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Chapter Fifteen—Dawn of a New Enemy

“Do you know why you’re here, Mr. Nott?”

“No, sir.”

Severus watched Theodore Nott narrowly as he sat down behind his desk, but Mr. Nott didn’t appear to be lying. There was none of the sharp taint in the air that Severus would normally sense around someone who was knowingly deceiving him, at least. Which meant this was probably related to the boy’s father rather than to Nott himself.

“The Ministry has instituted a new policy to measure the magic of the students,” Severus lied. He wasn’t concerned about Nott figuring out that that wasn’t the case. If things didn’t go well in this meeting, Severus would simply Obliviate the boy. “We measured it on the night of your Sorting, and again recently. Your magical strength has fluctuated recently, and today, it is much higher than it was at the Sorting. Do you know why?”

Nott stared at him. His wide dark eyes were meeting Severus’s without any flinching, and when Severus dipped into his thoughts, he found only shock. “No, sir,” Nott said slowly.

Severus nodded. There was no evidence for what he feared—that someone had managed to feed Nott the magic of a harvested child without being anywhere near him—but that was exactly why he had undertaken this investigation. “Very well. I will need a small amount of your blood to conduct the next test.”

“You do, sir?”

At least the boy was taught to be cautious about someone acquiring body parts that could be used in sympathetic magic. Severus nodded. “Yes. If someone is influencing your magic, they are doing so internally, since there have been no external changes. Using your blood is the least invasive way to test for that kind of influence.”

Nott bit his lip, then nodded. He extended his left arm upwards over the desk, although he watched closely as Severus took out a vial and a small needle enchanted to suck up the blood the moment it found a vein.

Severus flattened Nott’s arm out with his own hand and sank the needle into the nearest blue vein, easily seen with Nott’s corpse-pale skin. Nott caught his breath and closed his eyes. Severus bit back the sneer.

Afraid of pain or afraid of needles? The world would be much harder on Nott in the first case, but either way, it was hard for Severus to muster much compassion. Non-purebloods endured harder things every day.

Severus looked down and saw that the needle was full. He nodded and extracted it from Nott’s arm, then healed the small pinprick with a swish of his wand. “You can remain here while I test it, Mr. Nott, if that is what you desire.”

“Yes, sir. Please. I have no idea what…” Nott let it trail off, shook his head, and sat down in the chair he had taken earlier, clutching his arm.

Severus bent over the needle and pretended to cast a complex spell on it, while in reality bringing a new orb Riddle had given him close to it under the desk. The orb hissed like a small snake and began to fill with crystal mist. Riddle seemed to have some kind of addiction to using mists of that kind, Severus thought clinically.

If they worked, however, who was he to question? Severus still remembered the enormous power that had swelled outwards from Riddle when he had dropped his shields briefly for Severus. The man who could feel like that could do anything.

When Severus at last finished the “spell” and sat down behind the desk, he tilted his head so that the orb was in sight. The mist inside it had turned dark blue, with flashes of gold here and there like lightning in a stormy sky. Severus stared at it for a moment.

“Sir? Am I going to be all right?”

“Just a minute, Mr. Nott,” Severus said absently, pretending to consult numbers on a parchment in front of him (actually prepared earlier with neutral Arithmantic equations). He was struggling to remember whether this color had been on the list of hues that Riddle’s instructions had described.

When he remembered, he regretted that Theodosius Nott, Theodore’s father, was not within reach of his wand.

Leeching. He’s leeching his own child’s magic. Feeding on it!

Severus held his face blank with an effort. He inclined his head to Theodore. “Do you remember ever feeling faint or magically exhausted during certain parts of the year, Mr. Nott, even though you had not cast any major spells?”

Theodore frowned as he obviously ran some dates and memories through his head. “Near the solstices and equinoxes, sir. My father said it was because the rituals we performed were a magical drain for someone so young.”

What a clever bastard. Then again, Theodosius Nott always had been. If he had wanted to challenge Lucius Malfoy for political leadership of the British wizarding world, Severus thought, he well could have, but he preferred the solitude of his manor or the company of his family.

