All that of that hurt and all of that pain,
it's growing inside of my mind,
and all that I've done runs in my veins.
It's growing inside of me.
After Dark - Oliver Daldry
•
"You're being irrational," Tom said.
It was a low blow, and Tom knew it. Walburga Black prided herself on being rational to the point of wickedness. He didn't care. He could be a thousand times wickeder.
"I'm being irrational?" she said, her voice half an octave higher than usual, her eyes narrowed into a glare. "You're gallivanting halfway around the world with your lunatic ex-lover, and I'm being irrational?"
"Your jealousy doesn't make her a lunatic."
"Don't play dumb with me, Tom Riddle, it doesn't look good on you. I can admit when I'm jealous, but there's something wrong with her."
Tom felt a prickle of irritation. He folded his arms and leaned against the back of the couch in the drawing room of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. The couch was upholstered in emerald green velvet, but it was currently covered in a white sheet to protect it as Walburga tore the drawing room apart to redecorate in anticipation of receiving the Stradivari violin. "There's nothing wrong with her." He paused. "Well, there may be something a bit off with her, but she isn't mad. And don't nag me."
"I'll do whatever I bloody well please," she hissed. "'A bit off.' Honestly." She looked uncharacteristically disheveled, her black hair piled in a messy knot. There were smudges of the dark paint with which she was refinishing the enormous curio cabinet on her face.
"As will I." He met her glare dead on and was pleased when she dropped her eyes first. "Why don't you just use magic?" he asked, nodding toward the curio cabinet.
"Don't you ever just enjoy doing things by hand?"
"Not particularly."
Walburga stepped closer to him, her dark eyelashes fluttering. She grabbed one of his hands with her own, then placed it on waist. She threaded her arms around his neck. "You never enjoy using your hands for things?" she asked. "Just reaching out and...touching?" The flirtatious lilt had returned to her voice.
Tom stared at her full lips and the gentle curve of her jaw, tried to focus on the way her breasts and hips were pressing against him, for once willing himself to feel something other than annoyance. Nothing came. He remembered the hunger he had felt when it had been Luna's body against his, her face hovering in front of his own, and his frustration only grew. Why was Luna the only witch who made him feel so imprudent? His frown deepened.
A disgusted huff escaped Walburga's mouth, and she shoved herself away from him. "Fine," she spat. "Go with her, and take her brat with you. Anything to keep you from looking at me like a particularly misshapen grindylow."
He found himself sighing. His ties to the Black family went beyond Walburga at this point, and he suspected their game had played itself out. He was tired of it, anyway. But it would be easier if he didn't leave her loathing him. "Walburga - "
"No! Don't 'Walburga' me! I have been monstrously patient with you. I have waited and waited and waited the last few years, and still, you can barely touch me. And now Luna Lovegood waltzes back into your world, and all of a sudden you're going on holiday together? I'm no fool, Tom. Don't take me for one."
"I've never taken you for a fool, darling." A lie, but it came easily. "I'm very fond of you, and it concerns me that you don't see it that way." More lies, slipping from his mouth like snakes through grass.
Walburga paused, considering him. Then she shook her head and bent to scoop up the paint can and brush she'd been using before he called on her. "No. We've done this too many times. I ask you where things are going, if we are even together at all, and you dodge around any commitment and sweet talk me into being fine with what I'm getting. But this is too much this time. And I've realized that what I'm getting is really nothing at all."
"That's not true," he said in a placating voice.
"It is so," she responded, her eyes downcast as she stirred the paint with the brush, the wooden handle scraping softly along the metal of the can. "The worst part is that you knew I wanted a family. Children. And you let me waste my time on you."
Tom stared at her for a moment. It was unusual for Walburga to express any emotion other than smug confidence or fury.
She gave herself a small shake and looked back up at him. "No matter. A Black is never without her options." A smirk tugged at the corner of her lips. "Now, I really must get back to my work. When you're back from your honeymoon, I expect my violin to be delivered on time, as discussed." With that, she turned her back on him and returned to her painting, ending the conversation.
