“Perhaps you could continue off the same place Monday, sir?”

Mr. Slughorn nodded, a chuffed satisfaction trying to hide in the gloss of his eyes. “Yes, of course, my dear boy. Now you should be going on. Wouldn’t want you running late, eh!”

“No, no. It would be terrible.”

Whether this sounded convincing, Tom wasn’t sure. There was, of course, no class he loathed more than his next. Phys Ed. Bloody awful waste of time. He walked through the corridor with a nonchalant pace. No sense in hurrying. As always, the gazes lingered. The whispers sounded. He stalled near the Arts Studio and pretended to look at his mobile for, just as planned, he came through next, looking glorious in a red flannel hoodie. Very rustic. Tom liked it. Sadly, Harry's accessory

was less than nice-looking: Beaver McBucktooth in some foul oversized jumper, trying to get away with wearing leggings in lieu of trousers. Good god. Get a grip, Granger.

Tom glanced up once they passed, watching his back, the casual sway of hips, of arms. “Hey there, short shorts,” came a voice from behind.

Next, identically: “See something you like?”

With a calm and deliberate motion, Tom turned to face the Weasley twins. Both were smiling and one of them—f*ck if he could tell them apart—opened a greedy palm out.

“I believe it’s time for your next installment.”

Chapter 4: The Game

Chapter Text

Harry Potter’s iPhone 4S

‘slu*tTY BFF GROUPCHAT 4EVR’

Ron: anyone know what thing 1 & thing 2 are doing with mad tom…? i asked them and they told me they were doing business???? eh can’t be a good sign

[Attached Image: A distant snapshot taken in a corridor in Wycliffe Academy. Fred and George Weasley stand in front of Tom Riddle outside the Arts Studio.]

Harry: hmm that’s kinda weird… haha probably nothing though xD

Gin: LMFAOOOOOOOO THOSE SHORTS?????

Luna: ooh maybe fred and george are asking where they can get a pair \(^.^)/

Hermione: . . .

Gin: could come round my wee cousins house & get some. she’s 4.

Harry: haha i dunno you guys they’re not that short…

Gin: ??? omg potter mate you blind or something

Gin: he looks like a 3 year old on holiday to see his gram gram

Nev: …I love casual Friday

Harry: honestly the twins were probably just having a laugh picking on him… why do you even listen to them

✦

Ginny Weasley’s Samsung Vibrant
‘SHH! ETC GROUP CHAT’

Hermione: Hey, you guys we should probably avoid the Riddle topic on the main atm. :\\\

Nev: yeah idk seems like harry isn’t comfortable with it

Gin: lol i don’t get him…. like is this some form of stockholm syndrome or what because he really needs to stop acting like such a bloody baby

Ron: yeah gin real mature

Gin: i literally don’t care

Hermione: I don’t know what to say. I feel like this is something we should just talk about next time we get the chance. I don’t want to sound paranoid but I’ve been kinda suspicious?

Nev: of what

Hermione: I feel like I’ve been seeing more of Riddle lately??? I could just be imagining is honestly

Gin: wow but knowing him you’re probably not and that is honestly terrifying… i f*cking swear if he tries to touch harry I’ll rip his goddamn teeth out.

Gin: i seriously don’t care how many bunnies and kittens he’s slaughtered

Nev: ginny… :(

Gin: lol you lot really don’t have a backbone, do you?

✦

Harry Potter’s iPhone 4S

‘slu*tTY BFF GROUPCHAT 4EVR’

Gin: lmao the twins have never said anything about mad tom that we weren’t already thinking

Gin: i mean f*ck’s sake, he looks like some straight dude’s stereotype about what gay people actually look like

Gin: which is hilarious since mad man is a hom*ophobic piece of sh*te

Harry: …but he is gay haha xD

Gin: LOLLLL OK HARRY… SURE HE IS…

Gin: f*cking hell that’s daft

Harry: okay ginny

Harry: you don’t have to swear at me

Hermione: Hey! Mum just told me that they’re giving away free ice cream at the history museum in Greater Hangleton.

Gin: …

Luna: ~(^-^ )~ nice way to diffuse the tension, mione!

✦✦✦

Dad at the piano and Nan swaying in sync, magnificent, flourishing the delicate silk fabric of a coral Hermès scarf; it was a standard Saturday afternoon in the Riddle House.

Sunlight, softened by a sheath beige curtain, slanted incandescent over the high-vaulted drawing room. Centre and focal was a restored 1926 Steinway. The piano’s rich brown lustre governed the design around, from the mahogany flooring, to the heavy-toned red of the damask walls, to the muted upholstery of the baroque canapé where Tom lounged. His long slim legs draped over the curling cushioned armrest and formed a makeshift desk for his laptop. Over his clack clack clack the song continued.

Expertly, in harmony with the heavy bellow of Dad's trained baritone, Nan trilled:

“Non, rien de rien, non, je ne regrette rien Ni le bien qu'on m'a fait, ni le mal

Tout ça m'est bien égal

Non, rien de rien, non, je ne regrette rien

C'est payé, balayé, oublié, je me fous du passé!”

How many ways could one man destroy two? Possibilities streamed endlessly before Tom: sabotaging their grades, spreading nasty rumours about their family, stuffing their PC with illegal content and filing an anonymous complaint. Too bad, really, that Tom would pop up so quickly as a suspect if the crime was steep enough to warrant a true investigation. What he needed was an edge, one neither too sharp nor too dull. A way of getting back without getting even. Retribution would of course come years down the line, when their memory of this event was worn and faded, when they could not possibly deduce that it was Mad Tom, who, after so much time, had not forgotten their crime. Unlike the Weasley twins—meandering, thoughtless and vulnerable to whimsy—Tom forgot precious little.

“Non, rien de rien, non, je ne regrette rien
Car ma vie, car mes joies

Aujourd’hui ça commence avec toi!”

Nan finished grandly with a belting flare, her scarf swirling like a lasso then snapping, sharp, avec toi! Tom paused one hand mid-sequence to snap, and kept the other busy typing. He was well behind schedule. Last night, he got side-tracked by Pettigrew’s gift upon discovering, fortuitously, the git forgot to clean sensitive data out of the repository. What a stupid and marvellous error. Ten years’ worth of invaluable crime data: his! Tom copied it quick on a separate drive, then corrected Pettigrew’s error. Now the TB portable was hidden in an overcrowded treasure trove at the base of his wardrobe. (Sadly that meant moving out some old, golden archives, but, unless something went horribly, horribly wrong those would be safe enough on his bookshelf.)

“Please, my love,” said Nan. She stood by Tom’s side and dangled her scarf so that it tickled his cheek. “Won’t you join us?”

“One moment.”

Dad turned about on his bench. He wore his button-down tucked into dress trousers. Work clothes. “I must be going soon anyway. Lucius has taken the weekend to go visit Draco in Windsor.”

“Yes, Druella mentioned that,” said Nan. “I daresay a bit too smugly.”

Dad smiled and made an unvoiced chuckle. “She needn’t be. You must credit Lucius one thing. He’s not one to overstate his child’s accomplishments. Poor Draco’s struggling to pass. Which anyone could have predicted, really. He never was Eton material.”

His amber-brown gaze drifted around the room. Tom could have guessed at what was going on in his father’s mind, but he didn’t know, truly, how deep in thought Thomas was.

Black sleeveless sweaters and square-knotted collars; long penguin coattails, flapping in feverish scurries through courtyards. Thomas’s recollection fared well enough for him to know that Eton was not a virtuous dreamscape then, nor had it become one since. Still, amid the awkward roll of memories, good and bad—chill picnics on the Thames, the elation of brotherhood, the overly- familiar touch of his beloved choir director—Thomas longed for his son to have a taste of what he once had.

If Tom were born a girl, it would’ve all been so much simpler. He might’ve had the misfortune of favouring his mother, true, but at least Thomas would be spared the nasty impulse to see in his son all the potential, never to be realised. It was a spark of narcissism, perhaps; Tom’s face was his.

And God, was it jarring. The cream complexion, the loose black curls, the hollow swoop of high cheeks. Classically handsome, it was said. But then there were things about Tom that made his handsomeness less relevant, somehow. The clueless pauses, the odd smiles, the dark vacant stare. When Thomas was young, he was teased as ‘Pretty Boy Riddle,’ and though his son looked just the same, he was not.

Tom closed his laptop. “No surprise. Draco is quite stupid. And he’s gotten a big uglier, I think.”

“Well,” said Mary Riddle grandly, pulling Tom’s cheek against the side of her bosom, “you’ve got that right. I mean, my god! You cannot know how tiresome it is to hear the other ladies rant on about how precious their unattractive little frogspawn are. Like they haven’t got eyes.” She slid her fingers into Tom’s hair and sighed a long-suffering groan. “Only Miriam Diggory’s grandson even comes close to you, my love.”

Tom’s contented expression soured. “Does he?”

Mary’s clever lips wrung up in an affectionate smirk. She alone could express herself candidly to Tom without risk of tantrum or trouble.

Upon Tom’s birth, and indeed months before, when he was nothing more than cells swimming in a poorly fed belly, Mary changed from an aloof, embittered widow, and into an extravagantly doting maternal character. Things were much different in Thomas’s childhood. He could not recall when— or if—his mother stroked his head, or kissed him goodnight, or even so much as said, “I love you,” without a caveat (“but you really must—”). She reserved what little kindness she had for her latter years; for her Tommy. In return, Tom was fiercely attached to his grandmother. Her boundless cossetting misled him at a young age to believe Thomas—a stern, disciplining father—was an antagonistic tyrant to be distrusted and spurred. Only when serious trouble befell Tom did he seem to recognise the truth.

“Come now, Tommy,” Mary teased. “No one likes a jealous fool.”

“You know,” Thomas said, taking a fatherly posture with his hands on his knees, leaning forward, “it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get on good terms with that Diggory boy. I heard he’s Head Boy this year. Very likely Oxbridge bound.”

“Diggory is gross,” Tom said with a conclusive pitch. His words were never effeminate, never lisped nor flared, but by his diction and manner, there was no mistaking what he was.

Thomas returned to the piano: a flash of a scowl, quickly hidden. “Let’s have one last song. Altogether. Tom, why don’t you choose?”

“Why bother? You never like what I choose.”

Of course Thomas didn’t. Tom listened to cheap pop music, all of it derivative and void of meaning. Oh, how Thomas hated to hear Tom on his own, mis-training the beautiful countertenor with all those flashy nasally tricks he heard on the radio. Nevertheless: “We have different tastes, yes, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy something together. Pull up any arrangement you’d like.” He gestured at the digital tablet. “Honestly.”

Tom peered down slowly at Thomas’s offer, visibly unimpressed. Because when Tom’s petty attempts at bickering did not stir ire, he saw it as a loss.

✦✦✦

Contrary to what he told his family, Thomas never intended to visit the office.

The old route to Greater Hangleton led through residential streets and four-way junctions. These days, most Hangletonians avoided the course with all its stops and starts, and instead drove the (relatively new) highway stretch. Certainly it was faster that way. Today, slow and steady suited Thomas just fine. Vaguely, his voice followed “Sol può dir come si trova” in its low-volume hum from the radio. At the first red light, he undid his collar button. Next light, he double-cuffed his sleeves at the elbow and swapped his grandfather’s 1943 Garrick for an 18-carat leather banded Chopard. He hit the outskirt residences and slowed, just a little, and spritzed himself twice—mint in the mouth, Armani Eau de Parfum around his neck.

The ritual undoing of professionalism and paternity was a small but necessary mercy. When Tom was a boy, Thomas split this free time between interests both recreational and carnal. He’d go for a swim or visit the theatre, or perhaps have a drink down in Leeds and find a woman for the night. Then Tommy went to reform and Thomas found himself co*ck-deep in acquaintances more often than not. Since the dark days, he’d cooled off, somewhat, but though the cravings subsided, the behaviour was habitual. Dr. Minerva was his first pick, always. Unfortunately she was out of town. He settled next for Rosmerta (supple and thick, prettier in the face, wilder and louder and yet sadly lacking the subtle spark of poise that made him desire Minerva).

Thomas loved women: their tastes, their smells, how their presence lingered on his skin, hours later, pin-prickling him with static. Rosmerta slaked him with a clean climax, then fell back. She was giggling and feverish. She let him touch and tease her until she buckled and sighed. Rose-tinted cheeks and sweet streaks of sweat: sights he would think back to later, fondly.

A small reprieve during dinner as Mother and Tommy discussed trivialities. Fashion. How no one in his school could properly dress. Thomas sipped his wine and tried to remain present. Tom’s proclivities went undiscussed since the night of The Incident, but really, there was no doubting it, was there?

“Why is it that you hate Cedric, Tommy?” Mother asked. Conversational but blatant: Diggory is a poncy little thing, too, so why not try and bugger him? Better yet! Let him bugger you! Yes, yes. Go on now, Tommy. Truly show us all what you’re made of.

Tommy finished chewing and dabbed his mouth with a serviette. All of the movement was deliberate and staged, a perfect mimic of the grandmother he so adored. “I loathe a bore.”

“You always did,” Thomas agreed—and not without fondness. “But I’m willing to bet Cedric is not quite so boring as you think. You may have more in common than you know.”

Inquisitively, Tom perked a brow. Thomas’s tone was insinuating. Cedric was a known hom*osexual. Surely Tommy could take the hint. Employ his characteristic bluntness and put an end to the obvious question Thomas dared not ask explicitly.

“I would sooner shove my arm into a wood chipper than talk to that milquetoast waste of oxygen.”

“Alright, Tom.” Thomas attentively returned fork and knife to his plate, a tense finality in his gesture. “Enough of that.”

✦✦✦

“What’s that you’ve got there?” Ron asked. He could not see the twins from the front but he could tell—by their stoop, by their quietness—that there was something in their possession that ought not have been.

“None of your business,” said George. “Yeah, Ron. Piss off.”

They stood in the grassy fields of the Burrow Dale, their ancestral lands. The plain stretched far and green, and scattered about, roaming, was their inheritance: a burly flock of swaledale sheep. Soon it’d come time to fleece and slaughter and sell all those things that Weasleys did when winter came round: mutton steaks, home-pressed parchment, sheepskin purses. Ron took a last heavy drag of his fa*g then ground it beneath his heel.

“Got something naughty?”

The twins wound back, their shoulders revolving in toward Ron like open doors. Fred gave a slow sarcastic smile as he slid his mysterious goods into his front pocket—a baggy of some sort filled with a ruddy brown powder.

“Oi. Those drugs?”

Ron tried to sound casual about this. The hesitant, questioning curve at the end of his sentence ruined the intended effect.

“Those drugs?” Fred repeated in a high girlish pitch. “I’m telling mummy!”

Ron spat to the ground in a big boy gesture of indifference. “Didn’t say I’d tell no one, did I?”

“They’re not drugs,” George said. He shooed his hand in the direction of the house. “Now go along, little brother. And don’t go blabbing to Oinkie Junior in there.”

The twins had an elaborate lexicon of nicknames for Harry, all of them having something to do with his father’s profession. Oinkie Junior was a new one. But why bother mentioning him now? He knew they didn’t like Harry. They considered him a daddy’s boy at best, and at worst, a middle-class killjoy with a stake in squealing on them. Harry, however, had never once sneaked on the Weasleys

—nor anyone else, so far as Ron could remember. It made no sense to mention him now; and the subconscious hint got Ron thinking in the right direction. “This has to do with Riddle, doesn’t it?”

A pause. Fred’s scowl was a good enough answer. “But why?”

✦✦✦

Inside the Weasley family cottage, Harry and Ginny, who judiciously decided not to encourage Ron’s new habit, sat with their legs crossed as they polished their athletic trainers.

A cool draft crept through the uninsulated windows. The chill added to the rather eighteenth-century atmosphere. There was crowded, undusted furniture, and dull gingham wallpaper, and a faint stench of mold. This all gave the room an old-fashioned and bucolic feel. Stuffed on shelves between cheap local trophies were unframed photos kept in place by drystone blocks. The way the photographs’ sheen edges curled forward made Harry uncomfortable, but he dared not ask the Weasleys about their lack of frames. On quite a few occasions, when Harry was too young to know better, he thought up questions like: Why have you put a crack there? and Is there a reason for that funny smell? Mrs. Weasley, never impatient with Harry, always kindly explained that different families had different means.

In retrospect, Harry feared this conversation took place too many times, and so he avoided the topic altogether.

“And why is it here you came here today, Madeline?” said a deep honeyed voice on the telly. He wore a suit, had slicked-back hair. His guest—a thick haggard looking woman—was the picture of a chav. Harry recognised the programme, but just vaguely. Mum deemed it ‘exploitative rubbish.’

“He come round tellin me he wanna be in the baby’s life. Now he’s sayin he don wan’t nuffin ta do wiv him!”

The crowd booed unreservedly. One might’ve thought their disdain sounded authentic if the camera did not cut to the shouting audience, who moved about the platform with embarrassed smiles and uncertain eyes. This was all being cued. The people there knew it was all for spectacle.

“He’s just doing all that impress Lav-Lav,” Ginny said out of the blue. “She likes a baddie, you know.”

“Huh?” Harry muttered before realising the topic: cigarettes, Ron. “Oh. Right. Yeah, smoking’s dead nasty for you. It’s what got my mum’s dad.”

“Bill was a smoker for a while there,” she said. Bill was her stylish older brother, who, like all of the other grown Weasley brothers, left town the moment he finished school. “But he stopped, I think. Maybe I could tell him to talk some sense into Ron. He’s such a bloody follower; he’ll listen to anything Bill or Charlie says.”

“Yeah. I don’t know. Hey—” Harry dropped his varnishing cloth and looked up abruptly. He really didn’t want to let Ginny slag off Ron some more. It was one thing for her to do it, but when she kept going on, it was like she wanted Harry to join in—something he loathed to do. Ron was his closest

mate. “How was Katie today? Is her arm doing any better?”

Ginny shrugged, then explained the situation. Katie Bell—a girl on Ginny’s rugby team—took a plunge last game and dislocated her shoulder. She wouldn’t be back for this season but she’d recover eventually. The start of this topic led Ginny to others, similar in nature. Harry relaxed and began scrubbing again at his neon green Adidas studs.

The day had been gruelling. He was up at four, on the field by five. To Harry’s great displeasure, Cormac arrived around the same time. Oh, he wished it was July again. For six straight weeks, Harry did nothing but football, day-in and day-out. Leeds Academy offered him a spot in their summer trainings, as they had since the year he turned ten, and each moment spent there, he savoured. Their field was much nicer than the one in Little Hangleton: fresh cut grass, proper floodlights. If all went well, this would be Harry’s last year at Wycliffe. He’d be past Mum’s requirement—that he finish his A Levels in Hangleton—and free to finish his education at the academy.

Cormac claimed to have turned down the offer, but Harry seriously doubted that. His stories never added up. He’d spent the summer in Sheffield, playing for their academy. Why the heck wouldn’t he choose Leeds instead?

“Ya sick in the head!” shouted the unfortunate woman on the telly. “You say ya wiff me, then you go round, chirpsing her. Just f*ck right off, alright? Ya don want to be a fav’er? Fine. Go on then.”

“Can we find something else to watch?” Harry asked. “Yeah. She’s really getting on my nerves.”

The Weasleys did not have a satellite dish, so there was no telly guide to browse. Ginny clicked through channels on the bottom panel of the box. Harry was watching her absent-mindedly when he felt a vibration against his leg—his mobile. He took it out and frowned.

Dean Thomas.

Except it wasn’t, really. For the past year or so Harry, had received calls which alleged to be from random names in his phonebook, only to answer and hear nothing but indistinct background noise. Dad knew what it was immediately. Spoofing. They received many complaints at the constabulary for this sort of thing. The culprits, typically, were telemarketers. (Whoever called Harry was not.)

“Oh my god, look! It’s the Mad Tom episode! Ha!”

Harry froze his gaze on the mobile screen, where Dean Thomas’s name faded and the message ‘1 MISSED CALL’ appeared. He could hear them speaking… animated, squeaky Americans… and then the voice of a posh British child.

On the round convex screen, a papier-mâché boy with the likeness of Tom Riddle hid behind a bush. Everyone in Little Hangleton’s favourite episode of North End. Ginny laughed and pointed up a short index finger.

“Oh, Ginny… Not that rubbish.”

“Come on, Harry. It’s only got fifteen minutes left.”

Despite its controversial themes, the cartoon North End was a staple of their generation. It followed the lives of four 8-year-old children in suburban Michigan. Crude, political, and often offensive, North End did not impress everyone, but, in its boldness, it occasionally earned acclaim. One such episode was “Goref*g!” which aired in the wake of Tom’s Gilderoy Lockhart interview.

Nearly three years after the Riddle House was swatted, another American TV programme—Insights with Gilderoy Lockhart—presented an hour-long special on the consequences of Tom’s crimes… Harry did not like to think about it. Lockhart’s presentation of Tom was met with extreme ambivalence. Prior to the interview, the scale of Tom’s celebrity was always difficult to gauge: young people certainly knew him—from memes and from videos—but to parents, Tom was less like a person and more like an example, a case study, a topic to bring up at legislative meetings to argue for censorship. Lockhart changed that, and the ringing echo was heard still today.

To their everlasting credit, the writers of North End did not join Lockhart’s circus in the way he might have hoped. The plot of the episode treated gorefa*g like a mystery for the main children to solve. Where were their animals going? Who was posting nasty messages online about their classmate, Joey? (Harry’s photos were blurred in all official media leaks, but the cartoon child, with his dark hair and football jersey, was no doubt modelled after him.)

As the North End kids attempted to identify the assailant, another plot snuck through. Gilderoy Lockhart—unflatteringly stylized with clown makeup and a predatory, flamboyant gait—came in at random moments and tried to entice the children to come into his “super fun van!” and “have a real smashing time!” There were unfavourable depictions of Tom’s character, no doubt: him stealing a girl’s kitten, him smashing a bear’s head open with an axe. Fundamentally, however, he was made out to look like an innocent. He was nervous in class. He blushed when he watched Joey. Upon being discovered, he did not thrash or act violent, but begged to see his father.

And still the episode ended with him being taken to prison, and Gilderoy Lockhart successfully luring little Joey into his big white caravan for a smashing time.

Harry saw it once before: twice, if you counted when it first came out. His body had flooded hot with adrenalin and cortisol, a hormonal sewage; a shock and fear unlike any other he’d ever felt. That night, he ran from his house in a stunned daze. Down the street. Across the grove. Anywhere, anywhere, anywhere. He was halfway through the park before he finally fell. Thud. His bare knees skinned on impact. He couldn’t feel them. Could not feel anything but the dizzying whir consuming him, chewing him, spinning him round. When he came to his senses, it was with a crash: the tornado spit him out, and he was all alone, hugging himself in a fetal ball on the freezing tennis court pavement.

“Hey, British kid, what are you doing hiding in the bushes there?” said one of the American kids.

“Nothing! I swear I wasn’t doing anything!”

“Come have a smashing time with me, children!” crooned the animated Gilderoy. “Come on, Gin. Can’t we watch something else?”

“This episode goes way too easy on him, honestly,” Ginny said. Her eyes were trained on the telly. Fixed there, without movement. She was ignoring Harry’s discomfort on purpose. “They make it seem like he was some innocent little boy who just got carried away by a crush. I think the Law & Conduct episode did it better—ha!”

“Ginny, please… That’s cruel.”

Ginny’s pale brows shot up: a sudden look of certainty. “Cruel? f*ck him. Could drop dead for all I care. Maybe one of those maniacs online will do the job one day."

The old trauma had risen heatedly in her veins, as if it was just yesterday. Kids on the playground, giggling in unison: Ginny the lezzer! Ginny the lezzer!

Cooling from her rise, Ginny sighed heavily through her nose. “Maybe you don’t get it because you’re straight. I don’t even know how to explain it. But you know what I do know? That I’ll never forget what he did to me, and I’ll certainly never forgive him for what he did to you.”

This was all too much. Harry pulled out his mobile. “I’m calling my dad to come get me.”

“Oh, now—”

“It’s fine, Ginny. I was planning to go soon anyway. I have a game next week. Gotta practice, right?”

“Right…” she said skeptically. “Well, have fun.”

The room went still. In the silence, the cartoon’s resolution:

“I don’t know, you guys. Do you ever feel like maybe gorefa*g isn’t a fa*ggot? That maybe he was just sort of lonely and found it easier to get attention from a bunch of random perverts online than to actually try and make friends? And that maybe the real fa*ggots are the people who keep making fun of him even though he’s obviously psychologically traumatized and probably needs help?”

“I don’t know, dude,” said another child. “If gorefa*g isn’t a fa*ggot, and the people who continue to exploit him are, doesn’t that make us fa*ggots for ratting him out?”

“Yeah. I guess it does.”

✦✦✦

Tom spilled hot, then followed the standard routine: wipe, wipe, tissue in bin, Germ-X, fold the stolen boxers, give a fair tip. Only killerdix got tips from Tom (though this time he did consider withholding). Bloody tease cost him £50 in the first ten minutes, and by the time Tom was near completion, he still hadn’t taken his co*ck out. £100 if you spread yourself. That convinced the little whor* to do something worth seeing. Was a bit much to spend in half an hour, Tom had to admit, but really, he couldn’t help himself. It took months of searching to find a proper cam-boy since his old favourite disappeared. Gratitude made him a bit overly generous. The instant he came across black- haired, light-eyed killerdix fingering himself silly, he knew he’d found his perfect substitute. He even had the right head shape when he tilted his neck a bit to the side.

Gently, Tom laid Harry’s boxers in his topmost drawer and smoothed out the elastic band. Superdry was Harry’s brand. How cute was that? Sporty little fiend. Tom salvaged this pair when the Potters packed up and drove down to see Harry’s aunt in Surrey. Unwashed and slightly tattered, the fabric was heavy with Harry’s scent (Ariel detergent, sweat, Axe antiperspirant). Tom wanked with his right hand, held proof of Harry with the left.

His smell, his body… Incomparable. The mere thought of his name was powerful; an incantation. It washed down his skin and into his pores, through the veins, as if poppy… Harry, Harry, Harry.

It would’ve been truly perfect, had he answered Tom’s call. He was probably just busy. Always, always busy. Into a small white box, Tom typed:

‘No worries, my love. I will see you tonight.’

But that would come later. He had business to attend to. New and unexpected business that occurred to him while forcing Dad to sing his Gaga arrangement. Didn’t he look so embarrassed, too? Such a proud, proud man.

Humiliation was once a fickle friend of Tom’s—fun to dish out, bad to feel; then it happened. Then his perspective changed. And what about Dad? Well, his will was unbreakable; though he was mocked and scrutinized by the village, though he was sought out, tested, prank-called by teens, Dad remained equable and chock-full of dignity. Keep you back straight and your head high, Tommy. Never let them see you falter. And indeed, in his stone-faced sigh and reluctant agreement to sing, Dad reminded Tom of two certain somebodies who thought themselves above the improper thrill that was shame.

The Weasleys were natural enemies of the Riddles: modest sheepherders locked in their eternal conflict with Tom’s family, old landed gentry born to providence rather than fleecy shaggy squalor.

Neither Nan nor Dad claimed to hate the parents, Arthur and Molly, but Tom recognised obvious disgust when he saw it. He asked, long ago: “Why don’t you like the Weasleys, Nan?” Then she laughed a bit too forcefully, and replied: “I do not hate them, my dear. They are perfectly decent and wholesome people, if a bit on the simpler side.” Which Tom took to mean idiotic, poor, and useless. He never tried to associate with them for this reason. Barely ever said a word, really. However, something shifted when Tom was six—what it was, he’d never know—and the Weasley twins decided to tease him as often as possible.

But!

Keep you back straight and your head high, Tommy. Never let them see you falter.

That was a lesson Tom held near and dear. He smiled and clicked—and dark went the pale blue button that read ‘Register your domain!”

✦✦✦

shreddit.com/r/gorefa*g

…could it be gorefa*g?

Hi, everyone. I don’t normally post here so sorry if this is against the rules but… I think I accidentally found gorefa*g? I was scrolling down my dash on Rawblr and I saw this.

ATTACHED: A screenshot of Rawblr. In the relevant post, a hand with its middle finger extended in front of a laptop. On the screen is an indistinct page of computer code. Vaguely a reflection shows in the dark.

CAPTIONED: why do amateurs do this… just use a f*cking compiler… r u f*cking braindead or TAGGED: #micro-optimisation #things i hate #coding #github

TAGGED: #micro-optimisation #things i hate #coding #github

Ok so like I know the photo isn’t too clear but like the nose shape kind of reminded me of gorefa*g? And omg I swear I’m not a gorefa*gette but if you look [here] you can find a photo from Factory69 of his hand (dw the animal is cropped out). It looks like him, right?

So I went on looking and found some other posts (you can look [here], [here], and [here]) that really sounded like they fit him?? Most of the content is about coding and some of it is just like generic teenager stuff. He also says he’s 15 and from the UK. Also if it is him then uh he’s gay #confirmed lol

✦✦✦

The dark reflection—straight-nose, one fell curl—bore his resemblance, yeah. But whether he was the real gorefa*g, Ernie Macmillan wasn’t sure. There had been many false alarms in the past.

It went like this: Eager fans would come across a random fair-skinned bloke, who was certain to be thin, brown- or black-haired, and between 14 and 20, and leak his media handles. It’d spread out, there’d be speculation. Some girls would go bonkers trying to message him and report back here— the gorefa*g subforum—and when the dude ensured everyone he was not that bloody nutter, the threads would disappear and again the interest would fizzle back down to tried-and-true enthusiasts.

Ernie was not an enthusiast; he was a moderator. He ignored the post and nixed the tab.

In the early days, Ernie could count himself among the few sincere goredians (gorefa*g guardians). Back then it was all about paedosh*t and obsessive tween interest and so Ernie, and his other mates from the Factory, took it upon themselves to clean up the wreckage their swatting efforts caused. Did he blame himself for that rot? No. They had no way of knowing gorefa*g was a ruddy kid. And who knew how far he’d have gone without intervention. Kids were capable of some f*cked up sh*t. That didn’t justify all the nasty vile things that got said, written, or drawn about a f*cking 10-year-old.

At that point no one—or at least, not Ernie—imagined this task would follow them through adulthood. Five years had passed since the exposure of gorefa*g and somehow the fire had not yet died.

Content was different nowadays. Less sickos, more normalfa*gs: teens around gorefa*g’s age who treated him like he was a dark teenie bopper superstar. They’d get photos of him and trade them around; write stories and poke through all the posts he’d made back on F69; share their oh-so-very sophisticated psychoanalyses in long paragraph form. Ernie didn’t partake with interest, but browsed around, as needed, ensuring nothing outside the guidelines was sneaking its creepy-arse-tendrils up through the tracks.

Ernie’s life was otherwise completely ordinary. Girlfriends; classes; internships. He planned to call it quits when gorefa*g hit 18. Until then—he sighed, deleted the poorly drawn p*rno sketch—he’d stick around.

✦✦✦

Fred and George were late to class on Monday. They had better things to do than sit around listening to Miss Bitchery gas on about, what was it? The Lorenz curve? f*ck off.

The lecture went on and on until, with a transparent sort of frown, Miss Bitchery noticed no one was paying attention to her and segued to group assignments. Lazy c*nt.

Unexpectedly, but pleasingly, she arranged Fred next to Lee Jordan and Angelina Johnson. George

spared him a grumpy scowl as he walked the path of shame over to goodie-good Cedric. Neither of them disliked Cedric, mind. He was alright. It was just that Lee was their third-wheel, and Angelina was the definition of fit: tall and bosomy with a firm round arse. Miss Bitchery passed out their assignment packets while rattling on about how it was meant to be collaborative, which meant they should work through each problem together, which meant if any group finished too quickly, she’d know they split up the labour.

“What d’you reckon?” Fred questioned, looking between Lee and Angelina. “D’you reckon finishing early is gonna be a problem here?”

Lee poked at the packet with his eraser rubber. “I’ve got to be real with you, bruv. Haven’t had a clue what was going on in this class since syllabus day.”

Across the aisle and down three desks, Cedric roved his finger down the freshly printed front.

“Let’s see, where to begin… Anything you have questions about?” He looked at George with a douchebag smile. What’d he think? That he was the tutor and George was the daft dumb f*ck who needed his gracious assistance?

George raised one brow, slowly. “Nah, mate. I think I’m good.”

His mind roamed back—to Riddle’s delivery and to the weekend and to the look on little Ronnie boy’s face—and Cedric proceeded to go through the steps of marginal rate of technical substitution. Sod economics. George had all the smarts he needed to make a name for himself. Besides, his week was booked. He wouldn’t have time to finish this packet nor the others that were sure to come. Tonight they’d have a last look at their calculations and shape the aerial shells. Tomorrow and the next, there’d come the brunt work, and by Friday, well… The timing was perfect. This wasn’t like the sparklers or the stink bombs or the Catherine wheels. George slid a blank blue-lined sheet to the corner of his desk and sketched brocade lights, thin and long, clustered, bursting.

“Huh,” said Angelina, peering down at a mobile screen held furtively in her lap. “Spinnet just sent me something. Have a look.”

Carefully, she passed the mobile to Fred and Lee. In the text chat queue was a photo of black marker graffiti: ‘WYCLIFFE-OUT-LOUD.com — express yourself freely.’

“She said she found it in the girls’ loo, but she hasn’t checked it out yet.” Her smile was devilishly keen. “Could be interesting. Thinking I might just take a toilet break and accidentally end up in the lab...”

What Angelina found, many had beat her to.

A minimally formatted website with two columns beneath the header. On one side there was a blank textbox with a paperclip button for attachments. On the other, a queue of black-bordered posts labelled ‘I confess’ in calligraphic-looking font. By lunchtime, there were dozens of posts, and at the day’s end?

Hundreds.

✦✦✦

“This is brilliant,” Ginny said to Luna, who was sitting with her bare knee against Ginny’s mesh shorts. The two were opposite Harry and Ron in the Tuesday afternoon lunch hour. All tensions from their weekend quarrel at the Burrow Dale had dissipated but for the slightest, slightest scowl Harry wore.

“Oh, that’s quite rude, though,” Luna remarked quietly.

“Someone please tell Millie Bullstrode that her blusher makes her look like Miss Piggy,” Ginny read from her mobile. She tutted. “Ouch. That is a nasty one.”

Harry spoke as he stirred chalky protein powder into his milk: “That whole website is dodgy. Just wait ‘til it’s you they’re going on about.”

“Oh, they are,” she said dismissively. “This thing’s got a search on the bottom so you can look up any words that appear in the posts. I appear… three times already. All three times it’s someone calling me some variation of dyke bitch.” She shrugged her shoulders and smiled. “You won’t hear me complaining about it, will you?”

Harry paused his stirring and frowned; he was quite sensitive, especially on his friends’ behalves. This was one reason why Ginny could tolerate his naivete with patience.

“That’s horrible, Ginny. I’m sorry.”

“Eh.” She waved a hand. “That’s life with a pixie cut for you. I can look you up, if you’d like.” That second, Ginny felt the sharp turn of heads: Luna’s and Ron’s. Their judgement bore strong. “Yeah,” Harry said. He grinned lopsidedly. “Sounds funny, actually.”