To some extent. Severus thought he understood better than most now why Theodosius’s wife Belladora had died some years ago, despite being younger than her husband and in the prime of health.

“Did you feel a similar drain near the autumn equinox here, Mr. Nott?” Severus asked, as neutrally as he could.

Theodore thought about it again. Then he shook his head. “But I just thought it was because I didn’t perform the same rituals that I did at home, sir. My father is…I mean, he has his own traditions.”

Severus nodded and caught the boy’s eyes again. He had a glimpse through his Legilimency of Theodosius bending over a horrifically complex pattern of bronze and brass cages and traps, and had to bite his tongue not to spit in revulsion.

Yes, he knew now how Theodosius Nott had killed his wife, and what he was doing to his son.

“I will ask, Mr. Nott,” Severus said, and set aside the crystal needle filled with blood as well as, beneath the desk, the stormy-colored crystal orb, “that you seriously consider staying at Hogwarts for the winter holiday.”

Theodore’s eyes and mouth widened. “What?”

“Your father is leeching your magic,” Severus said. Bluntness was best in the circumstances, he judged, and he could still use Memory Charms if he had to. For the moment, Theodore seemed too stunned to speak, so Severus went on. “That is the reason for the magical fluctuations you have experienced since coming to Hogwarts, as well as your exhaustion near the solstices and equinoxes. Your magic has grown stronger away from your father, but that will not continue if you go home for the winter solstice and grant him the opportunity to do it again.”

Theodore shivered and wrapped his arms around himself, but said nothing to deny his words. Severus felt his eyebrows creep up. Interesting. Most children would have reacted emotionally, one way or the other, to such a declaration. Leeching was akin to harvesting, but done over time rather than all at once, rather like keeping an animal alive to provide Potions ingredients over multiple years. And the person who leeched but did not harvest could also implant various forms of their own magic in their victim, with an automatic Memory Charm on anything related to the leeching being the most common.

“You do not have questions?” Severus finally prodded, when he thought the silence had gone on long enough.

“I want to know if he’s doing it to Sophia and Constance, too,” Theodore whispered.

Severus stared at him. “Who are they?”

“My younger sisters,” Theodore said, and blinked at Severus. “You didn’t know, sir?”

For Theodosius to have hidden the existence of two other children…who knows what he has done to them?

Severus forced his own weakness and illness away from his face. It would not do to fail the boy in such a crucial moment. He shook his head and sat back in his chair, Vanishing the blood from the needle when Theodore’s gaze dropped to it. He would lose the child’s trust if Theodore thought Severus was keeping the blood to manipulate him. “I would daresay that no one outside Nott House knows.”

“Yeah, probably,” Theodore whispered. “I could never—he spelled me not to talk about them.”

“You remember this?”

“I do now.” Theodore’s eyes sharpened for a second, drifting up to Severus’s face, and then fell again. “I can remember how it felt to be stretched between the cages in the ritual space. I remember him—”

Without transition, he began to weep, staring straight ahead, the tears flowing in silence. Severus stared at him and then got up and came around the desk, not certain what he should do. He had next to no experience with crying children whom he hadn’t made cry on purpose.

Theodore grabbed Severus’s robes and buried his face in them.

Severus stared straight ahead, and did his best to hold still as he gingerly patted Theodore’s shoulder. It was worse for Theodore than for him, he repeated silently to himself. This, too, would pass.

At least faster than it probably would have with a typical child, Theodore sat back and wiped his tears off his face. “Thanks, sir,” he whispered. “I—I think I’m going to be all right now.”

“Do you wish to return home?” Severus asked, going back to sit behind the desk again. At the moment, he had no idea for a clear alternative; he had only thought as far ahead as delaying Theodore’s return to his home over the winter solstice. He could not, of course, keep the boy from his father with no legal recourse, and there was possibly the matter of rescuing the two Nott girls Severus hadn’t had any idea existed.

“No,” Theodore said hollowly. “But I don’t see how I can refuse. I already got an owl from Father a few days ago saying that he can’t wait to see me again.”

