The blatant shows of extravagance, overabundance, and immoderance[1] don't bother him (much) anymore. It's something he's used to, no matter how different the styles of the different houses might be. Once you've seen one priceless heirloom, you've seen them all. All halls, all paintings, all chandeliers.
The Yule celebrations seem to be cheerier this year. He places the reasoning behind Grindelwald's latest triumphs in the surrounding countries, most of the attendees here are too dull to realize the man isn't a purist. He briefly recalls someone calling him a fascist a few years ago. Who was that?
Well whoever it was, they were partly right. Grindelwald's campaign has ignited a furious show of jingoistic patriotism among the magical elite (and even among the poor). Being a part of his campaign meant you were a hero to your kind. That you valued traditional viewpoints and had military ambition.
As a child, Tom didn't have much of an opinion on the man or his views. But now he rather finds them to be tantalizingly dangerous. If Muggles can destroy cities, what could witches do?
He watches the younger crowd of witches dance clumsy waltzes, observing the awkward box-steps and hesitant hands on shoulders and backs.
"Dance with me." Hedwig tugs at his sleeve, "Da's looking."
He replicates the twisted, frankenwaltz perfectly. Leading Hedwig around like a music box charm, despite her distaste for dancing. Their massive height difference makes it a tad awkward, perhaps, but he is no worse a partner for it.
It really is like dueling.
Tom compliments Hedwig on her dress robes. She tells him to shove it up his ass.
-
The house in Mexico is dark. Silent. Only Churro comes to greet him at the door when he walks in, the wards of the house submerging him in familiar magic. It is late at night (or early in the morning), just a few minutes into the last day of December. It's chilly, for the location, and he's wearing a light sweater that Churro rubs his face on when Tom bends down to pet him.
Then there's a light. A spark. Fire. His first instinct is to cower, because a bright light in the darkness shows the planes where you are, but he is not in London, he is here. Mexico. Veracruz. Far from any great war...
He sees Balam. Ximena. Their welcoming faces aglow in the golden light. Looking excited. Anticipatory. Tom thinks, for a moment, that they're conducting a ritual of some sort and he had interrupted, but then...
They're singing. Not a song he's ever heard before, at least not sung to him. He heard it at the Summer party. He's heard variations of it, in English, sung to other children. Other adults. But not him. Never him.
He feels separated from his body. Like he's viewing the scene before him through a third-person lens. Who is this for? This food, these gifts, this splendor? The smiles on their faces? The warmth in their magic?
There's a real birthday cake in Balam's hands. Not just the image of one, a drawing of one, the idea of one. Like he had for the first few years of his life. It has form, casts a shadow. Takes up space. The frosting is chocolate and his name (his actual name, not Tomás) lays written on the top in white icing. It's his. It's his cake. For him. For his birthday. Why can't that thought connect in his head?
They did this for him. Kept it a secret. Made his favorite for the day he came into this world.
There's something odd in the pit of his stomach, swelling in the middle of his chest. Burning in the back of his throat. He flexes his fingers, swallows, opens his mouth. "Thank you."
Ximena smiles and he stares, "It's Elle's recipe, Nana helped me make it."
Inés made it. Ximena made it. Thinking about him.
"Make a wish!" She urges, "The candles won't melt, but I'm hungry!!"
For the first time in his life, Tom blows out the candles on a birthday cake.
-
His cake sticks to his teeth and the sweetness lingers in his mouth long after he's finished with his first piece. He hasn't seen nor tasted sugar outside Hogwarts in a long time, and he wonders where they found enough to pour into this cake. Mexico was taken into the war a little after the States, and are still under rations.
He washes the cake down with cold milk.
Balam is sitting in the kitchen, tuning his guitar, talking to Churro as if the cat understood him. Churro himself is in his new mauve sweater, perched on a tall stool and swaying his tail back and forth as he observes the tuning of the instrument.
Ximena is next to Tom in the living room, her plate of cake still unfinished in her lap.
"No big grand party for me, then?" He asks as he watches her hands use the fork to further crumble the cake to pieces.
A shrug, "You're like me, you don't like those things."
He agrees, personally, but, "You seemed perfectly at home during the party last summer."
"It's fine for others...But not for me and my birthday."