“Alright then!” Ginny perked, quickly eyeing the other two. “Let’s try Harry… Only one result. It says–” Ginny ripped back her hand, as Harry had tried to snatch it, and continued reading. “Anyone know if Harry Potter is single? Oh, and it has a reply — Nah but he’s a prick.”

Harry laughed—not self-consciously, either. An honest Potter laugh. “Wonder who thinks that?” A rubbery kick beneath the table. Ginny shot Ron a glare and subtly stomped his foot in return. “No one thinks that, Harry,” Ron said. “Just someone trolling.”

“I reckon someone thinks it,” Ginny muttered.

“No, Ginny,” Harry said gravely; mockingly. “No one in the whole world thinks I’m a prick. Ha!” He laughed again. “Honestly, if you think that’s the worst thing anyone has said about me, you should try googling my name.”

There was a quiet pause.

“Try me next,” Ron said suddenly.

Ginny cleared her throat. “Alright, yeah… Okay, four results, actually. Should I start with the one that blames you for losing the game last week, or the one that calls you a poor wanker?”

✦✦✦

“Not to interrupt—”

Tom’s glanced up from his laptop, appearing inquisitive at Mr. Slughorn. “—but I’m guessing you’ve heard about the latest craze.”

“Yes, sir.”

He went on browsing. Mr. Slughorn did not much mind that Tom divided his attention between tasks. Likely, he assumed Tom was looking at something important. This wasn’t so; as Tom scrolled down, he passed text posts, selfies, song lyrics, p*rn GIFs. Nonsense, really. He liked that about Rawblr. The content appealed to his softer, less intellectual side. He didn’t bother following other programmers, here, for none said anything worth reading. This space was innocuous and anonymous and unremarkable; everything which he was not.

And though he’d accidentally rounded up a solid chunk of followers, he was quite confident that no one actually paid him much attention. Especially recently. He simply didn’t feel like blogging to the masses anymore. He invested his real energy in the plain, plain, unassuming format of another blog, his private journal, the reason he made this account, all those years ago.

‘I am even thinking about you now,’ wrote Tom. ‘Funny how the mind can be like this. I was by your house last night. I did not dare enter. Not with Sergeant home. But I saw that you left your window open for me.’

“Quite a simple little layout. And yet, sophisticated, yes, quite sophisticated for a student…” Mr. Slughorn’s suggestion was spoken coquettishly. Tom frowned.

“No, sir. I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Mr. Slughorn chuckled. “Well, I certainly won’t claim to know who did it.”

“Sir—” broke a high whiny lilt as the door swept open and hit the countertop. In came Seamus Finnigan in all his bent bottomy glory. His eyes cut to Tom’s—surprise!—and then back to Mr. Slughorn, irritation for all to see. “My bad. Should I come back later then?”

“No, my boy,” Mr. Slughorn said smoothly, gesturing at the queue of desks. “Please, have a seat. Nothing you’re interrupting. Tom here merely likes my company.”

“Right.” Seamus walked up to Mr. Slughorn’s desk and kept his back to Tom. Then quietly, holding a pencil to a pocket notebook: “I’ve been having trouble with something and I think you can help. It’s about string coding in Java. I can’t figure out how to remove characters without going through it all manually.”

Tom knew where this was going. He smiled and pulled up his text editor.

“I think I know just the person to show you, Mr. Finnigan! Tom, would you mind? Seamus tells me he just started out coding this summer. Maybe you two could even become friends.”

“How about that, Seamus?” Tom said vapidly; their mutual hatred spanned the past decade.

The sour little paddy didn’t even try to look genial. Reluctantly, Seamus broke from his spot— scowling and staring with intent hazel eyes—and complied with Mr. Slughorn’s suggestion.

“Alright, Riddle,” he said. He was cross-armed at Tom’s side. “Go for it.”

“First, you must write a Java method. Take this for example.” Tom opened an old file into the editor, a simple chess game he put together years ago. “The method has to have both an interative and recursive solution, which, presumably, is a bit advanced for you. Let’s start small.”

As Tom explained, he made sure to be slow and careful, side-tracking to explicate little curiosities as they arose; who knew how badly Seamus was butchering his code? Maybe he would pick up a few helpful hints along the way.

Seamus didn’t notice that Tom’s reasoning was circuitous. He had no interest in pretending to learn from him, first of all. And second of all, he was preoccupied by a certain little rectangle. Whenever Tom moved between different windows (his written programme and the blank page he was demonstrating on), he’d pause, prattle a little spiel. Seamus instantly recognized the untouched page at the furthest corner of Tom’s index.

“And that’s basically how you do it,” Tom concluded. “Simple, really. Any questions?”

✦✦✦

Fake left, break right!

Harry swerved around Boot and passed quick to Flint. The dusk wind swept damp and chill, but Harry’s skin was burning red. Scattered in the stands were two faces Harry knew and one that he didn’t: The recruiter Coach mentioned at last practice had decided to show up, unexpectedly, for a round of practice—quite unusual, and therefore quite telling. Cormac was sparing no trick. His brusque defense strategy took Harry off-guard in the first quarter of their practice match, and bam. To the ground he was flung. Harry’s shoulder still ached white-hot.

“UGH!” Flint passed back to Harry, narrowly avoiding Cormac’s lunge. Quickly, Harry’s mind consumed the sight around… muddy flecks on shin guards and a reckless block of a boy, racing toward him… Davies was blocked by Boot… Dad was in the stands, behind Harry, unseeable, his presence felt…

Cormac fought for the ball with a hooked kick—thwarted. Harry, with unerring precision, rolled it back, then forward, then back again, and passed it back to Flint. Flint passed to Davies, and Davies made a run for it. All systems go! The goalie, Goyle, squatted stoutly as Bletchley weaved in through the final vanguard. All that stopped him from shooting was Boot, who attended him so keenly, he missed the fatal hint. Bletchley’s deceit. He drew his leg back just long enough to catch the football with his inner foot. In the same breath that Bletchley passed, Harry thrusted his foot forward.

Goyle leapt with his fingers outstretched but it wasn’t enough: the ball swirled into the net, and the score was 2:1. The remaining ten minutes of the game were spent in a heated stalemate of overzealous offense from the losing side. At the end, they all gathered for the familiar fist-bumps and back-pats. Covertly, or at least trying to be, Harry eyed the recruiter. He was at the side of the bleachers and talking madly into his foldup mobile. Cormac’s father—a chunky accountant with a nickel-sized bald spot—was watching him, too. Waiting to talk to him, by the looks of it.

“You did great, son.”

Dad took Harry around the shoulder and pressed together their foreheads: his common gesture of affection. Aside from the forage cap, which he rid himself of, whenever possible, Dad was in

uniform, from collared shirt, to nylon kit belt, to the shiny gleam of his black tactical boots. Harry took the proffered water and poured it down his front. The other boys were heading to the rinse spouts outside the field, in the shed, but Harry had always been particular about showering at home. (A quirk, his father reasoned. Nothing more.)

They speed-walked to the gravel parking lot; drizzly rain was starting to fuzz around the field and the longer they meandered, the greater their chances of getting drenched. Dad certainly wouldn’t want to wet the upholstery in his newest model. (The Little Hangleton Constabulary received a generous supplement from the council.)

“That Cormac ought to learn some control,” Dad said. He twisted his keys and started the soft-purr of the engine. “I told his dad so, too. Bloody rotter didn’t seem to care at all.”

“Whatever. Doesn’t matter.” Harry rested his head against the window pane and let his eyes relax on the quivering strands of rainwater. “He’s not worth talking about… By the way, did you know he likes Hermione? I think I didn’t mention it.”

A hissy chh escaped through Dad’s pursed lips. “Hermione and him? Nonsense. Never going to happen.” The car heaved onto the higher plane of the main road. “Hermione’s just like your mother. Clever, strong-spirited. A real feminist-y type, you know? I still remember seeing Lily for the first time… She was sitting with the protesters, rallying for the miners.”

“I know the story, Dad.”

“I know you know,” he responded patiently. “And you tell me lots of stories again and again. Did you know that?”

Over his shoulder, Harry watched the intersection roll back in the distance. There was a four-way with a petrol station and, further off, deep-set in the desolate gloam, the high rusted cylinders of the abandoned steel mill.

“I do not.”

“You do so,” Dad countered breathily, half-chuckling. “And anyway, where was I? Oh, I remember. The protest. Well, as soon as I saw your mother, I just knew I’d marry her. Wasn’t one doubt in my mind.”

James smiled. These stories were the kind of encouragement his Harry needed.

Important as it was to serve time on the field, he still needed to savour the taste of these golden years. Girls were lining up for Harry—and no, it wasn’t paternal bias, James saw the way they looked at him, saw them giggling during the matches. Harry’s face was a perfect blend of his and Lily’s. The faint olive matched James’s complexion, seamlessly, and in his brilliant green eyes, there was the same verdant life that gleamed in Lily’s. He had her pert nose, too. And a bit of her pout. All else came straight from James: lean cheeks, round lips, thick brows; the wrinkly slant-eyed smiled and wild tousled black hair.

Of course, it wouldn’t matter of James if his boy was placqued and tumoured like those freaks on Embarrassing Bodies. He just wasn’t. He was a fine-looking young man with all his life in front of him.

“We’ve got to turn up here,” Harry said. “To the Burrow Dale. Ron’s staying over.”

“And when did I agree to that?”

“Yesterday.”

“Did I?” James pulled left into the turning lane. Theirs was the lone car on the road. Many officers would take advantage of that, go on and run the red light. His best mate, for example. Not James. He waited dutifully for the overlong traffic signal to blink green. “What’s he coming over tonight for? You’ve got school tomorrow.”

“I told you, Dad,” said Harry moodily. James slowed the car to a stop and looked at him blankly. “Watch your tone.”

“I’m sorry. I’m just nervous about the game tomorrow. Honestly.”

“S’alright.” James ruffled Harry’s top and eased his foot off the pedal again. “So forgive an old man for his spotty memory. Remind me why he’s coming over.”

“Dumbledore slacked the rules a bit. We get to wear what we want on Fridays now. I could tell Ron felt insecure last week, so I said he could come round and borrow from me, if he wanted.”

“I see, I see. Yeah. I think I recall you saying something like that.”

The Catcher—James’s nickname for the spanking new Vauxhall Insignia he drove—pulled up smooth on Ottery St. Catchpole Road. The narrow country path stretched a bumpy journey over the Weasley’s fields. “Why don’t you text him that we’re here, yeah?”

“I have already. He should be out there now.”

And indeed he was. Upon sight of the car, Ron secured his backpack on his shoulder and sped at a pace to the car, a sort of polite half-run gesture. James clicked on the radio and turned the dial to the first decent sounding thing.

“Thanks for swinging by, sir,” said Ron as he shut the door behind him. “Always a laugh, coming over. Feels like I’m under arrest.”

“I can go back there with you,” Harry offered. “Or trade spots. I know it’s a bit freaky.”

Ron ran his finger down the metal mesh cage divider. “You kidding? I bloody love this thing.”

“Heh,” James pulled into reverse and turned, heading back down the way to town. “Thought so myself when I first saw it. I can give you a tour of the whole thing when we’re home, if you’d like. But before then I’ve got a much more important question: Do you lads want pizza?”

✦✦✦

“Come on, mate. Admit it. I look like a wanker.”

It was several hours later and they were poised like father and son in a changing room. Harry sat on his bed with his back to the baseboard. Ron tried on piece after piece, budding with a new insecurity every few seconds.

“You look fine, mate. It’s just a jumper.”

“Yeah but it doesn’t fit right.” Ron stretched it out around his waist; taller and scrawnier than Harry, nothing yet had been a perfect match for his lanky physique.

“Ron, no one’s going to care what you wear tomorrow.”

Harry let his interest drift to his mobile, and temptation sparked anew. Last night, the promise he made himself—to never go on there, for any reason—crumbled against the logic of self-preservation. What if someone was saying something untrue about him? He had to see it for himself.

“I’ve got a stupid question.” Harry clicked onto the website and scrolled to the bottom, to the empty search queue, where he typed his name. “Do you think Ginny would ever lie about something as stupid as the confession website?”

“What do you mean?”

“Look.” He held out his arm with the screen to Ron. “I’ve tried searching my name and nothing comes up. All of the other posts are still there, I think. At least the ones she’d mentioned about you… I mean, I know it’s mental, suspecting that of her, but—”

“Hmm.” Ron took the phone and scrolled through a bit, as if he’d stumble upon the post and prove Harry wrong. “Strange, yeah. But I don’t think Gin would lie about that. It’s not really like her.”

“I dunno. You’re probably right. But she’s been off around me lately.”

“On the rag, I reckon… Wait, sh*te. What?” With all his colour draining, Ron slid his fingers on the touchscreen, zooming in. He was tremoring. “…what the f*ck?”

“What is it?”

Harry took the mobile back with Ron’s eyes cast down on him, watching with a cold trepidation. On the screen, a new post:

I confess:
Guess I should say it here since I can’t say it out loud. Was at Lee Jordan’s party this summer. F & G Weasley took me into a closet and wouldn’t let me out until I stripped naked. Tried to tell my best mate but she called me a liar… Maybe you lot will believe me.

Harry gasped sharply, through his nose. Ron was already gathering his things back into his rucksack. “I’ve gotta call Mum. I’ve gotta get home and see what this all is about.”

“Ron, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say, mate.”

“It’s bollocks. Fred and George are right arses but they’re not bloody rapists.” He stuffed Harry’s jumper atop his school things and yanked round the zip. His mobile was held beneath his ear and his shoulder, ringing, when he raised an accusatory finger.

“Listen. Don’t tell a word of this to your dad, alright? I’m serious.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Harry said, rather offended by the suggestion. He tried to muster sympathy—a word of concern, a word of support—but though he did not think the twins capable of this, he did not admire Ron’s blind faith either; it was the same blind faith that led him to Ginny’s defence, when she deserved none at all, and Harry, an only child, never quite understood how the mere mention of blood could roar up in the Weasleys a fierce obstinance to possible truths.

He looked down at the post again and felt a certain sadness swell up.

✦✦✦

“Didja see that bit about the Weasleys?”

Dean regarded Seamus with a grim nod, then sipped from his juice jug. “Mental, yeah?”

The cafeteria was as the school had been all morning: abuzz and diffident. No student, no professor, scarcely a member of staff had been spared, in some form, news of what the girl online claimed. The Weasley twins! Of all people! Factions had divided. The table of fourth-year girls—floral dresses and leggings, black-suede flats—eyed Ginny Weasley disapprovingly for her outburst earlier, in maths. But many of the boys were on her side. A scatter of upper-division students, boys who played rugby with the Weasleys, who’d vouch for them through thick and thin, sat rigid with defensive postures, just willing someone to say the wrong thing. Beneath the unflattering fluorescent wash, the trial of loyalty had commenced.

Tom wore festive colours in private celebration. Baby blue tee tucked into high-waisted trousers: this suited him very well. He stopped by the loo several times merely for the quaint pleasure of seeing his reflection. Clack clacking in Mr. Slughorn’s room, knowing what was getting said, all over, he wore a permanent smile.

“You seem happy today, Tom.”

“I suppose I am, sir.”

Mr. Slughorn scraped the sides of his store-bought salad. “I crossed your grandmother at the florists yesterday. We had a little chat about you, among other interesting topics. Ha! Sharp, sharp woman, that Mary. Fierce!”

His laugh sounded a bit too… throaty for Tom’s taste. Nan didn’t need suitors. “Yes,” Tom said, “she’s very independent. I’m quite proud to be her grandson.”

“And she’s quite proud to be your grandmother. I remember her younger, yes not so young, but younger… She was a beautiful girl, absolutely stunning. The sort you’d see down in Cambridge. Speaks like it, too.”

Tom couldn’t let this go on. “Sir?”

“Yes, my boy?”

“May I ask a favour?”

“Well, do go on!”

Tom feigned nervousness, fiddling with the trackpad. He bit his lip, just so. “The computer lab. You have access to it. I wanted to know if... and if not, then please, my apologies… but I wanted to know if there was any chance for me to enter on Sunday evening?”

Chewing back a bit of ham, Mr. Slughorn brought his hand to his mouth. He had a reluctant scowl. “Hmm. Well, I’m not sure, Tom. It’s really not permissible…”

“I understand,” Tom said quickly, shaking his head (Oh, silly me!). “I know how it is, bureaucracy and all that.”

“May I ask why you want to come here? You’re more than equipped at home, no?” Mr. Slughorn was leaning in with an interested pucker. Tom slumped his shoulders and looked off.

“It’s my father. He’s quite religious, you see. He recently got the idea that all technology should be banned on Sundays. I respect him, I do. But my project…”

Mr. Slughorn nodded sympathetically. “That is quite a conundrum, Mr. Riddle. Have you tried talking it through with him? A talent like yours shouldn’t be wasted for the sabbath, for heaven’s sake.”

Tom licked his lip, shifted his jaw askew. Time for his grand performance. He blinked and tried to smile—that forced smile he’s watched others make—then, with the faintest sigh, faltered and scowled. What a poor lad he was.

“My father is very cross about such things, Mr. Slughorn. He’d rather I never touch another computer.”

“I see.” Mr. Slughorn tapped his finger twice. He reached into his pocket and jingled out a ring, several keys thick. Fingering them, one at a time, he peered at Tom with a confidential smirk. “I suppose if I left this one—” He slid it from the metal. “Out on my desk, and merely forgot to take it back over the weekend, it would be here Monday morning as well?”

The faint ping of his messenger snuck through loose-laying headphones. He glanced it, smirked, and looked at Mr. Slughorn with his widest, most charming grin. And just before the bell signified the end of lunch, he responded to the Weasleys twats:

‘I’ll be there.’

✦✦✦

“Harry.”

With his foot at the kickstand, Harry paused. Students around him and Ginny were running out—to the parking lot, to their bikes, to anywhere else. For once, Ginny was neither sunny nor fiery. An earnest quiet had consumed her bearing.

“I wanted to let you know that I’m sorry I won’t be at the game tonight.”

He shook his head. “That’s nothing, Ginny. I know you’ve got things to settle.”

“Yeah. Reckon I just wanted to let you know. We cool?"

"Of course, Gin."

The conversation meant less to Harry than Ginny knew. As he kicked off, trundling down the steep hill, their trivial drama waded deep into the back of his thoughts. He forgot about his algebra test. Didn’t think once of Fred and George. He was free now against the wind and his focus, narrowing in, set its scope on the game. Football was all that inspired in him a true meaning; a sense of purpose. Other kids were allowed to watch telly, permitted to sit around, lazing, or use the computer

unsupervised. Practically abusive, Harry thought. His lungs filled wide in his chest with the chill breeze and he pedalled wildly, willing his heart faster and faster so that he could feel it drumming.

The stands were filled by five. Locals, mostly, and those who came to root for the blue-jerseyed outsiders from the Humber. Ron sat beside Dad, and Mum was to their right: all had front queue seating reserved so that Sirius was at the edge, right next to Remus’s wheelchair on the grass. As Harry drilled, he caught occasional glimpses of the others, waving vigorously: Hermione and Neville, and a few kids from Chemistry who seemed surprisingly enthused by Harry’s invitation to come. His popularity was not something he saw fit to acknowledge, really, but it’d be daft of him not to see it (how others smiled at his smile… how they seemed to care about what he had to say).

“Alright,” said Coach after he called them to the benches. “Anyone want to say the prayer?” Cormac took his stand beside Harry and was nudging him with his shoulder. “Potter does.”

“Uh… Yeah. Sure.” He closed his eyes, bowed his head. “Dear Father, we call upon you today to help us win… or at least keep us all healthy and fit… uhh, and that you watch over us. And keep our families safe. And fill us with your wisdom. Amen.”

Though this embarrassed him in this moment, where his teammates chuckled, and Cormac, loudest of all, thanked him for his captivating words, Harry was not long perturbed.

They stretched and chanted, and walked out to the field. There were hollers of pride. A low-playing pop song kept a fast beat. The quarter was spun, the players shook hands. And, at long last, the whistle: it was time to begin.

✦✦✦

“Do you think we’re idiots, Riddle?”

“I don’t think you want that question answered.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said George dismissively.

In his right paw was a plastic lighter, flickering on and off—suggesting, not so subtly, that he intended to light the mass of cardboard piled up behind them.

The three stood alone at the farthest border of the Burrow Dale. Westward, the property descended into unowned woods, empty—as far as they knew—for miles and miles. Prudently, the Weasleys’ art project was kept at a distance. Tom could appreciate that; only they could prevent forest fires, right? Still, no telling what that thing would do. The design looked amateurish. Two feet wide and inches tall, pieces of boxes were kept together by masking tape, and all around the sides, holes just large enough for the tip of Tom’s pinkie.

“And so, what now?” Tom asked. “Presumably, you don’t want your otherwise gleaming futures thwarted by felony murder charges, so I can safely sweep that fear aside.”

“Can you cut the sh*te, Riddle? We know it was you.”

“Come again?”

“The post,” George supplied, sounding no less incensed. “That post on the website you bloody made.”

“I simply have no idea what you’re talking about."

“f*ck off, Riddle!”

“We know that you know.”

“And if you don’t find a way to take it back—”

“—you’ll regret it. Trust us.”

George tossed the lighter in the air and snatched it pointedly. A pause—one, two, three seconds—and finally, a small shrug.

“I’m sorry. I really have no idea what you’re talking about. I only took a passing glance at the website. Anonymous posts don’t interest me much anymore, I’m afraid.” He looked between them with a clueless air. “What did it say?”

“You know what it said!” Fred shouted. “I’m sorry. I really don’t.”

The pause held heavy and long. George turned to his brother, frowning. “Maybe he’s telling the truth, Fred.”

“No. He’s not.” Fred kept his stare on Tom. “It’s got your MO written all over it. You made an entire website, let everyone get into, and then hopped in when it wouldn’t be suspicious, just to lie that we’d molested some girl… I mean, honestly, I can’t deny it, Riddle. It’s kind of impressive.”

“Molestation? Really? Is that what someone wrote?” Tom kicked at the dirt, putting on his best look of confusion. “That’s… huh. Well, that’s quite a nasty rumour, isn’t it? I hope it works out.”

“Yeah,” muttered Fred, gesturing at his apparent chef-d'oeuvre, “you’d better hope it works out. You’re gonna come forward and admit to everyone what you’ve done, or that video is getting posted. Tonight.”

“We’ll even get the bobbies in on it.” George pulled out his cheap plastic mobile and navigated the screen. “We know Potter’s daddy would be absolutely thrilled to see this.”

Morbid interest overwhelmed Tom's reflex to look away. Playing in front of him, that fateful mid- June day: himself, in his favourite tree, watching his favourite person in the field… and then sliding his hand into his trousers. The video quality was poor but it showed enough. He winced at himself.

“Look,” Tom said. He felt his father’s posture rise in his bones, inch by inch. “On my mother’s grave, I swear to you both, I did not make that post. But if it means that much to you, I can have the person who posted it identified by tomorrow morning. You know as well as I do that I’ve got more at stake than you do.”

“More than even you know, Riddle.” Upon these words, spoken portentously, Fred nodded at George. He smiled and sparked the lighter. “You like fire, right?”

✦✦✦

Twenty-five minutes had passed and neither team had scored. James Potter rapped his heel on the metallic bleacher, repetitively, and muttered, “Come on, come on, come on.”

“Harry’s doing great, isn’t he?” said Sirius.

Crouching forward and skipping breaths, James and Sirius could’ve passed as brothers. Often, it was assumed, and rarely did they deny it.

“Ooh!” Both men covered their faces and drew back. “What was that?!”

“What the hell?”

Lily nudged Ron playfully with her shoulder. “Just watching these two is a show in itself, right? Here. I bet you're hungry.”

She lifted her hand and hailed the hot dog boy over. He nodded and set for her. Since the game was not yet at its height, most observers were uninvested. Parents of lesser players stood sipping beer from white plastic cups. Kids raced past their feet, arse-to-the-stairs, giggling madly. These boys from the Humber were the team to beat—or so James and Harry said. Lily found it hard to keep track of their estimations. Everything, in their eyes, was much grander and more dramatic than she could fathom. Call it a labour of love!

Upon handing Ron his food, the wiry teen made to break down Lily’s fiver, but she waved him off with a wink.

“Thank you, Mrs. Potter,” said Ron. His held the hot dog for a long grateful moment while staring forward at the field. He was often shy about such small gestures.

“Eat it before it’s cold,” Lily told him lightly. “You’re a growing boy.”

Her little Jersey 7 made quick with the ball, straight on for the goal. Lily clapped and wooed, though, predictably, he was intercepted in the same moment.

“That kid on the opponent’s defence is good,” Remus said; he knew as little about football as Lily did, but god bless him, he made an effort. “Number 32. He’s got quick instincts.”

James didn’t turn his head to Remus, but hummed. “Yeah. Reckon so–oh, come on!”

Lily settled into her seat and watched with idle interest. Her feet throbbed raw in her trainers. She wriggled her toes, stretched her neck. Harry was in the midfield in a wide, straight-backed squat. He’d grown so much this past summer. Almost as tall as James now, wasn’t he? She’d have to get them back-to-back later. Her eyes drifted down to her watch, and, shamefully, drooped. These morning shifts were killing her… ten hours on her feet, barely a break wedged in… stuffed down her lunch to make it up to that staff meeting in Greater Hangleton, and that was a bust… and then James had the nerve to ask her to run to the cleaners, like that was her—

BOOOOOOOOOOM!

✦✦✦

The ground beneath Harry’s feet shook as he leapt, his leg in a forward lunge. All at once, and not at all, he absorbed the bizarre event. The crowd was stirring out of their seats in a panic. The water bottles sitting upright along the benches had fallen to the ground. He looked down, and swallowed. The ball! Seamless patterns, curving, black and white: the entire world in latex and stitches. Strangely, surreally, he did not heed the mass panic. He'd forgotten, already, that the sky had cracked open and roared. He readied for landing. Prepared to take the ball. Was going to make a straight-shot for the goal.

And as his studs slid over the ground, an unexpected bulk fell from the stars, and in a slow-motion both macabre and manifest, Harry watched his knee snap in a backward bend.

✦✦✦

Smoke hung heavy in Tom’s lungs. He hacked and knocked at his ear; a high-pitched ringing cried, like in the war films. The explosion, thunderous, had mushroomed in thick black smoke, then plumed broad, covering the surrounding field in a fine grimy layer of soot. He wiped at his clothes— smutty and ruined—and, sharply, was hit by a punch of irritation.

“You f*cking wazzocks,” he gritted out. “My clothes are ruined! And I’m pretty sure I can’t hear!” He dug into his ears with sharpening panic. “Oh, for f*ck’s sake.”

The Weasley morons were coughing and peeling out rubber earplugs. “That-that wasn’t supposed to—”

“—I don’t know!”

“You’re the one who said—”

“f*ckING HELL, GEORGE!”

“So,” Tom said, crawling up between them and offering a frank expression. “What was the plan, exactly?”

George coughed hard and long. “P-piss off, Riddle. We’ll deal with you tomorrow.”

Half-coughing, half-laughing, Tom cleared his throat, derisive in every sound. “While I’m sure that’d be in my best interest, seeing as the cops are likely getting called out as we speak, I must say, I’m dead curious now. What was it supposed to do?”

“It was supposed to explode… but not like that. f*ck. What was that you gave us, Riddle? That can’t be the right stuff.”

“I bought what you told me to buy, you pillock. Maybe don’t trust every advert you stumble upon on the Silk Road, yeah? Lots of perverts out there.”

“Riddle, just… just go! We’ve got to get this cleaned up. Last thing we need is a copper catching one glimpse of you.”

As if cued, the whirring began. Distant police sirens called low in the darkening twilight. Tom breathed deep then dashed for the woods, where his bike was propped and ready.

✦✦✦

This night, like many nights, was spun from an unlikely origin, light-years in the past.

Tom Riddle remembered almost everything that had ever happened to him, back to the age of three and a half. Each cut, each bruise. Each mean word, each rare act of kindness, however small. The sights were within his reach, whenever. Near eidetic, said the psychiatrist. This will fray with age, of course, but I expect your son will grow to be quite an exceptionally smart young man.

What he could not remember, or rather, did not remember was what Fred and George Weasley had discussed so often, the memory itself was gone, and all that remained was the sensation.

A boy about their age, watching them. Fred wore Charlie’s old jumper; George was in Bill’s. They knew, even then, that this other boy was posh.

“You want to come play ball?” asked Fred.

The child Riddle pinched his nose. “You smell like the zoo. Did you know?”

“Our family tend sheep,” George explained, almost casual, except his cheeks went red for some off reason. “It’s like a living at a zoo, except we haven’t got to pay.”

“Good on you,” said Riddle in a strangely adult manner. “I don’t like zoos myself.”

“Why?”

Riddle waved his hand before his nose, and one brow went up high. “Because they stink. And also

—” he eyed George’s rugby ball. “I hate sport. It’s filthy. That’s probably why you’ve got dirt all about your fingers.”

From this moment, many more. Shame curled fierce, but pride brewed fiercer. And all the little boys and girls in the courtyard would laugh, back and forth, thinking their banter trivial; not knowing that there was more to Tom Riddle than his silly double-breasted blazer, and knowing, perhaps even less, that the Weasley twins had directed all energy, conscious and unconscious, to deflecting from the stink of manure and fuzzy sheen of their threadbare clothing.

✦✦✦

“Good evening, Mr. Potter. A nurse will take you to get your scans in about an hour. We’re going to hold you overnight, at least, to ensure you’re not concussed and that your vitals stay clear. Until then, let the morphine do its work. I’ll be back in the morning to get you sorted properly.”

The Doctor said one last thing to Mum and Dad. Harry couldn’t tell what, exactly. His body felt hazy, his senses dulled. He counted each leap of Remus’s finger. He was tapping on his Styrofoam coffee cup. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

“What do you think, Lily?” asked Dad. “I told you, James. I don’t know.”

“So, what? We wait until morning?” His voice was rising.

“I can’t see through skin, James.”

“Calm down, you two. Yelling isn’t going to change things.”

“I hope that horrible little sh*te is proud of himself! Coach should have replaced him in first quarter. He has no self-control. And now look at Harry! God, just-just… Harry.”

“Dad…” Harry managed. His voice was tiny and dark. “…I can’t feel my leg.”

“Harry, my love,” said Mum softly. “I’m going to touch you. Try to resist my hand, okay? Can you do that for me, love?”

She curled her fingers around his ankle with a feathery delicate touch, impossibly slow. He couldn’t feel her. He couldn’t move.

The room went dark.

Life plunged in backwards motion: ambulance sirens, a shrill screech, compounded, the crack of his bone; the Italian brand agent in Leeds who asked him if he liked the sound of H.J. Evans, for when the day came that he was signed, he would need another name; yellow white flash; another siren, Daddy’s; a golden-ball dream with malachite bands.

Each second was interminable, forbidding. Swollen was the room, as was his leg; as had been Tom Riddle’s hand when the adder slid out its hinged fangs.

“Harry—” Mum’s breath caught. “Harry, I’m…”

Everyone was crying. Mum. Dad. Sirius. Remus. Each rested their hands on the stiff white sheets at a distance, afraid to touch the spoilage. Him. Slurps of modest sobbing rang hollow in the space. Harry could not weep; his mind had detached from all human sentiment. He studied the purplish veiny galaxy of his knee. Burst vessels formed indecipherable blurs. Beautiful—in a way—but horrible and vacant and unfathomable: his unknowable future, the expanse of the cosmos, everlasting, snapped back and collided in the black hole of this night.

Because on this night, he could not debate with destiny. He could not pretend to be anyone else. The trappings of fantasy were to remain in the past, for no matter how long he worked, no matter how hard he tried, his bone would never again be the same as it was at the start of the night, at the high, hopeful blow of the whistle.

Chapter 5: Insights! with Gilderoy Lockhart

Chapter Text

Many Years Ago
Live Watch Party
Factory69.org/b/

Lowly playing: a brightly pitched but ominous tune.

“Tonight, on Insights with Gilderoy Lockhart, a portrait of the boy whose crimes captivated the world.”

Fade from black. A nicely dressed child in handcuffs ushered through a crowd by a police escort.

“Animal brutality. Predatory stalking. Stated intent to commit rape and murder. Crimes one might associate with a fully-realized criminal. And yet, on a fateful August afternoon, when British authorities traced over a years’ worth of criminal cyberweb activity to a residence in Yorkshire, England, they found it was not a hardened convict responsible for the grand archive of felony harassment and animal torture—but instead, a 10-year-old boy by the name of Tom Riddle.”

>welp this is definitely not gonna be biased

>bring on our lil gorefa*ggy

>still don’t understand why they put him in f*cking handcuffs lmfao like what did they think he was gonna do

>f*ck them til they screamed and bled

Light like a paparazzi’s flash flared on the screen. First, the programme’s logo: bold letters, a vivid ray of purple glaring behind the animated microscope forming ‘o’ in Gilderoy.

“Good evening, folks,” said Gilderoy Lockhart, stepping before a screen of Tom Riddle’s smiling photograph. Lockhart wore a black suit and a thin black tie. One blond eyebrow was hiked high and gave his plainly handsome face a mien of severity. “You’re watching Insights with me, Gilderoy Lockhart, where tonight we cover a most shocking tale of how the privileged son of a small-town real estate developer fell into the dark trappings of a digital underbelly. Nearly three years ago today, young Tom Riddle became a media sensation after his nefarious spree on popular website Factory69.org–”

>das us
> “popular”
>locky’s got a c*ntface

“—drew the attention of the regional authorities. Riddle was arrested and later sentenced to 13 months in a juvenile correctional facility. A mere child then, he could not have anticipated the broad scale impact of his delinquencies. Tonight, we review Riddle’s gruesome crimes, speak to advocates on the frontier of child censorship laws, and, for the first time ever, bring to you an exclusive interview with the young boy responsible for what some commentators are calling The Gorefa*g Effect.”

The music gained speed. Tom Riddle’s best-known photo flickered, then cracked: a 9-year-old boy’s smile rifted down the middle.

Block letters fanned over a reel of childhood photographs:

THE GOREF*G EFFECT

A 2-HOUR INVESTIGATIVE SPECIAL

BY GILDEROY LOCKHART

The next shot: Main Street in Little Hangleton. Ordinary pedestrians entering shops and a child kicking a football down the pavement.

“Little Hangleton is an idyllic small town in the Northern English countryside. Its local economy is modest but thriving. Its crime rates are among the lowest in the region. It is, by all measures, the last place one would expect their neighbour of wrongdoing.”

Pan away, fade. A four-blocked black door in an office strip. Zoom in, drift: engraved on a golden sign bolted to the brick, RIDDLE ESTATE AGENTS – SALES, LETTINGS, & INVESTMENTS.

Fade to a shot of the Riddle House: a blocky earth-toned manor home with a plain Georgian façade.

>f*ck i forgot how rich gorefa*g is

>damn that place is almost big enough to fit my co*ck

“On the surface, Tom Riddle’s childhood seemed ideal. He was raised by well-to-do single father, Thomas Riddle, on their impressive family estate. Though his life began with the tragic death of his mother, a 19-year-old named Merope Gaunt, his father and grandmother did everything they could to ensure Tom had a rich and fulfilling childhood.”