Turning on his heel and shoving his irritation down, Tom stalked out of the drawing room, down the hall, and out of Number Twelve. Once outside and free of the home's prodigious protection spells, he Apparated back to Knockturn Alley, appearing in front of Borgin and Burkes.
His sudden appearance did not startle any of the odd shoppers clogging the cobblestone street. The people just parted around him as they moved past, like a stream around a stone. Mondays were always a busy day on the Alley.
He weaved around a man in an enormous purple hat to step inside Borgin and Burkes, the bell tinkling over the door. There were a handful of shoppers inside browsing, and Burke was at the counter showing an older witch, who was tall, thin, and pale to the point of appearing ill, the opal necklace Tom had procured from Rancorn.
Burke paused when he saw Tom come in. "Oi, boy! Come here for a second."
Tom pretended not to hear, although the noise in the shop was not loud enough to justify his sudden deafness. He strode across the shop, giving the counter as wide a berth as possible, and continued on his way up the stairs.
"I let your friend into your flat, you ungrateful slug," Burke snarled after Tom's retreating back.
A jolt of rage went through Tom. With a twitch of his fingers, he sent a taxidermied manticore, which had been strung up from the ceiling for display, careening down upon Burke's head with the snapping of the wires that held it in place. The pale witch stepped out of the way at the last moment before the beast crashed down onto Burke, a plume of dust billowing out around him, and Tom's newfound difficulty hearing persisted all the way up the creaking staircase.
Opening the dark door of his flat, he found Luna inside, Violetta in her arms. They were both wearing the cloaks he had first seen them in, though Violetta's was bunching around her body as she fussed and struggled to get out of her mother's grasp. He snapped the door shut behind him, blocking out the curses of his employer which were carrying upstairs. He anticipated that he would be suspected for having caused the incident, but Burke wouldn't be able to prove it, and Tom was far too useful to fire over a disrespect that could not be proven. He would need to tread carefully around Burke for the next few weeks, though.
"Good heavens, what was that crashing sound downstairs?" Luna asked, fighting to restrain her daughter.
"Accident. Burke really ought to perform better maintenance on the shop." Tom watched the toddler fighting her mother, looking something like a captured wildcat, her black hair starting to pull free of the bunches her mother had tied it in. "You can let her down. There's nothing in here that can harm her."
"Nothing is cursed?"
"Not that she can reach from the floor."
Luna eyed him, and Tom felt a moment of indignation. Did she not believe him? He shoved that away, too. She had good reason not to believe him about such a thing, and why should she gamble with her child's life? At least she cared about her child, wanted her to be safe. Unlike your mother, whispered the cold voice in his head. He sighed.
After a moment, she seemed to decide he was being truthful, and she set the child on the ground. Immediately, Violetta started to scurry around the room, inspecting the things she found interesting. She pulled one of the books off his shelves and it fell to the floor, landing on its spine and falling open. Tom winced and forced himself not to go pick up the book and put it back in its place. The book had fallen open to a page that included gruesome artistic depictions of the results of various poisons, and Violetta started inspecting these pictures with a closeness and fascination that seemed to belie her age.
He returned his gaze to Luna, who was watching the child with her slight frown, but did not move to take the book away from her.
"She's too young to understand what she's looking at," Tom said.
"Perhaps," Luna replied.
Tom looked at the travel sack resting by Luna's feet and clenched his jaw. It had been a rash decision to say yes to her coming with him to Albania, and he wasn't quite sure why he had made it. He didn't need to complicate the process any further, not after failing last time. You'll do anything she asks when she looks at you with those big, grey eyes, you pathetic filth, crooned the familiar critical voice. "You're ready to go, then?" he asked aloud.
Luna nodded, still watching Violetta.
"Excellent. We'll be using Floo Powder to get there." He started across the room to grab his own bag.
"How did your conversation with Walburga Black go?"
Tom paused, then turned back to face Luna. She still watched Violetta. "I assume Burke mentioned that to you?"
She nodded again.
"Jealous?" he asked.
At last, she raised her eyes from her child to meet his gaze. "No. What right would I have to be? I wasn't here."