"Great minds think alike."
"You think very different from me."
He's not so sure. The older he gets, the more he believes them to be birds of a feather. Or rather, snakes of a scale. "You just said I'm like you, how do I think differently?"
"You care what others think."
He presses his lips together, "Everyone does, to some extent. Don't tell me you don't mind what your loved ones think of you."
"I guess. But you take it so far. You're so dramatic." She looks up from the plate in her lap, "What are you hiding that's so important?"
It's not a real question in that she doesn't care about his answer. Not really. She's saying it to bother him. Get under his skin.
He clears his throat, "I prefer to think of it as not allowing the unworthy to have access to me. Who I truly am."
Ximena stares at him, unblinking. He feels sweat collecting under his collar, and he resists the urge to adjust it in front of her.
"Don't you get tired?"
Tom opens his mouth to answer, but closes it. Tries again. Nothing comes out.
"Here." Ximena strikes through his daze and hands him a wrapped gift: something modest-looking, enveloped in brown butcher paper and wrapped rather haphazardly. "This one's from me."
The change of subject isn't jarring, but he still pauses because...A gift? For him? Even after the cake and song, it comes as a surprise. He suspects the novelty of receiving gifts from those who actually care about him will never wear off.
He unwraps the gift carefully, despite it looking like a child wrapped it. What is this? A bag? A coin purse? It's cotton. Dyed black, with colorful floral embroidery threaded throughout the fabric. The drawstrings on the top are shut tight, but when he pulls on them to loosen them up, the small pouch grows from the size of his fist to the size of a football. It's completely doused in her magic.
Ximena clears her throat, "It keeps food from spoiling, so you don't have to set a charm on them..." She presses her lips together, hesitating, then speaking, "There's an extension charm on it, so you can hide as much food as you'd like."
Tom stiffens up. It's as if she had just told him there was about to be an air raid.
"It's...okay." Ximena continues, seeing and reading his silence, "I used to do it too. I still do, sometimes...it takes time, you know? To trust that there's going to be food on the table the next day. The houselves used to move my little hoard from dorm to dorm every year."
They do that for him too. Sometimes they add onto it.
"You'll never go hungry here. I promise."
He swallows. Hands trembling. "Thank you." He's been saying that so much today. It sounds out of practice coming out of his mouth.
She hums, digging into her pocket, "And this is from me and Dad–"She ties something around his wrist–Thread, definitely, with beads of some sort. Immediately, he feels the black, protective magic surrounding it–Mingling naturally with his own. It is a bracelet–Like the one she has. But different.
He finds himself unable to speak; what was this for? A claim? A sign of possessiveness?
"You're one of us now." Ximena clarifies with quiet satisfaction, "Nana is fond of you, and Dad thinks of you as his kid, you know."
That comes as a punch to the gut: sudden and powerful. Why does that affect him? To know that his teacher thinks of him so–A man he's hardly known for longer than a few years, who's taught him and encouraged his dark nature..."Does he?"
She hums, "He doesn't want you to return to London–Especially with the bombings." Don't remind him. He still tremors at the memory of moving into the bomb shelter, "I suggested he formally adopt you, but we know you'd miss Hogwarts."
And oh he cannot help it: everything she says after adopt you is blurred out. Muffled. Ignored. Adopt him? Formally and legally allow him into his family. Bring him back to his home after Hogwarts, during the holidays, to warmth and smiles. Food and clothes and shelter. To Magic. His kind. To Ximena. Just the thought stirs something in his stomach. He swallows a hard lump in this throat and squeezes his hands into fists, cracking them.
Tom stares at the bracelet. He realises Ximena is still talking.
"--very angry at Dippet for allowing students to return to dangerous areas like that. But we know you see Hogwarts as your home."
It is home.
He licks his lips, "I'm a little old to be scouted for adoption, Ximena." Even if having Balam as his father would be incredibly beneficial to him. Practicing magic outside of school, round-the-clock learning, permission for advanced learning and other classes...He could find a way to stay in Hogwarts, right?
Churro rubs his head against his shin, chirping for attention.
She pats Tom's shoulder once, "Think it over."