Severus thought carefully, and then said, “I would have to contact someone else to see what they said. But there is, potentially, a way.”

Theodore looked up at him with so much hope in his eyes that Severus immediately decided he would find some other solution if Riddle said that Theodore going to Fortius was impossible. He could not leave the child to be—

To be eaten by his father. It was heinous.

*

“Can anyone tell me what we’ll be learning today?”

“Flying!” Terry shouted. He sounded so excited that Hermione felt a little envious. She was mostly feeling…green. And like she would empty her stomach if she had to get up on a broom again. The lesson they’d had two months ago still made her twitch when she thought about it, and they hadn’t gone higher than about fifteen meters.

“You already learned that, though,” said the new flying instructor, a dark-skinned man with a long braid of silvery hair coiled around his head who had told them to call him Professor Gallin. “What’s different about this set of brooms?” He stepped back and gestured towards the fleet of brooms on the grass at his feet.

Hermione examined them as best she could, ignoring the wind whipping about outside the protected, charmed dome of warm and still air around them. The brooms did look sleeker and faster than the ones they’d learned to fly on at first. She sighed. They were going to be riding racing brooms into the wind?

“No one can tell me?”

Professor Gallin sounded disappointed. Hermione raised her hand. He nodded to her, and she took a deep breath and asked, “Are they faster, sir? Enchanted to fly faster?”

“That’s one of the things, yes. But what good are racing brooms to us?”

“You can play a wicked game of Quidditch on them!”

Hermione only barely held back from rolling her eyes. Justin had come from the Muggle world, the same as her, but he had definitely fallen in love with Quidditch even though he’d never heard of it only a few months ago. Boys.

“Yes, but are they relevant to our purpose here at Fortius?” Professor Gallin paced slowly back and forth in front of the brooms, his arms folded behind his back. “Yes, Mr. Potter?”

“They’re fast enough to be used in combat, right?”

Hermione snorted a little. The thought of aerial combat horrified her, but that did make the most sense, and she couldn’t even resent that another student had come up with the answer when it was Harry who had. He was simply better at some fields of offensive magic than she was.

That was all right. She was still making top marks and she would be useful to the revolution in a variety of ways. Things would work out.

“They are indeed.” Professor Gallin clasped his hands together and shook them. A bright silver spark ran over the brooms, and they bounced up to float in place at about the height someone could use to throw a leg over them. “We’ll conduct a few classes so that everyone understands the basics of fighting on brooms and how to use them to escape people who might be chasing you on them. Then those who show natural aptitude for them will go on to receive more in-depth training on them. The rest of you will receive some refresher training once a month or so on escaping, but it’s not a skill that you need to spend a lot of time on if it doesn’t mesh well with your other magic.”

Hermione sighed in relief. She didn’t like to think of some of the wild maneuvers that happened when people played Quidditch, let alone the kinds of things that people probably got up to in battle.

“Watch me first,” Professor Gallin instructed, and leaped onto the broom that hovered next to him.

Hermione blinked. One minute he was there; the next he wasn’t. She jumped back and looked up, thinking that the broom was so fast he might have just flown straight up and she’d lost track of him, but he wasn’t there, either.

“Built-in Invisibility Charm!” Professor Gallin’s voice said cheerfully from where he’d been, making Hermione jump for a different reason this time. “Don’t worry, I’ll teach you how to see through it, initiate it, and release it.” He popped back into being, and waved at them to get on the brooms. “Come on, let me show you.”

Hermione took a deep breath and slung her leg over the one hovering next to her. You don’t have to be the best at everything, she reassured herself. Just learn what will allow you to survive.

And save other people, too.

*

Severus’s message had infuriated him, but it wouldn’t do to arrive at Hogwarts cloaked in his own power, when the whole point of his shields was to keep purebloods from realizing how strong he was. Therefore, Tom meditated before he Apparated to the school, and homed in on the sense of distress coming from the dungeon classroom where Severus had said he and Mr. Nott would be waiting for Tom.