"Emotions are irrational."
Luna shrugged. "I don't agree with that completely. Emotions can make us behave irrationally, but they also give meaning to our lives. Besides, I would be happy for you. If you found someone to care about, I mean. After I left."
A cold laugh escaped him, but he found himself unsure what to say. Admitting Walburga meant nothing to him was the truth. Letting Luna believe she did satisfied his pettiness. He snatched up his satchel instead. "Let's go."
Luna picked up the book Violetta was looking at it, closed it, and placed it back in its original position on the shelf with a gentleness and care that Tom appreciated. She then scooped up her squirming daughter once again, balancing the child on one hip, followed by her travel bag over the opposite shoulder.
"Here," he said before he could think better of it. "Let me carry your bag for you. Give it here." Her blink in surprise flared his irritation again, but he took the bag from her when she slid it from her shoulder.
The three of them approached the fireplace along the wall of his flat. It was immaculate, though he lit regular fires in it in an attempt to keep his frequent chills at bay. He pulled his wand out of his pocket and lit a new fire in the grate.
"Oooh," Violetta said, the fire dancing in her eyes.
"Might want to watch that one," Tom said, quirking an eyebrow, half-smirking, and unable to keep the amusement out of his voice. "She seems to be rather preoccupied with the dangerous and violent."
Luna grabbed his pot of Floo Powder from where it sat on the mantle. "Yes, well, she's her father's daughter in many ways." She scooped a handful of powder out and tossed it into the flames, then looked back to him. "Where to?"
Tom froze. It was the first time Luna had brought up Violetta's parentage of her own volition. A thought had wriggled its way into the back of his mind over the past two days despite its inherent impossibility, and he held his breath waiting for her to say more. An urge tugged at him out of nowhere to tell her what he was going to Albania for, what he had done to himself the past few years, as though divulging his secrets would somehow get her to divulge her own, as if just in the telling there would be something different and better afterward. After a moment during which Luna offered no further information, and neither did he, he said, "The Witch's Hat. Tirana, Albania. It's an inn." It took a surprising amount of willpower to keep his own shoulders from sagging. Foolish, worthless idiot. How dare you call anyone else irrational? whispered the voice in his head.
"The Witch's Hat, Tirana, Albania," Luna repeated in a clear voice to the fire. She kissed the top of Violetta's head, then disappeared in a whorl of flames.
They arrived in the inn, a little white building with wooden doors, archways, and window frames, to find it with numerous vacancies. The inn was tucked away on a side road off the city's main square. The spot catered to local and visiting witches and wizards, but November was off-season for travelers, and the main room when they stepped through the fireplace was empty save for the elderly witch who ran the place.
"We'll stay here tonight," Tom said to Luna. "Then we'll head east tomorrow."
"What's east?" she asked, and when she looked at him, she seemed to see right through him.
A prickling sensation raised the hairs on the back of his neck. It unnerved him that she almost seemed able to read his mind at times. He shook his head, more to clear it than at her question. "Just a forest. I've left something there for safekeeping. I have need of it now."
"Odd place to leave your belongings." Luna continued to stare at him, eyes huge, face impassive, until he turned away and approached the elderly witch to let a room.
Once Tom had secured their lodging for the evening, the three of them trudged up the stairs to the rooms. He carried the luggage up the stairs for them, and he maintained a steady breath through sheer force of will alone. Unease at his own frailty bubbled under his skin. He pulled the key for their room out of his pocket, slid it into the lock, and then pushed the door to their room open.
Luna peered at the tiny room over his shoulder, Violetta still in her arms. "Just one bed?" she asked.
A flush rose in Tom's face. He continued into the room, avoiding her eyes and mumbling, "Couldn't afford - the rooms with extra beds cost more, because they're bigger. I don't...I don't make much money at the shop."
Setting Violetta down on the ground so the child could run free in the room, Luna stepped inside and shut the door. "It's perfectly all right. I don't mind at all. I just thought you might."