-
It's not incorrect to say he fears London, but it's not wholly the truth either. The less he sees of that wretched city, the less he can be associated with it. Reminded of his origins. That no matter how many permission slips he fakes, how many houses he stays at over the summer and holidays, this place is still his official home.
"I'm a little old to be scouted for adoption,"
But is he? If it had been an offer from a powerful family (perhaps his own?), would he have accepted it? Encouraged it? Does it make a difference that it's from her family? Far away from Hogwarts?
What would it feel like, to have their magic threaded in his? Be a part of their familiar coven? To forever have traces of Ximena's magic with him?
He shivers as he steps out of the London cold into The Leaky Cauldron. The faded blues of the streets and gray skies of the city behind him. Out of sight, forever in the back of his mind.
Diagon Alley, by contrast, is full of color and life. An oasis at the center of a harsh and lifeless desert. He feels he can breathe again. Look up at the sky and know it will be blue. Clear. Free of planes.
"Hide your faces." Balam instructs them, "You don't want anyone to see you two walking into this neighbourhood." His tone isn't any different than usual, but when Tom hears it, all he can do is remember his conversation with Ximena. Dad thinks of you as his kid, you know.
She slips the hood of her cloak on, and Tom does the same as Balam performs a brisk notice-me-not charm on them. He feels the man's protective magic fall over him like a blanket. "Stay close to me. Don't talk to anyone. Don't wander." The last command, he directs towards his daughter, who looks disappointed but understanding.
Knockturn Alley isn't a mirror or polar of Diagon. It's not even a poorer or darker side. There's less vibrancy, admittingly: the colors are not as obnoxious, and are more...sophisticated. Traditional. Blacks and purples and greens, deep greys and blues. He's heard of this place, of course, from fellow snakes and other purebloods. Dark arts enthusiasts and panophobics. He was waiting to turn sixteen before entering on his own. Just to explore. To look around and gauge which shops would be useful to him.
Though it is new to Tom, though he is under a disillusion charm, he controls his gaze. Only looking ahead of him and not granting anyone eye contact. Following behind Balam tightly and not moving one inch away from Ximena. Keeping his magic to himself. Secure.
They stop at a dusty storefront that's definitely seen better days. In the display, he sees ornate glass jars filled with liquid and blobby creatures, severed hands with monkey's paw labels, and a shining coronet claiming to be cursed. Ximena, herself, is looking curiously at an old doll with button eyes.
Balam glances through the window, furrows his brows. "Shit, it's Torsten." He frowns at the glass, "I was hoping for Lucian."
Tom blinks, "You've had trouble with him before?"
"More my mother and Wáng than me. Lucian Borgin's easy enough to deal with as long as you have something he wants, but Torsten Burke's a pain in the ass." Balam scoffs, "He'll try to undersell you, claim that your skins aren't rare or desirable. He's a very good conman. If he doesn't budge, say you're going up the street to Madam Peregrine. They have a rivalry."
Tom's shoulders straighten, his chest puffs up, "You want me to instigate the deal?"
"I suspect you would have done it anyways, if I weren't here." Balam's right, but Tom doesn't confirm this, "I'll be with you the entire time, posing as another buyer. Unrelated." He gestures to Ximena with his chin, "We'll say we're looking for a protection charm."
Tom's pride isn't bruised, but he certainly doesn't like the implication that he needs to be watched to make sure he's not swindled. He might be inexperienced, but he's observed enough exchanges between merchant and buyer to know when he's being taken advantage of.
Balam and Ximena walk into the shop first, Borgin and Burke's, and he watches them disappear into the back, through the musty windows.
He counts. One. Two. Five. Ten. Up to two minutes.
He walks in.
If the shop front was dreaded looking, the inside isn't much better. All sorts of dark oddities litter the shelves, from tomes to body parts of various creatures: animal and human alike. Tom pretends to entertain the thought of buying a crystal skull when he's approached by a man in a stained apron, holding his hands behind his back. "Looking for something?"
No warm greeting. Tom is not wearing anything that says he's carrying money. He's grown up around enough judgemental adults to know when he's suspected of being a thief. He allows himself to look mildly surprised at the man's approach, before smiling, "Actually yes, as a matter of fact. I was told you were the right man to... appreciate what I have to sell."