Shift screen. Beneath a 30-something year old man, a banner labelled THOMAS RIDDLE, father of Tom Riddle. His chair was opposite Gilderoy Lockhart’s.

“He was in the Scouts, the Yorkshire Youth Opera, and the church choir, which I directed,” said Thomas. His face—handsome, pale and finely wrinkled—bore uncanny resemblance to the boy’s. “Tommy was quiet, sure, but he always had the highest marks in his year. He wasn’t what you would call a troublemaking child. Not at all.”

>that accent…

>troooble makin chaild

>f*ck DILF

>mmm f*ck me goredaddy

>for the non-britfa*gs, daddy fa*ggot has a sorta distinct yorkie dialect, which certifies him as a sheep f*cker

>baaaaf*ck me baaaa

“However, a chat with local villagers revealed that Tom Riddle’s reputation was not quite so clean as his father may have suspected. Beneath the well-groomed pretence, a series of incidents…”

“He must’ve been about six,” said a long-faced woman identified as JANE COLE, local Sunday School teacher. “He sat the Bible down, looked up, and announced to the class that he didn’t believe in God. I said, ‘Now, Tom, you don’t mean that’, but he looked me straight in the eye and said: ‘Yes, I do. And I’ll prove it.’ Then – and I’m not kidding you, he did this, wee little thing, yay high—” She gestured at her waist. “He got down on his knees and said: ‘Smite me, God. If you exist, smite me’.”

Jane Cole bit her lip and shook her head.

>what a f*cking legend

>god i love this kid

>SMITE ME

“Several interviewees corroborated Jane Cole’s account. Villagers, who chose to remain anonymous, claim that Riddle frequently told other children he could speak with snakes and demons. Others said he was known to set fires at the park and bully other children in school, often to the point of severe psychological distress. Notably, Officer James Potter, the father of Riddle’s primary stalking target, opened up briefly on behalf of his son.”

Another flash. A man in uniform labelled JAMES POTTER, local officer & father of the victim. As he speaks his words are subtitled.

“Look, truth be told, the community is still in a fit. My son remains traumatized by the whole ordeal. None of this has been easy on my family. I wish now, looking back, I’d have seen the signs, protected my son from Riddle… But the law’s done its part and that’s all it could do. Some people say the sentence was too light… too forgiving…”

>his eye is literally twitching

>holy f*ck is that even english

>wow he f*cking hates gorefa*g lolz

>luuuk troooth bee told mee son is done furr and imma fooock the wee goor fa*ggot ta night

>imma f*ck him in front of his dad then f*ck his dad too

>for a village of sheepf*ckers this town has some major DILFs

>yeh can see why gorefa*g wanted that D for his V

“I say, what’s done is done… Doesn’t matter if you think he’s a menace, a sexual predator… a malignant psychopath… what’s done is done.”

✦✦✦

The programme proceeded through Tom Riddle’s biography with never-before-seen photographs and video footage—provided by Thomas Riddle—before examining the fringe internet communities which sprung in support of gorefa*g as parents across the nation led movements to restrict underage access to the web.

Most memorable, years later, would be four select interviews.

✦✦✦

Interview #1 — ANONYMOUS CHILD in Little Hangleton, Yorkshire, England

“Now, if any question makes you uncomfortable, just say so, alright?”

These words were spoken off camera by a deep but feminine voice. The object of her question was a young boy. He sat before a window with his face obscured by a dark cast. He had two chubby legs crossed awkwardly at the ankle, and he bounced with a nervous repetition.

“How do you know Tom Riddle?”

“We’re classmates… or we were, at least. That’s why our parents made us do the sleepover. Because they said we’d make good friends, being in the same class and all.”

>u think he raped this kid

>yeah he f*cked him til he bleeded and screamed

>nah he just f*cked him while his dad watched then f*cked his dad too

“Classmates. Good. Well, we’ve heard through others in town that Tom Riddle did something very, very bad at this sleepover. What was that, exactly?”

The boy hiccupped. “He… He killed my bunny. I don’t know why he did it, though. He wouldn’t say why.”

“I’m so sorry. Did you two have a fight?”

“No. Tom wouldn’t really talk to me, so I was sitting around playing on my GameCube all night. Then he just got up and asked if I wanted to play a real game…”

>A REAL GAME

>k but he def raped him

>lmao no f*cking way, look at the size of this fat f*ck, he could eat gorefa*ggy for breakfast

The child’s voice was wavering. “A real game?”

“Yeah.” He hiccupped. “He-he asked me to grab my rabbit… Trevor…”

“This Trevor?”

A hand showed the boy a photograph. He nodded. The photograph then blew up on the screen: the boy’s face was covered with a black box, but in his hands—the hands of a toddler—an orange dusted bunny with short floppy ears and great black eyes.

>lolz another casualty of gorefa*g

>RIP TREVOR

The boy took a long inhale. “Yeah. That’s Trevor. I’d had him pretty much my whole life, and I really loved him. I knew Tom could be mean, but I really didn’t think he’d do something bad with Trevor. He said it was a game, taking him into the closet. But when I opened the door, I… I saw he’d taken a wire hanger and done something awful.”

“I’m so sorry. Could you tell the camera what he did? Specifically?”

“I don’t… I don’t really know how he did it, exactly. He wouldn’t speak to no one, not even the adults…. But Trevor. He’d had his head cut off. His insides were all over the ground. He was just there, alive, one moment, happy as he could be… and the next…”

The boy sobbed.

>i just came to the sound of his tears

>take a shot for trevor

>damn that was pretty f*cked up gorefa*g

✦✦✦

Interview #2 — MARY LOU BAREBONE, CEO & President of Concerned Christian Mothers of North America

“Mrs. Barebone, it’s a pleasure,” said Lockhart, leaning in with interest. “You were lauded by the National Review as the leading force behind the new legislative movement to restrict children’s access to dangerous content. Recently, you published an article in Christianity Today criticising the use of the phrase ‘The Gorefa*g Effect’ to explain the fallout of Tom Riddle’s conviction. Would you mind explaining to us, in your own words, what the Gorefa*g Effect is, exactly, and why you feel it’s inappropriate?”

Mary Lou Barebone nodded gravely, one hand over her heart. Her silver cross necklace and asymmetrical bob gave her the look of an expectedly tame PTO parent, but in her eyes and thin pencilled scowl, there was sharp and certain resolve.

>OH I HEARD THIS BITCH ON THE NEWS

>she f*cking haaatttteessssss him

>“can i talk to your manager”

“Yes, Gilderoy. So, the Gorefa*g Effect is generally used to describe several events that came into the media spotlight following Tom Riddle’s arrest. There were several copycat incidents, as you well know, nearly all of which can be linked to Mr. Riddle’s fan communities. I mean, surely I needn’t be the one to remind that a little girl was assaulted in Missouri.”

Lockhart’s narrator’s voice broke in as the screen faded: “Indeed.” Pan up. A moving shot of a suburban bungalow.

“Nearly one year after Tom Riddle’s arrest, a thirteen-year-old boy in Tiny Falls, Missouri took inspiration from Riddle’s posts, and actualized the fantasies.

"A twelve-year-old girl in his class, who will go unnamed, woke up to a gag in her mouth. Her classmate had snuck into her room in the middle of the night and raped her, repeatedly, for an hour. When police investigated the attacker’s room, they found this—”

Police evidence photograph: a juvenile collage on cardboard. Images of women cut up and bound; of Ted Bundy, smiling in an orange jumpsuit; of Jeffrey Dahmer’s mugshot; and of Tom Riddle in handcuffs, staring forward blankly.

“A shrine of notorious serial rapists, butchered women, and, shockingly, Tom Riddle. In the attacker’s diary, he could be found quoting Mr. Riddle on several occasions, including the night of the attach, where he copied one of Riddle’s posts verbatim:

GOREfa*g
>i’m gonna sneak in at midnight and put a sock in his mouth then f*ck him so hard he’ll never forget it. let him scream lol. nobody would hear.

“My disagreement,” said Mrs. Barbone, the camera back to the interview, “with the phrase, you see, is that it’s too broad. Certainly, plenty of abhorrent content was inspired by Mr. Riddle. The activism of the Concerned Christian Mothers of North America, however, has nothing to do with this so- called Gorefa*g Effect. We’ve been actively fighting for the protection of children for seven years now. In my home state, New York, we were the primary advocates for a house bill which enforced child block filters on all public school internets.”

>my school has those. they don’t work.

>ewwww i can smell her stank c*nt from here

“But,” said Lockhart, his forehead wrinkled in multiple thin folds, “your organization did receive momentum following Tom Riddle’s arrest, no? This was, I believe, the precedent for the contentious House Bill 2412 you championed, which would, among other things, require that all adult websites verify browser age through photo identification.”

“Well, certainly,” Mrs. Barebone said briskly. “We don’t deny that Tom Riddle’s infamy was what it took to dig the nation’s head out of the sand. However, all this talk about Tom Riddle—The Gorefa*g, as he’s known, I suppose—makes it seem as if this movement is about preventing these aberrant cases. It’s not. Mr. Riddle is clearly a very disturbed, very deranged young man, and we don’t think your average child is at risk of becoming anything like that.”

>THE gorefa*g

>damn c*ntbitch he was 10

>my co*ck is rarely very picky but not even i would rape her

“Rather, we hope to open the eyes of good, wholesome parents. To help them see that their children are God’s children. And that their little eyes should not be exposed to the perverse filth The Gorefa*g has so deplorably, if importantly, brought to the national discourse.”

✦✦✦

Interview #3 — THOMAS RIDDLE, father of Tom Riddle

“You say your son was never a troublemaker.” Lockhart shook his head. His gaze was frank and unforgiving. “Thomas, surely you’re aware that the community holds a rather different opinion.”

Thomas shrugged, unperturbed. “In hindsight, yes. I’m sure they’re eager to exaggerate small incidents which are typical of any child.”

Lockhart exhaled a humourless snort. “Your son mutilated at bunny. At a sleepover.”

“An inexcusable act for which he was rightly punished.”

“Hmm. Yes. I wonder, Thomas…” Lockhart held his pointer finger at his lip in a prurient gesture. “You’re quite an educated and acculturated man. First, you went to Eton. Then you pursued operatic studies at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. You really don’t seem the type of parent who would tolerate this sort of behaviour.”

Thomas frowned. “Rest assured, Gilderoy. I am not tolerant.”

>my manc*nt has never been wetter

>dillllllfffffffffffffffffff

>dude this f*cker is a terrible journalist wth am i watching

>my cummies are cumming

Though Lockhart was forward and imposing, Thomas demonstrated, in uniquely subtle composure, that he would not be cowed. The interview continued strangely. Lockhart, determined, pressured Thomas to express remorse. To say, in some form, that this was his own doing, that his parenting was inadequate. But Thomas would not budge. When it came time for Lockhart to resort to drastic measure, reading from a cue card old posts of Tom’s, Thomas sat with rigid shoulders and an inscrutable gaze.

“Here, in response to an article about a man raping and murdering his own mother and keeping her corpse in freezer, your son wrote: mmm i wish i could do this to my daddy.”

“I know what my son said, Gilderoy. It was a very tasteless and unfortunate joke, but a joke nonetheless.”

“And you honestly think there is nothing you could have done to spot the warning signs? Nothing at all?”

“All parents will, to some degree, feel responsible for the sins of their children. It’s only natural. But you see, Gilderoy, you and I? We come from a different time. There was no world wide web when we were young, was there? Had I known then that my son had access to this kind of filth, I would have intervened. Sadly, I did not know then what I know now.” He snorted. “Lesson learned, I suppose.”

>i rlly thought daddy would be a cucked fa*g but he’s not… he’s a papafa*g

>PAPAfa*g

>the origin of a legend

“I must say, Thomas,” said Lockhart vaguely, leaning back now, in a posture of beleaguered judgement. “I cannot help but envy your… poise. Few parents have encountered the mass public scrutiny you have, and even fewer have come through it whole. How does it feel knowing there are strangers who call you a pervert? Who will think, no matter what you say, that you have done something to corrupt your son, whether that be by malice or neglect?”

Thomas tilted his head leftward, very, very slightly.

“I cannot sit around worrying about the opinions of strangers, but I can say, in my defense—for what little it’s worth now—that I have neither hurt nor neglected my son. I am a father like any other.

“Each morning, I wake up at 5:15, get ready, then put on the kettle. At 6:00 I sit at the foot of my son's bed and wake him up. At 6:30 we meet in the study and I supervise him at the piano over tea until 7:30. At this point, my mother will be finished with breakfast, and we'll eat as a family.

“I next drive him to school, and then go to work—the place where I earn what I need to provide for him—and when I get off at 6:15, I go straight home and have dinner with him. I ask him about his grades, his day. By 9:00, I will pass his room and ensure his lights are out, then pat his head, and go to bed.

“There are two weekends a month where I must work. I cannot supervise my son 24/7, nor can any other parent I've ever known. But as often as I can be, I choose to be with my son, because he is what matters most.

“And that is all I have to say."

>actually seems like a cool dude wtf happened with his kid

>pweaze f*ck my tight wee wee hole papafa*g

>papafa*gggggggggggggg

✦✦✦

Interview #4 — TOM RIDDLE, the GOREF*G

“Tom? Tom? Tom?”

He turned his wayward eyes back on Lockhart, and, with an unnatural suddenness, smiled. “Yes?”

Lockhart almost sneered. “I asked you whether or not you knew the sexual assault videos you distributed were authentic. Do you find this question funny, Tom?”

“No, sir. I don’t find it funny.”

“Then would you like to answer the question?”

Tom almost seemed to smile again, but stopped, snorted, and—strangely—scowled.

>rhymes with kawtizm and sassburgers

>a retard and a fa*ggot? he really is our boy

>yo this lockhart is a certified cumguzzler tho

>god i’m cringing so hard

In life, the interview lasted an hour. On telly, twelve minutes, conveniently cut. Tom was no longer the little boy the public first met. Vestiges of prepubescence remained; his skin had a soft, blurred quality, and his shoulders were round and narrow. But he did not look like a child. His face had

grown longer and slimmer with distinct hollows, like his father’s, and, by vague estimation, he seemed on the precipice of a significant growth spurt into adolescence.

“Well,” Tom said slowly, his eyes drifting back to a fixed point off camera, “I suppose I knew they were real.”

“Don’t look at your father, Tom. Look at me. You knew the videos were real,” said Lockhart, indignant, “and yet you chose to view them anyway. And at such a young age. Have you always felt such violent urges and impulses?”

“Um…” Tom looked down, and his face fell, neither sadly nor angrily, but rather, into an unnatural blankness. “I don’t think I’m very violent, sir.”

“And the animals you slaughtered?”

The flat face livened: a half-smile. “Oh. Forgive me, sir. I forgot about them.”

>dude

>FORGOT LOLZ

>only gorefa*g

>yeah… he has autism

✦✦✦

Commercial break.

For the first time in nearly three years, for the first time since the swatting, gorefa*g logged onto Factory69.

GOREfa*g
>lol so i’m gonna be real with you fa*ggots, this sh*t is pretty embarrassing

>f*ckKK GOREfa*gGGOTTTT

>SPERGLORD BLESSES US

>WHAT THE f*ck YOU’RE BACK???????

>omg lil famefa*g wyd

>dude what the f*ck are you a spergy or something

>lmfao nice sweater vest fa*ggot

>how was kid prison

>did u really do that to that fat kid’s rabbit lmfaoooo

>MOAR GOAR

>no srsly wtf are you actually retarded

GOREfa*g
>idk how long i’ve got on here b4 my dad gets back
>he’s p pissed off abt this gilderoy fa*ggot so he left his phone on the couch lol
>had to see if u fa*gs still cared abt me... i’m touched
>and no i’m not f*cking autistic u stupid sh*tstains
>he only put in the parts that make me look like a f*cking retard

>dude what the f*ck can’t believe ur back here

>OUR LIL SPERGY RETURNS

>let us bukkake your papa

>this gilderoy is a f*cking cumdumpster

>time to rape him till he screams and bleeds

>don’t mention rape he just got outta prison

>did you get raped in kid prison

GOREfa*g
>well i wouldn’t call it rape lol

✦✦✦

The logo flashed. A summary montage played. Then, again: Gilderoy Lockhart and Tom Riddle, sat opposite the other, their body language telling that of predator and prey—Lockhart loping, his shoulders drawn back; and little Tom with his hands gripping the wing chair armrests.

“Now, Tom,” Lockhart began, pulling out a white card. “I know it must be difficult to talk about, but there is one topic which many feel has not yet been adequately addressed. The boy you stalked.”

Tom’s cheeks coloured vibrant red.

>LOL AWW

>pffttttt f*cking knew you were a truefa*g

“Three-hundred and seventy-six. That was how many photos of the boy were procured by the authorities. Several dozen photos were taken inside his family home while he was sleeping. But it’s not even the photos that are the most troubling, really. I can only wonder… Where did you learn of such vulgar words? Saying you would hold him down and—” He glanced down at the paper. “... [BLEEP] him until he screamed.”

There was an odd delay before Tom turned his gaze up at Lockhart. “I didn’t mean it, sir. I was only being funny.”

“Funny? Tom—” Lockhart sifted through the file at his couch side table. “I won’t show the image to the camera, but I want you to look. Do you remember this?”

Tom leaned in to look, and then blenched. “Uh. Yeah.”

“You took a photo of the boy, sleeping, printed it, and then did what exactly?” Tom murmured something incomprehensible and looked off camera.

Lockhart snapped his fingers. “Tom? I can’t understand you. Are you going to answer the question?”

“I… I don’t… I don't know what you want me to say, sir."

“I think I was pretty clear with my question. Is that,” Lockhart pointed at the photo, “ejacul*tion?” A tense beat.

"It wasn't really,” Tom said quietly. "It wasn't what exactly?"

“It wasn’t…”

"Yes?"

"I couldn't. Then. It was only sugar water.”

GOREfa*g
>ha. ha. ha. laugh it up fa*ggots.

>HE COULDN’T EVEN…. GOD

>we got a kid swatted… for sugar water…

>did gorefa*g seriously just admit he can’t cum

>no you retard, he admitted nothing came out

>lmao ten yr olds don’t cum u f*ckin pedosh*t

GOREfa*g
>lol i can now wanna see

With a parted mouth—which seemed an expression of genuine surprise—Lockhart sat the image to the side again. He turned back to Tom with an unsympathetic tut. “And did you ever consider how the boy would feel about this? It must be humiliating for him.”

“I didn’t expect he’d ever see,” Tom said lowly. “I didn’t know what would happen.”

“And have you spoken to him since? Do you know how this has affected him?”

“I haven’t, no. I’m not allowed.”

“Then, if you could speak to him, what would you say? Would you tell him if you had the chance?”

The camera left Lockhart and found Tom wide-eyed—though not in shock, necessarily. An earnest interest lit him aflame. When he answered, it was with unexpected lucidity, and even Lockhart, who’d been so steadfast in his interrogation, asked for no further explanation.

Chapter 6: Tom Riddle-Potter

Chapter Text

Sunlight was waning. The hospital room weighed harsh with presentiment gloom.

Five years had passed since James Potter last felt so powerless to father his son. Harry’s first ten years, a breeze. The Potters were the dream clan: the judicious Officer James Potter, eighth generation Hangletonian, his stunning wife, Dr. Lily Potter, and their beautiful child; their Harry, born with a golden heart, with once-in-a-generation talent. No trauma, no trouble. James, today, could close his eyes and hear that voice giggling down the pavement, 'Daddy chase me!'

The door creeped open. Sirius peeked his head in and smiled vaguely. “You feel like any company?”

Harry grunted from the bed. He was typing violently into his mobile, as he had all weekend. “Guess so.”

The doctor had returned yesterday to give his read of the scans. Grade three anterior cruciate ligament tear and a tibial shaft fracture. He would heal and play again, but never as quickly as he had

before, and never without risk of severe and permanent trauma. And they all knew what that meant.

“Please,” said James, motioning with his hand. “Come on in.”

Sighing, Sirius stepped forward and held the door for Remus, who wheeled himself in, one- handedly. His other hand was securing the flower vase squeezed between his scraggy and futile legs.

“From Miriam’s,” said Remus. He settled the golden lily bouquet among the others on the sill. Roses from the Grangers. Hand-plucked wild flowers from the Weasleys. The most elaborate, by far, came from an anonymous source, ordered from an expensive boutique on the other side of Hangleton. Sprouting from a tall woven basket, great cerise peonies, settled among ivy and myrtle, peppered with tiny white bulbs amid passionately pink gladiolas.

“Her grandson was at the register,” Sirius said as he sat at the foot of Harry’s bed. “Cedric. He insisted on discounting them and asked to send his condolences.”

“Cool,” Harry muttered. He did not look up but continued texting.

Sirius and Remus offered James a weary glance. All of this behaviour was so unlike Harry. James could barely breathe when his eyes crossed over his belligerent pose—scrunched up, scowling, pouting.

“So,” Sirius said, leaning back casually, “where’s Lily?”

“She went by the house to grab his school things,” James explained. “They want to observe him overnight, but say he’ll be well enough for crutches tomorrow.”

Remus hummed disapprovingly. “It’s too soon, James. You should let him rest at home for a few days.”

“I want to go,” Harry said crossly. “Don’t see why being a bloody cripple should ruin my perfect attendance record.”

“Harry James Potter!” James scolded. “Watch your mouth.”

“It’s alright, James,” Remus assured, wheeling in nearer to Harry.

Charily, Harry lifted his eyes off the screen to regard Remus. Shame reddened his nose. “I shouldn’t have said that word, Remus. I’m sorry.”

He smiled.

Remus Lupin was a lifelong friend of James and Sirius, and—as far as Harry knew—a contented bachelor who ran a small law practice down in Greater Hangleton. (Neither was quite true.)

Though he’d had a boyish handsomeness in their youth, age was less kind to Remus than it’d been to James or Sirius. His skin was sullen, and his brown roots peeked silver. Given all that he endured, however, one couldn’t say he’d done poorly. A drunken fool hit his family car when he was six. Never again did he walk, and forever was his face scarred in long white cuts from stray glass. The expectation was a short and feeble life. But here he was now: just shy of forty, the best educated man in the room, without sign of slowing down.

“I know there are no words, Harry,” said Remus gently. “No words that can offer you any comfort,

nor any that can make the situation any less awful. This next month may be the hardest of your life. I pray you’re met with the patience you deserve.”

“It doesn’t matter if I am or not,” Harry said sullenly. “Don’t any of you understand? Nothing matters anymore. It’s over. I’m done with.”

“Who do you think sent those nice flowers?” Sirius asked. He was not one to tolerate moping or self- pity. Not even when the person in question was thought to be entitled to it.

“Probably toe head,” Harry snarled. “He came round to apologize yesterday. Said it was an accident.”

James looked gravely at Sirius. He was in uniform still, which meant he’d been in the office. James envied him that. “Any news on where that bang came from?”

“No,” he informed. “Not yet. Reports said the sound was near the Weasleys, but they didn’t have any insights, I’m afraid.”

A delicate shade of pinkish red caught James in his periphery. There were deep reds, yellows, purples, whites. Among them, the peonies, so tender and smooth, stood out dissonantly… for what reason, he wasn’t quite sure…

Eh. Nonsense. He needed to sleep.

✦✦✦

Harry Potter’s iPhone 4S Private Chat
Harry & Hermione

Harry: this is well good isn’t it

Harry: sitting in this bloody bed

Harry: wondering if there’s any point to keep on living

Harry: not that you lot ever cared about football eh?

Harry: whatever. it’s my bloody mum’s fault making me stay in hangleton

Harry: i hate this town

Hermione: Hey. I’m sorry, Harry. I’m picking up Ron and Ginny now. We’ll be there in about ten minutes. Sending our love.

✦✦✦

Harry Potter’s iPhone 4S Safari Browser
wycliffe-out-loud.com

I confess:
that I think cormac mclaggen looks like a giant toe

I confess:
that its pretty crappy that cormac mclaggen can’t play football well so he’s got to trip his teammates

I confess:
when I saw spy kids I thought cormac mclaggen had been cast as one of those giant thumb people. Dead serious. ugly tosspot.

I confess:
potter doesn’t shower with the other guys on his football team. reckon he’s hiding a micropeen lads?
>nah he’s scared mad tom will jump him if he drops the soap
>> wow a joke about rape…. really clever!!!!!!!!

I confess:
ginny is pretending to be a lezzer so she can f*ck potter
>why would she have to pretend when she's beautiful?? get a life!!! bloody moron

I confess:
i am convinced the hottest guys are either gay, psycho, or both?????
>just say mad tom
>> is he bent? thought he was just mental
>>> wow bet u lot have a great social life, on here gossiping bout a bloke u barely know!!! Dx
>>>> eh face is aight, he does look well mental when you speak to him though

I confess:
anyone think mad tom is gay?
>yeah i think so but why does that matter? love is love xD
>> reckon he’s a paedo by now
>>> doesn't he like to f*ck snakes or something
>>>> hass sass ssss

✦✦✦

Mr. Slughorn’s key slid easily into the oval cylinder lock. Tom twisted his wrist, slowly, peering around the field one last time. He was alone.

The computer lab was located in a demountable classroom behind Wycliffe. Its walls were a cheap corrugated metal, and the thin floors echoed a hollow thud with each of his careful steps. The whole situation felt very insecure. It was important to be quick about this.

Did Tom know that what he was doing was quite stupid? Debatable. He knew there was risk of getting caught, and that the punishment, for him, would exceed what it’d be for those incurable prankster Weasleys. But he also knew he wouldn’t get caught.

The bleak room held exactly twenty-five chunky PCs spaced out—somewhat unevenly—over five plastic-top tables. Tom sat in the middle queue and powered the CPU. The start screen flashed to life. He clicked on the username box and typed: SFINNIGAN. Password: gocorkcity!fc1995.

As the slow, rickety behemoth of a computer chugged its snail’s pace to the desktop, Tom tapped a tense pattern on his bare knee. His poor Harry. His poor, poor boy. A terrible and cloying guilt squeezed his guts into a squirming mush. The fault was not his, of course; it was the Weasleys. Their bomb. Their bang. But had Tom known the monstrous consequences of their recklessness, he would

have killed them. Simple as that.

And yet he faulted himself, still, for not anticipating, fully, the round, expanding echoes of his tiny pebble.

The ugly Microsoft hills lit the screen. Tom fumbled his jump drive into the port, and clicked about with a brisk rage. Vengeance, as he sought it now, was really the least he could do for Harry. He had to do more. Would do more.

But one step at a time. One step at a time.

(His fingernails clawed four red crescents into the paper-pale flesh of his knee.)

✦✦✦

“Are you really sure about this, Harry?”

“Yeah, Dad. I’m sure.”

“But you know if you want, you don’t—”

“I said it’s fine! Gosh. You haven’t even been listening, have you?”

The first school bell sounded through an outdoor speaker. Backpack toting teens hurried inside the glass doors (replaced from the set Sirius cracked wide open, some two decades ago, when pushing James like mad in Remus’s wheelchair). Harry refused a chair; had refused another round of pain meds, too. He sat in the driver’s side seat with his back ramrod straight, his green eyes harder than stone. James neatened Harry’s uniform collar inside the V of his sleeveless jumper. Harry briskly shrugged him off.

“It’s fine, Dad. Nobody cares. Alright?” Harry popped open the door latch. At first, he seemed intent on getting out. He hesitated. “My crutches are in the boot.”

“Right'o, Prongslet. I’ll grab them."

Harry softened his gaze. The mention of his childhood nickname tended to soothe him. Patiently, James retrieved the metal crutches and lifted Harry out, one arm wrapped around his waist. Down Harry’s leg was a neon green cylinder cast that bulged in the loose cloth of his athletic shorts. At the bottom, over his toes, was a woollen black sock from Molly Weasley.

“Hey, Dad. I’m—” Harry was looking down at his leg as he cut himself off. “I just wanted to apologize, I…”

“No, no,” James interrupted, waving his finger. “Don’t go saying none of that now.”

“But I mean it.” Harry squeezed his knuckles to a pale white around the crtuch hand grip. “I’m sorry for acting so ratty. You’re the best dad there is. And we’ll get through this, alright? Doctors are wrong all the time. As soon as I’ve got this bloody thing off, I’ll be back at it and we’ll show them all, ey?”

“Ey,” James agreed. He brought their foreheads together for a strong moment, then pried Harry back by his neck and ruffled his coarse hair. “That’s my boy. Now get on in there. Class will be starting.”

Back inside the Catcher, James watched Harry through his windshield. He made a quick pace to the front. Struggled at the door, but not for too long.

When the last of Harry hobbled indoors, the weight of the moment, suspended above James like a cloud, seemed to thunder and pour. He let out a tremulous shudder and brought his hand to his temple.

His baby Harry stared up from the odometer: the small square photograph he’d never, ever part with, not for nothing. James peeled its edge off the glass and brought the satiny texture to his lips— something like a kiss, something like a prayer.

Then he drove down to the Constabulary to begin his shift. Life would go on, as it always had before, he thought.

(He thought wrong.)

Maths was conveniently located in the very bloody back of the building. Harry clawed an ibuprofen from his pocket and swallowed it dry.

His leg ached. Badly. He paused every few steps to catch his breath. Streaks of pain snaked up his nerves, a combination of unpleasant sensations: icy and yet scorching; bloated out, his seams too tight; a pulse throbbing hot and hard all around his calf. Ten minutes went by and he was only halfway there. He persevered until he reached the proper turn, where a fresh jolt of pain caught him, unexpectedly, and forced him to break again.

“Come on,” he grunted in a whisper. He was stalled beside the physics lab.

All doors at Wycliffe were the same: smooth cedar with a lacquer finish, and a little square window that could be blocked by a drawstring shutter. Aimlessly, Harry let his eyes fall into the room. A balding man he didn’t know was at the board pointing at a crudely chalked pulley diagram. Harry leaned up on his crutch to see the students. He gasped and stepped back again.

Front and centre: Tom Riddle. He was sloping his long limbs over the plastic desk, ostensibly taking notes. An old but distinct image from primary school rose in Harry’s mind. Their P and R surnames nearly always had them assigned side by side. Tom would look so astute and focused while the teacher lectured. He’d peer up, scribble down. Hermione would be in heated contest across the room (in vain). When Tom peeled back, there’d be no notes about Rudyard Kipling, nothing at all about food chains, but instead, letters that weren’t really letters at all. They were long curling characters of his own design. Snake language

Harry crutched the remaining distance to class, soured by a faint haunt of devastation.

The morning was filled with pity, but, of some comfort, was the familiar beat. Harry didn’t need to think about the big picture when there was so much tedium to plod through. Quizzes back in maths (he got a B+). Another quiz would come next week. A book report on The Great Gatsby was assigned, and Hermione invited him over for a read-a-thon. Cormac passed him in the corridor, smiling, and Harry—of course—smiled back and waved. (Despite the pain, the hatred, the sharp yanking at the bottom of his gut that begged him to take a piece out of Cormac, to leave him feeling as empty and hopeless as he felt, beneath his good boy disguise.) Ron got scolded in the middle of

lecture for taking Harry’s crutch and nudging Lav Brown on the back of the head. By lunchtime, the world felt almost normal.

Almost.

✦✦✦

Tom hurried through his wank with Olympic speed. The two-stalled loo was empty but he really didn’t need to get spotted here, of all days.

In the Wycliffe basem*nt was the media centre. When the fickle fa*ggot, Finnigan, finally moved his skinny arse out of there, Tom was left with a mere five minutes to rush in, swap the files, and stuff the bloody lock. The thrill of it onset a particular need.

He stared down at his mobile. Harry looked back up at him. He was shirtless at the beach and giving a classic goofy smile. Lean muscles contoured his arms and abdomen in beautiful sinewy waves. He was Tom’s little constant: always there when needed, never changing but fixed, forever, as this perfect placid staring image.

Tom finished into the toilet and washed his hands at the sink. The paper he dried his hands with was added casually to the bin, where he’d left a used tube of super glue and a square plastic remote.

✦✦✦

In the lunch room, Harry chewed through the last of his ibuprofen. He wasn’t meant to take as many as he had, and the toll was a pale presence of drowsy irritability.

“Does this thing hurt?” asked Ron. He thumped at Harry’s cast.

“Obviously,” Harry said. He clawed beneath the course waxen cover to the cotton sticking awkwardly to his skin. “And it’s bloody itchy, too. Can’t wait for dad to find the jerks responsible for that banging.”

Harry caught Ginny’s sharp gaze—a flitting of golden brown eyes, fast and suspicious.

“I reckon it was McLaggen’s fault,” she said distantly. “Right? Ron said the bloody bastard was all over you the whole game.”

Harry blinked slowly. An intuitive wariness was forming inside him. He dared not overthink it.

“God!” He reached his pointer deeper into the sweaty crevice of the cast. “I’m thinking about shoving a knife down there.”

Silverware clattered on the table.

“Sorry.” Neville laughed nervously. “Just had to think about it. Kind of squeamish, you know.”

“Don’t be such a wuss,” Ginny said unkindly. “Really should take you round the sheep during slaughter time.” She made karate chop with her hand and a splattery squish with her mouth. “Blood and guts and all that good stuff.”

Neville paled. “Er, I…”

“I don’t like blood either,” said Luna airily. “Animals are our cousins. It’s a shame to kill them, I think.”

“Yeah,” said Ron skeptically. He had a spoonful of beef in hand. “Guess we could all just starve instead.”

“Oh, hush.” Hermione swatted Ron lightly with the back of her hand. “Humans don’t need meat to survive. You know, cattle grazing is actually among the biggest contributor to global climate change. I was thinking about becoming a vegan myself.”

“I can help you,” said Luna. Her hippy parents imposed a strictly controlled organic vegan diet. “Daddy came up with the best kale quinoa recipe, all you have to do is—”

Ginny interrupted with a disgusted gagging sound.

“Hey, shut up you, lot." A dreamy gloss had overcome Ron's ginger features. “I’m trying to listen to the announcements.”

“Hello, Wycliffe Academy!” said a recording of Lavender Brown from the large projector screen.

“Oh, won-won…” Ginny nudged Ron. He rammed his shoulder against hers in return. “How sweet. Lav-lav looks so cute.”

“It is now time for your daily announcement. Unfortunately, an inspector this weekend discovered that Gynmasium B has unhealthy levels of asbestos. Yuck! Because of this, all Phys Ed classes will report to Gynmasium A until further notice. This will mean a converging of….”

Her voice lowered unnaturally as the telly screen fried with static. A siren cried from the speakers. Harry stuffed his fingers into his ears and called out; indeed, the entire cafeteria was shouting and stirring out of their seats. Mr. Runcorn, the teacher assigned to watch their lunch period, panicked madly through a cabinet beside the screen, shouting: “I can’t find it! I can’t find it!”

The ringing stopped, and a collective sigh respired. But there was more to hear.

*

The video lasted no more than five minutes, but it would be discussed, ad nauseam, long after the students had graduated.