The emotional impression only came from someone who had used or been subjected to a scan by one of Tom’s orbs, and it only lasted for a few days. But this was enough to tell Tom that young Nott felt as strongly as Severus, if not more, about his father feeding on him.

Tom relaxed a little. There were pureblood children he had met who would have been upset, but still considered it their parent’s right to do so, and who would have simply decided they had to become stronger in order to win the right to leech their family’s magic in return.

This made it much more likely that Mr. Nott would agree to take the step that was the only acceptable one, to Tom’s mind.

He stepped into the classroom, and saw Mr. Nott’s eyes widen. Then he ducked his head and murmured, “Hi, Professor Riddle.”

So Severus had told that much of a tale. Or perhaps he recognized me from some to-do at the Ministry. Lucius Malfoy did occasionally invite Tom to those, so he could pretend to be gracious. Tom nodded. “Hello, Mr. Nott.” He glanced at Severus, who was rising from a deep bow. “Have you explained his options to him?”

“I have said that Mr. Nott should attempt to stay at Hogwarts over the winter solstice,” Severus said softly. “More than that, no, I have not.”

Tom nodded and sat down in a desk that faced Mr. Nott. “I can offer you sanctuary at my school,” he said. “But it would be a final step. You would never be able to return to your home, and your father would be furious.”

Mr. Nott swallowed and closed his eyes. “I want to say yes, but…I have two little sisters,” he whispered. “Could you get them away as well?”

“You do?” Tom hated showing his surprise this baldly, but he would certainly have thought his spy network good enough to divulge the existence of two entire other Nott children.

“Yes. Sophia and Constance.” For a moment, Mr. Nott’s fingers worried at his robes, but then he visibly forced his hands to lie calmly against his legs and leaned forwards to stare at Tom. “Can you help, Professor Riddle?”

“I can,” Tom said quietly. “But not right away.” Taking on the wards of Nott Manor…and Theodosius Nott would probably be more on the alert than ever after what had happened to the Yaxleys. “Do you think he would begin on them if you stayed at Hogwarts for the winter solstice?”

“I think so,” Mr. Nott whispered. “I don’t—know what to do. My mum’s dead, and there’s no one to oppose him anymore.”

“There might be,” Tom murmured, mind far away. He could, of course, take down the wards himself, but that would reveal his power to the world, and although they couldn’t track him down right away—pureblood prejudice simply would not allow people like Nott or Malfoy to admit that a half-blood was so powerful—it would set enemies on his trail that Tom couldn’t afford to have tracking him. Lupin could get through the wards, but Theodosius would likely have traps waiting that could kill him. Using a weapon that would putt Theodosius under the Imperius or the like would be impossible without knowing for sure if someone could both get past the wards and survive to do so.

And there were the children. The Yaxleys had not had children the age of Mr. Nott’s sisters living with them. Anything Tom did had to keep them in mind.

Well, he did have one advantage over someone who was trying to take on Theodosius without any warning or ward blueprints. He glanced at Mr. Nott. “First of all, would you be willing to come to Fortius with your sisters if I could rescue them?”

Mr. Nott stared at him. Then he gave a jerky nod. “I couldn’t take classes, but I’d rather survive.”

“You could take classes. Why could you not?”

“Everyone knows that Fortius isn’t a school for purebloods, sir.”

Tom smiled. “I do accept the occasional pureblood student. It’s simply that most of them would rather come to Hogwarts, and of course, they’re indoctrinated by their parents so thoroughly that I couldn’t trust them with the school’s secrets in the first place.”

“There are secrets?”

Oh, yes, that’s the right bait to lure this one. Tom smiled again at the way Mr. Nott’s eyes had gone hooded, and nodded. “Yes, and I am prepared to offer you one of them tonight, in exchange for a magical promise from you to keep it secret…and an agreement from you to offer one.”

Mr. Nott blinked. “I don’t know many, sir. It turned out the most important one I was holding was one that I didn’t know I had, even, the one about my father leeching my magic.”