He set their bags down and made himself busy with hanging up his cloak. He struggled with deciding which was more shameful, admitting he was poor or admitting he didn't mind sleeping beside her. Pathetic, the voice murmured in his head. Haven't you learned anything? Are you so stupid and base that you would still excite at the idea of her nearness? "Well, it's not as if I want to share your bed," he said under his breath.
She blinked her eyes away from him at that, asking Violetta silly questions to encourage the little girl to talk.
•
As the day wore on, the sun hanging low in the window of their room after they had eaten a quick and somewhat awkward dinner in the inn's main room below, Violetta began yawning.
"Tired, my love? You've had a long day. So many new things to see," Luna said. "Shall we get you ready for bed?"
"Not tired," Violetta protested through a yawn. She had found an old Gobstone under the bed and had been playing with it for the past little while, rolling it across the floor, chasing it, then rolling it back. Luna had been watching her as she did so to make sure she didn't try to swallow it. Her daughter was rather bright for a two year old, but she was still just two.
"Of course not, Mummy can be so silly sometimes." Luna picked the child up from the floor. "Nevertheless, the sun is going to bed, and so should you."
"Sun?"
"Yes, my love, the sun. You know what the sun is."
Resting her chubby cheek against Luna's shoulder, Violetta pointed toward the window, where the last rays of red light were peeking over the horizon. "Sun."
"Very good, darling. And do you know what a sun is?" As she talked, she set the child down on the bed and started pulling off her day clothes to dress her in pajamas. Luna paused to pull her wand from behind her left ear, muttered a spell, and transfigured the bedside table into a smaller bed for Violetta, just as Lazarus had done at the White Wyvern.
"No," Violetta answered, her voice beginning to sound sleepy.
"It's a star, just like all the other stars in the sky. But the sun is our star."
"Star," Violetta repeated, her childish voice nearly skipping over the "r" entirely.
"Exactly. You are so smart, and I love you so much."
Tom had been sitting in the uncomfortable armchair in the corner reading a book he had brought from home, although Luna had noticed he hadn't turned a page in quite a while. Now he stood abruptly, dropping the book into the chair behind him. "I'll be right back," he said in a stiff voice, then left the room without another word.
His sudden movement surprised Luna, and she stared at the door he had closed behind him for several long seconds. Another yawn from Violetta helped her regain her focus. She finished changing Violetta into her pajamas, tucked her into the crib, then sang a quiet song to her until she dozed off, black eyelashes drooping, then staying shut.
Luna crossed the room and picked up the book Tom had been reading. She ran her fingers along the spine, reading the title. In Tiefster Seele, Leere. She didn't speak the language, but a brief flip through the pages had her grimacing. She paused on one drawing. It showed a man in agony, arching his back in such a way that he seemed only moments away from his spine snapping, his eyes unseeing. She snapped the book shut and dropped it back on the chair.
Although Tom had said he would be right back, he was not. The sun gave over to the moon and stars. Luna sketched in a small sketchpad she had brought with her, drawing Violetta, then violets, then Violetta in a field of violets standing beneath the starry sky. The light provided by the lamp in the room was dim, but creativity had always eased Luna's mind. She thought of the mural she had once painted on her bedroom ceiling, of Ginny, Harry, Neville, Hermione, and Ron smiling down at her. An ache at her lost life thrummed through her. She put her pencil down with a sigh and scrubbed a hand over her face.
She wasn't sure what she had expected, and she knew she had to be patient. Tom was being more cordial than she had ever seen him, though just as restrained as ever. She'd had a sinking suspicion at dinner that he was regretting letting her tag along. That didn't make sense, though. If he hadn't wanted her along, he would have said so. Tom Riddle had no qualms about getting what he wanted. She sighed again. She just had to be patient. Patient and present.
She stood, then changed into her own pajamas. After turning the lamp off, she crawled into the narrow bed on its metal frame. She wasn't sure how long she laid there awake, but her eyes had adjusted to the darkness long before Tom returned at last. She watched him stumble in through the door, cursing under his breath and shutting the door behind him. He peeled his shirt off, attempted to drape it over the back of the arm chair, and swore again when it slipped onto the floor. He left it lying there and snuck into the bed beside her.