A robotic female voice read the screen’s comic sans font:

WYCLIFFE-OUT-LOUD.COM EXPRESS YOURSELF FREELY

Then, one by one, photographs of students flashed. The subtitles were read by computerized speech.

A photo taken behind of a girl in a leopard pantsuit, bending over in the library.

‘lavenders ass is thick but no one wants to see those cheeks squeezed in those too tight leggings.’

A girl chatting in class.

‘who else saw those cum stains on Pansy’s dress lol?’

Ginny Weasley walking through the hall. Her shirt reads: ‘Nobody knows I’m a lesbian.’

‘umm… yes they do, lezzer’

Tom Riddle in his Phys Ed uniform, sitting beneath a tree, listening to music through white headphones.

‘it’s a shame mad tom’s psycho because he’s well fit innit’

A bulky young man pulling up his trousers.

‘GOYLE IS A FAT UGLY f*ck’

Ron Weasley leaning against a wall, texting.

‘ron weasley’s too poor to afford his own clothes so he’s got to borrow potter’s. at least one of them has style.’

Supervising the corridor, a tall elderly gentleman in a purple sequined suit.

‘ok so dumbledore is obviously a f*cking ponce. why isn’t anyone talking about it?’

Hermione Granger eating yoghurt in the cafeteria.

‘stop hiding those knockers in that fugly jumper, granger’

A rather overweight girl rinsing her hands in the loo.

‘millie bullstrode looks like the kind of slag who slathers up that old c*nt with PB & J and lets her pup go to town’

A flash of Cormac McLaggen smiling. Then a clip from the film Spy Kids: men with thumbs instead of heads.

‘when I saw spy kids I thought cormac mclaggen had been cast as one of those giant thumb people. Dead serious. ugly tosspot.’

A blank black screen.

‘Guess I should say it here since I can’t say it out loud. Was at Lee Jordan’s party this summer. F & G Weasley took me into a closet and wouldn’t let me out until I stripped naked. Tried to tell my best mate but she called me a liar… Maybe you lot will believe me.’

✦✦✦

The smallest hand of Thomas’s wristwatch moved in audible clicks. He glanced it, sighed, and leaned slackly back. A woman was jogging past his office window. She was a bit thick. A housewife, likely. Narrow at the waist and bursting across the arse seam of those bright pink joggers. He watched her body until she was nothing more than a distant speck, then looked over his workspace, absentmindedly.

Atop the mahogany desk: a large Macintosh, a black rotary phone, a (filled) standing calendar, and exactly two photographs in matching golden frames. On the left, he was nine at Grandpa’s side, leaning against a white Chevy Corvette, squinting in the sun. On the right, he was twenty-nine and holding Tommy, one of his favourite shots of the two together. Tom almost never smiled for photos; this was an exception. He was quite proud to show the caved gap in his gums where he’d threaded string and yanked free the wiggly baby tooth, all on his own.

The telephone vibrated and chimed. Thomas cleared his throat and answered. “Mr. Lestrange? I was—”

“No, no, Mr. Riddle. I’m sorry if you were expecting a call. It’s actually Horace Slughorn. I’m calling to talk about Tom.”

“Oh?” Thomas said, a heartfelt attempt at casual. “Has something happened?”

“Er, well. It’s quite a complicated situation. First, I must ask, and it may sound odd, but bear with me here. Is it true that you’ve disallowed all technology use on Sundays in your home?”

Thomas held the bridge of his nose. “Oh, yes,” he lied. “Not indefinitely, mind. Just trying to convince Tom to get out of the house every once in a while. Why?”

“Again, Mr. Riddle, it’s… There was a video today. It’s causing quite the commotion here at Wycliffe. You see, normally, during the lunch hour, a little presentation from the students plays. Unfortunately, the system was hijacked this afternoon. Another video played, reading out very vulgar comments about several students and the headmaster.

“I thought it possible Tom had something to do with it, given his, let’s say, talents. But after he was mentioned on the video, he seemed to get quite upset. As far as I can tell, he left early to go home.

“Again, it’s a very tricky situation. Very unexpected, very unique. You know I care a great deal for Tom. For that reason, I simply want to ensure that you know what happened. Perhaps you can talk it through with him later.”

“Yes, Mr. Slughorn. I thank you for concern. I know Tom is very fond of you as well. I’ll look into matters as soon as possible, and I hope you’re able to have a pleasant afternoon, all things considered.”

Almost as soon as Thomas set the phone on the receiver, it began to ring again. Thomas spared a moment to graze his knuckle down toothless-Tommy’s face.

✦✦✦

“Dad! Please! Why won’t you trust me? I’m your only son!”

The vault crank wrenched shut with one final thrust. Tom had on his best bemused gawk as Dad secured the digital touchpad with a casual demeanour.

Too casual. That did not bode well.

Locked inside the Riddle House safe was a collection of valuables: heirlooms, some ugly paintings, great-grandpa’s war momentos. Now, most valuable of all, the family desktop, Tom’s mobile, and all three of his personal laptops (even the one kept hidden beneath his bed, for Dad was, apparently, a snoop in addition to being a miserable old bastard!).

Dad smoothly slid the bookshelf to cover the steel again, then secured it with a tiny rim lock.

“Dad!” Tom cried. Anger was building up his chest, up to his cheeks: hot and red. “This is unconscionable. That video bullied me in front of the entire school, and you don’t even care! No, you’re too busy stroking your own ego, thinking you’re so clever, figuring me out. Well, you’re wrong! I didn’t do it!”

“Tom, please.” Dad held his hands on his hips. “I’m in no mood for your hysterics.”

“But you have no proof!”

On his last word, Tom slammed his foot to the ground. It was a very childish thing to do. He felt stupid the same instant he committed to it. But what else could he do?

“One week,” said Dad.

“A week? How many times do I have to tell you? They already caught Seamus Finnigan! Call up the school! Ask!”

Patting his hands, as if signalling the completion of a job, Dad nodded back—thoughtful, contemplative. “Ah, yes. You did say that, didn’t you? I can only wonder how you found out. Didn’t you leave school after the video played?”

“I—” Tom bit his lip, grasped quick for an excuse. “…happened to overhear while I was walking out.”

“So, you framed the kid,” said Dad. “Real clever, Tommy. Make the ban three weeks, and count yourself grateful I don’t call up the school and tell them the truth.”

Tom’s jaw slacked and his eyes went wide. This would be the longest ban since he was granted technology privileges, at age thirteen. He felt dizzy.

In the family library, where they stood, where ceiling-high bookcases lined the walls, they were alone. Father and son. Tom’s childhood shelf—dedicated primarily to herpetology—eyed him from beside the fireplace. He was no longer a boy. He was his father’s height (nearly), and his shoulders were as broad, and if they held their hands, palm to palm, Tom was certain his fingers would prove longer.

“Dad, I implore you to see reason,” he said calmly. This time he was not whinging. He instead spoke in a judicious voice. They were equals here, really. “My project can’t sit around for three weeks. I’m going to singlehandedly revolutionize forensic data analytics.”

“And is this a school project?” Tom blinked. “Yes.”

“Hmm…” Dad held his chin in his hand, and watched him, debating his authenticity. Then he smiled an unwelcoming smirk. “If that’s the case, then have a teacher contact me. We can carve out a deal.”

“But the teachers at Wycliffe hate me,” Tom retorted, twisting up his face. “Everyone there hates me. You know they do. That’s why you won’t call them. Please, Dad. Don’t do this to me.”

Today, however, Dad was not buying it. He ended the conversation with words that would haunt Tom, hours later, as he peddled out his anger, circling that neighbourhood he could not breach while the sun remained.

Single-family dwellings were separated from the narrow road by prim green hedges. At the corner, of special distinction, a limestone brick cottage, two-stories high, that rose to a truncated flat top roof. There lived his suffering beloved. Was he in there now? Was he in pain? Tom cringed. He wanted to go inside, up the carpeted stairwell, to the white wooden door on the left. Harry’s smell tickled Tom’s nose in phantom sensation. The perception was sweet while it lasted.

But then, against his will, Dad’s words echoed in the back of his mind:

“Maybe this will be a good chance for you, Tom. Clear your head. Get some fresh air. Can’t live online forever, can you? Gotta come to terms with reality eventually. May as well start now.”

Tom should’ve said, ‘f*ck you,’ in return. But that could’ve translated to four weeks, and that wouldn’t do. He could already feel the withdrawal symptoms creeping. Irritability. Restlessness. A sense of despair. He dug his fingernails into the rubbery folds of his handlebar grip. Nightfall was nigh. Distant, but within sight, was an open window spilling with artificial light. Tom breathed deeply and shut his eyes.

‘Come here, Tom,’ Harry says. He is laying on an expansive white hotel bed. The air around them is moist with steam.

Tying a robe knot around his waist, staring down from the twenty-third story, Tom is overlooking a modern cityscape. He glances over his shoulder and smiles. ‘You’ve got the pillow wet, love.’

Harry runs a hand through his fringe. His grin is positively devious. ‘Have I?’

As Tom concentrated, trying to reconstruct the voice, as best as he could, a fresh realization shot through his gut.

There was one place Dad couldn’t possibly know about.

He rode home at top speed and dashed upstairs. In the corner of his room was a splay-footed white wardrobe. He popped open its door, lowered to his knees, and peeled up a thin layer of creamy beige wood. The color was not a perfect match, but in the dark, it was indistinguishable from the aged interior. And it had served it purpose well. Inside the false bottom was an antique rosewood box.

From his sock drawer, he withdrew a thin skeleton key and opened the box. He laid the contents out on his bed.

Amid what he searched for—a dated flip phone and a trusty black scrambling device—there were: three external hard drives; a plastic teeth comb; a travel sized spray can of Axe cologne; an empty Cadbury Flake wrapper; a steel mouth organ; and a handwritten get-well-soon card.

Tom attached the phone and the device, and pressed in Harry’s number. His knees were drawn into his chest. He rested his temple on the jutting bone as the ring repeated.

“Ron? Mate? Is that you?”

Electricity coursed Tom. He shuddered.

“Is that you?”

Harry’s voice was raspy and pure: regional hints from his father, soft vowels from his Midlander mum.

“Look, if you’re gonna keep wasting my time, why don’t you just come out and tell me who you are, eh? How about it? Nah, I bet you won’t. Bet you’re a right coward. Whatever. Get a bloody life.”

✦✦✦

A short half-mile away, a grasshopper warbler perched on a thin oak twig, when, from the ground, came a resounding low noise. The warbler flapped its buttery beige wings and fled to the sky.

“GOD!”

“I’m gonna put his head on a stick,” Seamus ranted, walking a pace, back and forth at the marshy edge of the ravine. “I’m gonna cut it off with hacksaw then I’m gonna shove it on a stick. Then I’m gonna march up to his precious little nan and hand it over, and say, ‘Here ya go! Thought you might want this back, eh?’ Then I’m going to—”

“Mate,” said Dean. He was grinning more from awkwardness than enthusiasm. Seamus held an intense hatred for Tom Riddle, generally, for many years, but never before had he genuinely fantasized about murdering him.

But Seamus was serious. If not literally, then certainly metaphorically.

When Headmaster Dumbledore pulled him from the corridor, Seamus thought it was an error. He even laughed upon hearing the words. Mr. Finnigan, I’m afraid we found the video file on your student account. He was the first suspect, naturally. Only Seamus was privileged to enter Wycliffe technical facilities unsupervised (a perk of being the student ambassador for the media centre). But how the bloody f*ck did those files get there? He didn’t know! Really, he didn’t. He swore it on his father’s grave.

The meeting was surreal. On the spot, Seamus’s position was revoked, and he was condemned to a week’s suspension. Mr. Slughorn vouched for his character but it was not enough. Dr. Dumbledore

—sat behind his desk, his frost blue eyes twinkling—delivered this punishment with frivolous casuality, then offered a hard candy for the way out.

As if this unjust proceeding had not completely upended Seamus’s life.

He was clueless and dispirited, and working himself bonkers, trying to reason how he was being held responsible. H e was the one who tried to stop the bloody video from going! He told Mr. Slughorn as much! The lock was glued shut. The answer to this dilemma came from an unexpected source. Shortly following his after school chat with the Headmaster, on his way to meet Dean at the ravine, Seamus—who thought himself alone on the wide, shaded pavement—was tapped suddenly on the shoulder.

“A little birdie told us—”

“—that you’ve been having quite a bit of fun lately.”

“Is that right?”

“At least those two rotters have some sense about them,” Seamus said. He was to meet with the Weasley twins later to discuss matters more fully. “Bloody hell, that Riddle is mad. I can understand framing me… but framing me twice? Twice? Like I wouldn’t figure it out?”

“Maybe he wanted you to."

Dean crunched an elbow into the dying leaves and propped his cheek with his knuckles. From this angle, he could see the underside of Seamus’s chin, where he was patched with dapples of a fair pink flush. He was taking this setback as well as he took any (poorly). Nothing Dean could say would stop him shouting.

“Come on, Dean. Why would he? It’d make no sense!”

“Dunno, mate. Mad Tom’s always had his own logic, hasn’t he? I don’t claim to understand it. Maybe he reckoned if he doubled up on charges against you, you wouldn’t have time to deal with both.”

“Well—” Seamus bent to the ravine side and plucked up a small brown stone, round and no bigger than a pebble. He held it between his thumb and his pointer, and shook wildly in gesticulation. “He’s bloody wrong. He has no idea what’s coming to him. No. Bloody. Clue.”

He hurled the rock with a grunt. It flew a high arch and disappeared, falling too far for either boy to hear it splash in the shallow waters.

✦✦✦

“Mione,” Harry asked, doing up his trainers with one hand outside the girls’ locker room. “What’s asbestos again, exactly? A fungus?”

“No, not a fungus,” she replied distantly, wrapping her thick braids in an elastic. She turned to her side as she gazed into the body length mirror and pressed her hands against her chest.

The stubborn green boot laces fell from Harry's clumsy grip, once more. He was bent uncomfortably with his armpit on the crutch, his good foot pressed against the bench. It may have been possible with his dominant hand, but that'd require shifting about. He undid the loose bunny ear and sighed. Hermione remained too preoccupied with fussing about her bosom to offer help or answer his question. Harry eased up slowly, lace undone still. Maybe he’d trip and die. There were worse ways to go.

The asbestos outbreak in the school’s old gymnasium meant that fifth- and sixth-form students were merged into one temporary super-class. Today would be their first taste of this experiment. (After lunch the day prior, the students had been assembled for an hourlong ad hoc meeting with the Deputy Headmaster, who reiterated the school’s commitment to eliminating bullying. As if that was possible.) Upon seeing how crowded the boys’ room was, Harry opted to change in the corridor into the polyester Wycliffe T-shirt mandated for Phys Ed. The one single advantage of his cast was that he couldn’t wear the black trouser slacks.

“But if it’s not a fungus, how does it grow on its own?”

Hermione lifted her scowl and smiled. “That’s… not how asbestos works, Harry.”

“Your laces are undone, mate,” said Ron as he rounded the two of them. Neville was by his side. “Yeah,” said Harry irritably. “I know.”

“I’ll get them,” offered Neville. He dropped to one knee and tied a deft reef knot.

An irrational impulse of jealousy spoilt Harry’s gratitude. He wished he could sit on his knee. He was much better at knots than Neville. He learned more techniques than any of the other boys in Scouts. Certainly more than Neville, who’d been a miserable trooper. It seemed so deeply and unforgivably unfair. Neville—a fair-haired, pudgy layabout—could’ve lived a happy life without his legs. Harry, without his, was barely human.

He buried this nasty thought and crutched outdoors alongside the others. Midway, the coach stopped him and asked if he’d like to try the alternative class. Harry shook his head. The doctor said it was fine to walk a moderate pace. He was no bloody invalid. Given the suddenness of circ*mstances, the lack of a plan, the coaches said they’d allow the students to walk leisurely, perhaps through the end of the week. Harry knew he could do that much.

Behind dull opaque clouds, the high sun was hidden. There were fifty-something students or more, male and female, of all shapes and sizes. With the exception of Hermione, and a small handful of others, the students were pasty and white, bred of these lands, centuries back, with bare legs that looked especially pallid against the black tartan track. Harry crutched determinedly at a normal walking pace.

“Still can’t believe it was Finnigan,” said Neville, continuing their conversation from lunch (where Ginny had declared Seamus both a twat and a hom*ophobe).

“Like I said, I don’t buy it,” said Ron. “First of all, if it was him, he would have to reckon they’d figure it out. Lavender told me all about it. Seamus is the only one who can operate the system on his own.”

“He might’ve just thought it was worth it,” Harry reasoned. “Having a good laugh at everyone else’s expense, I mean.”

“I dunno,” said Neville. “Finnigan’s never been my mate, but I feel like I’ve been around him enough to know his humour. That wasn’t the kind of stuff he’d say.”

“Well, probably—” started Hermione, a know-it-all pitch to her voice. “Probably what he did was just pluck up things he saw. I seriously don’t think Headmaster Dumbledore would punish a student without hard evidence. He used to be a barrister, for crying out loud.”

“Potter.”

Reflexively, Harry winced at the voice. Cormac. He walked toward Harry with Corner and Davies in tow. Harry had not thought about it, but many of his teammates would now share this class with him, and the idea of that was unsettling.

“How’s the knee holding up?” asked Cormac. His face was absent of concern. In fact, his thin-lipped grin had a dry hint of triumph. The impression sharpened as his deep-set eyes flickered to Hermione.

“It’s fine, I reckon,” said Harry. “Doctor said I should be back on the field in March.”

The grin slipped. “March? Oh. Well, that’s… That’s good, ey?”

Quickly, uncontrollably, Harry’s face flashed with disgust. The tone of Cormac’s voice belied his disappointment. He wanted Harry gone. Maybe he’d planned something like this.

Davies gave a nervous chuckle. “Heh. Boys. Have a look over there.” With a playful tut, Corner shook his head. “Coach told him not to do that.”

“Well,” said Cormac brightly, cracking his neck to the side, “when has he ever done what he was told? Reckon it’s worth a little reminder, huh?”

Past the ribbon divider, there was a modest metal grandstand, where the three teens marched with the collective behaviour of a wolf pack. Harry crutched nearer for a better look.

“What are they after?” asked Ron, following behind. Harry shook his head. “No clue.”

“You think it’s—oh!”

Extending her arms out like a protective mother, Hermione blocked Harry from moving in further. He followed the direction of her worried gaze.

Leaning against the wire fencing was Tom Riddle.

He had a cool, casual posture, with his head tilted off. The handsome edge of his chin ran a straight, clean line to his cheekbone, framing the high structured features in a regal assembly. He was beautiful. His skin, though pale, was bright and glassy, with a healthy glow of vigour that possessed an old film star quality, and his wavy black hair, styled in a classic side-sweep, gave him a suave charm. He even made attractive the plain Wycliffe gym clothes—and not accidentally, either. He’d subtly altered them. The black shorts were folded at the elastic several times over and exposed well his impossibly long, lean legs.

“Mate?”

Ron was offering him a worried frown. Harry ignored the unwanted (mistaken) sympathy. “Come on,” said Harry. “Let’s see what’s going on.”

The three teen boys now stood within reach of Tom.

“Alright there, Riddle,” said Cormac. “It’s time to get moving.”

“Yeah,” echoed Davies. “If Coach catches you again, he’s going to make the rest of us run laps. Is that what you want?”

Cormac laughed; it was a co*cky and impertinent sound that Harry knew well. “I’m not sure if Riddle can run. Have you ever seen him at it, Davies?”

“No.”

“And Corner? Have you?”

“Not that I can recall, no.”

Beneath her breath, Hermione whispered, “Oh, he’s such a creep.” Harry nodded once, tensely. His jaw was locked tight.

Through it all, Tom had not flinched once. He blinked twice costively, and then, with a deliberate slowness, brought his hands to his ears and peeled out two earbuds.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t catch that.”

A smile twitched up Harry’s cheeks.

Cormac’s mouth dropped idiotically. “What? You didn’t hear anything that I said?”

“Sorry. I was waiting for my song to end.”

Several of their classmates were slowing their walk and hedging near the action. By the sharp, expectant enthusiasm of the sixth-form students, the situation read like a common occurrence.

Cormac’s face was dark red. He loathed to be undermined. “You can’t just stand here, Riddle. Coach said.”

Vaguely, Tom glanced into the distance, searching. He nodded in the coach’s direction across the field. “Then go get him. He can tell me himself.”

“Seriously?” Cormac scoffed. “You want us to walk all the way out to get him just because you won’t move your lazy arse?”

Tom returned his headphones in place. “I’ll wait here.” The gathered crowd of onlookers muttered and giggled.

Cormac’s shoulders stretched taut. He stepped in threateningly, but Tom—true to himself, as he had always been—did not shirk, but raised his brows with subtle curiosity.

“Look, Riddle. I know you think you’re quite cute with your poncy attitude, but just because you’re a—”

“CORMAC!”

All eyes turned to Harry. He exhaled hotly through his nose.

Peripherally, he could see the concern, the interest. But staring forward, he saw the sole set of eyes that mattered. Tom’s dark eyes widened into Harry’s, but just as quick, turned sharply back to Cormac. Harry continued staring. A memory rolled up his spine and suspended him in the past, where little Tom Riddle was mashing into his mobile; where when Tom’s eyes reached up, the pupils expanded, and an intensity pierced into Harry so powerfully, so wholly, he could feel it still ringing in the pit of his gut. Bollocks to Cormac. Bollocks to them all. He willed Tom to turn his head. To prove the fire was exhausted, if it had ever truly burned at all.

Hermione watched Harry with an urgent frown. His stare was fixed on Mad Tom. She recalled a piece of advice from Helping Your Friends Cope (a book her mother bought her, back when it happened). Sometimes, when confronted with their abusers, traumatized people could be triggered into silence. When this happened, it was best to passively diffuse the situation and prevent confrontation.

“Oh, Cormac!” Hermione whined. She curled her foot into her grip and bounced around, shrieking.

“Help! I think I’ve twisted my ankle.”

Cormac broke from Mad Tom with aggressive reluctance—barring his teeth as a hound might, a last show of hostility before minding owner’s command. Mad Tom smiled provocatively.

Bloody psycho.

“Please, Cormac!” Hermione squealed dramatically. “It really hurts!”

He swung around and grinned, and moved toward her with phony swagger. Hermione was no actress, but she was a girl. She sighed gratefully as he dropped to his knee, scooping her foot curiously.

“Ah, we best get you inside then,” he said. “You mind if I…?”

With his sturdy, strong arms, Cormac lifted Hermione into a cradle. She blushed and shuddered: with disgust at Cormac, and disgust at herself, for though she disliked him very much, the feel of his thick grip curving around her knee was unfamiliar and rousing.

What must Harry think of this, she wondered? His crush on her was a Wycliffe open secret, no matter how often either of them denied it.

(Privately, Hermione suspected it was the truth. He’d rejected Cho Chang, right? She was the prettiest girl in school. No guy would reject her without good reason. In the back of her head, with some indulgence, Hermione dimly reasoned that Harry hated Cormac because he didn't want competition. Mr. Potter often teased them both. Harry likes you. He’s just too bashful to admit it. Sometimes she wondered if she should just go for it! Harry was very cute, and probably the sweetest guy she’d ever met.)

“Should I take you inside?” asked Cormac.

“Maybe just to the benches? Oh, wait—” She noticed that Mad Tom still stood at the bleachers. “No, you’re right, Cormac. Better inside. Thank you.”

“My pleasure, Miss Granger.”

As he turned about to carry the damsel indoors, Hermione had to see how Harry was taking it. She imagined him scowling or pouting, or at least looking her way, lost.

Instead she found him as she’d left him: staring at Mad Tom with singular interest.

✦✦✦

A blue clock radio crooned at a volume so low, the beat was scarcely discernible. Seamus tapped along, too fast, with his left pointer. His skin buzzed with nervous energy. The good kind. Louder than the music was his quick clicking. Opening new tabs, following new leads, sniffing out the hints, documenting them (ironically!) in a Riddle Estates notepad his step-dad had lying around for ages. Seamus licked his dry lips, sat the pen down, and reached for the Capri Sun packet on the floor by his chair (he didn’t dare let it near his treasured Dell Alienware tower; his mum still complained that Walden spent so much on it, called it “overcompensating”).

In his Google Chrome, over forty tabs were open. The title of his present page read:

…could it be gorefa*g?

The Weasley twins were clever blokes. Nefarious yet mischievous, and undoubtedly quite sly. But they had no bloody clue what kind of grenade they were holding onto. Upon showing Seamus their illicit clip, they both sort of smirked at his astonished ogling. They claimed they couldn’t move against Tom. Something about blackmail; the details were scarce. If they had known, really, how valuable what they possessed was, no sort of extortion could’ve stopped them getting one up on Mad Tom.

Stupid prat wanted to spice things up in town? Add a bit of drama to their humdrum quiet lives? Well, life was about to get a whole lot more interesting at Wycliffe. You could bet your arse on that.

He struck a solid deal with the Weasleys. If Seamus could clear their name, without letting Tom know they’d cooperated, then the Weasleys would tell Dumbledore they’d heard Tom bragging about the hijacked announcement. It was all so simple to them. People would stop thinking they were rapists. Dumbledore would reinstate Seamus’s privileges. Riddle would get in big, big trouble. Perfect, right? There was just one itsy-bitsy, tiny detail the Weasleys seemed to have overlooked.

Mad Tom still had a thing for Potter.

This wasn’t a little chuckle. This was news that would break the internet.

Everyone in town knew that Mad Tom was a pop culture exemplar. A few years ago, you could barely sneeze without seeing something about him on the telly. What they didn’t get—what few understood, what came to Seamus so intuitively—was that his fame wasn’t like normal fame. It was internet fame. And Seamus Tierney Finnigan knew the internet well enough to know one thing.

Tom Riddle was not famous. Gorefa*g was.

Fame of the lowest order. A dark joke, seeped into the web like a stain, the kind so deep, you couldn’t get rid of, no matter how much scrubbing you did.

Seamus researched his game plan carefully. Thanks to Mad Tom, he had all week.

The gorefa*gettes (or fa*gettes, as they were better known) were gorefa*g’s fiercest defenders. Though they chiefly resided on a private girls forum—whose secret enrolling process was so arduous, you couldn’t fake your way in—they spanned several platforms, spreading their freaky fantasies: fanfiction, long form meta, fan art, fan videos, the list went on. They were the most infamous fans, but they were not the only ones. Gorefans adopted him as their mascot to find other admirers of violent video games and slasher cinema. Goredians policed the forums. Easily, the worst of the lot were the Death Eaters. They saw gorefa*g as a kindred soul, a spirit of chaos and perversion, of apolitical nihilism that justified their tongue-in-cheek exploitation of net anonymity.

Normal fame worked differently. Sign a record label, make a movie, put out content, make some money. Thing was, Mad Tom didn’t make content. These people weren’t his fans. They saw in him something relatable. Something for misunderstood outcasts to rally around. The fa*gettes drew him watching Potter play football, wrote tales about him falling in love. The gorefans tacked his catchy quotes on memes, used his photos for their icons. The Death Eaters, uniquely, did not praise or admire gorefa*g, at least not in the usual sense. The gorefa*g post for which they chose their forum title summarized their purpose well:

GOREfa*g

>lol what u gonna do, find and kill me? i’ll f*ckin kill you and eat your soul. destroyer of you, your mind, body, and soul. people will call me The Death Eater after i’m finished with you, fa*ggot

It was real poetry. Honestly. The exact kind of edgy, cringy, ridiculous sh*te the Death Eaters lived to spread. They were trolls. They spammed teenage girls with rape p*rn. They organized death threat calling campaigns for people they deemed “cucks” and “feminazis,” and made false bomb threats against schools and political offices. One known Death Eater—a teenage boy, spotty and ostracized

—earned a life sentence in prison for stabbing a pretty blond cheerleader at his school. They were the sort of sh*t lords adults barely took seriously, until they were forced to, which reignited, time and time again, a discussion about the Gorefa*g Effect.

Seamus had to snort. Oh, soon they’d know what the real gorefa*g was like. The bloody moment he saw the shreddit post—gasp! could it be him?—Seamus knew what he’d found. He’d seen Mad Tom on Rawblr in Slughorn’s. Saw him using that exact same MacBook Pro. And, even if he hadn’t witnessed him going at it, first-hand, he’d have still recognized that stupid mug anywhere.

http://www.dickspit.rawblr.com/

Because of bloody course he chose a name like that.

On Tuesday, Seamus looked through all 100,000 posts by midnight. Nothing there could incriminate him directly—yet—but it could all stir quite a bit of interest. No longer was gorefa*g posting gore and rape and havoc, eh? Dickspit was more like your generic poncy douchebag: sh*t-tier memes, some stuff about programming, snake photos, GIFs of men kissing, edits of female pop stars, and—and Seamus really had to piss himself laughing at this one—a whole tag dedicated to the letter ‘H.’ That’s how the great gorefa*g collated his romantic posts about unrequited love.

Wednesday was about strategizing. He would out Mad Tom as dickspit, and do it the right way. Where there'd be no place left to hide. Seamus was going to hack himself in there, admit to making that stupid bloody confessional, admit to framing Seamus for the announcement, and admit to the internet that he wasn’t their glorified edge lord. He was just a bloody loser who hung out with his nan and wanked over the popular straight kid. Seamus, however, was new to hacking. He’d experimented with a few free programmes, yeah, but he wasn’t sure he could exploit the system on his own. What he needed was Revelio: a software designed to exploit Rawblr’s core TCP/IP protocols.

It’d cost 200 pounds. He had about 50 in his savings account, and some pocket change. He just about to give up hope when he heard the clubbing patter of Nanna Macnair’s footsteps.

“Nanna, I know you and I, we don’t always see eye-to-eye. But what if I told you, for a wee investment in my enterprise, I could shut up that bint Mary Riddle for a good long while?”

Ching, ching.

He got no sleep that night. Spent the whole time familiarizing himself with Revelio, staging break ins on his demo accounts. Seamus couldn’t underestimate Mad Tom. Was he an idiot? Yes. But an idiot savant nevertheless. Seamus had to be stealthy and alert, and though he was hidden, now, behind a premium trial of a top notch proxy, he wasn’t risking his shot at shutting up Mad Tom once and for all. By the dawning hours of Thursday morning, after he’d broken into thirteen false accounts, he passed out cold for a good six hours. Dean would come round after school. Seamus aspired to have dickspit sorted before then.

Atop Seamus’s bed was all the schoolwork he was meant to have been doing. Papers messily spread out, mixed with highlighters and pencils he’d topped out, hurriedly, and never bothered packing up. Crisp packet and unwashed utensils and fizzy drink cans littered his sill. He smelled himself, gagged. This, he supposed, was the price of justice. He went for a shower to clear his head.

The chewy grip mat squished between his toes as he stepped in. Cold water fuzzed at low pressure and spritzed him in long, rolling rivulets. He soaped himself, then left his mind drift. One variable of Mad Tom’s exposure was still hanging loose. Without the Weasleys’ video, his sole proof of any continued boyhood obsession was tag ‘H.’ He couldn’t well make a random post confessing love on dickspit’s behalf. It’d be transparent. And truthfully, he couldn’t fake Tom’s confession to Wycliffe- Out-Loud, either, while he was admitting he’d just hacked into the account. The haze of his enthusiasm was fanning quickly. Rationally, he knew, the plot was incomplete. The internet would be interested to see that gorefa*g was still out there under a new guise, but, all things considered, it would likely only really redeem Mad Tom of his nastier crimes. His new alter ego was all rainbows and sunshine; gorefa*g had grown up to be a run-of-the-mill poofter.

Except, Seamus knew this wasn’t true. He knew Mad Tom. Whatever he’d become, it wasn’t dickspit.

The clock read 14:37. Seamus followed through with the plan regardless. He could already see the look on Dean’s face. It was too good to delay further. Revelio loaded and Seamus went to work. Forty minute later, and he was in. Laughter exploded out of his chest. He ran his hands down his face and shuddered, joyously, at his accomplishment. Mad Tom was thwarted. Oh, how the mighty did fall! Seamus archived the account into a PDF and, while it loaded, browsed the interior. Dickspit had trivial private messages with other users—all girls, by the looks of it—and hadn’t logged in since Monday morning. At this very moment, if he was unoccupied in class, he was probably receiving an alert email that his account had been successfully converted. Seamus changed the email and password to prevent him kicking Seamus off too quickly.

Inside here, this purple-screened blogsite, fodder for teenie girls, Seamus could see a side of Mad Tom he didn’t think possible. He scrolled down and acquainted himself with the layout. Simple stuff. On the lower left-hand corner of the screen, a small addition sign caught his eye: a dropdown menu. He clicked it. The box read ‘SIDEBLOGS’ and beneath it was an italicized username so unexpectedly surprising, Seamus’s vision blurred with shock. He clicked into it and gasped loud and high.

https://www.tomriddle-potter.rawblr.com

He moved his mouse to open Revelio, but paused, for a horribly wonderful possibility hit him, and he had to see if he was right. He clicked the password field and typed five inconspicuous letters.

The loading wheel spun. The protective screen disappeared with a flash. Seamus’s heart sunk with triumphant glee.

“No f*cking way.”

✦✦✦

“The trick to Aloe Vera,” explained Neville, lifting the plant with a loving tenderness, “is to gradually expose it to sunlight, a little more each day. You only have to water it about twice a month, but I can come by and do it, if you want.”

He situated the orange terra cotta pot at the edge of Harry’s desk, just beside his open window. Harry smiled and thanked Neville, but returned his attention to his dumbbell; the gift was meant to cheer Harry up but all it really was, was another unpleasant reminder that he was expected to spend his

time indoors. His once bronzy olive complexion had paled, already, to an ashen beige. He sighed, curled up his bicep, appreciated the pulse of a thick vain down the crook of his elbow. Minutes later, they were called downstairs for dinner.

In celebration of Mr. Longbottom’s promotion to Inspector, Dad invited Neville’s family over for a small Thursday dinner party. On the surface of these gatherings, the apparent Potter family dynamics misrepresented their day-to-day living. Mum, carrying out a pot roast, seemed the picture of a classic English mother. She wore a delicate floral dress, cinched at a narrow waist, and her vibrant hair fell in careful auburn waves. As she bent, settling the heavy pot, centre table, Dad clapped in appreciation. He was in uniform at the table’s helm. Mr. and Mrs. Longbottom—also looking very typical of a middle-aged married couple—commented on the loveliness of it all, and they all started tucking in.

“Oh, Lily,” said Mrs. Longbottom, dabbing her lips, “this is wonderful. How do you get the meat so tender?”

Mum smiled and explained.

This performance was reserved for company. In truth, Dad did most of the cooking and washing up, and was more enthusiastic about it, too. It wasn’t just that gender roles were inverted by necessity. Yes, Mum worked longer hours and earned twice Dad’s salary, but Dad was, by his purposeful nature, more of a domestic type. It always made Harry uncomfortable to see this flipside of things. He sopped a carrot in gravy and mushed it between his molars, contemplatively. Dad’s tasted better.

“They think they found the reason for that banging, you know,” said Mr. Longbottom, more to his wife than anyone else.

“Oh?” she said.