“In this case, I would ask if you are willing to part with the blueprints for the wards to Nott Manor.”

Mr. Nott sucked in a breath so sharp that for a moment Tom thought he might faint. He stared and stared. Tom stared calmly back. If the boy was as intelligent as Severus had described him, he must know that he was likely signing his father’s death warrant.

If he did not know, or if he chose to be ignorant, Tom would not tell him. Now. He would make it clear before he went to collect the boy’s sisters, however. The last thing he wanted was to make this boy a dagger of resentment pointed at his back.

“I—you’re going to break them?” Mr. Nott whispered. “How could you do that? My father says they’re unbreakable.”

“I would be more concerned about what would happen to your sisters in the moments between breaking them and catching up with your father. But you have my word that if we can bring them down or slip through them without his noticing, then I will rescue your sisters before I touch a hair of his head.”

“Are you going to kill him, sir?”

Well. “Yes, I am,” Tom said gently. “He was always on my target list, between the monetary support he gives Malfoy and the harvesting I’ve suspected him of taking part in. But this accelerates him to the top.”

Mr. Nott brought his head up, as if listening to some distant sound Tom couldn’t hear. Tom waited. He was confident of his ability to cast a Memory Charm before Mr. Nott called for help, if it came down to that.

“Good.”

An interesting reaction. Perhaps a useful one. “Oh?”

“Yes.” Mr. Nott’s teeth were coated with blood from his lip, abruptly. Tom hadn’t realized he was biting it so hard. “I found out that he was—he was feeding from me. And I don’t know what he’s doing to Sophia and Constance right now. I was just something he could consume to him. I don’t care if you kill him.”

“You may feel that way right now. But when your anger has had a chance to subside—”

“It won’t, until he’s dead,” Mr. Nott interrupted. Tom heard Severus’s breath catch, but Tom ignored what Severus probably thought was Mr. Nott’s temerity. “The minute I found this out, I stopped loving him.”

“Really.”

Mr. Nott gave a brittle laugh. “He taught me emotional control, Professor Riddle. He cast the Mind Lens Curse on me at a young age.”

Severus shifted. Tom knew that it meant he had no idea what the curse did. For the moment, he did not have the time to explain. He leaned a little forwards. “The Ministry classified the Mind Lens Curse as child abuse, Mr. Nott.”

Another laugh. “My father is part of the Ministry, sir. He always thinks that he can do whatever he wants.”

Tom nodded. That was true enough. “And you have focused enough analysis on your reactions that you do not feel as if you would strike to kill me should you discover at a later date that I am the one responsible for your father’s death?”

“I had to learn to get used to living with the curse in my mind, and what it did to me.” Mr. Nott’s eyes were lightless. “No, sir, I’m never going to change my mind about this.”

Tom watched him for some moments more, but Mr. Nott didn’t flinch or bite his lip again, or show much signs of outwards reaction at all. All behavior consistent with the Mind Lens Curse, and if he had been lying about having it cast on him at all, Tom’s Legilimency would have warned him about that. Tom nodded. “Very well, Mr. Nott. Then I will break through the wards and into your home soon.” He let his mind wander down a few more paths. “Do you know if he’s cast the Mind Lens Curse on your sisters?”

“He has on Sophia. Constance is too young.”

“All right. And how do you feel about this becoming public knowledge?”

Severus made a noise that might have signified distress. Mr. Nott looked at him once, then at Tom when Severus said nothing. “I’d be worried about how it would paint me and Sophia as victims, sir. We couldn’t stand up and do anything against him. Some people will think that means they can mistreat us in the future.”

Tom nodded, not arguing that no one who was rational would think anything like that. Their world was not ruled by rational people. “I would share your concerns, Mr. Nott, but I didn’t actually mean publicizing the information about the Mind Lens Curse. I was talking about publicizing the information that he had leeched you.”

“Wouldn’t that have the same effect but doubled, sir?”