Burke hides it well, but Tom can see the intrigue in his eyes. A boy like Tom wandering into his store, looking like the poster boy for good behavior and claiming to have something that will interest him? He's sure it's happened before. But Tom's not bluffing.
"I am with another customer, at the moment..." Eyes flash to the other side of the store, where Ximena is pointing at a macabre tapestry of people screaming.
"If you'd prefer to miss out..." Tom shrugs, unbothered, "Your loss."
Manipulating a grown man, one who has done it countless times to his customers, is oddly easy. Barely a step ahead of talking around his schoolmates. The more Tom dismisses Burke, the more eager the man is to show him up. To have a look at his merchandise and scoff at him for wasting his time. Banning him from his store. He sees Tom as nothing but a little brat with a pretty face. Tom doesn't need legilimens to know that. He also doesn't need it to see the intrigue in his eyes when the word basilisk is dropped.
"Come into the back, mister...?"
"Riddle." His tone is backed up with all the confidence of a Selwyn or Lestrange. As if Burke should be able to recognise him.
The shopkeeper excuses himself from his two other customers, and brings Tom to the back of the store. When he emerges from the storeroom, he is twenty-seven galleons richer.
-
His first purchases are new clothes. Not from secondhand shops. Not previously owned by another or sold cheap due to an imperfection. They're tailored to fit him. Made for him. Right before his eyes, he sees the needle and thread stitch together cuts of fabric into a new robe. A frock coat. A linen shirt. Breeches. He has new shoes all for himself. There's no extra space for him to grow into or cramped space for his toes to be smooshed in. No holes worn in or scuffed leather (it's real leather! He hasn't seen it since the start of the war.)
His second purchases are school supplies. Brand new textbooks without previous nitwit's annotations or crude drawings on the pages. Quills charmed for durability. The expensive, good-quality parchment he's seen the upper class use for throwaway notes. Ink that dries instantly and never smears. That erases perfectly if you mutter a charm.
His third purchase is ice cream.
With the leftovers, he walks to Gringotts. The Goblins inside pay little mind to him as they go about their work, meticulous and almost reverent. His books had said they take hard work seriously. His contemporaries say that they're shrewd and greedy. They would know.
Opening an account is easy. Tedious. There are samples taken of his blood and magic. His wand is inspected. They ask him if either Ximena or Balam are to be given authorized access. If anyone with his blood can enter his small vault.
It's nothing grand, or interesting. Hardly even the size of a broom closet, really. But it's there and it's his. All his. His earnings and his will got him here. Vault 47. Hardly three stories underground, if that. It takes a mere key to open it. One Tom clutches so tightly in his hand, it leaves an imprint on his pale skin.
-
There's a dripping sound somewhere behind him, or in front of him. It's hard to orient himself in the dark. His feet splash along the littered cobblestones, crush bones under his weight. He casts lumos, and sees snakes. Little snakelets, barely hatched, slithering in and out of the bones. The skulls.
He hears a chime.
Ximena's there. In the chamber. In the dark. No lumos on her wand. Standing like she has complete right to be there. In the dark with her chin held up. Her back straight. Eyes wide open.
His blood freezes. He's reaching for her. Grabbing at her arms, cradling her face and desperately trying to cover her eyes. His arms feel so heavy, suddenly. Her skin so cold. As if she were dead already. Close your eyes, Ximena. Close your eyes. Close your eyes. Close your eyes. It's hard to breathe. Hard to speak. The words come out jumbled and desperate and emotional.
Ximena does not shut her eyes. His hands do nothing. Her brilliant black eyes do not blink and they're intent on seeing. On ignoring him and walking past, deeper into the chamber.
He's screaming now. Ximena close your eyes. Close your eyes. Close your eyes, please. Don't look don't look don't look–
The basilisk slithers behind them both. He can feel her scales on his skin.Tom wakes up to the sound of an owl tapping on his window, a thick parcel in its talons.
-
Dear Tom,
It was a pleasure meeting you in the house of my father last Eoster; I wish I could have spoken with you at my nephew's birthday party. The impression you made upon my family is enduring and remarkable. It's good to see the rumors about you are true. I'm thankful that my baby sister has such a capable, loyal friend at her side in Hogwarts.