“They found a busted pipe. Down by the old steel mill. Reckon some kids threw a homemade bomb there or something. No telling who, mind.”

Mrs. Longbottom hummed. “And were the Weasley children inspected? The mill is out near their home. Sounds like the sort of hooliganism they’d get up to.”

“No,” said Harry. “It wasn’t them.”

Dad looked crossly at Harry—who’s response had been curt—and added, “It was just what I thought, too, Alice. But they’ve been inspected. Ron was at Harry’s game and Cynthia Jordan’s son was with the other three who still live in town.”

“It’s a dead shame,” said Neville as he poked around his plate. “I think whoever’s done it should be held responsible for Harry’s leg. If it wasn’t for that, he’d be alright now, eh?”

“It was Cormac who did it,” said Harry. The words came forth like vomit. He paused. Dad was setting his glass down and leaning in.

“Now that’s where the money is,” said Dad. “That boy was rough with you since you came back from summer camp. And hey? Who can blame the lad! He saw how much you’d improved and reckoned he’d knock some of the talent out of you. Now, I’m not saying he meant to take it so far, but what I’m saying is, that kind of thing doesn’t just happen on accident.”

“Yeah, no doubt, sir,” said Neville in a sycophantic kind of affirmation. Neville was a biddable person, and always became overzealously agreeable at the slightest sniff of confrontation. “That Cormac is a bulldozer. Worse, even. He’ll go after anybody he thinks is a threat to him. Right? He

even had a go at Mad Tom in gym.”

The room went gravely silent. There was no geniality left in Dad’s party host pretence. Harry closed his eyes and clenched his jaw.

Of all the stupid things Neville could bring up!

“Oh, uh, I—” Neville stuttered. He nervously bounced his leg. “I mean, it was alright, though. Harry stood up for him.”

“Harry!” gasped Dad in an alarmed breath.

“Cormac wasn’t making fun of him for the right reasons, mind!" Neville exclaimed. "He was just, like, calling him a ponce and maybe a poof or something, it was dead nasty… Honestly!”

“Son,” said Mr. Longbottom. “That’s enough.”

Neville's clammy hands clawed at the tablecloth. “I’m sorry, Mr. Potter."

Dad was scowling so that the faint wrinkle between his brows sunk deep and slashed a long indentation up his forehead. He shifted his posture and scooted the wooden chair from the table, then, visibly, juddered.

“We don’t speak that name in this house.”

“Right, sir. Of course not.”

The conversation bucked on awkwardly, before rolling back into the ordinary comfort of banality. Harry did not touch his fork again. He faked sick once the Longbottoms departed and insisted he had no time to chat; tonight, Dad would not get his say.

Moonlight layered his room in a dim pearly glow. Cars passings became less and less frequent. By the hour before midnight, there was but a wild owl’s somber calling, curling with the winds.

Harry lay with determined stillness. His injured leg was propped on an inclined slant pillow. The pain subsided when he calmed his body, but, like a robber hiding stealthily in a sincket, a stabbing ache returned, unexpectedly, when his knee shifted even slightly. It was difficult to sleep. Normally, he was so worn by the day’s end, he could plunge into slumber and sleep till dawn. Harry slept heavier than any other boy he knew, so heavily, he was often subject to miserable bouts of sleep paralysis, conscious but unable to move his limbs.

Without his routine—up and out the door for a run in the morning, then on his feet, training, from the moment school let out—Harry struggled to drift. He typed miserably into his phone for the third hour:

I confess:
that mclaggen is a hom*ophobic jerk!

I confess:
mclaggen walks like he’s got a stick up his bum

I confess:
that mclaggen’s neck is the same width as his head which looks absolutely silly

I confess:
that I heard mclaggen talking sh*te abt potter. reckon he piledrived him on purpose?
>yeah! probably since he’s cr*p at football! but oh well right! xD

I confess:
that mclaggen is a bloody liar and no one is trying to have him signed

The release of this frustration was dual edged: the thrill of saying all these things he could not say aloud flexed gloriously in his stomach, but mixed there, a sense of guilt. Harry pressed it down. Cormac McLaggen was a monster! He bullied people for no reason. Went after girls who wanted nothing to do with him. Still, after some time, he was starting to feel pathetic. He browsed the other comments, to make himself feel better. There were a few mentioning him now. He responded cleverly to each of them. (Weirdly, at the start of this forum, Harry’d come across a comment that said something nasty about him, but when he tried to pull it up later, they’d have disappeared. The glitch, however, had since been patched.)

I confess:
harry potty’s got his co*ck in granger’s body
> i heard he nails her up the arse
>> you lot are really sick in the head Dx

Searching for himself had become a morbid addiction. He didn’t ever type his name in a real search engine—it was much too frightening, and Dad had forbidden him from doing so anyway. Here, it felt safer. The worst things people could say were all nonsense anyhow. He allowed himself to indulge one last time before passing out, for good. He typed his name ‘Harry’ and pressed search.

And the most recent post read:

I confess:
tomriddle-potter.rawblr.com. the password is ‘harry.’

✦✦✦

shreddit.com/r/gorefa*g

GOREfa*g’S ASLEEP, POSTING RECEIPTS

So you're about to learn a lot of fun things.

Before I get to the point, let me say a word or two about myself. I’m Seamus. I was brought up in a small town in North Yorkshire which wasn’t really known much by anyone until a boy came along and gave our lives a good stir. You know him as gorefa*g, but to those of us who've know him longest and best, he will always be Mad Tom Riddle.

See, thing is, Mad Tom’s nuts. Bonkers. I think we were about 7 or something going on a Scouts trip when I learned this for real. I was feeling sorry for him, so I asked if he wanted to join me and my mate making our fire. He said yeah and so we all went off to find some firewood.

He said he knew just the place. We reckoned he wasn’t up to nothing nasty. Not with us being so nice, right? Wrong. He got us lost for five hours. Worst part was when he took us into this cave he called “The Chamber of Secrets” where he promised there’d be magical snakes that told us secrets about universe. (Not gonna lie to you, lads, that was about the time I started crying.)

Fast forward 8 years: He’s still a f*cking arsehole nutter.

Couple weeks ago, “someone” made an anonymous forum for people at our school to gossip about others on. I thought it was kind of funny but reckoned it didn’t matter much. Then wouldn’t you know? This Monday at school when the morning announcements were supposed to play, a handful of comments from the forum were read out instead, calling people ugly and fat and all that good stuff. Why do I bring this up? Because the barmy tosser framed me. I was suspended from school for a week and had all my tech privileges taken off.

I decided it was about time to get even. I did some snooping around and with the help of my l33t hacker software and discovered not just one blog Mad Tom’s been running, but two.

https://www.dickspit.rawblr.com

And, I sh*t you not... https://www.tomriddle-potter.rawblr.com (click here to download an archive zip)

Turns out that after all these years, Mad Tom’s still got a thing for peeping on our classmate, Harry. Thats right… “soccer boy.” Same “soccer boy” you lot will remember all too well. I reckon I’ll let you take a look at that for yourself. (The password is… well take a guess. Hint hint. 5 letters. All lowercase.)

Now I know some of you are gonna hate me for this and try to launch death threats (fa*gettes come at me kek). I just think it’s high time someone come and let you all know what Mad Tom’s really like. He’s not cool. He’s a loser twat who eats lunch with a teacher since he has no friends, except for his old nan. Reckon the reason he’s always had a thing for “soccer boy” is that he’s actually popular and liked by everyone… because if Mad Tom sees something good, he has to smear sh*te all over it. Or maybe it’s just because he’s mental and lonely has nothing better to do.

You know what else I want to stress? He doesn’t deserve your pity. He’s been rotten since as long as anyones known him. Worst thing for me personally probably was when he framed my best mate for stealing from the charity drive our teacher put together in primary year 4. Teacher went through our bags and found 300 pounds in my mate's backpack. Months later the truth came out. Turned out Mad Tom did it for the lolzzzzzz.

So now that you know the real gorefa*g, maybe think twice about saying nice things.

And Mad Tom, if you ever get around to reading this, just let me know… how’s that for a “chamber of secrets”?

✦✦✦

By four in the morning, Harry had read every post.

His breath fell in febrile sputters from his swollen lips. Deep inside his stomach, in that untouchable pit where all his nerves brewed and twitched, a rush of chaos, warming him in the toil of the night.

The most recent post was dated on last Monday morning.

tomriddle-potter:
i hope you enjoy the video, my love. you have no idea how badly i wish i could see your face. Before that, thousands upon thousands more.

tomriddle-potter:
what he’s done to you will be neither forgiven nor forgotten. my love, i am so sorry.

tomriddle-potter:
let them die. let them all die. i should be with you now. i hope you like the flowers... a paltry sentiment that means absolutely nothing at all… i could have prevented this. if i had known, my wrath would reign on them until there was nothing but charred bone.

tomriddle-potter:
i cannot wait for the day when i lie you back and do all the things you dream of. it will last all day, all night, until our lungs collapse. the only person on this wretched planet who matters? you, harry.

tomriddle-potter:
the world is meaningless and hopeless. neanderthals pretending to be sentient beings meandering the streets spreading their vile empty thoughts. you alone bring peace to me and yet i can’t even talk with you, i’m forgetting how you sound, wishing i could taste you, every part of you, and hold you when you’re feeling sad.

One year ago.

tomriddle-potter:
at last, i touched you. you didn’t stir an inch. i’m so proud. you know just how i like it. you, lying there. beautiful boy. i couldn’t help myself. first, your cheek. then your hair.

Two years ago.

tomriddle-potter:
sergeant almost caught me. guess he’s getting better since that great promotion. i know he hates me… us… because he doesn’t understand. it’s alright. my dad doesn’t either. just another thing we have in common, my love.

Three years ago. The first post.

tomriddle-potter:
it’s been 3 months since my release. i’ve tried to stop, i really have, but i can’t quit the only thing that’s ever mattered. you. you’ve grown up so much. you’re taller and starting to look fit like a teenager. people always look at me cross because of what i did. i guess i really should feel ashamed, but at that place i could never feel guilty for all that happened… some parts yeah. but not all of it. because i know what i did was wrong, i suppose, but not in the way they all think, because they don’t even know what i was feeling.

With a heavy sigh, Harry abated the heat. Slowly. Slowly. He wanted it to last. These misunderstood feelings, these sinister desires, all these things he can barely reckon with: all mounted to one high, pointed truth.

Tom was his life’s refrain.

There would be spells of time when Harry, distracted, rarely thought about him. Football. Friends. Family. It barely felt real when the news reminded him, when a character on a telly show mentioned that name.

Then strangely, in the dead of night, as he closed his eyes to fall asleep, a rush of adrenalin. Dark brown eyes, a razor sharp smile.

In the hospital, and especially when on the morphine drip, Harry was reminded powerfully of that time. Candy in his veins. A head in the clouds. As Mum’s pitying gaze looked him up-and-down, as Dad squeezed his fists at his side in protective rage. He could almost sink into the past. Could almost hear the cameras. Clicking clicking clicking. Flash! Mummy, when will they leave? I don’t know, darling. I’m so sorry.

The last day Harry spoke to him felt so ordinary. He had no idea it’d be the last day of life, as he knew it. The rift between him and the world, cavernous and eternal. He was not a normal boy. He was a victim. The adults hugged him tighter. The children at school regarded him awkwardly. Ron and Hermione, who knew him so long, so deep, approached him with a newfound delicateness that never quite left their demeanour.

Worst was Dr. McGonagall with her sharp and penetrating scrutiny.

“Everyone thinks I should hate him. But I don’t.”

“That’s very wise of you, Harry. I don’t think hate would be a productive use of your energy. It is, however, natural to feel upset with him. What he did was highly perverse.”

Perverse. When it was dark, when the adrenalin struck, Harry rolled this word round his mouth like a lolly. Over the years, a ritual came to be. He’d open his window. Take off his clothes. Lay in bed, as still as he could be. And as he reached for himself, with his eyes cinched tight, he’d imagine that pretty face looking down.

tomriddle-potter:
it is you who i want, harry. to love you like you deserve to be loved. to lick you from the base of your spine to the curve of your neck. your body is so beautiful, but what i want most, is your soul.

Pleasure ruptured, volcanic; Harry shuddered himself dry and slept.

✦✦✦

Many Years Ago
Studio X, Room B1
Los Angeles, California, USA

-

Studio lights burnt brighter than sun flares. Tom’s senses were radiated in the cancerous gale. His skin was too thin, his stomach too shaky. Nothing Lockhart was saying made any sense. Tom’s lips seemed to move on their own, responding in evolutionary defense—a snake recoiling, bundling scale after scale, forming a knot.

“And did you ever consider how the boy would feel about this? It must be humiliating for him.”

Tom fought the snap that yearned to burst from him. It was Dad in the corner, with that pleading scowl, that reminded him to stay calm.

Back straight. Head high.

“I didn’t expect he’d ever see. I didn’t know what would happen.”

Lockhart nodded. “And have you spoken to him since? Do you know how this has affected him?”

“I haven’t, no. I’m not allowed.”

“Then, if you could speak to him, what would you say? Would you tell him if you had the chance?” Lockhart’s question settled in the silence between them.

Looking back at the recording—his chest aching, his head on fire—Tom would be surprised to find the pause was not so long. The moment, then, had somehow seemed to stretch for hours. An elusive calm he could not grasp: a breath of life so true and whole, his very soul was struck, tolling a high metallic chime reminiscent of spring. Harry with his dirt smudges and his B+ grades and his football- shaped valentines.

Tom knew what he would say.

“I would tell him that I’m sorry for scaring him. And that I didn’t mean him any harm. I chose him because he was the nicest boy in school, and I guess, in a way, that made him an easy target. But it was all just talk. He didn’t deserve to deal with any of that .

“And I hope he can forgive me.”

✦✦✦

Harry startled awake. His hand was beneath the elastic of his pants. He checked the clock and panicked to the tissue box beside his bed.

“Harry,” said Dad from behind the door, knocking. “Time to get up.”

“Naked!” he cried. “Just a second!”

Muffled, Harry could hear Dad say, “Nothing I haven’t seen.”

He ignored it and cleaned himself. The wadded white tissue paper landed beside the black bin—all a blur for Harry. He fished his spectacles from beneath his pillow and took in his first clear view of the morning.

Billy Bremner on vinyl print, mid-kick, black and white. It was a poster tacked above his dresser. Beneath, on the wooden top, a scattering of gold and silver trophies, big and small. A breeze swept in from the gap in his open window. The navy blue curtain tickled with ripples. Harry bent his leg so that the wind snuck through the casting to kiss his swollen black injury. The feeling was fresh and altering; a loud and certain sign of a new frontier.

Dare he say it? “Tom Riddle.” He dared.

And he relished each syllable. It felt illicit and sickening, but in the best, most exhilarating way possible. He brought his hand to the scar on his forehead; it seemed to prickle.

“Tom… Riddle…”

Funny boy, that one. Oddball. Daddy’s boy. Posh twat. Mad child. The Gorefa*g. The horrible joke, the warren of mysteries, the boy who wept when his grandmother told him he could no longer seek wild snakes as friends.

Harry closed his eyes, and, smiling broadly, whispered that forbidden name again.

Chapter 7: Mates?

Chapter Text

Time was without meaning. Sluggishly, bizarrely, the schooldays passed. Tom tried to maintain a steady schedule of distractions. He rode his bike. (Watched him.) Penned code in his notebooks. (Watched him.) Listened in class. Played piano. Scrolled the sharp wheel of his MP3 volume control so that the soundwaves, jarring and ceaseless, spurred a throbbing ache in the base of his ears. Body was alien; real life, as he knew it, was anchored in bright screens, the delicate velvet of letter keys. He had no control over the sun, no say in how its rays reflected off him, into retinas. Information: synthesized and reconfigured, rearranged, projected back.

By Friday morning, Tom was starting to feel very real. He hated it.

“Here we go, Tommy,” said Dad, tipping a pellucid orange bottle into his palm. One bullet-shaped pill fell into the centre, which he extended for Tom. “I’ll be working a bit late tonight, but if all goes well, I’ll be free for the weekend. Thought perhaps we could visit the boats out in Skipton. You used to love that.”

Routine, routine, drudgery. Tom shrugged, tucked the pill beneath his tongue, returned to his room, and went about the standard procedure. Then it was time for school. Hoorah.

The Wycliffe corridors parted to allow him through: him, a precise surgeon, and the collective body peeling open, as flesh cleanly split beneath the scalpel’s sharp edge. Walking onward he saw an aimed mobile camera; backpack straps being fiddled with; gloss-layered lips peeking through fingers, quirked in the slightest frown. He slipped his hand into his pocket and rolled his thumb along the volume wheel. Louder went the beat. I’m now becoming my own self-fulfilled prophecy… Eyes followed his every step, fluttering down when he lifted his head, then, when he looked away, peeping back up in his periphery.

But surely it was all his imagination, this staring... or perhaps it merely felt fresh, but was in fact typical. Yes! A long-ignored commonality deftly swept into some subliminal grottoes. A bulbous pink balloon of gum popped and was slurped back. The girl nudged her friend and the two laughed, laughed, laughed. It was not Tom who aroused this humour, no. Paranoia was the word. He was paranoid.

“RIDDLE!”

He read his name on lezzer Ginny’s mouth from afar. Her head was angled forward as she beelined him.

Okay?

“You disgusting piece of sh*te!”

She shoved Tom’s chest with a force unexpected from such child-sized hands. He faltered back on his right foot, head tilting curiously, yet made no further movement, not even to take out his headphones. (Years spent watching from afar trained him in the subtle art of lipreading.)

“Bloody hell, Riddle. You’ve got a lot of nerve, you know that? Why don’t you do us all a favour, yeah? Drop dead. It’d make the world a lot better off.”

Tom thought that unlikely. He opened his mouth to say as much, and possibly to ask what prompted the outburst. Weasley gave him no chance. She opened her mouth, let out a noise—a scoff? or perhaps a screech?—and stomped away down the hall, her pleated uniform skirt flapping back and forth.

Interest whipped about Tom: lips moving rapidly, fingers pointing and snickering, expressions contorted in ghoulish jesting, so exaggerated, he thought of red-balled noses and wild synthetic curls. Clowns, all of them. Not him. He asked them nothing about the bint’s outburst. Whatever they heard, whatever they thought, none of it mattered. He walked onward again. Time for physics. His next song was playing. Gaga. How fun? She was really something else.

“Love game intuition,

Play the cards with Spades to start

And after he's been hooked,
I'll play the one that's on his heart”

Later he’d forget about this. He’d sit with Nan, bathed in the intimate fragrance of Chanel No. 5, the cosy clink of teaspoon on porcelain. He’d say nothing about good old lezzie, and it'd disappear, like it never happened at all. He needn’t think about her, nor anything else. He simply had to drift as a shell may float the foam, waxing and receding, bobbing up and sinking back.

✦✦✦

Mr. Slughorn discreetly averted his gaze as Tom passed.

In his school account was an unopened email from Seamus Finnigan.

‘TOM RIDDLE’S A LIAR - SEE FOR YOURSELF!’

✦✦✦

A sharp digital pitch rang. Class would begin in fifteen minutes.

The gang lacked only Harry. They stood near an empty classroom, poised with apprehension. Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Luna and Neville, in that order, in a tight-knit circle redolent of a pregame huddle. They were young and they did not yet know that friendship ebbed with age. All of this around them—the heated thrill of crushes, afternoon milkshakes, rumours written on the loo stalls— was fleeting, and though they knew it would pass, they did not know how special it would feel, looking back, when the sights were blurred, but the feelings remained powerfully intact. Years would pass. Everything would change.

And yet, one aspect would not. A lifelong pact was being formed in this moment; a realization that would unfurl as gently as the slow bloom of shaded peony petals.

“We’ve got to kill him.”

“Ginny, come on,” said Hermione. “We need real solutions.”

“Sounds like a solution to me,” Ron grunted.

“I understand quite well that you’re upset, Ronald. We all are. But let’s not forget who the priority is here.”

A hand thrusted into their space, offering a piece of paper. Hermione followed blunt white-tipped nails up to the face of Pansy Parkinson.

“What’s this?” Ginny asked as she snapped the sheet from Parkinson’s hand. Her eyes darted down it and she groaned. “Oh, now for the love of—”

“Dean asked me to hand them out,” said Parkinson. She spoke in a treacly, cruel manner, as an American valley girl on a sitcom, and wore excesses of foundation over her flat, pouty mug. “Ickle Finnigan didn’t want anyone to miss out on the fun. And don’t let the teachers know! We’re trying to see how long before Mad Tom realizes. Ta!”

A wink, and Parkinson was gone across the way, handing out to copies to a duo of underclassmen girls.

Ginny balled the paper and shoved it into her backpack. “Don't bother. It’s a printout of some of Riddle’s tripe. Barmy bitch! As if Harry needs this rot getting spread out further.”

“We’ve got to get a hold of him,” said Hermione urgently. “I know he’s not picking up, but maybe his dad. You’ve got his number, right, Ron?”

“Uh, yeah,” Ron responded. He looked down to the tile and squeaked his trainer. “Maybe it’s still in my call log… think my mobile hasn’t got a charge though. What about you, Neville? Your dads work together, yeah? You’d be able to get through quicker than I could.”

“Me?” yelped Neville. “I-I can’t! Mr. Potter is going to freak when he finds this out. He’s likely to kill Mad Tom on the spot.”

“Come on. He will not,” said Hermione with a roll of her eyes.

“Dunno,” Ron said, scratching distractedly at his neck, a sharp elbow arched high above his head. “Mr. Potter’s a great man and all… but he really, really, really hates Mad Tom. Probably worse than all of us combined.”

Ginny barked one sharp laugh of disbelief.

“No, seriously,” said Neville gravely. “Mr. Potter goes mental when it’s about Mad Tom. You lot have no idea how bad things were after the swatting.”

“Mental how?” Hermione inquired. She trusted that Neville spoke the truth, but she had lived through those times too, and she never once saw Mr. Potter lose his cool.

“I was never supposed to mention this, but…” Neville looked around confidentially, his voice draining faint. “Officer Moody considered putting him on indefinite leave, back then.

“Like, he tried to have Thomas Riddle indicted for fraud without evidence, for one. Then there was Mad Tom’s sentencing. Mr. Potter got to give a statement to the judge, victim’s impact or something. I wasn’t there, but Dad was… Said Mr. Potter started off all calm, stating the facts, saying the data showed Mad Tom was really likely to commit another crime or whatever… At some point, though, he just broke down. Started screaming like he was being attacked… just screaming at Mad Tom, calling him names, begging the judge to lock him up.”

“Well, looks like he was right, eh?” Ginny said. “Mad Tom did do it again. Except, this time, he’s not a little boy. He’s a full-blown pervert.”

Inside Hermione’s breast pocket was a vibration. She pulled out her mobile and read the screen aloud: “It’s Harry. He says he’ll be at physical therapy until half past noon.” Another buzz; Hermione frowned. “He… he said he’s got the Tom Riddle thing covered, and not to bother with it for now.”

Stillness settled upon them in the moment before the bell.

Luna, who had spent the discussion gazing off, as if lost to the world, inclined her neck and look between each of them. Her slate grey eyes were round and wide, like two full moons, with speckles of white which were apparent only when she was very near, glimmering with unexpected wisdom.

“I think we should listen to Harry. Maybe he knows something we don’t.”

“Yeah,” said Ginny skeptically. She dropped her arm over Luna’s shoulder, loftily, then reached around and patted her cheek, as a mother may touch her child. “Or maybe he just wants to be the one to finally beat some sense into Mad Tom.”

✦✦✦

Tom couldn’t quite shake the feeling that something was seriously off.

In his physics class, when he stepped foot inside, the room quietened with a foreboding suddenness. Tom assumed, logically, that this was due to Strawberry Shortcake’s outburst, and busied himself with his journaling.

The possibility that the twins had leaked his video did seem feasible. Somewhat. But if that were the case, Sergeant Potter would’ve come oinking at his door in the morn, that favourite toy of his dangling ready. Clink clink clink. Yes, thought Tom, squirming in his desk: Potter would have already put Tom in his place... Officer Potter, what are you doing here? Short thick fingers, gripping him at the scalp, yanking back the tender flesh, his cheek striking the doorframe with a vicious kick… You’re dead, Riddle. I’ll kill you… That hot breath on his ear, ripening his fruits…. The face which looked as Harry’s would when these years were distant and comically unfamiliar. When Harry would say, Why didn’t you tell me sooner? I was waiting for you all that time.

This illicit scenario became an hourlong hiding spot; Tom didn’t look up once in physics, nor in maths, nor in the corridors between. Mr. Slughorn seemed content with the silence when Tom returned from his illusory loo meeting with Officer James Potter.

Actually, he hadn’t said one word to Tom in half an hour. How odd. “Sir?”

Mr. Slughorn froze with his fork midway to his mouth. The creamed lettuce leaf fell limply into the bowl again. He lowered the utensil and cleared his throat. “Er. Yes, my boy?

“Don’t you think it was unfair of Headmaster Dumbledore to cancel Casual Friday? One student’s behaviour does not reflect on the rest of us, I think.”

“Uh, well—” Mr. Slughorn coughed. The clear and verbal sound was clearly forced. “Yes, it is a very military approach… Militaristic indeed…”

Mr. Slughorn stuffed his mouth with a forkful and swivelled in his chair to the desktop, stressed wheels squeaking beneath him. What the hell? This day was really sh*te. Tom turned his eyes back to his journal and continued on line 5038:

*/
setLayout(new BorderLayout());
Label label = new Label("Name");

The bell dismissed him from Mr. Slughorn’s presence, at long last. Though Tom’s relief was short- lived; it was time for Phys Ed. Why not take it slow? There was no rush. He changed in a loo stall and indulged James Potter a second time… Ran his fictive tongue down the shaft… Grazed fingertips over the smooth surface of his black canvas belt… Senses numbed, bobbing and gagging… So good, too good…

He came, then also came to his senses with a wince.

What a shameful pipedream it was. Tom could not say why his mind occasionally shifted to the elder Potter. It was a rare but fitful fantasy, deeply burrowed until so ravenous, it clawed itself a fresh new life: a short love affair apart from his dearly beloved.

Tom folded his standard uniform and pulled on the horrible gym shorts, double rolling the waistline until the bottom seam hung a few inches beneath his fingertips. (He didn’t care what the neanderthals thought. This was very fashionable.)

The others were at the field when Tom bothered to peak through the propped door at the end of the sports corridor. They all looked alike from this distance. He may as well have been peering down at an anthill, each black arthropod minuscule and indistinct. All the same, except for him; his.

Harry crutched the curve of the track in a flank between Fatty, Bucktooth, and Carrot-top. Only in this distant vantage could Tom appreciate fully how well he’d grown over the summer. Weasley remained the tallest of their little posse, but Harry’s limbs were growing firm and long. Even from here, Tom could see the flex of his barrelled thigh, bulging with the brunt of his weight as he lifted his crutches, step by step.

Tom flicked on his MP3 and made for the track. Perhaps today he’d avoid confrontation. Walking wasn’t so bad, really. He sauntered a straight line over the damp grass, his unfocused gaze in line with Harry’s back. The periphery—uglies facing toward him, stalling to stare—was but an unpleasant but negligible backdrop.

His thumbnail clipped the plastic MP3 button. He needed something fast. Something loud and happy. Overproduced beats washed and flashed. He faded back; watched some more. The fabric of Harry’s shirt suffered a starchy crease at the shoulder line, perhaps having been left in the basket too long after a drying cycle. Tom imagined running his hands along the surface, flattening the shirt, but also, soothing the muscles with kneading motion, for hours on end.

Tom willed his eyes to stay there, on Harry. But something was going on, and it was hard to keep his focus.

At the next curve of the track, a knot of students were assembled, wound around in a circle like they were staring at something. Harry and his friends paused at the exterior ring and stared into the throng, which grew as students paused to join in (mostly laughing, laughing, laughing). Tom stalled for as long as he could—trying to stay behind, to keep Harry in his view—but ultimately acquiesced to the flow of traffic. As he passed the students he did not look; he did not care.

Then an unwelcome touch met his shoulder. Tom jerked instinctively and turned about, straightening his back in defensive posture.

But staring at him was someone who posed no threat at all. A gangly boy in the year below Tom was pointing at the crowd. His lips read: “They’re talking about you.”

Very nonchalantly, Tom nodded and removed his earpieces.

Cormac McLaggen was hidden behind the others, but his carrying voice rose boisterous and exuberant.

“—paltry sentiment that means absolutely nothing at all!” he declared, affecting his speech in a mockery of rounded posh quirks. “I could have prevented this! If I had known, my wrath would reign on them until there was nothing but charred bone!”

Tom’s mouth dropped.

Time suspended before him; the field melting to a formless green, watercolour smeared in a vicious blur, his synaptic transmission, interrupted. Primal waters flushed reason from the shapes and colours, and in this foreboding nothingness, was a constant sound: the hollow echo of blood thumping.

When Tom came to his senses, his flesh prickled. This was not a dream. This was happening.

Bearing a calm air that did not betray him, Tom slunk between two cackling girls and into the students. The rest shuffled their dirty trainers back and cawed with fervour: “Look, it’s him!” and “Oh my god!” and “Fight!”

Cormac stood with his broad shoulders reared—one hand on his clenched stomach, the other holding the mobile from which he read. He raised his eyes from the screen and popped up his brows with deliberate surprise.

“Oi! The man of the hour! Let’s hear it fo—”

“May I have a look?” Tom asked.

Before Cormac could say no, Tom snatched the phone from his grip and caught glimpse of the screen just long enough to see the white background, the black sans-serif font.

His private world, wrenched open. Raped.

There was no civility left to salvage when Cormac’s broad-palmed hand stretched and slapped in search of the mobile. The mask of sanity had slipped; and gorefa*g smiled eagerly.

He wound back his hand and pitched the mobile into Cormac’s unguarded face. The corner smashed against his lip, and the skin split red, swelling upon impact. Abandoning, too, his human restraint, Cormac growled in hyenic craze and drove his fist into Tom’s cheek. Tom stumbled back, unfeeling and undeterred, and in the same beat, he swung his elbow against the soft column of Cormac’s neck. A strained gasp, air through a tight hole. Sputtering, coughing, Cormac shoved wildly at Tom, who shoved him back in turn, and again and again, until they were a mess of hasty kicks and slaps and punches.

They were not evenly matched in physique. If narrowly shorter, Cormac was a stout and stalwart, his brawn an evident advantage as, at last, he seized Tom’s thin wrists, bringing the chaos to stalemate.

“YEAH, LADS! LET’S GO!”

“OH MY GOD!”

They were mired in place by Tom’s stubbornness. Tom did not resist as Cormac cinched tighter and tighter, seeking surrender. To pull in vain would be an ineloquent gesture. Instead, Tom swung his knee in one snap move, nailing into Cormac’s groin. Cormac released, reeled back. There wasn’t a moment to waste. Tom flicked his wrists and lunged forward: the boulder levied by a bowing catapult, released at once, full force.

They landed to the ground with a brief black shake. Tom’s vied in delirium to pin Cormac's shoulders, but his chest was seizing, hiccupping for oxygen. Cormac twisted his hips and jerked up

—clawing madly until he grabbed Tom’s forearms, turning about, pinning him instead.

The small, deep-set eyes of Cormac, striped with manic red veins, squinted into Tom’s vacant stare. I win, they seemed to say. I win. I win. I win. Cormac brought the back of his knuckles down in three successive smacks. Blood spouted from Tom’s nose; rosy welts expanded over his wan complexion, blackening in patches. Coming to the moment, realizing what he’d done, Cormac inhaled a dusty, croaky breath, and took stock. Mad Tom’s bony hands lay motionless at his sides and his eyes were clenched tight. Over the roaring applause, he could hear coach screaming in the distance.

“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?”

“sh*te,” spat Cormac, shifting his weight to rise.

As he did, however, Tom shot up, and too quickly for Cormac to counter, he clawed a long finger into his left eye socket, sliding in at the corner, slickly and effortlessly. Panic struck Cormac so that he faltered, and with a heavy thud, he fell back onto the grass. Tom followed him down, sinking his finger in deeper. Screaming freely, Cormac wrenched Tom’s offending hand and twisted, twisted

—yanked—and as he did, a sharp throb panged into his neck.

Cormac blinked, wriggled. Pressed against his cheek was Tom’s ruined face. And warmly, freely, something dripped down his collarbone, a horrible tickling trickle...

“Oh, my f*cking, f*ck, f*ck—”

Without control, without concern, Tom clenched his jaw and gnawed his teeth into the supple meat at the crook of Cormac’s neck. The skin tore easily, haemorrhaging a cool metallic flood that Tom sucked, vampiric and indifferent to the unnaturally trill shrieking of a yielding Cormac McLaggen. Someone clutched Tom round the waist; he did not relent. His teeth were sunk in as a wormed hook pierced and curled through fish lips.

“RIDDLE! RIDDLE! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, RIDDLE!”

A hand found Tom’s hair and tugged, and Cormac’s screech hit a sharper pitch. Then the hand—or another, perhaps—muzzled his jaw and jerked hard, and the arms around his waist threw his weight into air.

He stumbled on his feet, feeling disoriented and vertiginous, as if he’d been spun round and round. The fuzzy conversation stirring around him slowly converted into discernible English.

“Madness. Absolute madness.”

“Guess it’s back to juvie, eh?”

“Didn’t think you’d pull through.”

“Oi,” said Dean Thomas. His camera phone was directed at Tom. “Reckon this’ll be the last we see of you for a while, eh, gorefa*g?”

The name jarred Tom as no fist could. He blinked, looked straight into the camera. He meant to speak but was distracted. Something slippery and foreign was in his mouth. He rolled back his head and spit it to the ground in one dry hock.

A piece of Cormac’s flesh had come loose and now lay on the grass. Tom couldn’t help himself; he laughed.

Stalker. fa*ggot. Psycho. And now: Cannibal.

Dean’s camera was trained on him, zooming in, to the lips, where blood trickled; to the white teeth, where he ran a curious tongue over the watery copper feel.

The moment this image hit the web, there would be no denying it. Gorefa*g was very much alive.

✦✦✦

“Right this way, Mr. Riddle.”

Albus Dumbledore, a slim-bodied elderly man, stood propping his office door. He was a poncy gentleman sort, an Oxford spun barrister. Rumor was—according to Mother—he’d been a political upstart, burnt out before his prime. The details escaped Thomas.

“Be aware,” said Dumbledore, “the nurse shall escort Tom here within the next few minutes. The others are already inside.”

“Thank you, Headmaster.”

The others, Thomas learned, entering the office, feeling softly dazed, were the halfwit Brent McLaggen (whom he’d attended primary with) and his burly child. Conrad, was it? Brent’s broad mass prevented Thomas from seeing the child’s face, though—unnervingly—he held white gauze to his neck. Glancing over his shoulder, catching Thomas’s eye, Brent rolled his eyes with a whiff of apathy, holding some tacit sentiment like: ‘Boys will be boys, right?’

Unsure of what yet to feel, Thomas nodded curtly and took the empty seat beside him (black-backed,

metallic legged, clearly dragged in from elsewhere).