He rolled over onto his side to face her in the bed. The bed was so narrow that their noses were almost touching. "You're awake," he said quietly. He didn't seem surprised. His breath smelled like some kind of sweet liquor.
Luna nodded. "You've been drinking."
It was Tom's turn to nod.
"Do you drink a lot these days?" she whispered.
"Not usually."
"You drank the other night as well. After the concert."
"They make this drink called rakia here. That innkeeper sells it. It's quite good, made from fruit. It's a disgusting habit. I don't usually partake."
"Just when I'm around?"
A half-smile appeared on his mouth, and even with her darkness-adjusted eyes, she couldn't see any bitterness in it. "Driving me to the drink."
She smiled back at him, but it faded almost as soon as it came. "Did I do something to upset you?"
"No," he said, his own smile slipping away. He rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling, the moonlight streaming in their window playing on the planes of his face.
The feeling of him receding from her was palpable and painful, but Luna just waited and watched him.
At long last, he spoke again. "You're a good mother."
This was quite possibly the last thing Luna had expected him to say. "How do you figure?"
"You encourage her. You're so warm to her. You keep her safe, but you also teach her, and let her grow, and let her explore."
Her throat felt tighter. "Thank you," she whispered. She couldn't think of a single greater or even equivalent compliment, except for perhaps being a good friend. But she didn't think he would give her that one.
"I've told you before that I showed magic early. As a baby." He was still talking at the ceiling.
"Yes, I remember."
"Mrs. Cole - a matron at the orphanage - she would tell me that I was strange from the beginning. That I rarely cried like a 'normal child,' but when I did, odd things would happen."
"What sort of odd things?"
"Nothing too specific. A window would shatter. The person holding me would get a nosebleed. I was hungry or scared or wanted my mother. An infant can't articulate what he's feeling. It just comes out of him as a cry. It just came out of me, too. In any case, the matrons at the orphanage didn't like me from the beginning."
"They thought you were touched by the devil," she whispered, recalling their past conversations. She blessed the darkness, the quiet, even the liquor, that seemed to make him feel that he could talk to her.
He gave a jerky nod, eyes still on the dark ceiling, his brows furrowed. "Right. That I'd killed my mother. It got worse the older I got. The other children sensed it; they heard what the matrons whispered about me. And children are not kind. When I was four, I accidentally hurt an older boy without touching him. His name was Franklin. He had taken my children's book away from me, ripped it to shreds in front of me. He was envious because I had taught myself to read and he was illiterate. A second later, he had large cuts to his face, blood pouring down his cheeks, and he was screaming in pain. I hadn't intended to do it, but I was angry. And I didn't know how I'd done it, but it didn't matter how many times I told them that.
"It was around then that they simply started beating me. They thought they could 'beat the devil out' of me. When that just made it worse, they started keeping me in a room by myself as much as possible. When anything went wrong around the orphanage, whether it was my fault or not, I was blamed. I started to try to learn more about what I could do, tried to control it. I thought that if I could just control it, maybe things would be different. I had many hours alone in my room with which to practice. Before I ever got my Hogwarts letter, I'd realized a number of different things that I could do and the other children couldn't."
A bitter laugh escaped him. "Not that it helped me much at the time. Nothing worked out quite the way I had thought it would. I had a pet snake when I was seven. I'd found him on a trip we took to the coast on holiday, slithering along a cliff. Just a little grass snake. Growing up in the city, it was the first snake I'd ever come across, you see. And I say I found him, but really, he found me. Came right up to me, as if he could sense the blood within me. I realized I could speak with him, and he would do what I wanted him to do. It wasn't long before two of the other children found me off by myself talking to a snake on a cliff. They wanted to tell Mrs. Cole that the devil child could speak to serpents." He paused a moment, then continued, "In retrospect, I don't think they were being malicious. They were just afraid. But so was I."
Luna dared to reach her hand across the space between them then to intertwine their fingers. His felt like ice against hers, and she wrapped them in her own to warm them.