“I think you will find that being underestimated is often a desirable state,” Tom said softly. “And if people think you weak from the leeching, and your sisters as well, they are unlikely to protest your being removed to Fortius Academy. There will be those who are relieved to put it out of their minds, and those who will think you too weak for Hogwarts, and those who might protest except for the fact that you have no other family around who could take you and your sisters, unless I am mistaken?”

Mr. Nott shook his head. “He had two sisters. They both died young.”

And I think I know how.

“In Fortius, you can be taught to harness your magic, to stabilize it, and to cast the kinds of spells and finds the kinds of talents that you will not find here.” Tom glanced sideways, but it seemed that Severus was not in the mood to protest. “And you will become part of my wider political goals. This is a bargain, Mr. Nott, make no mistake. I am not doing this out of the kindness of my heart. Your safety for help in bringing down our mutual enemies.”

“I think you’re wrong, sir.”

“That we can make a bargain?”

“That you’re not doing it out of any kindness.”

Tom gave a light shrug. He had thought it likely that Mr. Nott would need the opposite approach from someone like Harry or Miss Granger, kindness reduced in favor of a brisk approach, but he might have been wrong. “Well, I will admit that actions like your father’s make me furious, yes. I frequently hunt those who harvest children for sport. Do you have any objection to that?”

Mr. Nott’s eyes were wide. He looked at Severus, perhaps for reassurance, and then turned back to Tom.

“I have no objections, sir,” he said. “You’re going to bring down my father?”

“Yes. I cannot justify removing you or your sisters from his custody until then, unfortunately.”

“That’s all right.” Mr. Nott closed his eyes and nodded. “I’ll take what I can get. Thank you, sir.”

*

“What is the Mind Lens Curse?”

Severus thought enough time had passed since they’d sent Mr. Nott back to class to ask the question, but Riddle’s gaze still returned to him as though Severus had interrupted some deep pondering. Severus shivered, but didn’t look down.

Riddle didn’t seem to mind it after all, because he shrugged. “It’s a curse that slows down emotional reactions. Every emotion someone feels is placed as if under a lens, and the person feeling it is forced to analyze it ruthlessly. The emotions are also placed under the control of the witch or wizard. They can stop them, turn them off, heighten them, or start them, as they please. Mr. Nott let his own sadness and anger earlier through, from your description. In his conversation with me, he was controlling them.”

“That sounds more like a blessing than a curse.”

“Imagine what it is like when it is cast on a child. A young child, who would never normally be expected to control their emotions at that point in their development.”

Severus swallowed. He had noticed over the past few months, with Mr. Nott in Slytherin, that he seemed distinctly withdrawn and less prone to anger or arrogance than the other children Severus regularly interacted with, but he also hadn’t thought those traits were anything but praiseworthy. “Why would a parent cast it on his or her child, then?”

“To force the baby to stop crying. To give them maturity too young. To slow down anger or sorrow that are perfectly age-appropriate.” Riddle shrugged, his eyes dark now. “For several reasons.”

“And you suspected that Mr. Nott had been the victim of this curse simply because he described that he had stopped loving his father?”

“It sounded more literal than otherwise.”

Severus considered that, and ended up nodding. Yes, he had spent years teaching children and observing children and being the Head of Slytherin House, but Riddle ran a school and had far more experience teaching than he did. “All right. How soon will you move to take down Nott? Do you need help?”

“Why would you want to?”

Severus straightened his shoulders under Riddle’s stare. “Mr. Nott is one of my snakes, and I find myself disgusted with what Theodosius did. Plus—this would be a chance to test one of my more experimental potions.”

“Would it? What kind?”

“A kind that locks onto thought patterns.”

There was a long moment when Riddle stared at him like a snake with no reaction, and Severus had time to wonder, fearfully, if there was an abyss opening at his feet, if researching potions that locked onto thought patterns was some line Riddle didn’t want his people to cross—

Then Riddle laughed joyously, and the wings of his power beat briefly at Severus’s mind. Severus caught his breath and held it until the weight retreated.

“I think, in that case,” Riddle said, his eyes brilliant and his smile unrestrained even if his magic now was, “that we need not wait for Nott to miss his son over winter solstice.”