“Headmaster? You said my Tom’s requiring a nurse escort? I was told this was a courtyard scuffle.”

“Ah, but to ensure he does not run off,” Dumbledore explained. He sat now with his hands folded atop the desk. “It is very much his style, if I recall correctly. But we needn’t dwell on the past. Is your mother well, Thomas?”

“Quite,” Thomas said, ill at ease, his index tapping the cold metal undergirding his chair. “Though not for long, I imagine. She and Tom are very close, you know.”

A choked noise came from the furthest chair: Conrad’s amused snort.

Dumbledore made an indignant grandfatherly frown, his fine sparse brows curling in an accordion of wrinkles. “We are to remain civil, I hope.”

“Yes, well. Might I be briefed before—” Thomas cleared his throat, irascibly adjusting his tie. “Before the proceeding, shall we call it?”

“Well, as it were,” Dumbledore began, pressing half-moon spectacles up a long, crooked nose, “a coach did illuminate the nature of your sons’ quarrel. It was, in his opinion, and ongoing feud he rather expected to brew over eventually, I fear. Am I not wrong to say, Cormac, that it is a tale as old as time? That you perhaps took special issue with Mr. Riddle, as a matter of principle?”

“I don’t know tha’b means,” said Cormac, rising into his full posture, into the light. Thomas— realizing all too well what Dumbledore implied—felt his nostrils flare and his gut clench, and was pleased to take inventory of the damage: one shockingly bloodshot eye, a plump busted lip, darkening contusions, fresh blood seeping into the gauze.

“So,” said Thomas bluntly, “you’re telling me my son has been bullied beneath the nose of your administration, and it took violent escalation for anyone to bother contacting me?”

“He hathn’t been bullied!” sneered Cormac. “He’th a bloody creep!”

“Cormac, cool it,” said Brent, sounding rather blasé.

“Hone’thly!”

Dumbledore raised a hand. “We shall review all sides as soon as Tom joins us.”

“He’th the one who’th gonna be in tw’ouble! Not me!”

“We shall—”

“Headmaster,” Thomas cut in, “have you seen my son recently? I don’t think he weighs eleven stone, sopping wet. Do you really think he’d posed a threat to this child? This child?”

“Chh!” hissed Cormac. “I dunno. Why not a’thk Harry Podder?”

Rage sparked suddenly at the mention of that name; static filling the room, raising hairs. "Please," said Thomas. "That has nothing to do with this."

“Oh, but I think it do’th."

Thomas was barely repressing the urge to retaliate when:

Knock. Knock. Knock.

“May we come in?” said a female voice. “Yes, yes,” said Dumbledore. “Please do.”

There was a beat of silence. Then the door eased in, ominously slow, drab corridor lighting slicing a line over the kilim rug. The nurse stepped in. Her brows were hiked high, a pinch annoyed. “He’ll need to be monitored for a concussion, but all else seems to be in order.”

Dumbledore nodded. “Thank you, Miss Pompfrey. Mr. Riddle? Would you like to have a seat?”

Characteristic silence preceded a sluggish patter of steps. When at last he saw his son, Thomas choked.

“Tommy! Christ!”

Tom’s face—his beautiful face!—was badly bruised on either side, the left cheek blunt with three fanning blue waves, the other bright red at the curve of his high cheekbone. The tell-tale spacing of long thin bruises down his arms—fingerprints, no doubt—forced Thomas to blink, repetitively and dumbly, injected with myriad scenarios of Tom running, screaming, clawing himself away, being pulled back.

As Thomas turned about to scream, to condemn the McLaggen child, he was stopped cold by the smug young glower.

“Come on, Mi’thter Riddle-Podder. Don’thu want to tell Daddy about the blog?”

✦✦✦

“Sirius? Sirius? Are you there? Answer me!”

“Yeah, mate. I’m here. What’s wrong? Has something happened?”

“No time to explain! I mean, I don’t know myself. But something’s happened, something’s gone wrong. I’ve been called in by Dumbledore. He said it’s something to do with… with the menace! With You-Know-Who!”

“What? Little Riddle? f*ck’s sake. Is Harry alright?”

“Yeah, yeah. Harry’s alright. Hasn’t been hurt. Not yet, at least. Point is, I need you to get to the Riddle House and try to get in there. The grandmother, old thing, she won’t know better, she’ll let you in!”

“Right. Well, look, mate. I’ll head out that way, but you’re not making any sense.”

“We just need to get in there—fast! A search warrant will take too long. Please, Sirius. I’m begging you. Please.”

“I’m on it. I’m on it. Got any ideas for what I should tell her? Mary Riddle's not exactly some dumb old bird, you know."

“I-I don’t know! sh*te, Sirius. Just get in there! Whatever it takes! We haven’t got much time!”

✦✦✦

When James arrived at Wycliffe, there was no further word for him, other than to wait outside Dumbledore’s office. Around him stirred office sounds—the mechanical whir of a copying machine, file drawers zooming out. He tapped his hand impatiently on the secretary’s desk.

“Dad?”

“Harry!”

Harry stood in the empty doorframe, crutches beneath either arm. With a disorienting lack of purpose, James rushed forward and patted Harry, from his cheeks to his waist, taking inventory of the unmarred flesh, ensuring—subconsciously, perhaps—that he was really here, in all pieces, the same perfectly healthy son he dropped off hours ago. James ran a last inspective gaze down the white knuckles, seeing no bruises, no sign of trauma.

“Harry.” The name melted out of his mouth. James wound his arms about Harry’s neck, nuzzled his nose into the coarse hair. “My boy.”

“Oi, Dad,” Harry grumbled, wriggling back a step. “I’m fine, alright? Honestly. This is embarrassing.”

From the next room, a muffled voice broke through. “Thomas Riddle. You stay here, alright champ?”

“Dad, plea—”

“Harry, dear. Shh.”

James edged closer to Dumbledore’s with a stealthy, steady tread befitting his uniform. The words took clearer form with each gentle step.

“…think…discrimination…sued for all your worth!”

James gnashed his teeth and glanced about. No one was watching (save for Harry, who, he distantly noticed, was glaring disapprovingly). James made eye contact and brought one finger to his lips, to hush him, and eased his ear against the wood.

“If your administration would like to investigate matters fully, then please, do so. My son will comply. But I will not stand for this flagrant gesture of authority. This country has laws in place to protect students like my son, and if you don’t—”

“Dad, come on,” whispered Harry, crutching just behind James, tugging at his rolled sleeve cuff. “People can see you.”

“I am an officer of the law, Harry. I’m well within my rights to listen.”

“Well, you look like a bloody psycho!”

As father and son feuded in hushed, whispery breaths, James standing with two solidly planted feet and Harry, imbalanced, nudging him with crutch and foot, the meeting inside was rounding to a

close, evident in the absence of conversation, the scuffle of furniture feet over stiff cut pile carpet. James noticed just as the metal level knob travelled downward. He pressed his shoulder into Harry and lifted halfway. Harry's cast and trainers and crutches skidded over the floor as James dragged him to the sharp-cut corner at the side of the office.

“Christ almighty,” said Thomas Riddle, a hand wrapped around his son’s bicep, ushering him around the secretary’s desk. His other hand held a black binder. “I’m speechless, Tom. Absolutely speechless.”

“Are you? Because you seem to be talking.”

Thomas, coming to a halt, tugged Tom by his arm and leaned in. His teeth were barred; his brows wrinkled in. Their ever-obvious resemblance, if soft in Tom’s boyhood, was so stark today, an eerie déjà vu fell over James, two decades delicately fleeting from his grasp. Except, to his knowledge, Thomas Riddle never got the sh*te beaten out of him. And Tom, staring at his father with a stiff, obstinate frown, was swollen and blotched with black-purpling pulp. If it were any other child, James may have winced.

“You will keep your mouth shut until we’re home,” said Thomas. He glanced down and made a face of disapproval. “And please, for the love of god, fix your shorts.”

In the next breath, Thomas was marching off, attempting to drag his son in tow. Tom, however, pulled free his arm and wrenched his waistband, pulling the elastic higher so that the loose hem rose high up his long bare leg.

The bolt of a door clicked; a timer dinged; a young woman walked briskly past, flipping distractedly through pages on a cork clipboard. James snapped from his trance and brought his hand around the back of Harry’s neck. “Freaks. The both of them.”

✦✦✦

On a cylinder phonograph, the tinny crooning of Fréhel:

"Il est au bal musette

Un air rempli de douceur Qui fait tourner les têtes Qui fait chavirer les curs

Tandis qu'on glisse à petit* pas Serrant celle qu'on aime dans ses bras Tout bas l'on dit dans un frisson

En écoutant jouer l'accordéon."

Though Mary Riddle had intended to be out by noon, her brunch date with Druella Black was cancelled, last minute, and in the unexpected idle hours, she was swept away by an ad hoc project.

It was a happy accident; she’d taken Le Rouge et le Noir from the shelf, intent on a light-eyed perusal, but upon opening the front cover, a half dozen loose square photographs fluttered to the carpet. Polaroids! Long misplaced, taken some nine years ago. She gathered them—her blue eyes soft, a lip curling fondly—and laid them in queue on the Breakfast Room table.

There were two sets: recital photographs of Tommy, tailored into Thomas’s old penguin suit; and their (mostly miserable) trip to Saint-Tropez, summarized by a shot of Tom—skinny and pale in a drawstring swimming costume—nursing a jellyfish sting beneath a parasol.

Mary searched the shelves, one book at a time, finding no photographs, but trash of memories past: a faded lime-green cinema ticket to The Princess Diaries, a napkin with indecipherable scribbles, an old Hangleton Zoo guide with Tommy’s steady hand having drawn a direct route to the reptile house in red crayon. ‘You see, Nan—' Mary remembered him saying—‘this way, we don’t have to pass the foul horsy animals, and we run a very low risk of encountering the little ones coming out of the petting area.’

Mary was halfway through Thomas’s Italian titles when the chime doorbell sounded. She secured the books, padded through the manor, and pressed her eye to the peephole. There was a man in uniform

—Druella’s nephew, as it were—standing in warped tunnel view.

A cool wind pressed over her as she cracked open the door, stepping out, halfway. A police vehicle was misaligned in the tire-blanched gravel, the driver’s door left open.

“Hello, Sirius,” said Mary. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Constable Black smiled with foul, perfunctory amiability, his chequered bowler’s cap parked askew atop his head. “Good day, Mrs. Riddle. Come to have a word, if that’s alright with you.”

“Certainly.”

He pointed his chin suggestively at the crack in the door. “Inside’s maybe better, yeah?”

“Has there been an accident?”

“Er, well—”

His eyes held a disinterested gloss, a devil-may-care attitude; it’d been the same when he young, with his cool beatnik sort of affect. Black leather jackets with studs at the shoulder; a casual thumb- pinching hold of rolled cigarettes as he ambled sedately through town with that myopic jackass, Potter. Now—while handsome for forty-something, with angled cheeks, a kind smile—Constable Black lacked that spritely panache, his curious smile faded, as if he’d resigned to the common fate with a sigh and a shrug.

“No, not exactly,” he said at last, scratching his boot heel against the stoop. “More like a, uh. Dunno. A tip? I was asked to come see if you’d let me have a look around.”

“I see,” Mary said, gaze drifting off to the entry road. The grey family coupe was on its way up the hill. Two shadowy heads vacillated in view through the windshield. “Hmm. Yes. I do hope you’ll forgive me, Sirius, but I fear I cannot allow visitors on such short notice today.”

“I understand, Mrs. Riddle, but I was hoping, uh…”

A grousing bawl from the coupe’s engine turned their attention. Thomas whizzed the slope in a rapid kick of gravel plumes, cutting sharp at the crest and parking in the virgin green lawn.

Mary retreated back and watched them then with dreamlike aloofness. Thomas, slamming his car door and shouting (“COME BACK WHEN YOU HAVE A WARRANT!”); Constable Black spitting to the ground, hauling back into his car, pulling a handheld receiver from the clip of his belt; and last, bobbing out of the passenger side, a perverse sight she could scarcely make sense of before a tremulous buckle shook loose her knees.

✦✦✦

“What did you think was going to happen, Tom? That you wouldn’t get caught? That no one would notice? What was it? What did you think?”

Chin tucked to his collar, Tom did not acknowledge the question as Dad paced a manic back-and- forth. The binder Dumbledore supplied was tucked beneath Dad’s right elbow; he kept his eyes there, on the billion white pages sandwiched between thin black plastic. Beat by throbbing beat, his blood pounded a merciless rhythm. Tom swayed a little. His equilibrium was off-kilter. Both adrenalin and paracetamol were cruelly fading, and the sore pain was burning anew, his facial muscles twitching, searing with the pulse.

“Or are you saving your testimony for later?”

Cross-legged on the foyer chaise, holding her chin, Nan stared contemplatively out the high-arch window. Tom willed her to look at him—to make him feel less small, less powerless—but bearing the palpable gloom of her dismay, he knew he was in over his head. There’d be no defence, no interruption.

He finally spoke.

“I haven’t broken the law. They can’t arrest me.”

“You think not?” Dad opened the binder and turned directly to Tom. He resembled a choir boy with the sharp-shouldered black suit. Tom’s stomach lurched.

“Don’t read it!”

Dad shrugged in a horrible, taunting gesture, and pouted out his bottom lip. “Why not? I though that’s what you wanted. For people to see how funny you are.”

The ringing in Tom’s ears reached a sharper pitch; a convoluted desperation was twisting in his gut, tempting him to explain himself in the worst way possible.

“You don’t understand. It wasn’t like that.”

“Wasn’t like what, exactly?”

“It wasn’t—”

Tom thought he might vomit. He swallowed a thick, dry knot, and wiped absently at his cheek. The sudden cool of his hands on the flesh—scorching, aching—disrupted his equilibrium in a nauseous wave akin to the ringing pangs of a stomach flu. If only that were it… lying in bed… tea with a straw… salty soups with crackers sprinkled on top…

Instead, he was looking the void in the eye, with no excuse, no escape. “I don’t know,” he said. “Not like that.”

With an abrupt, windy snap, Dad shut the binder. “God damnit, Tom. If you can’t talk to me, then how do you expect to explain yourself to Potter?”

“Potter,” Nan repeated suddenly, snapping out of her quiet daze, it seemed, with newfound comprehension. “Yes. Constable Black was here. He’s a good friend of Potter’s. He must have sent him.”

“Of course Potter sent him,” said Dad. “He was trying to beat us here.”

“Potter…?” asked Tom.

The name made Tom feel clueless and out-of-touch, like a schoolchild awaiting an answer to an obvious question.

“That’s right, Tom,” Dad said, nodding slowly, sarcastically. “Potter. James Potter. You might have met. I expect he’s acquiring for the warrant as we speak. You know, of all the boys you could’ve chosen to pick on, I wonder: Why an officer’s child?”

Tom lifted his head; it was a slow movement, his eyes tensing with the crinkle of his nose. Dad had one hand curled around his belt, the other wagging the binder with a dismissive motion, as if he were holding a bad report card, his frown a vacant glare of disappointment. He did not understand. He did not understand. He did not understand.

“Pick on?”

“Yes, pick on,” Dad said again. “Tease. Torture. Humiliate.”

“That’s not it!”

“Oh, Christ! Just come clean, Tom! Has the Potter boy been having a go at you? Is that why you’ve done this?”

“What? No!”

The suggestion alarmed Tom. Punched the oxygen in his chest to his gut; it hurt. He was forgetting, quickly, what his aim was in this conversation, what he had to gain from secrecy when Dad—the bastard! dumb, stupid f*cking bastard! old, wrinkled tosser with no life, no talents, no purpose, nothing!—misunderstood everything about him!

“Then what was your aim, Tom? Scared the fame was going away? Wanted to make a comeback?”

Tom jerked once with a great, violent convulsion. He blinked rapidly, gawping, trying to think… think… His throat cinched tightly, lungs crumpling in on themselves, traitorously. He couldn’t breathe. The world was sick; he was sick. His fingers curled around the collar of his shirt and stretched its fabric taut. Then—bending at the stomach, postured as a question mark—he managed to complete a full breath in long, laboured inhalations. Dad, watching him, made a disgusted face and rolled his eyes.

He didn’t understand. “Act right, Tom.”

“Idiot! Bloody idiot!” Tom spat. “Don’t you get it? Can’t you work it out? Nobody was supposed to see it!”

“Right,” he said smugly. “If no one was supposed to see it, then how was it found? I know you didn’t get hacked. All your talk about that, that—” He waved his hand and puckered his lips. “That technology stuff, I mean. I’m not an idiot, Tom. I know you must’ve planned for this. What I want to know is why.”

“I was hacked! God! Weren’t you paying attention to what that f*cker McLaggen said? Seamus Finnigan found it! He wanted revenge!”

Dad sighed: it was an unmistakable sound of certainty, confirmed further by his impatient head bobbling. He still did not understand! “I get it, Tom. He found you out. Fine. But what were you doing spreading this muck anyway.” He shook the black binder demonstratively. “Who were you writing all this for?”

The variegated glass of a carafe hit the tile, slitting in two at the neck, a loud shatter; Tom opened his eyes and realized, with a heavy inhale, that the side of his hand throbbed, and Dad and Nan were staring at him, wide-eyed.

“Tom Riddle!”

“I’ll clean it up,” said Nan suddenly, dropping into a squat and gathering the broken pieces. “You need to start preparing, Tommy. Potter will come. Of that, I’m sure.”

“You,” Dad said, pointing at Tom with the binder, his bottom lip stiffening. “You better cut this sh*te out.” He turned to Nan: “You think they’ll strip the house?”

“I certainly think they’ll try.”

Tom brought his hands to his temples; the ache continued, but with an uncomfortable numbing after burn that rendered him hazy. What the f*ck was going on?

“But they can’t. It’s just a blog. I haven’t broken the law.”

“It’s called reasonable cause, Tom—sss! Heaven’s sake.” Nan drew her thumb to her lips and suckled clean a driblet of blood.

"Nan!"

“It’s fine, Tommy. Little more than a surface graze. Never mind it. You need to get changed. I imagine they’ll pursue an interrogation.”

Tom glanced down. He was still in the Phys Ed uniform… stained… still filthy with coagulated blood along the tender nail beds… the taste of Cormac’s flesh still on his tongue, somehow. He brought a shaking hand to his chest. His heart was sprinting.

“And what will you tell them, Tom?” asked Dad. He tossed the binder with a careless thrust. It landed by Tom’s left trainer with a pathetic whap. “What will you tell them, ey?”

Possessed—this word was inadequate, but how else could Tom later rationalize why the words came out, as they did?

“I love him.”

The silence was immediate; half-rising from the ground, cerulean-pink-russet shards in her hands, Nan stilled as a deer in the crosshairs, and Dad, twitching in his left eye, flit his tongue to the corner of his mouth.

There was no going back now. “You what?”

“You heard me.”

“Son, please. Don’t say that.”

The condescending quality in Dad’s demeanour had washed off. The gaze was no longer stern, but pleading, with faintly parted lips. Hands that had been rooted to his hips rose between them, gesturing in truce: don’t do something you might regret.

“Would you prefer I lie to you? Would that suit you? Is that what you want?”

“Tom… I don’t…”

“Tommy, my love,” Nan cut in. Her voice was a gentle whisper amid the tension. Facing the window, she stood rigid in her ikat shift gown, her sleek low-bun limned by the sun’s intrusive shine. Calmly, she brought a hand to the tilt wand and twisted, shuttering the blinds to a close. “They’re coming.”

“What?”

“So soon?” said Dad. “sh*te. We need to get this all cleaned up.” He was bending over to gather the remaining shards, muttering something unintelligibly quiet beneath his breath, when he rose and revolved on his feet, finding Tom’s eyes with his own piercing gaze. “The box.”

“The box?”

Dad released his fingers; the carafe pieces slipped all at once, hitting the floor in decisive, resounding

clinks. “The box, Tommy. Hiding in your wardrobe.”

Christ!

“How do you know about that? Have you looked in it?!”

“No,” Dad said. With his foot, he swept the broken glass pieces to rest at the moulding. “I wanted to respect your privacy. I thought I was being a good father. Only now do I realize that was a mistake.”

“Dad, you don’t—"

“Mother?” Dad continued, sounding as he did when it was time for the adults to chat. “Can you keep them distracted? I’ll be at the vault. And Tommy, please…” Dad was wincing when he regarded him: a million words on the tip of his tongue, a stark blue vein throbbing at the dent of his temple. “Please, son. Go out the back route, to the woods. Have yourself a walk. And when the officers pull up to have a chat with you? PIease, Tom. I’m begging you… don’t you dare…. don’t you dare repeat to them what you’ve told me.

"Am I understood?"

✦✦✦

From the graveyard, Harry could see three angles of the Riddle House. Their crescent hill rose high in the steel-skied horizon, giving the manor—simple, straight-edged, unornamented—a haunted look, as it was, with three blinking police cars parked pell-mell around a Lexus coupe. If Dad had known Harry was down here, watching, he would’ve freaked. Without Sirius, Harry would still be at the Constabulary, on Dad’s strict orders (though all he had to say, was what he told Dad first: ‘I don’t know anything!’).

Pacing about, aimless, Harry was careful to apply minimum pressure to his crutches, for with each

hard press, the greyish mud slurped, pulling his plastic stoppers into the dismal death sludge.

Further out, in the cemetery’s centre, the ground was firm, the grass clover-green; it was the oldest section, where he would one day be buried. Mounted on great cement slabs was the Potter shrine: a tiny tabernacle of worn slate blocks, inscribed with his ancestors, back to some boring old century. Harry stayed at the outskirts, among the borne Celtic stone, where the names were moulded over and faded, where no relative was left to lay flowers or scrub off the grunge.

On the far side of the hill, a dark shape was moving a quick pace down. Harry squinted, stuck his neck out like a tortoise. The blur of Tom Riddle sprinted from the hill and disappeared into the dense oak grove beyond. Harry followed.

Fifteen minutes of crutching through the tattered, pathless route brought him over thin puddles and sparse grass, and bottlecaps ground into the dirt, and wild red poppy, vibrant like holiday tinsel, which stuck out in small patches. A grey hare peeked at Harry from the forest skirt, its cartoonish floppy ears standing on alert before a voice called, and it dashed off.

“God, f*ck!”

In the woods, too deep to see, the monotone voice travelled out. Harry’s heart skipped; it was really now or never, eh? Quietly as he could, he journeyed in. And it took not long to locate Tom.

Feet away, his back turned, he was cursing beneath his breath and picking his sleeve out of an overgrowth of bristles. The woollen thread of his black jumper had caught. He was tending it with meticulous pinches: pulling the thorns off, one at a time.

“Hey!” Harry called. “Hey, hold on!”

Tom’s head shot up. The bruises captured Harry off his guard: the delicate features were torn and blackened, bringing to his mind photos of the Great War, those heroic young men who’d been blown face-first into the trench dregs then photographed—scowling, sooty, grim-eyed—on transportable cots.

“I, uh.” Harry shook his head and crutched a bit closer, the grand monologue he’d thought of all day now shirking out of reach. “Sorry. I just wanted to chat, uh…”

In a sharp, flashing second, the scene changed. Too fast, too unthinkable, a blur of movement and pain and laughter. Tom snatched his sleeve in one fluid tug and was turning about, bending his legs, preparing to surge off, but Harry, in a dreamlike high of urgency, knowing his injured leg could not endure a chase, acted on rogue longing. He swung himself off his crutches, and sailed the air, as if he was a giddy child in the park.

He landed atop Tom and they fell to the ground: Harry’s knees on either side, the cast bent co*ck- eyed. Pain reverberated through Harry’s body in agonizing knife-pricks. He did not realise it, at first, as he processed the agony, coronas flurrying in his vision, but he was laughing. Wildly, freely! He wiped his eyes and fixed his spectacles with balmy, unsteady fingers, then peered down.

Looking at him were red-rimmed, excited eyes, with irises a shade of dark leather. Bruised galaxy veins and dried blood smeared in a rustbelt of crimson over Tom’s stark white skin: the face of evil, the face of infamy, prettier still than any other Harry knew, gore and all. One loose curl stuck in the blood on Tom’s forehead. Instinctively… madly and insanely and unbelievably!… Harry swept the soft threads off and smiled.

“Well,” said Tom. “I understand you must be very upset.”

Harry laughed again. “I’m sorry. I, uh... I just wanted to have a chat, you know… in private? Oh, man. I must look proper mental right now.”

“No, I don’t think so. Not comparatively.”

This close to Tom, Harry could hear him speak, clearly, without distraction, for the first time since The Incident. The tenor of his voice was rich, deep. His words were spoken crisply, and the flat affect, that emotionless quality that seemed so odd at the primary playground, now suited him well.

“Uh… Ha, I guess I should get off of you.” Harry shifted to his good knee and tumbled to his side, cringing as the pain rolled up his leg again. He lay back on the leaves at Tom’s side, staring into the sky, the wiry reach of barren trees obscuring the blue. “Man, my knee really hurts. But who am I to complain, really? Look at you.”

“Why did you come looking for me?” Tom asked suddenly. He’d risen to a criss-cross position.

“For a chat?” Harry said, sounding unsure of himself. “I dunno. Guess this whole thing isn’t going like I expected. I thought we might would just sit down, talk through things. I really didn’t plan to tackle you. Gosh.” Harry slapped his forehead, grinning. “That was so mental!”

“I see,” Tom said. He lifted his chin, tilted his head askance. Then: “Have they put a wire on you, then?”

Taken aback, Harry’s brows perked. There was a sharp undertone, an imperious quality, as if it were a command and not an inquiry. When the surprise wore thin, Harry laughed and pulled up his shirt over his chest. “Pinkie promise.”

Tom’s face flashed as he glanced at Harry’s exposed stomach—a startled sniff, long lashes fluttering

—and with a spark of hot panic, Harry felt nerves squirm violently in his gut. He covered himself and laughed once more.

“Believe me now? I just want a chat. Honest.”

Tom did not seem to believe him. He stared at Harry with inscrutable intent.

“Uh, alright. Look,” Harry started, ruffling a nervous hand through his scalp, “I’m not that good with words, but I did plan something, kind of. I wanted to tell you that I’m not upset or anything. And I really, really don’t think you should get in trouble again. I guess the first time round there was some bad stuff, with the animals, uh… Alright, forget I mentioned that. That was bloody stupid. Thing is, I never got to tell you how I felt about everything. I mean, I wanted to! It’s just my Dad. He wouldn’t allow me to come visit you in juvie, rejected all your dad’s calls for a reconciliation meeting, was really stern about me not talking to you. And I guess the years just sort of passed, and all my chances kept disappearing…”

With expectancy, Harry paused, thinking Tom might want to intervene, ask questions; rarely did Harry ever speak so long without interruption. Yet even in the drawn pause, Tom did not speak. His mysterious eyes remained fixed on Harry: rapt and waiting with singular interest, the same hypnotic focus that’d pinned Harry in place when they were ten in the bright constabulary playroom.

“I still should’ve done something,” Harry said, feeling less hesitant now, knowing he was being truly listened to, truly watched. “I should’ve just ignored my dad, went up to your door, asked to make things right. But I guess I was too much of a coward. Not even because I was scared of you, mind. I was just scared to talk about everything, in general. The things they put about us on the telly, the crazy rubbish online… I should’ve known that if there was anyone out there who could understand

how I felt, it was you. My friends tried to help, but they didn’t get it. Heck, they still don’t get it. They think you hate me, or want to hurt me, or, I dunno, just do something mental."

Harry threw a handful of leaves into the air, and watched them fall, one by one.

“Honestly, if they saw me here, they’d probably call me a bloody moron. They all think I’m some sort of idiot. Like, whatever I say isn’t valid, because they all know better than I do, about what happened. I’m always wondering, how could they? And why doesn’t anything I say matter?”

Harry swallowed upon notice that his voice was rising; he simmered down with a small chuckle, swept the leaves with an idle brush. “Ha, wow, I’ve really been ranting, haven’t I? I was supposed to tell you what I wanted to chat about, and instead I’ve just vomited all my thoughts at once.”

With a faint sight, Harry sat up and gathered his hands around his uninjured leg, keeping the casted leg straight out. He found Tom’s eyes easily. They were certain, and reassuring, and Harry was no longer insecure about what he came to say.

“You remember what you said on the Gilderoy Lockhart interview? About how you hoped I could forgive you?”

“I think so, yes.”

Harry shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I haven’t.”

A single dark brow arched at this. Harry smacked himself in the head, laughing at his own stupidity.

“No, no, don’t be silly. I didn’t mean it like that. Guess it did sound like that... Reckon I might be a bit stupider than I let on, eh? Anyway—what I meant was that I haven’t forgiven you because there was nothing forgive. Does that make sense?”

“You’re not stupid,” said Tom, with that imperious tinge of his. This time, the statement was, unmistakably, a command. “You shouldn’t say such things about yourself.”

The unexpected response inspired such amusem*nt in Harry, his lips jerked up on their own, without a second thought. Tom spoke as no one else could: out of sequence, and yet with poignance, and clarity, and unrivalled confidence.

“So,” said Harry, smiling as easily as may have ever, “now that I’ve said all that, have you got anything on your mind? I reckon you must.”

✦✦✦

Tom Riddle’s bedroom was comic in its baronial grandeur. A spacious ensuite, with embellished emerald drapery billowing from the walls, the room lacked innocent teenage trappings, and seemed eerily tidy for a boy his age. The luxury-sized bed, covered in plush decorative pillows and a valence duvet, was headed by a deeply-tufted headboard that matched the bench at the foot. All else—the desk, the vanity, the bookcase bureau, the velour-upholstered armchair—was gilt and beige with intricate floral trimmings.

“I miss the Britney Spears poster,” said Sirius with a chuckle. He motioned with his hand at an empty wall. “Was right here, wasn’t it?”

“This is no time for jokes,” James muttered. He paced the room with the stoop of a detective. Tassels, brocade, lamplight glitter. Atop the vanity, among combs and gels in ornate-looking bottles, a gold-chained locket inlaid with a jade ‘S’. James lifted it delicately by the body and popped its clasp: concave, empty.

“Careful, please,” said Riddle peevishly. “That was his mother’s. I don’t know why he has it out.” James peered over his shoulder with a sullen frown. “We asked you stay downstairs, Riddle.”

“It’s my home. I don’t believe your warrant said I’m not permitted to walk around my own home. Or did it?”

“It’s fine,” said Sirius. “As soon as Inspector Moody’s satisfied, we’ll be out of your hair.”

“Hmm, yes,” Riddle hummed, still staring crossly at James. “And if you don’t mind my asking, how exactly is it appropriate for Sergeant Potter to be conducting this search?”

Sirius gave a beleaguered exhale. “Well, Inspector Moody permitted that with supervis—”

“What do you know about the law, Riddle?” said James in a rushed breath.

“A fair amount, thank you.”

“Right. Well, just out of curiosity,” James, having paced across the room, ran his hand along the pale surface of the desk. There was a table lamp, a decorative tissue box, a fountain pen. “Where’s the technology in this house?”

Resting a hand on his hip, Riddle loosened his stance and shrugged. “I threw it all out.”

“Before we arrived, ey?”

“Last week, as it were,” Riddle clarified (though he was lying, James knew). “I’m embarrassed to admit, but it’s something of a periodical gesture. Whenever he gets too obsessed with technology, you know. This time around, he was planning to meet with someone. An older woman, I think.”

“An older woman?” Sirius asked. He was squatting with the duvet fabric in his clasp, peeking underneath. “What were they going to do? Trade tips on interior designing?”

This shut Riddle up long enough for James to concentrate.

If he were a malicious predatory psychopath, where would he hide his freakish treasures? He went first to the bookcase. The top shelf was filled with paperback French novels, the sheen jackets each a gauche variation of some husky, slick, long-haired man with his arm slung around a damsel’s bouffant. In the middle three shelves, a dense collection of books titled with strange words like semantics and cryptography. On the bottom, thirteen identical black suede diaries, crammed with tiny, elegant scrawl of computer code.

“We’ll be taking these for evaluation,” James declared, with a finger wag around the shelf. “And whatever is on these babies.” He lifted one baby from the shelf. Among the diaries, there were three square portable drives.

“Fine,” said Riddle. “Take what you’d like.”

“Hey!”

Popping into the room came Constable Nymphadora Tonks. She leaned the side of her bosom on the

doorframe, casually inclined, and ran a hand through her overlong pixie fringe. “Moody’s cleared the area downstairs. I hope you don’t mind, Mr. Riddle…” Tonks made a face, cheeks taut in a patronizing smirk. “But we’re going to be confiscating the digital tablet from the piano room until our tech team’s had a proper look through.”

“Very well. All it’s used for is—"

“Oi. What the hell?” Sirius leaned deep beneath the bed, his arm stretched long underneath. A sound like Velcro coming undone scratched as he jerked back, squeezing up his face. Sirius crawled out and stood clasping a nondescript plastic bag bordered with layers of masking tape. “They’re… drugs?”

“Let me see!” said James and Riddle in unison, each with a panicked pitch.

Quick reflexes, born from his years as a goalie, awarded James first grab of the baggie. Slushing in the bottom of the square quart-sized Ziploc was no less than a couple dozen pills, dissolving slowly in a grainy slur. James had completed his share of drug busts. This was unlike anything he’d seen.

“Please,” pleaded Riddle as he snatched the baggie, inspecting it with a nervous slouch. “I swear Tom doesn’t do anything like this. I would know if he did… Oh my god.”

“What?” James snarled. “Recognise them? They yours?”

“No,” he said, lowering the bag with an expression of bemusem*nt which turned next to a closed- eyed blench, the sharp line of his cheek lengthening with his frown so that he resembled a very sad fox. When James thought Riddle might cry, his eyes eased open: tensed in a narrow, forward glare. “These are his mood stabilisers. I administer them at breakfast.”

“So,” said Sirius, “he’s been… spitting them out? Into a bag? And taping them beneath his bed?”

“I suppose so."

“Has he been diagnosed with something?” asked Tonks, straightforward, but not without sympathy.

“They said they weren’t sure, that they’d wait until he was older… But the pills, they’re for impulse control and paranoia, for…” Riddle closed his eyes again, then tutted with a brisk, formal shake. “If you’ll excuse me. I’ll be off to grab the bottle for your investigation, to cross-reference. Tommy is… I think he’s unwell.”

Following a nod in James’s direction, Riddle left the room, and yet still, his voice echoed in James’s head. Tommy.

Tommy.

Tommy was the name of a runty boy in a film with his baseball cap turned about, or perhaps a particularly masculine house cat, with long whiskers and a gruff, rumbling mating call. Tom Riddle was no Tommy. Twisting around, reviewing the room again, James’s mind flickered out of sync, tracing back, at random: Harry’s laughter, the unreserved, raspy sounds he made, gripping at his ribs; how his eyes crinkled, how he spit flecks of dribble when too excited, as the commentators sped with enthusiasm. A chill bore in James. His keen eyes fell on the half-empty desk; he went to it and began creaking open the drawers, bottom-up, and rummaged through: glossy college brochures, empty spirals, pens, absolute rubbish! He gripped the sides of the drawer and tugged, and dragged the piece loose off the wooden mount.

“Careful, mate,” called Sirius.