Your project on magical roots in Muggle settings sounds fascinating! I'm sure your professor will be more than impressed with your proposal. I've inquired to my husband and good-father about their sources for Nature's Nobility: of course, they are quite secretive about it all, but once I dropped your name and academic purpose, they were amiable to helping out. Enclosed are the notes and provenance of our latest edition. I've included a key for the sections written in my good-father's shorthand.
Well Wishes,
Hemera Fawley
-
The documentation of magical families and their locations is meticulous. Statistical. Mathematical in a way he has never seen any magical charters be–his own classmates don't know their multiplication tables, which he had memorized at age ten, so how could wizards have created something like this? The Averys have a brain for more than just law and justice, it seems. Shame that it didn't translate to their heir.
All of the powerful magical, pureblooded, families have had homes in Muggle towns. Muggle cities. Every manor, manse, grand home upon a hill has been located within a stone's throw away from non-magical communities. When he was younger, he found it paradoxical. Stupid. If they complain so much about Muggles, why keep so close? But he understands it now. It's to show authority. That the richest house in the town belongs to them. It's the same reason people keep ant farms. To rule over something, smug and secure in their superiority.
The notes mailed to him don't say how the families got their land, but he has his suspicions. Leftovers from when they were landowners under the king. Not willing to give it up. What the notes do say, however, confirms his suspicion: Magical families don't tend to migrate. All documents claim that the families have always lived in these places, that Muggles came after. They never migrated. Never immigrated. Even the Malfoys and Shafiqs say that they married into the land, as opposed to conquering or stealing it.
According to what's in his hands, the Gaunt family hasn't moved from their spot since the marriage of Liesl Peverell to Lorcan Gaunt in the 11th century.
Little Hangleton. A bathetic[2] name for the location of his ancestral home. He's never heard of it. Never even heard of Greater Hangleton. Miles from Birmingham, Carlisle, Edinburgh. It's nothing but a small spot on the map, barely even earning a physical dot from the mapmaker. A train ride away from Yorkshire. A few floo calls, a few apparations (He no longer gets too nauseated). He can do it. He's ready.
He grabs his coat.
A knock on his door. "Do you want to go with–Oh, you're already going." Ximena's voice is an odd comfort at a time like this.
"I'm...I'm going to meet someone. Someone important." He licks his lips, "I'll be gone for the day."
Ximena tilts her head at him, staring. "...You're nervous."
"What makes you say that?" His heart is stuttering from sheer anticipation.
"Because you're being weird."
"I haven't the slightest idea what you're on about."
"Are you going to do something stupid?"
Possibly. "You said yourself I was stupid."
"Did I?" Her eyes flicker, she plays with her fingers, "That sounds like me." A nod as she accepts his word. "Will I see you before you go back to school?"
Uncertain, he slows in slipping his arms into the sleeves of his coat, "Perhaps...Ximena, can you keep a secret?"
---
[1] A word I made up. Technically it should be 'immoderate', but I wanted it to rhyme.
[2] "producing an unintentional effect of anticlimax", Tom was expecting (hoping for) his ancestors to have a home in a more famous or historical place, or at least a place with a name that sounded more magical.
I don't think i've built up the relationship between Balam and Tom to where I'm satisfied/where I wanted it to be, but it is what it is. All of the things I wish I planned better will hopefully be fixed in the eventual rewrite.
I did some thinking and back and forth on whether or not the Gaunts would have had an account or vault at Gringotts, then settled on that even if they did, it would have ran out of money long ago and probably been closed. I'm not fond of the popular headcanon that Tom can find his lineage via a blood test at the bank. Feels like cheating.
I still don't know anything about monetary value in wizard money, so I'm just making it up.
theaspiringcynic updated Unbending, Unbroken, and i'm shaking. Most thoughtful birthday gift ever :c Go check that out if you want a well-written fanfic of Serpentine, everyone's so in-character, saz writes my chars better than me, it's tru.
also! LMR is updated with another meme review, and 'You look like someone I used to love, only colder.' is "completed"
Uh, those of you at wattpad who noticed the summary change, lol. It's a joke, i promise. I wanted to see if i could write one more a kin to a typical tom riddle fic.
THANKS TO JAC FOR LOOKING OVER THIS, ur a superstar!