Tom's fingers curled gently in her grasp, but otherwise he did not react. "So, I levitated them off the side of the cliff and down into a cave there. I followed myself, using magic to do it, as the cliff face was not easily passable otherwise - quite a feat for an untrained child, but my powers were always at their most potent when I was under duress, when I needed them most. I took the snake with me. I told him in Parseltongue to terrorize the two children. They were already frightened, as you can imagine, having gone over the edge of a cliff and being suspended over the rocks and sea. Once the snake had crawled all over them, hissing along their cheeks and necks, they were petrified. They didn't know he wasn't poisonous, for instance. I kept it up until they swore they wouldn't tell.
"I took my snake back to London with me, a secret from Mrs. Cole. He went everywhere with me. He was my only friend. One day while out in the garden, I had the snake with me." Tom held up his free hand in front of himself and rotated the hand slowly in the air as though an invisible snake was slithering between his long fingers. "And Billy Stubbs came up behind me. Said snakes weren't proper pets, said he'd heard me whispering to it, said I was a freak. Knocked my snake out of my hand, and then before I realized what had happened, he'd crushed the snake's skull with the heel of his shoe." His hand in the air clenched into a fist.
"Well, a screaming match followed, but I was a troublemaker and no one believed me. In my seven year old grief and rage, I killed Billy's rabbit as retribution. It simply dropped dead, the life gone out of it, its heart stopped by the intensity of my hatred. I couldn't explain what I had done, and I can barely do so now. It shouldn't have been possible to do. But I did it. I used magic to hang it from the rafters where he had to see it, just as I had to see the remnants of my snake after what he had done." Tom paused in his story, turning his head to the side, eyes coming back into focus as they found Luna's again. "But what good was that? It didn't bring my snake back from the dead, anymore than crying for my mother as a baby brought her back."
He turned his face back to the ceiling again. "So, I started doing what they did to me back to them. But I was so much better at it than they were. I could do things they could only dream of doing. I was crueler, and far cleverer. And it made me feel better." He shook his head, a twisted grin curling the corners of his mouth like burning parchment. "I got so good at it, they never could trace it back to me. They blamed me regardless, of course, but by then it didn't matter. The matrons were as afraid of me as the children at that point and could do nothing to stop it. And after being denied and rebuffed for so long, to finally have power...it was intoxicating." He let out a breathy sigh that made Luna feel hot and cold at the same time.
"By the time Albus Dumbledore came to the orphanage to give me my Hogwarts letter, the matrons couldn't wait to be rid of me. They wanted me evaluated by a Muggle Healer called a psychiatrist. They thought my mind was ill, that I was mad. When Dumbledore showed up and said he would take me away for the majority of the year, they could have wept with happiness. I still had to return to that filthy, rotten hole every summer, though. I was disappointed when word came that the damned place has survived the bombing of the Blitz. From the Muggle war, I mean. I was safe at Hogwarts that winter - the school kept all the students who lived in London for Christmas holiday during the war - but I hoped every day that Dumbledore would come and tell me it was gone forever. That I would never have to go back."
"I can see why you never felt at home there," Luna whispered.
"No home. No family." He shook his head again, then his eyes drooped shut. "Just me. Me and my power."
"You talk about it like it's something separate from you."
Tom yawned. "Sometimes it feels like I can hardly control it. Like it's going to tear me apart."
"Your power?" she asked.
But Tom had started to doze off. His breathing slowed, his fingers going limp in her hand. Luna watched him for some time, listening to his rhythmic breaths, mulling over what he had told her. "You're a surprisingly articulate drunk, Thomas," she murmured into the dark. She knew he was sound asleep by the fact that he did not register a complaint against her for calling him that name.
The stars had shifted in the frame of the window before she made to pull her hand away and roll over. No sooner had she rolled onto her other side to face away from him than he had rolled with her in his sleep, an arm slinging over her body and pulling her back against his chest. Luna melted against him. If she couldn't figure everything out right now, she could at least have this. She could still smell sweet liquor on his breath as he buried his nose in her hair, heaved a heavy, sleepy sigh, and settled back down to sleep in peace.