But James was reaching in, patting around the brittle inner wood, as they’d been trained to, in the academy. He withdrew his hand empty, but for a thin splinter, then wriggled open the topmost drawer and stood on his knees, peering down.

His fingers trembled. A horrible, frozen rage coursed his veins.

“These…” He lifted them from the drawer: black nylon with a bright red band which read SUPERDRY in bold white letters. A thick and familiar smell rolled into the air, and James thought of laundry days (picking up stray clothes, sniffing, tossing them into a the jumbled heap of the plastic carrier). He lowered his nose and inhaled again.

“James,” said Sirius, dropping to James’s side on one knee, “I don’t mean to sound like a prat, but uh… Did you just smell this kid’s underwear?”

“They’re not his.”

James folded back the elastic band and ran his finger along the ragged orange thread from where he’d once unlaced the fabric tag.

“Get Moody.”

✦✦✦

“The key to getting them to skip,” said Tom, lifting a thin, flat stone in as he explained, “is all in the spinning. Once you get the hang of flicking your wrist, there’s not much else to it.”

Since the collision, Harry and Tom had relocated deeper into the Brown Grove—which is what Tom insisted the forest was called, though admitting he wasn’t sure whether this name was used outside the Riddle family. The gully that ran along the Little Hangleton bounds fled through here too, its dark waters berthed wide between craggy limestone boulders, flooded with limp leaves, swaying gentle in the current. Harry sat with legs spread-out, leaning back on one bent palm, bristled by dull weeds and briers. Tom, meanwhile, was on his knees, demonstrating rock skipping procedure (a tangent started by Harry in diversion of the heavier discussion, the one neither yet breached).

Magenta smouldered above, hazy and dimming, with brushstrokes of coral; their time was running out.

“Hey Tom,” Harry said, gathering his arms around one bent knee. “There’s another thing, right? Kind of awkward to mention, really, but I think, uh… Well, the blog,” he spat, chuckling a bit. “I know you didn’t mean anything threatening by it, of course. I guess I just want to know why?”

Tom’s long, spider-like fingers stilled, the pebble clasped between his thumb and index. He tossed it up, caught it; his brows were drawn in, meditative. “It wasn’t anything personal.”

“Right. I’m not trying to, uh, imply like…”

Imply what? That the URL had Harry’s surname? That Tom had been intently tracking him, that this truth was incontrovertible? Harry himself could not emphasize this strange elephant; to admit that Tom was a stalker, to say this was a fact neither could deny, did not feel secure. Harry was somehow sure that the instant he stated this, however kindly he did so, all would be lost. And so, why bother? Harry found it rather difficult to care about the grimness of their situation. If it really was stalking— men in trench coats with wild Cheshire smiles, set in hostile pursuit, girls shrieking in blind runs

through backstreets—then why didn’t Harry feel violated, as he should have? Why, instead, did the gesture seem so innocent?

“I am reluctant to admit the truth,” Tom said. “But you’ve been very kind to me today. To be perfectly candid on the matter, I suppose I simply found it amusing. Which, of course, sounds rotten now. I regret it all. It was a childhood hobby of mine, following people around, learning about them. After I returned from my reform programme, I fell back into old habits, and for that I shall pay a price. However, had I known this would happen, I assure you, things would be quite different.”

A new presence emerged in Tom’s conduct. The stoic face had livened with an amiable sigh of rue, and the words were mawkish, without the detached overcast of frankness. In brief, Harry realised, with a pearly glow in the centre of his chest, that Tom was lying. Elaborately and fluently, but lying, nonetheless!

Truth was, he had a crush. Harry laughed.

“Don’t sweat it,” he said. “I mean, I can get that, right? It can’t be easy, being the only gay one around here. Besides Cedric, I mean,” Harry added as an afterthought. “But I guess it’s lonely, in general. Being us. Even though I’ve got some of the best friends on earth, I still feel sort of… I dunno. On my own.”

“Because of what I did?”

“No. Because of how they all acted. I actually wanted to be your friend. For years. My dad was just such a jerk about it!”

With a flush rising up his cheeks, Harry huffed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t shout. I just feel like everyone’s always thinking stuff about me that’s not true. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be you.”

“I’m not bothered. You can go louder, if you'd like.”

Harry grinned, then shoved Tom’s shoulder with a fond, brotherly thrust. “Ha! You’re proper funny, Tom. And you know what? I think it’s time we finally just, I dunno… Settle things?” Harry extended his hand. “Mates?”

Hesitant in movement, Tom eyed Harry’s offer for a brief pause before accepting. His long, thin fingers were cool in Harry’s, and though the grip was solid, the skin felt fine and delicate. They shook for one beat too long. When Harry caught Tom’s eyes, they flickered feral, an untamed glint, that lively fire burning still, and Harry could only just force himself to shake lax his clutch.

“Mates.”

“Haha! Nice!” Harry exclaimed, quelling those odd thoughts with a belly-deep laugh. “Wanna hang out next week? I’d come round tomorrow but my mum and dad are forcing me to stay with my cousin for the weekend. All the way down in Surrey. I really don’t want to, but they said I’ve got no choice.”

“When?”

“For the weekend.”

“I was referring to our next meeting.”

“Oh, right. Sorry.” Harry palmed his forehead. “That was really daft.”

Tom, now on his feet, retrieved Harry’s crutches from their slant on a stout-trunked oak and returned with his palm out, and his lips in a coy smile. “I told you not to say such things about yourself.”

Twilight sloped around them in a bleak pale shade. Tom left for his home, westward. And Harry, hobbling in distracted, wayward patterns, trekked opposite him, his crutches a troublesome burden through the barb and bramble, wild plants curling vindictively around the cylinders, coiling up, as a python swathed its victim. He arrived home—lights off, his footsteps hollow, echoing—stuffed his sports bag with spare clothes, then made for the bus station, a print-off ticket crumpled in the pocket of his jacket.

Onboard at a window seat, bouncing on the musty, stiff moquette cushion, he clicked on his mobile. There were message alerts, tons of them. He brushed them off-screen with a brisk swipe. Put in his earpieces, pulled up the local sports radio app. Let his eyes fall to a peaceful close, curved his face to greet the tapered static blow of the air-conditioning snout.

“It seems Man City is going to accept Kevin Broadmoor as a transfer from Tottenham for an undisclosed amount, which will certainly not go over well with fans who remember Broadmoor’s lacklustre performance last season.

And this just in! Breaking news! In our own backyard, the lovely County of York, a story has just broke that will certainly stir a rise in parents.

Tom Riddle, 15, better known by his cheeky screen name, which I’d rather not say, has just been arrested at his home in Little Hangleton in North Yorkshire on allegations of predatory stalking.”

Chapter 8: The fa*gettes

Chapter Text

fa*gette Forum > General > Dickspit > guess who got RE f*ckING VENGE

mizz.riddle.99

>lol so let me tell you about my day fa*ggots.

>i know most of you are gonna be jelly because ur too big of puss* skan* c*nts to do the work yourself but no h8 at me for being better than u dumb f*cking whoooooreeesssssss (//_^)

> so you know that leprechaun fa*ggot seamus finnigan??? well I know where he lives and I f*cking torched his computer. i f*cking wrekked his f*cking lyfe for the lolz and the cops didnt even care becuz their too busy f*cking with godfa*g to give a slimy sh*te about that f*cking clover douche puss*.

> yessss you can thank me c*nt skan*z lol BUTTT not b4 u find out what I did to the biggest nasty f*ck face super douche f*ckEERRRRRRRRR of them alllll

> i happened to discover that MCfa*gGOT is allergic to shell fish. Oops!!! X-D lololol stupid fa*ggot was f*cking flopping like a fish on the pavement, begging me to stop but I told him to GO f*ck HIMSELF!!!!!

> and that will teach them what happens when you f*ck with godfa*g

> OOPPSPSSS!!! trollolololol!!!!

✦

The day as Delphini “Delphi” Lestrange recalled it had unfolded somewhat differently.

She was wired: for the first time in her long, laborious 12 years on this miserable planet, she had not slept once throughout the night. The fa*gette forums were alive as they’d never been before, which meant Delphi—the sole girl on the forum who'd met Godfa*g, personally, had an eager audience for her many tales and observations.

✦

mizz.riddle.99

> lololol so omg one time my cousin draco told me that like godfa*g was banned from going over to his house bc!!!!!! he made him sneak out to the graveyard where his mum is (RIP)

> which is also where a lot of my family is buried LIKE WE JUST HAPPEN TO HAVE A LOT OF SHARED STUFF X-D

mizz.riddle.99

> here’s a photo of me, tom, and tom’s grandma they were SOOOO nice like they were all like, ‘hiiii Delphi long time no see!!’ and I was like **(//_^)**

> omfg godfa*g is so sweet in person he’s not like rude at all he’s really really not like people think!!!!!!

mizz.riddle.99

> okayzzzzz so like my mum is SO f*ckING FUNNY she has SO MANY STORIES ABOUT PAPAfa*g she said if my godfa*g/soccerboy fa*gfiction gets to 10,000 views she will like tell me EVERYTHING so uhh *nudge nudge* *GLOMP*

> ROFLOL PLZZZZ check it out its really good!!! haha like way better than what most of these nasty skan* fa*ggots around here write((((:

✦

On edge, hyped by three full cans of fizzy drinks, Delphi was ready for revenge. But first she needed to stock her reserves.

“Mum, I’m meeting up with some friends. I need at least, like, twenty pound. Pretty please!”

Her mother, loping over the kitchen counter, a mobile held to her ear, did not acknowledge Delphi once. They shared a lot in common, superficially: cutesy faces, pointed nose tips, convoluted black hair that spiralled in wild kinks (Delphi’s currently bleached, pink-tipped, and chemically straight). But where Delphi was cloying and eager for her mother’s attention, her mother was indifferent, distracted by telephone calls and reality programmes and—most mysteriously—long bouts of inexplicable drowsiness, where if she was awaken, she'd cling to furniture for stability, and garble out nonsense words and accusations.

Today she was not drowsy, however. In fast, excited words, her mother spoke to her friend with an enthusiasm she never showed Delphi: "It's like I told Cissy, these worthless locals are not to be trusted, they're—"

She wouldn't notice a thing Delphi did. In the den, on the chaise, her purse sat rife for the taking. Delphi took out two twenties, three Parliament Lights, and a silver-banded diamond ring, then walked her bike out of the garage and rode off into the day.

Delphi regarded herself as a true fa*gette: Tom Riddle's friend in the shadows.

But though she would later recount her revenge with details of torment and victory, she did know, deep down, she was not the badass rebel bitch she claimed to be online. She did make the five mile trail to Little Hangleton, and she did visit both Finnigan and McLaggen—long enough to toss store- bought eggs at Finnigan as he left his home and to stuff spoiled clams in the McLaggen mailbox.

Meanwhile on the forum, while she was away, the other fa*gettes took note.

✦

fa*gette Forum > General > sh*t Talking > MIZZ.RIDDLE.99???

-

darkness.inc.

> Does anyone here even like mizz.poser99? I’m curious, she seems very unlikable.

gorefa*gette4lyf3

> wtf y r u asking such a rude question u nasty twat sucking dipsh*t what has mizz.riddle.99 ever done to you u nasty disgusting WANNABE!!

emobunnygurl

> *glomps mizz.riddle.99 plushie & humps it* hhehe jk *cuddles plushie* i luv her so much ahh rawr rawr so DONT BE A HATER U DUMB f*ckNUGGET!!!! D<

nuuuuuuuduneatme

> mizz.riddle.99 actaully knows godfa*g so u should’nt be so mean 2 her or he wil renuoce u as a fa*gette

darkness.inc.

> Okay, does anyone here over the age of 13 like mizz.poser99?

gorefa*gsuicidepact

> mizz.riddle.99 is an annoying brat and i hope she jumps in front of a train

cookies-n-milk

> i kno rite no1 needs her here when all she does is write sh*tty stories and lies about every aspect of her life

gorefa*gsuicidepact

> she claims she’s rich, yet she hasn’t bought herself some rope to hang herself

cookies-n-milk

> she literally told everyone godfa*g was her cousin lmao

livebygodfa*grules

> You guys are really f*cked up for talking about a child that way, especially when your profiles state you’re both at least sixteen years old. Grow the f*ck up.

gorefa*gsuicidepact

> lmao mamafa*ggettes rlly wanna b the moral police kys

cookies-n-milk

> rofl die c*ntbag u literally write riddlecest && the rest of us r havin fun >:D

✦

fa*gette Forum > fa*g Work > fa*g Fiction > Requests / Recommendations > GODfa*g/SOCCERBOY FIC RECS PLS?

-

takemybittersoul

>Can anyone recommend some good godfa*g / soccerboy fa*gfic? preferably more than 50k and completed. also prefer uke!godfa*g but not a requirement.

>EDITED: NOT MY MIZZ.RIDDLE.99

darksidehazcookies

>omg mizz.riddle.99 writes the BEST fa*gfiction! plzz read
>[link]

br0kenshadow

>She wants actual good fic, not this bottom of the barrel bird sh*t.

darksidehazcookies

>WOW ur prob juzt jealouz your nasty soccer dad/godfa*g fa*gfic didn’t get as many likes ^_^*

darkness.inc.

>Once again, Mizz.Poser99’s fans are behaving like psychos.

SUCKITXX98

>stfu darkness your obsessed with mizz.riddle it’s pathetic you c*nt rag whor*

darkness.inc.

>You’re*, dumpster slu*t.

kissmylips

>mizz riddles work is pretty decent considering her age

godfa*gs.shortshorts

>who care as long as there’s sex in the fic lol

mizz.riddle.99

>awww thank u for the compliments *glomps* i luv my fans <333 i’m writing more now. and f*ck the haters we kno ur jealous ur coochie stinks

darkness.inc.

>Go tell your mummy how you’re acting online, this cry for attention is embarrassing.

mewmewrawrr

>darkness pls kill urself :3c

darkness.inc.

>You first.

takemybittersoul

>Bump, please read edit.

✦

fa*gette Forums > Restricted Section (18+) > fa*g Work > fa*g Fiction > Riddlecest > Found something from Godfa*g

-

livebygodfa*grules

>I found some old messages from Godfa*g back before the exposure, and it looks like it’d be fun to add this info into the riddlecest fics.

>the screenshot messages look like between godfa*g, some anons, and some namefa*gs (peepfa*g, micropeen, CPLUV, and fuabo) in a thread about the most f*cked up thing anon had ever done.

>lmk if anyone needs the image written out.

>[image screenshot]

godfa*gs.shortshorts

>omg i was one of the anons here lulz i forgot about this

pantiesdownforpapafa*g

>awww godfa*g was so young here

godfa*gs.shortshorts

>ikr he was so adorable! did u see his doll photos in the archives like??? my poor gay child <333

color.me.surprised

>i never saw his doll photos pls link

✦

fa*gette Forums > General > In Real Life > Doxxing > Dickspit > f*ck SEAMUS FINNIGAN

-

mizz.riddle.99

>heyyyy skan*s no idea what this is lolz

>27 Merryweather Street / Little Hangleton / HD3Y 9SY / UNITED KINGDOM

>send ur love c*ntrags <3

brendenurielovr

>hope he likes rat sh*t rofl :)

xXxhorror.biatchxXx

>mmm gonna rape him till he bleedz and screamz lolz

kitteh-luvs-u

>screen shotting b4 mods take down rofl

LadyOfTheDay

>can u post about that jock fa*ggot too??

mizz.riddle.99

>already f*ckking on it (//^_-)

✦

fa*gette Forums > General > Dickspit > Wtf are you guys doing??

-

kawaii_naru

>okay you revolting sem*n guzzlers, I’m just going to say what should’ve been said the moment that devil Seamus leaked godfa*g’s blog: It’s absolutely f*cked up that anyone is, especially fa*gettes, reading that blog.

>It was clearly a private blog, yet I’ve seen so many so called fa*gettes gushing over it. A real fa*gette would not touch that blog, a real fa*gette would respect godfa*g and his privacy.

>If you read it while claiming to love godfa*g, remember: horizontal for attention, vertical for results.

Pantiesdownforpapafa*g

>lol k bitch calm the f*ck down

takemybittersoul

> (: wow moral purist in the house (: great (:

Chapter 9: Gilead the Goldfish

Chapter Text

The Riddle family vault gaped half-open in the library den.

In and out of the room, Thomas drifted, keeping a Cognac snifter at his side with a limp hold. Velvet red walls, mahogany shelving, oil on canvass of a gloomy Victorian child with a sullied pinafore. In the back of the vault, beneath a tattered Feldposte banner, shoved in the corner, far from sight, the confiscated technology seemed to stare.

(Yet not so cruelly as did the rosewood box, still locked, slid among old family archives.)

Thomas supped from his snifter then returned to the balcony, where the night was cool with grey mist. The media flocked off some hour or two ago. There had been three vans outside his door— first, the simple oak-emblem logo of Hangleton Nightly, then a crew from Leeds, then a white Volkswagen with a great round satellite bolted atop and ‘BBC’ boxed in black. High-heeled ladies stood surrounded by boom mics, their faces lit by flat LED lamps. They read from portable teleprompters but were too quiet for Thomas to hear from inside. He turned on the news—

‘And tonight, in Little Hangleton, Tom Riddle, better known by his former alias—’

—then yanked the cable from its outlet.

Mother wept. Thomas thought he might. It seemed the appropriate response for any father to make, yet never did the shock subside long enough for him to form a full thought or flesh out an emotion.

Midnight came and left. Thomas completed his sixth and poured himself a seventh, and found himself in the drawing room, though he did not remember descending the stairwell nor switching to vodka, which he was drinking straight from a decanter.

When had he last drank in such excess? He couldn’t recall. After the sentencing, perhaps? Or was it on a lonesome night thereafter, flicking through a calendar and counting the months, backwards and forwards, until his hands shook? He tossed back a hardy shot.

The drawing room spun before him in a slosh, in focus one moment and then not again. On ill- footing, he walked to the bench and plopped down, hands to the keys. Chopin. “Winter Wind.” A study of dexterity and stamina. He played what he could recall—the few bright chords, the dark plummeting cascade—and upon losing his way, pawed through similar sounds with drunken improvisation.

When he was a boy on break from Eton, he would often bring local girls to sit and watch him play. Tongue-in-cheek, they'd call him names—Pretty Boy and Sir Master Riddle. Following their applause, their doe-eyed looks of wonder, Thomas would sneak through to the cabinets, find bottles of anything thin, and somehow the night would end at the ravine, with some three dozen teenagers acting foolish and having fun. The ravine was so dank, so peaty and unprepossessing, but god did they love it! He’d always come home with his brogues sopped with mud, left awry on the tile.

‘Cross-referencing the dates on the photographs, forensic analysts could confirm Riddle buried the remains of at least 35 animals near a ravine which ran through his village, documenting back to when Riddle was a tender 8 years old.’

“Daddy—” he still said then. “Daddy, my zip is caught!” and “Daddy, please. Would you care to join us for tea?”

Thomas slammed down his fists. The piano roared discordant and sobered him to the present. Doors slamming and papers flying, a dizzy whine of movement: somehow Thomas was in the vault again.

And the plain rosewood box was on the floor, unopened. Did he even need to look?

✦✦✦

Two hundred miles away, and some hours later, Harry was stirred awake by a pert clap on the cheek.

“Oi! Potter! Potter, come on!”

He half-expected his poster of Bremner to greet him as he opened his tear-stuck eyes. Instead there was a pile of cardboard boxes, stacked in misalignment. He was not at home. He was in his cousin’s spare room, and there were three blurred figures at his bedside.

“What the heck, Dudley?” Harry muttered, fishing out his spectacles from underneath the pillow.

Dudley Dursley, 15, was a surly, portly boy with tufty blond hair and a round piggish snout. He pointed his thumbs at the two weedy boys beside him. “We’ve been waiting all morning for you to wake up.”

“Waiting for what, exactly?”

Rhetorical question. Even in his bogeyed morning haze, Harry knew exactly what they wanted. He met their silence with a sigh.

“Alright, fine. I’ll have a chat. But give me time to brush my teeth, would you?”

Alone in the kitchenette, after a quick washing, Harry ate a cold plate of ham and eggs that was saved for him at breakfast. The meat was chewy and too salty; a draft swept in and chilled his one bare calf.

In the next room, Uncle Vernon’s telly programme echoed drearily with something about identifying

antique firearms. Harry gulped down his food faster still. Passing eye contact with his uncle’s imperilling beady gaze gave Harry a tight-chested awkward feeling, like waving ‘hullo’ to a foul acquaintance (though not even this was quite as awful as having to respond to Aunt Petunia’s clipped impersonal questions).

Visiting the Dursleys always sucked, even as a boy. Before Harry was old enough to protest his parents, he would spend a week of each summer in Surrey cousinly bonding with Dudley on beach trips and amusem*nt park outings. Anytime his aunt and uncle looked away was an opportunity for Dudley, aspiring pro wrestler, to “try out his moves” on Harry. When Harry voiced a complaint, Aunt Petunia would always chirp that it was actually Harry’s fault for not defending himself, and then threaten to send him to bed hungry if he rung up his mum to squeal.

That all ended when Harry hit his first big growth spurt. It was in early August, in the garden, when Dudley was rounding on Harry to demonstrate piledriving.

All of his runty, four-eyed life, Harry had considered Dudley an unbeatable gargantuan. To some extent this remained true still—but Harry on this particular summer week was fresh from football camp, and his arms were ripe with puberty’s blessings. He gave Dudley one calm warning to back off, and when Dudley kept on running at him, Harry drew back his fist and clocked his swine nose sideways.

There’d been no special cousinly bonding occasions since. Only awkward family functions where, following a pint-too-many, Dad and Uncle Vernon would spiral into raging “debates” about a topic neither knew much about while Mum and Aunt Petunia exchanged the same tired girlhood tales he’d heard a million times before.

Yes, all in all, Harry dreaded visiting the Dursleys; and not least of all, because of cousin Dudley’s grating personality.

“Is it true he got stabbed in juvie? I heard he got a shank. In the arm or something.” Harry was sitting on the bed and Dudley and his friends were on the floor, peering up.

“Do you reckon I was there, Dudley?” Harry asked sarcastically. He hated nearly everything Dudley said and could barely remain civil. “I heard the rumour but I haven’t got a clue if it’s true.”

“Ha!” exclaimed the taller friend: a ratty-looking boy called Piers. “I bet he did. The bloke’s a mad man. Say, with him sneaking into your room, you think he ever, you know…” Piers rolled his eyes to the side and smiled with dark insinuation.

“No. He’s not like that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just, he’s not like that is all. What you lot see online, it’s just a tiny glimpse. Not even a good one. He’s a lot different in person.”

“Nicer?” Piers suggested.

Harry thought for a second (and his ears heated traitorously). “Uh. I reckon so, yeah. He’s a real quiet bloke. Minds his own, you know. Never messes with anyone.”

Dudley raised his mobile: a screenshot of Tom with his teeth sunk into Cormac. “You sure about that, Potter?”

“You weren’t there, Dudley,” said Harry, with the exact tone of a voice Ginny would use to call someone a bloody-f*cking-moron. “Do you see that guy? Name’s McLaggen.” He pointed at his leg cast. “He broke clean through my leg in the middle of a match. If I was Tom, I might have done the same.”

Each boy seemed thrown off by this. Harry shrugged. “What? I’m not lying.”

“Wait, wait, wait!” Dudley held the side of his head, chortling his little piggy laugh. “This McLaggen tosser gave you a gimp leg, yeah? Do you think Gorefa*g might have attacked him… for you?”

“Well… Maybe in part, I guess,” Harry granted, the strained smile sneaking up. He shook his head. “But I mean, it wasn’t the only reason. Cormac was being a prat. You had to be there.”

“Wish I had been.”

Dudley tapped on his mobile screen. The volume roared with a poor audio rendition of yesterday afternoon. Harry’s classmates shouting and laughing (and Harry off camera, deathly quiet, waiting for the moment to come). Then following a stunned collective gasp, the overwrought voice of Dean Thomas: “Oh, sh*te! He’s biting him! Ha! f*ck’s sake.”

✦✦✦

“That’ll teach little McLaggen, won’t it?”

James, who sat across the room at an evidence observation desk, clicking through files with impatience, lifted a brow at Constable Tonks. She was watching with two rookie male officers. “Teach him what? Not to engage with psychopaths?”

“It’ll teach him,” Tonks began with a grand sweep of her pointer at her temple, spinning round and round, “that you don’t go messing with crazy. Doesn’t matter how big and tough you think you are. Crazy’ll get you every time.”

Upon their laughter, James disengaged. Nothing about this was funny.

Except—in any other context—he would have certainly thought so. This specific portable drive of Riddle’s had a 1 terabyte capacity. Big enough, he was told, to store over 200 films, or 200 thousand songs, or 2 million photographs. At seeing the storage memory was at 93% capacity, James was confident there’d be something to incriminate Riddle of grievous wrongdoing.

Instead he was in his fortieth moot minute of opening yet another disgusting and vile but ultimately crimeless video.

‘BLOWING HOT ATHLETIC TWINK W/ c*msHOT’

Observations were jotted in slant scratchy script on his notepad:

* File named ‘H’ … young + athletic + dark hair + glasses

* frequent pattern, aggression – age gap, handcuffs, choking

* twink = small or young man or bottom (?)

Prior to Riddle’s sentencing, after the swatting, James had carefully categorised the posts: snuff, rape, animal torture, it was all there, sick and graphic and altogether real. The content on Riddle’s storage drive now was anything but. Arranged into a series of folders, there were hundreds of overproduced p*rnos, all featuring well-groomed men with Hollywood physiques. Though the unsettling frequency of actors who resembled Harry could be corollary for conviction, James could scarcely imagine a scenario in which a magistrate would consider a wank bank sufficient evidence for prosecution.

Behind him came Sirius’s breathy laugh. “Enjoying yourself, are you?”

James pointedly paused the video—half-dressed herculean man with a handful of arse—and reached for the swivel chair. “Hardly. I’m moving onto the next one. Care to see?”

The chair creaked as Sirius fell into it, yawning into the crook of his elbow. “Alright but can’t stay long. My shift’s almost over.”

“What?”

“Planned to have off, months back,” Sirius said, indifferent, reaching for the next portable drive. “I only came in this morning because of the circ*mstances, but there’s not much to do till we get an order from the Crown.”

“Well, that’ll be coming soon.” James uncapped the USB and slid it clean into the port. The password protection screen meant nothing—every time, for every account of Riddle’s, it was the same five letters the strange child passed to him in the playroom on that ill-fated Sunday afternoon.

"Now, let's see..."

First folder: Videos

Inside three subfolders: BD, H, and PIGS.

James hesitated his mouse over the folder. Sirius turned to him and mirrored his incredulous gawp. “You don’t think he means pig pigs, do you?”

“I don’t see why you’d put it past him,” James retorted defensively. Riddle was always given the benefit of the doubt, always. It sickened him. “Bloody sicko. God knows what else is out there that we didn’t find.”

“Well, go on then.” Sirius motioned with his hand. “Click it.”

“I am.”

“Then do it.”

“I am!”

The plastic mouse clacked with his pressured tap. There was another file, labelled ‘J’; and when he opened it next, they discovered he did not mean real pigs at all.

“Cheeky bastard,” said Sirius, not lacking amusem*nt.

‘COP f*ckS UNSUSPECTING BOY BARELY LEGAL HOT’

‘OUR FORBIDDEN LOVE – PRISON GUARD f*ckS HIS PRISONER’ ‘PADDLE AND CUFFS FOR NAUGHTY CONVINCT’

“Well at least he’s not into farm animals.”

“Yeah. Great,” James muttered. He was making a new set of notes in his pad. “What do you think the J stands for? Juvie?”

It was very obvious by the manner in which Sirius covered his mouth that he was stifling a laugh. “Mate…”

“What?”

“Just… well, you know what? Never mind. Let’s see what the other files are.” The rookies’ idle chat soon dominated the quiet room.

“The other side of Mad Tom’s family was right mental,” said one of the young officers, leaning in confidentially. He spoke with a local cadence which bellowed gruff and guttural. “I heard me mum talking on about them. The Gaunts, they were called.”

“Were? They all dead or something?” inquired the other.

This question belied his youth; all Hangletonians of a certain age knew the Gaunt family.

“Just Mad Tom is left, is all,” he said. “The rest are all either dead or in prison. Aye, guess soon there won’t be no more exceptions? Well, at any rate, what me mum told me is that they were all raving mad, no good for nothing… on the dole, you know? Their father got locked up for fifteen years after doing some bloke’s head in.”

“Honestly?”

“It’s true,” confirmed Tonks with a solemn nod. “A pub row gone awry, I’m afraid. But the girl? Mad Tom’s mother? She was the worst of all. Violent thing, crawling with diseases. Had a psychotic hankering for Thomas Riddle. Would follow him whenever he was in town.”

James lifted his attention from the computer. Tonks was a small girl when it happened. She didn’t know a damn thing.

A rookie laughed. “Is that right?”

“Well, reckon it runs in the family,” said Tonks, shaking her head, pretending this did not amuse her and that it was all quite serious talk. “Now, as you can imagine, a posh toff like Riddle wanted nothing to do with Gaunt. He was doing shows down south then. Opera. That’s how I know about all this. My aunt was in this big fancy troupe in London with him and—get this! His fiancé.”

“He has a fiancé…?”

“Had,” corrected Tonks. “That’s where things get interesting. My Aunt Bella, Thomas Riddle, Riddle’s girl, they were all real chummy, being from Hangleton and stuff. Aunt Bella was even going to be a bridesmaid at the wedding. Then—” She paused dramatically. “Then it all went wrong. On the night of his stag party, a week before the wedding, Riddle confessed his love for my aunt. Love triangle from hell, I’m telling you! Of course, she rejected Riddle. He was her best friend’s man, for crying out loud. That was when Riddle left the party with the poor little Gaunt prostitute.

Next anyone heard, she was pregnant.”

“Wow,” exclaimed one rookie. “I’d heard Thomas Riddle was a slag but that’s… that’s something else.”

“No,” said James. “That’s not what happened.”

Tonks, first riding on the high of her compelling tale, wilted into a defensive pout. Her hands went up into a clueless motion. “What?”

“I said that’s not what happened,” James repeated. “I was there.”

“We both were,” said Sirius. “And if your aunt remembers things like that, then she’s gone madder than I thought.”

“Now, now,” Tonks said playfully. “Is that any way to talk to your baby cousin? If you’ve got a better story, then I recommend you get to tal—”

Bam.

Her sentence was cut short by the sudden, startling crash of the door. Inspector Moody hobbled in on his prosthetic. Little Hangleton's highest-ranking officer, Chief Inspector Vance, swept in behind with her lips drawn tight in a wrinkled pucker.

“Constable Tonks, Constable Rowle,” said Vance. They stood at attention. “Do you remember where the Jordans live? If not, pull it up. We need the kid. Lee. See if you can get him in for questioning.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Tonks. “What’s happened?”

“Riddle’s kid is trying to play goodie good,” explained Vance, scratching at her forehead. “Said he’d give some information if we put it on his record that he complied with law enforcement. I think it was something that barrister fed him. Point is, I think he’s telling the truth.”

“Well!” James called. “Get all the bits you want out of him, but I hope you made it clear that we don’t negotiate with terrorists in this department.”

Vance waved her arms in a snap gesture. “I don’t want to hear it, Potter. We’ve got to play this careful. Riddle’s got some snake from London in there.”

“Not just any snake. Rufus Scrimgeour,” said Moody with a low vindictive growl. “Ring a bell to any of you? It certainly should! He’s the bloody bastard who got Corban Yaxley off with manslaughter. Aye, that’s right. Now I’m guessing you remember him!”

When the tall sallow man entered this morning at Riddle’s side, James did not recognize him... but indeed, Yaxley, they all remembered. He was the CEO of some trading company. Wife was found bound, gagged and beaten; he said it was BDSM gone wrong and got off with a scanty three years.

“Wonder what that’ll cost Riddle,” said James beneath his breath to Sirius.

Inspector Moody may have looked haggard—one-eyed, one-legged, leathery wrinkled skin the exact texture of sandpaper—but the IRA bomb which left him half-a-person had mysteriously spared his bionic hearing.

“More than you or I are worth, that’s a guarantee!” he snapped, clacking his prosthetic on the

ground. “Which means it’s time to for you to go home, Potter. You too, Black. Can’t have family in on this investigation or they’ll be screaming malpractice quicker than you can say Hangleton.”

“What? No!” James protested, hopping up to stand before Vance and Moody. “You can’t do that. No one is better prepared to take on the Riddles than I am. Trust me.”

“That wasn’t a suggestion, Potter,” said Vance. “Would you like to hear what Thomas Riddle is alleging?”

“What?”

Her lips went thin. “That you may have planted the pants in the drawer. After all, it was you and Black in the room. Father and godfather. What was to stop you pulling them out your pocket?”

“I didn’t! Chief Inspector, I—"

“I know you didn’t. But it doesn’t matter what I think. It matters what the evidence shows, and as it stands, what have we got? A pair of boxers that could well have been falsified and some naughty words on a teen blog.”

“Well, that’s not all,” said Sirius. He lifted a portable drive and weighed it flat on his palm. “We’ve also got about 2 terabytes of premium gay p*rnography.”

“That’s right,” James said hastily, before the statement could be dismissed. “I’ve looked through it. There’s a collection of videos where the actors look like my Harry. It’s in a file called ‘H’. And I followed procedure, they can’t say I did anything to the files. They’re completely unchanged. Please, Chief Inspector. If there’s not an investigation, a proper thorough investigation, my son could be at risk.”

“There will be,” she assured. “I promise you that, Potter. But it will come later. For now, we’ve got another case to close. Tonks, Rowle, to the conference room. It’s possible Lee Jordan fabricated his testimony.”

✦✦✦

By late evening, Chief Inspector Vance concluded the case of the mysterious banging.

Mad Tom claimed he overheard Lee Jordan discussing the fallout with the Weasleys. Why did he not tell the authorities then?

“I was afraid the police would spin it against me, somehow,” Mad Tom said.

He was not the boy they brought in yesterday night. Video footage captured that Riddle in permanence—bruised chin up and proud, hands cuffed behind his back, all-in-all looking mad as a hatter. Today he was the picture of deference. He stuttered. He blushed. He backtracked his words, used phrases like, ‘I was afraid,’ and ‘Please, I’m sorry,’ and seemed on the surface a scared little boy. Vance knew there was but one word for it: psychopath.

But it turned out he was right about one thing. Lee Jordan broke.

“We already know it was the Weasleys,” Tonks lied, lowering a motherly eye, tutting. “What we

want to know is whether they bullied you into lying for them. If we have reason to suspect they intimidated you to help out with their alibi, it will make things a lot harder on them coming up.”

Jordan was a good friend but he got outwitted. Following his lead, the magistrate granted a warrant to search the Burrow Dale and, as it turned out, the Weasleys had illegally manufactured some fifty unique explosives and stored them in a shed on their family’s property.

For James’s sake, Vance tried to make a deal with the boys. She really did.

“If you have any information, any at all, on recent happenings in Little Hangleton, it could go a long way to convince the judge you’re on the side of the law.”

George’s eyes shifted. He seemed to understand what she meant, wherefrom this all came, who he needed to sell-out. He nevertheless remained quiet. His brother then clarified where they stood.

“Even if we did have something on Mad Tom—” A frank smile. “Sorry. Weasleys don’t squeal.” She felt for James, but what else could she do?

Scrimgeour was running a tough game. He pronounced their technology antiquated and the department understaffed. A circus of contract workers—for janitorial work, for the tech department, for all the ad hoc temp jobs—and a spare few officers who contemptuously sent a biased party to lead an investigation of critical media interest: that was what the world would think if they brought this to trial without further evidence.

The looming nightmare of formal inquiry kept Vance up through the night, contemplating her every option. If they pursued the investigation against Mad Tom, it would mean an overhaul of the staff. Potter, Black, Moody—sacked. The generous community funding Thomas Riddle finagled out of the Greater Hangleton Council would get cut. The Little Hangleton community would rely again on its neighbour, as it had in years past, and lose its right to protect itself, all because a little mad boy had decided to make a name for himself in the worst way possible.

Except there was a variable in play which Vance could not have anticipated: a strangely upbeat Harry Potter and his insistence that he misplaced the underpants in phys ed.

“I know I did, Dora,” Harry said to Constable Tonks. He pressed his spectacles up his nose and smirked lopsidedly. He had his father’s subtle wit, a cleverness hidden by some hokey simpleton façade. “I brought two pairs that day by accident, then left those lying out on the bench. I reckon Riddle must have grabbed them. Listen—” He pulled a note from his pocket. “Could you maybe pass this on to him?”

And so, the case was deferred to Greater Hangleton for further investigation, and, for the time being, Mad Tom was permitted to return home.

✦✦✦

Video Title: GOREF*G? D*CKSPIT? WTF??? – blog deep dive & thoughts!!

Uploaded by Really Romilda

[Seventeen minutes of Really Romilda—the 37th most popular VidTuber—reflecting on the contents of dickspit’s blog. Romilda, 16, is a tan Londoner with black ringlet curls who sits before a fairy-lit backdrop.

The transcript reads:

“Hi, guys! It’s me, Really Romilda, here bringing you the dark scoop on the latest happenings of Tom Riddle A.K.A – drum roll please! – Gorefa*g! Gasp! I know it’s a little early to start making comments already but I just wanted to, you know, sink my teeth into this, show you guys my thoughts.

“But before that, a little housekeeping is in order. Recently, I’ve—”

A tangent follows. It an update on her life, her schoolwork, her favourite lip gloss. Five minutes later:

“Right, so let’s get into the deep dive, shall we? There’s a lot here to go through. And I’m not going to lie, you guys. I am low-key obsessed with Gorefa*g. I know it’s kind of messed up, so feel free to call me a psycho in the comments, but I just really love psychology and stuff, you know?"

“So, here we go. First observation for the deep dive… He seems to really like pop music?”]

In the recommendation queue to the bottom right of Really Romilda’s video:

MOM REACTS TO GOREF*G!!!! TOTALLY REAL!!”

superluke

Goref*g blog is a HOAX? (Evidence)

RationalSkepticDaily

The True Story of Goref*g – PART ONE

Lexel3300

THE MONSTER WITHIN (BBC Serial Killer Documentary)

blackXweedXdonkey

STOP glorifying goref*g!

femtastic

✦✦✦

“Please, Tom—”

“No.”

“But Tom, if you’d just—

“No.”

“For heaven’s sake, Thomas,” said Nan. She settled her teacup on its gilded saucer. “Drop it. We’re trying to relax.”

The Riddles ate Sunday dinner in the usual fashion, except that where the curtains were normally spread wide to permit the evening’s final crimson gleam, the shutters were closed and the cloth knotted twice. Visible from the dining room window was the distant queue of emblemed vehicles, dispersed down the hill’s long arch.

Tom crept his pinkie into the denim pocket and felt the paper’s comforting blunt edge. He reminded himself as often as he could that this time, there was a future worth looking forward to, that these weeks were little more than growing pains.

Growing pains and real pains, compliments to Cormac McLaggen. Tom’s plate was scarcely touched. Chewing irritated the sore muscles along his jaw. At the constabulary, his first and last meal of the weekend—stale ham baguette sandwich—left his face twitching irritably throughout the night. He spooned a mouthful of mashed peas and washed them down with pinot noir.

“Tommy,” said Dad, now going the sympathetic route, with a soft patronizing effect, “I know you didn’t get on with Dr. McGonagall last time, but that was ages ago. Five years have passed. Mr. Scrimgeour insists the therapist’s testimony will be crucial, if this is brought to court.”

“Well,” said Tom, caressing the split on his cheek without thinking, “if I were to go, it wouldn’t be to her office. That, I can assure you.” Dr. McGonagall was a wench. He wanted nothing to do with her. “But it doesn’t even matter. It won’t go to court.”

Nan grasped gently around his elbow and shared a pursed-lip expression with Dad across the table. “We don’t know that yet, Tommy.”

“You may not,” Tom replied. The paper crinkled; his whole fist was now in his pocket, balled around the note. “But I do.”

✦✦✦

On the note were three simple lines, in endearingly ugly cursive:

Tom,

Let’s meet at the Brown Grove this week! 16:00 on Monday, if they let you out. Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday if they don’t.

Best, Harry

How could Tom stay glum!

The weekend, what a rush: internment, questioning, some very embarrassing little moments sprinkled in here and there. And yet it was all so inconsequential! He thought of nothing but the future.

Mates.

Pretty f*cking mental, right?

✦✦✦

“No, Dad,” said Harry as he crutched out of the Potter dining room and into the stairwell. “It’s not right. I’m not going to lie.”

“It wouldn’t be a lie, Harry!” insisted Dad for the umpteenth time.

Since dinner time, where Mum attempted to reach an armistice to the embittered car-ride battle which ensued upon leaving the constabulary, Harry and his father had floundered through heated conversation about the future of the Riddle investigation.

“All we need you to say is that you’re not sure those were the pants. That maybe you misremembered. It’s not impossible, is it? I know he’s been in this house. I just bloody know it. I can feel it in my bones.”

“Yeah, well,” Harry made his first step: crutches on the carpet, a forward lean and lift. Leading up the slant walls was a series of family portraits. He couldn’t stand to look at them, not for one moment. “Good luck telling that to the magistrate. Maybe he’ll even give your bones a listen, eh?”

“Harry James Potter!”

He was already slamming the door to his room and turning the lock. Slide, tick. Dad jiggled the knob. Harry ignored it and fell back onto his bed. The click of the bolt was a major slight in the Potter household; he had not been allowed to do so for years, since it aggravated Dad’s anxieties.

Even whilst Tom Riddle was interned behind latch and guard, when there was no reason at all for concern, Harry was awaken too many times by the rattling of the hinges. Much of what came to define Harry’s existence—the rigid curfews, the child-block notices, the specially designed school schedule—was not purposed for his protection, as his parents alleged.

No, it was all about Dad.

His panic attacks.

“HARRY! HARRY! OPEN THIS DOOR!”

“No!”

His fugue rages. “Please! Please, son.” His well-being.

Jingle-jingle-jangle went the door. Harry let it go on. At some point, there was Mum’s ameliorating words and some more grumbling from Dad, and he might have even been crying. Harry simply didn’t care.

Turning on his hip to read from his mobile, ever-abuzz, Harry scrolled through the group chat with a cold eye. Ginny’s vindictive messages that had flowed endlessly on Friday night now looked very

foolish. The moment Harry texted back (‘guess you weren’t watching telly with the twins during the banging, eh?’) the whole lot of them went quiet. He tossed his mobile atop the striped comforter.

The tornado had come for him again; and what was he meant to think? In an even stack inside his desk drawer were guides to footballs tactics, how the best coaches devised their field strategies, how players could incorporate their lessons. Unfortunately there was no helpful guide on falling in love with someone who was maybe a bit of a stalker.

If he asked Hermione—one finger on her lip, humming, thinking by the books—she would say: You’re going to feel many contradictory emotions. That’s perfectly normal. What’s important is that you take the time to think through your feelings before doing anything you can’t take back.

Ah, it would be such crap advice.

Everyone thought he feared the world lurking beneath the power button. He didn’t. It was happening all over again, whether they liked it or not, so better toughen up and take it on the chin. There were still cars around the Riddle residence, and though Dad forced him to lie low in sunglasses on the passenger’s side, he still caught a glance of the yellow white flashes. Harry could not help but glance at how many views there were when Dudley played the video back. 537,319. And it would only grow higher.

Well—he did not care, he did not care, he did not care!

He missed Tom already. He missed the deep hum of his impassive speech, the strange feel of his eyes, piercing in, seeing him. These pangs struck Harry in a special way, a way he could not compare to past experiences with want and longing. He missed his parents at football camp, while lying at night, picking splinters off the bunk beds; he had missed his grandmother upon her passing, when he was still very young, before departed meant something different from gone. But this was just something else altogether. A strange hunger was purring inside his stomach, and though it made him feel sick, it was so incredibly rousing, his toes curled, his insides shivered.

Harry flexed his right hand open. This hand had sealed his fate.

Tom’s blog was taken down but Seamus’s archive remained ready for poaching. Harry pulled it up on his mobile and—hand in trousers—read till the sun was dead and the moon bright and high.

Now the voice was pure in his mind.

‘you look so good in blue, my love. i wonder if you know?’ ‘all the things i could do to you, if i could stir you awake…’

‘…to lick you from the base of your spine to the curve of your neck’

‘These words are the psychotic musings of a madman—’ said Dad in all his blustering stupidity.

He could have been right. If Harry was an ordinary boy who really was crushing on Hermione, his father would have been altogether justified in his assessment of Tom Riddle’s intrusion.

The strange thing was, that as far as Harry was concerned, Tom’s supposedly sinister interest was neither good nor bad on its own, but maybe shaped instead by Harry’s response, like a subjective value, like those atoms that only existed when you looked at them. If Harry turned his head as he had before, if he allowed the world to make of Tom what it wanted to, then this second time round would be no different. Prison for Tom; pity for Harry.

The bedroom window was open, the curtain softly breezed. Harry left it like that as often as he could, not only in the hopes the ignoble psychopath may peer inside, but also that the fantasy, at its raunchiest, would escalate to truth.

And that after, they’d lie back, breathing fast, exhausted and raw from f*cking.

✦✦✦

The next day, pacing around the house with his face covered by white antibiotic cream, Tom found himself so giddy and expectant, he seemed to float in reverie, and did not notice three unfamiliar housekeepers milling about, sweeping and preening.

What a life it was! In the bright morning, he indulged in sweets at the piano, then danced his fingers to a few of his favourites from the Gnossiennes. In this trance, his mind ran free, and though he sat among chubby, chavvy ladies, rinsing the floors and dusting with fluffy brown feathers, he was inhabited by the sweet details of last Friday evening.

The raspy call. Hey! Hey, hold on! A great shake, smack to the ground, so much laughter. The subtlest flecks of olive in Harry’s expressive shamrock eyes; the habitual way he shrugged; the dry hangnail where he chewed his thumb. On his forehead, in the raised jagged scar tissue, a tale for later days, when trust was better established (maybe).

It was easily the best day of his life.

And to think, at first glance, Tom was quite sure Harry had come to kill him. Not because he was a pessimist, necessarily. There were risks when it came to the delicate magic of love (real love, deep love, not like what boring people felt). He knew, in the pit of his soul, that Harry had always wanted this. They were special, kindred souls, magnetically attracted, red wool string of the orient binding them across galaxies, universes, planes. But it wasn’t like Tom was psychotic. He also knew, in that moment, it was very possible that Harry had come high on footballer testosterone ready to pummel the f*ck out of him. Not so, not so!

It would be a brave new world. Tom did not know what to expect in the foreign days ahead. He simply longed to hear him laugh again. That sound, so pure and so blithe, reverberated in Tom as he sat in the youth cell, like a secret song living in his flesh, reminding him that the transient horrors would pass. The bond betwixt them was not fated platonic. Outwardly, Tom could reason his words and actions to appear normal to Harry, who, by his blushing and laughter, revealed he was not yet ready to act on the hunger within. Their love was a vortex; and it was on the event horizon they now stood, hand-in-hand, as mates.

“Tommy, sweetheart,” said Nan as she brought her lips to his scalp in a soundless, no-pucker kiss. Tom lifted his hands from the keys and turned to her, smiling. “You should wash your face up, dear. They’ll soon arrive.”

“Who?”

She frowned. “Your father didn’t tell you?”

“He seemed in such high spirits, I didn’t want to upset him,” Dad explained when they located him in the kitchen, clicking on the electric kettle. Apparently the media was coming and no one bothered to tell him. “But yes, Tom, you’ll need to stay put upstairs for the evening—and clean up!” He exclaimed, running an unwanted finger down Tom’s cheek, covering the ball of his pointer with the

medicinal cream. “Scrimgeour will be here any minute for tea.”

“It reduces swelling,” Tom griped, smacking at his hand. “I need to wear it for at least six hours; it’s only been five.”

“I don’t think medicine can tell time, Tommy. Now off with you. Get ready.”

Not to appease Dad, but to be prepared for his eminently more important meeting, later on, Tom readied himself into a handsome young gentleman. Hair combed, face rinsed, teeth gleaming. The swelling around his jaw had gone down some, and the bruises were already yellowing at their edges. He wore a black jumper, jean trousers, boots, all with an autumnal flare which hid the nasty contusions on his wrists and arms. This was casual attire in comparison to the others at tea. Nan was in a grey Clinton-esque pantsuit, colour coordinated with Dad’s simple 2-piece. Freaky fa*ggot Tom was not to be featured, lest the clean-cut Riddles lose their appeal.

Scrimgeour arrived within the next hour.

Helming the table, ignoring the sugarless black tea, his jaundiced eyes were turned down to a clipboard. He looked every bit the shark he was—severe black suit with blunt shoulder pads, a Montblanc fountain pen gripped permanently in his thick veiny hands.

“So,” he said, heavy-lidded gaze dragging over each of the Riddles, “I expect you’re all quite pleased with the fallout, thus far.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say we’re altogether pleased, necessarily,” Dad said. “I spoke with Hamley & Johnson last night—”

(A public relations firm, Tom remembered with rue.)

“—about the numbers. It’s spreading like wildfire. There was this phrase they used, something like cross, cross-something. Cross-something vitality.”

“Cross-platform virality,” said Scrimgeour with sharp enunciation. “It means your son is currently being discussed across all major media platforms.”

Dad laughed a humourless, offended-sounding chuckle. “I know what it means. I’m not an idiot. Their consultants advised me that the best course of action is to make a direct media response, sans our darling celebrity.”

Wow. Low blow. Tom didn’t need this. “Where are you going?” asked Scrimgeour.

Tom, who’d been scooting his chair from the table, paused on his feet. “Hell, probably.”

“Well,” Scrimgeour said, teasing a smile, too-white with long pointed incisors, “then in the meantime, please.” He pointed the pen at the chair. “Indulge us.”

“There isn't really a point,” Tom said, though obliging. “You’re not going to make a public statement tonight?”

“No,” said Dad. “I was advised to keep Tom behind the scenes. Nevertheless, I think it’s only fair for him to have some say in our presentation of the events.”

Scrimgeour’s thin lips creeped into a smirk. “You don’t say? Well, no doubt it is better to keep him

off camera. At least until he is formally indicted.”

“You mean if I’m formally indicted,” said Tom. “You said yourself they haven’t got the evidence.”

“Maybe, maybe not. But what they certainly do have is sufficient interest, which can be either a bane and a boon, depending on how we play our cards. Lucky for you, you have a loving father and grandmother willing to speak on your behalf.” He shifted his attention to Dad. “I expect you will trust my advice and swing it from the angle of psychological distress.”

“Psychological distress?” Tom bypassed Dad to look at Nan, whose ashamed grimace spoke of betrayal. “No bloody way. You’re not going to call me a nutter.”

“It seems the obvious route,” said Dad, speaking as if Tom had said nothing at all. “The constabulary has already documented the medicine purging,”

“That’s private!” Tom exclaimed, spirit rising with heat and horror. “You’d be violating my privacy to discuss that!”

“And what would you recommend, Tom? You did what you did. We have to provide some explanation.”

Nan, tapping her long red fingernails on the tabletop, cleared her throat, then said: “Perhaps it’s better if Tommy is spared these discussions.”

“What?”

“For your own good, my love.” Betrayed! By his own grandmother!

“Why?” snapped Tom. “So you can all deliberate which straightjacket suits me best?”

“It’s not as if we’re making up lies,” said Dad. “You’ve been off your meds. Don’t you think it will help ease things in the investigation if the public can sympathize with you?”

“Off my meds,” Tom repeated mockingly, his insides all disgusted and vile. “Some half-wit psychiatrist at a nuthouse for aspiring convicts issues a fancy slip of paper with your name, and suddenly, you need to be medicated. I never wanted to take them. You were trying to force me. I had no choice.”

“You make it sound as if I was pushing heroin on you,” Dad countered. “They were mood stabilizers. Low dose prescription. For mood swings.”

“They were making me fat.”

Dad rolled his eyes. “They were not making you fat.”

“Yes, they were! Didn’t you read the box?”

“I’d rather you gotten fat than—”

A violent clink, a familiar gasp. Tom’s tea ran over the table and dripped to the floor. The teacup was chipped along its handle.

“You can’t just go and call me a nutter on live television! Call them off! Now!” He turned to his nan and scoffed, stiffly shaking his head. “I expected this of him... but you?”

“Neither of us are going to call you a nutter, Tommy,” she said, following a reticent pause. “It’s formality. We dress nicely, we make a few statements, the world sees we’re a perfectly normal family caught in a snag.”

Dad, who kept his eyes averted, rose from his seat and leaned over the table, and picked up the porcelain fragments into a cupped hand. “I wasn’t going to mention the pills.”

“For the better, I think.” Scrimgeour flipped through his notes with a businessman’s apathy. When he landed on an empty page, he jotted out a few notes, swishing his pen to underline something in a grand curly brandish. “He needn’t be a raving lunatic to rouse a bit of sympathy. Say he’s quiet. Say he’s lonely. The public’s already made up its mind either way. This coming up?” He chuckled bleakly. “This is just the carnival. Have they sent the contract yet? I’d like to read it through with you.”

✦✦✦

Harry surprised himself. A month ago, he could not have imagined himself talking back to his father, nor ignoring all of his friends' texts, nor casually meeting up with Tom Riddle in the forest behind the Riddle House—and yet over the course of this very curious Monday, he was soon to have accomplished all three, within a 12 hour span, without ever feeling the slightest bit queer.

He walked to the Brown Grove in the steady mizzle with his hoodie pulled up, nature crackling beneath his feet and crutches. Droplets crept off the tree limbs; muck slushed the grass; fainter and fainter fell the automotive hums and croons. How long could he keep this up? The last time he fought his father's wishes was five years ago, for the same grim reason.

Harry had been holding a paper with his father's words when the social worker asked if he was ready to stand before the magistrate. The room they kept him in was clerically white and cold, and also actually cold: the climate control was set too low and he had no jumper to slide over the strange sweater vest thing Mum put him in. He'd looked at the lady—smiling blankly, fried mousy hair stretched over her skull in a bun—and the terror of what was to come hit him like a vision of apocalypse.

If he had abided Dad then, there would be no today. And instead, he saw Tom, the person he most wanted to see, blurred small in the distance: seated on the braided roots, his back against the trunk.

"Hey! Tom!" Harry's crutches scuffled in the fallen leaves as he drew nearer, to where Tom’s yellowing-bruised face sparked with interest, his brows raised in expectation. “You alright there?”

“Yes, I’m quite alright,” Tom said, though his odd blankness gave the impression that something was off... and well of course there was, not that Harry wanted to linger on it. “Forgive me.” Tom brushed a hand over his face and snorted, light-heartedly, then in the place of the absent expression, there was a normal grin. “A little lost in thought, is all. Did you have a good day at school?”

Harry put on a smile; shrugged. He didn’t want to talk about the dark and twisted and uncomfortable things. He wanted to spend the evening with Tom. “I guess it wasn’t too bad. A bit quieter than usual, maybe."

“Yes. I’m sorry about your friends.”

Harry blinked. Had Tom been reading his texts?

“Fred and George Weasley. Arrested, no?”

Like a hiss, Harry exhaled a long breath (a gesture which, if he thought long enough about, would have reminded him terribly of his father). “They’re not my friends, really." Harry padded in and leaned back on the trunk, scraping his backpack as he eased beside Tom. “Between the two of us, I think it was about time they got caught. Look at my leg. You know how it happened, don’t you?"

Tom chewed his lip and shook his head, jiggling the single curl which dangled down his forehead. The lip, the quietness. Harry could spot a liar when he saw one.

Then it flashed in his mind: great-petalled peonies, with the flush on Tom’s cheeks seeming the same dark pink shade. In the hospital Harry mistook the anonymous basket for a sympathy gift from Cormac. But then—oh, his heart fluttered!—of course it had been Tom.

“You at least know it was a football match, though” said Harry, subtly shifting inward on the branch’s knot where he sat, his shoulder nearly touching Tom’s. “Cormac McLaggen was going for the ball at the same time that I was, but there’d been that bang. Loudest thing I ever heard. I can’t say for sure, but I suspect that if there hadn’t been that noise, I’d have been able to dodge Cormac or something.”

Tom nodded once. “Yes. I see.”

This meeting was heading in the wrong direction already. Harry had to stop it straying further. "But let's not talk about that stuff. I've got bigger things on my mind."

"Such as?"

"Well, polynomials, for starts."

“Polynomials?” he asked suspiciously. This clearly wasn't the answer he expected—it wasn't even what Harry had intended to say, really.

“Yeah," said Harry, nodding simply. "I just can’t get the hang of them. But you're good at maths, right? Reckon if I can get it over with, we can go exploring around here.”

Tom took a slow breath through his nose, turning his head to either side as he distantly observed their surroundings; he seemed to be debating whether he should accept the reprieve Harry offered.

“Polynomials, huh? Yes. I think I can recall.”

Without further ado, their first meeting continued as any old ordinary revision session might: Harry shimmied off his backpack, shuffled through the plastic folders, and—pointing his finger at different problems—listened to him work through the solution. Tom’s shoulders never lost their tautness, nor did his strained lips ever quite ease, but his calm and deliberate voice soothed Harry into a slouching, slacked-grin pose, his right pointer twirling in the hair beside his ear, while Tom was all business, just clever and straight-to-the-point.

“I actually think I get it now,” said Harry. He explained the steps of an empty problem Tom listened with one ear perked, then nodded affirmatively. “You’ve got it.”

“Hey,” Harry said, sliding the paper into its fold. “That’s pretty amazing. You explained it better than my teacher.”

(In truth, Harry did not need help at all to begin with. He was not bad at maths, conceptually, but too

often rushed through problems and made easy errors that he never bothered to double-check.)

The wind gained up over the grove in a chill gust, whisking the stray leaves along the floor, chasing critters in the stir.

Goosebumps prickled down Harry’s arms. He unbuttoned his sleeves at the elbow and rolled them to his wrists, and, juddering his body, voiced a rolling shiver. It was well cold now that the sun was setting. If Harry was hanging with Ron, they might have cuddled in that platonic, sort of comical way they did, hugging and laughing like brothers. The very idea of touching Tom as he touched Ron was dangerous... his loins squirmed and his skin heated and his eyes darted to Tom’s hands, the thin palm, the long fingers, knobbly-knuckled, delicate and pale... wrapped around him, would they feel warm and secure?

Experimentally, Harry chipped Tom’s shoulder with his own; it felt very, very different than with Ron. “Chill out here, isn't it? I'm not used to all this sitting around, I think. So easy to get cold when you're just sat like a log."

Tom smiled faintly. “When will you be able to walk again?”

“March, they think. I’m showing good progress already. There’s just no telling how fast the bone will repair. That’s all depending on the person... like with a lot of things I reckon.”

Their eyes, flirting with contact throughout the exchange, at last caught hold.

“So,” said Harry, clawing his fingers up the tree bark to leverage the crutch and stand, hoping that the manner in which he crossed his legs did not betray the stiff certain sign. “I told my Dad I’d be home for dinner. Same time tomorrow, maybe?”

✦✦✦

At their next meeting, on a nippy Tuesday evening, as soon as Harry hobbled forth and spoke his hellos, Tom smiled and withdrew a metal tin of playing cards from his pocket.

“Would you like to see a magic trick?”

The strange look on Tom’s face—lip curled up, eyes faintly crazed—was enough to kink that thing inside him, that thing that made him feel alive.

"Yeah. Sounds cool."

Tom called his demonstration The Fool’s Deceit. At Tom’s instruction, Harry mixed the deck in an overhead shuffle and memorized the first card. Ace of Spades.

“Return the card init to the deck, wherever you’d like, and shuffle again.”

Harry did so, then handed back the deck

“Now,” said Tom, reaching dramatically into the deck, “is this your card?”

It was not; held in Tom's right hand was a joker. Harry first eyed the card and slowly roved his eyes up to Tom. His pupils were blown wide, his plump lips all twisty. Harry struck his forehead and smiled. “Woah! It is! How’d you do that?”

“What?” Tom looked twice at the card, nonplussed. “No it’s not.” He flicked his hand and—out from nowhere, flittering from nothing—came Harry’s spade. “This is.”

The Fool’s Deceit.

Harry laughed himself into a small coma. The air was moist, the mud all boggy and gross; still, he didn’t care. Lying on his side, tears wet down his temples, aching in the ribs, he watched Tom watch him, half-smiling, and wheezed.

The meetings were too short, the school days too long.

The Weasley twins were released on bail on Tuesday afternoon and withdrew from Wycliffe that same day. To avoid wandering eyes that sifted through his every act, Harry joined Hermione in the library for lunch and ate from his lap beneath the table where the librarian could not see. Lunchtime as they knew it was on hiatus: Harry would not speak to Ginny until she apologized, and whether for pride or for guilt, she turned her back to him and walked off. Ron, caught in the middle, tried to remain impartial, though even he was too shaken to visit after school.

It benefitted the Weasley family that the twins’ crime—while grander in scope, while more damaging in reality!—could not compare to the hysteria surrounding the Riddle investigation. Unfamiliar cars carried all sorts of strange-talking people into town: newspeople, journalists, teenagers in borrowed caravans who treated the Riddle House as their pilgrimage, snapping photos, asking villagers all sorts of questions that no local would ask; calling out that wretched nom de plume that was rare to hear spoken aloud.

Funny, really, that the one place Harry could escape was not among friends, nor at school, nor even in his own home, where Dad was twitchy and jittering, installing a new security system, shouting insanely out the window when strange kids stalked slowly past.

Only with Tom, in the safety of the pine, without telly, without radio, with his mobile, shut off and pocketed, was Harry free to forget the Gorefa*g.

✦✦✦

On Thursday, in the faint dusk, as their meeting drew to an end, Harry studied Tom as he shuffled through his playing cards.

They had covered many bases in their first week as mates. Tom learned that Harry liked to binge reruns of Glee with Hermione, and that he sheared sheep in the summers at the Burrow Dale, and that he loathed snobby people more than stupid people, but especially hated ignorant people.

“The difference is, ignorant people choose not to know anything,” Harry explained, skidding a stone along the ravine top. “Stupid people can’t help it.”

Tom smiled devilishly. “But don’t you think stupid people are rather annoying, too?”

“Well if we’re gonna be honest about it...”

Likewise, Harry learned more about Tom, the boring bits, the boy behind all the guts and gore and unwelcome stardom. He liked programming languages, and speaking real languages, and looking at data, and spending time with his nan.

They occasionally recalled their childhood together—the time Harry dropped a bucket of glue all over Tom’s desk, the hilarious rumour in Year 2 that Seamus Finnigan was born without nipples, prompting him to strip at recess and then cry when everyone mocked in his freaky outie belly-button.

Rarely did they bring up their fears or anxieties or discomforts. It did not fit the escapist thing the two had built for themselves in the Brown Grove.

The branches rattled with a squirrel’s leap, and some canopy debris dropped, falling to the ground with quiet thuds. Harry was staring at Tom as freely and plainly as someone might inspect a painting; their mutual tendency to stare at each other had long ago exhausted Harry’s ability to feel self- conscious. Tom was looking down, examining his own sleight of hand, in repetition. The card shifted expertly between Tom’s clever fingers: King of Hearts.

“Hey,” began Harry, starting on a new memory. “Do you remember the first time we met?”

“Yes," said Tom. "At All Saints. The playroom.”

“Oh yeah, huh? That must’ve been it. But I was thinking more about the church choir. Remember?”

The cards flew in a quick accordion pattern between Tom’s palms, the paper crisply popping in that characteristic sound. “Endless hymnals, no windows, that weird mouldy smell. How could I forget? Your mum taught alongside my dad. She has a very lovely voice.”

“Yeah, I love it. Bad luck for me, being tone deaf like my dad. You on the other hand...” Harry nudged his rib with his elbow, and as usual, Tom did nothing but draw in his shoulders and—very, very quietly—gasp. “You were amazing. That’s what I can first remember about you. I’d just sort of close my eyes and try to hear your voice over all the other kids.”

Drooping back on two elbows, looking overhead at the milky-pink sky, the old recollection consumed him. Age 5, Tom was a full head taller than all the others, so he stood in the back next to Ron, who was directly behind Harry. The divine voice carolled a high and dreamy serenade:

“Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day;
Earth's joys grow dim; its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.”

Harry remembered so much about those vague and distant days, down to the feminine perfume smell that flared when Tom passed.

“There’s a trip tomorrow,” Harry said at random, feeling awkward when moments passed and Tom said nothing about his memory. “To Leeds. All the fifth-years are meant to go.”

“I see,” said Tom. “So you won’t be able to come?”

“Well, actually, what I was thinking was...” Harry smiled a twisted, coy smirk to rival Tom’s; he liked the way it felt. “Maybe I could just skive off. You still won’t be in school tomorrow anyway, right? I could be here at noon if it works for you.”

“Skiving off? That doesn’t quite sound like you, Mr. Potter.”

Harry blinked at Tom’s mischievous grin. He was teasing him!

“Well, I guess we’ve all got an inner baddie waiting to sneak out, eh? What do you say?”

Harry extended his hand in a casual, mannish gesture, chin tilted up, smile somewhat goofy. Tom was right to say that skiving off was not Harry’s style, but what did that matter now? The world felt inside-out and upside-down; and when Tom took his hand, shook it, and smiled, the bones in his chest seemed to breach, and he was certain that if the world was turned about, it was now upright, the way it was always meant to be.

✦✦✦

Dr. Minerva McGonagall, half-dazed by the soft tingle of oxytocin, sipped her Yorkshire black brew across from Thomas, watching his brows wrinkle as he fiddled through his mobile. He was in his boxers and a fitted white tee, with legs sprawled in a lazy slouch, fair skin glistening still. With Thomas Riddle, no request to meet was ever suggestive of a simple chat—and early on in their casual affair, there was rarely chance for even meagre small talk.

“I saw you and your mother on Hangleton Nightly. It was very touching.”

“Hmm.”

Minerva settled her tea, frowning. Post-sex tea was a relatively new development. Thomas, the detached alpha sort, liked to be in control, and he learned quickly that Minerva was gifted at teasing out things people would rather not talk about. But such bold indifference? It would not do. “Thomas?”

He lifted his eyes and suddenly looked very childlike.

“If this is how you intend to spend the hour, then I see no reason why you must do so in my flat.”

“My apologies, Minnie.” He set the mobile beside his tea and sat up straight, converting into the reticent businessman he pretended to be. “It has been quite the week.”

She quirked her bare pink lips. Among the many things she liked about Thomas, his cluelessness was perhaps the most delicious. Minerva was a straight-laced, disciplined woman who did not compromise for fools. Men like Thomas, they had sex-appeal, money and pocketbooks filled with biscuit-baking floozies eager for phallus; they were never hers to cultivate. With her severe flat- breasted physique, sharp chin and long nose, Minerva had only ever dated academic types, those thinning hair, chinless-in-tweed men, who could compete with her intellect. Thomas was paradoxically unobtainable and yet witless in her clutches. She very much liked his company.

“You should know I’m a most qualified listener. Or have you forgotten?”

He smiled at her, but thinly. “I haven’t, no. Perhaps that’s why I’m so reluctant to speak. Don’t want you to get me all figured out.”

“No psychiatrist of value has ever thought they truly understood their patient, Thomas. Rather, we aspire to help others understand themselves.”

He smiled into his tea. “That sounds very nicely scripted.”

Minerva co*cked her head to the side, taking a fond observation of Thomas. “Nevertheless, it is the truth. Imagine I’m treating a mother who suffers from depression. I may only see the gloom and the trauma and the regret; but this same mother will later return home to her child, and in the world she shares with him, will act nothing at all like the woman I met.

“Thus, it is not the object of my practice to really understand who this woman is, is it? Instead, I hope to help her make sense of herself, so that she can heal. Or did you think the title doctor was given out like a participation ribbon?”

It was not quite the time for teasing, however. Hands swarming his teacup, holding in onto his chest, protectively, he contemplated her words, an unmistakable gloom setting in.

“He is your son,” said Minerva in a kind voice. “He is your son and no one has the right to tell you how to feel about him.”

Silence stretched again, gaping in the space between. She expected he declare his goodbye and be on his way, as he had so many times before when conversation strayed brutal. Then he turned his head to hers, and asked: “Have I ever told you about Gilead the goldfish?”

“No," said Minerva, shaking her head. "I don't believe so. Was he a pet?”

“Tom’s first and only.”

As Thomas said this, he made a strange, ominous smile, one which darkened his eyes and filled the air around with a foreboding static. Minerva leaned in, alight with interest.

“He had been begging me to buy him a snake since he first saw one at the zoo. I finally told him that four was too young to own a snake, but that we could get him a goldfish instead.

“Most little children would call a fish guppy or gulpy. But Tom was never like other children. He named him for the hills of Gilead in Jordan. Things with him always had to be grand, unique. He was even disappointed to see the fish I brought him, because he'd had in his mind some orange koi he'd seen at the zoo. Still, after some warming up, things were pretty normal with Gilead. Tom fed him, helped clean out the water when I asked. Then, about one month later, as I was about to leave for a jog, I noticed the tank was empty.

“Well, maybe you could’ve guessed from the start where this story would end. I found Tom in his bedroom slouched over a shoebox lid. Gilead was dead. Tom pinned him all over with safety clips, took out all of the little organs. At first, I thought it could be fine. That perhaps he was simply curious and he didn’t understand what he was doing.

“But when I asked him, ‘Tommy, why have you done this?’, he didn’t hesitate to tell me why. He said: ‘Sometimes it’s fun to see things hurt, Daddy.'"

"I was so shocked, I didn’t know what to do. Over the years, I realized something was off with him. He was capricious, violent, intrepid. You know, I always thought that if my own child was a monster, I wouldn’t be blind. I would do the right thing, make the right judgements. But when I look at Tom, I can only really see my baby boy… and then I remember what he’s done... and I disgust myself, because I can't quit wondering:

“Does he still think it’s fun to see things hurt?"