Chapter Text
September 1938
Year One
Despite worrying all morning that his father might leave the train station early on account of his lunch with the Minister, it is Abraxas that cuts the goodbye short, putting a premature end to his mother’s embrace when the pressure in his throat becomes intolerable.
He boards the Hogwarts Express, tears gathered at the edges of his eyes, and busies himself with his trunk, not daring to glance out the window where his parents might be waiting.
He used to be able to cry in front of his father when he was younger. The elves told him.
“The little Lord’d cry for hours, yes he would, every time His Grace left. The little Lord cried himself to sleep, and we didn’t know what to do, did we, Tobby?”
Tobby nodded. “Little Lord cried so much, his parents couldn’t attend to their important affairs. So His Grace came up with a trick.”
Abraxas remembers one time his father played this trick on him. It was snowing behind the tall windows of the library. The glass trembled with the wind, but inside the fire burnt, and it was warm. Abraxas was tinkering with a charmed paper crane that would not take off while his father read by the hearth.
At last, the crane surged high in the air. The elves stood and clapped. Abraxas searched for his father’s eyes, but found him looking beyond the door, at the candle lit hallway.
“Papa?”
His father rose, gilded robes brushing the dark floor. “Abraxas, will you do me a favour? Will you bring me a quill from the study?”
Abraxas rushed out of the library, filled with excitement at the thought of helping his father. He struggled to push open the heavy panelled door of his father’s study, then rummaged through the drawers until he found a quill.
Victorious, he returned to the library to find the fire quenched and the room deserted, save for Tobby.
“His Grace was called on urgent matters, My Lord,” Tobby said over the sound of Abraxas’s sobbing. “We will keep the quill safe until his return, won’t we?”
But Abraxas understood his father had had no need for a quill. He had tricked Abraxas so he would not have to see his tears.
Abraxas’s gaze skips towards the window. His parents are still on the platform, conversing with the Blacks. His father checks his watch, and pride rushes through Abraxas, for he had been spared awakening such impatience. By the time the youngest Black and the others join him in the compartment, Abraxas has regained his composure.
At the Great Feast, a boy nobody has seen before sits down amongst them. He is wearing ill-fitting robes, and has dark hair cut in the Muggle fashion. Only a few people clap, an embarrassing contrast to the ripple of applause that followed Abraxas’s sorting.
A prefect asks for his name. In a rough accent, the boy utters a surname Abraxas is not familiar with. It is enough for Abraxas to understand he must not associate, and he directs his attention elsewhere.
The mudblood provokes some initial fascination within the Slytherins. He eats dessert with the dinner fork, reads under the table, interrupts professors when they speak. A rumor spreads that he lives in an Orphanage, but nobody knows what that means. After weeks of debate, a few of them sneak into the Muggle section of the library.
Rain streams down the windows as, hidden behind laden bookshelves, they bend over the massive leather bound dictionary. Abraxas slides his finger over Origami and Ornithology, body tense with the knowledge that he is doing something outside the scope of what is expected of him.
Orphanage: A home for Muggle children whose parents are deceased, or unable to provide adequate care.
The word haunts Abraxas. At dinner, his gaze drifts towards the far corner of the table, where the mudblood is sitting alone, book propped against a jug of water, existence seemingly separate from the clamour and the clinking of china.
When the candles are put out, and the dormitory fills with the sound of lakewater slamming against the thick stone walls, the word conjures up an image of Father and Mother in their bed, faces pale and still. Abraxas pulls their arms, but they do not stir. He tries to chase the image away, but it persists under his eyelids like an infection. Others follow: Muggles, slamming their bodies against his bedroom door until it breaks. They wield metal wands that can do no magic except killing. They take his clothes, and give him ill-fitting ones with yellowed collars, then toss him in a home full of dirty children, and there is nobody to care for him, not even elves.
He wakes up panting, and retains a feeling of dread whenever his gaze happens upon the mudblood. It stirs inside him in a familiar twirl when the boy comes into the dormitory, arms burdened with more and more books, or when his hand shoots up in class, straight as an arrow. Abraxas makes a habit of not looking his way, of occupying his mind with something else when he speaks, and does not spare him as much as another thought until a cold December morning.
Their breaths had turned to steam outside the Potions classroom, but inside the heat from twenty or so boiling cauldrons is suffocating. They are brewing Forgetfulness Potion for the second time this month because Slughorn forgot to mark their first attempt, and Abraxas is starting to feel sick from the heat and the smell of rotting bile and the constant, irritating feeling that he has forgotten to add something to his potion.
“Excuse me.”
Startled, Abraxas glances behind him. Through the thick, green-ish smoke, he can make out a pair of black eyes.
“Could I borrow your knife? Mine’s too dull for the Valerian roots.”
The boy’s face looks familiar, but Abraxas cannot place him, as if the fumes have fogged up his mind as well.
“Sure,” he says tentatively. He reaches for the knife when Black grabs his arm.
“What are you doing?” he whispers, eyes wide.
Abraxas blinks, and the memories snap back into place.
Heart galloping, he swivels back to his worktable. He was this close to embarrassing his family by giving his great grandfather’s silver knife to a mudblood!
“The nerve of that orphan,” Rosier comments later, falling into step with them on the way to Transfiguration.
“He must have forgotten his place,” Abraxas says curtly. He does not wish to speak of this embarrassing matter.
“Don’t underestimate him,” Black says. “You should have seen the look on his face when you turned around. He knew exactly what he was doing.”
Rosier shakes his head. “How did that hat sort somebody like him here?”
Abraxas leaves them to it, and sits with Lestrange for the rest of the day.
Another few months pass before he realises Black was right. They are in the greenhouse, picking dead leaves from a withering crop of Mandrakes, and in the silence brought upon them by the dullness of the task and the monotone snowfall, Abraxas momentarily forgets himself and glances up at the mudblood when he asks the teacher if they can take one of the Mandrakes out.
Something is not right, but Abraxas cannot pinpoint what.
Then the boy speaks again. His accent is smooth and clear, indistinguishable from that of Abraxas and the others. The realisation brings forth a new feeling, and it takes a while for Abraxas to recognise that what he feels is shame.
He is ashamed to have harboured pity for the boy.
“He mimics our ways because he thinks it will make him our equal,” his father had told him the summer before, apropos of a politician of inferior station seated at the table across from them at a restaurant. Unlike other half-bloods aspiring to public office, he was clad in gilded silk, fingers heavy with rings. Every so often, his eyes darted to Abraxas’s father. “But it will not, and your very existence will always remind him of that. Do not be fooled by the placating demeanor of such individuals, and above all, do not believe their lamentable stories. Their interest lies solely in cutting off your head and taking your place.”
Abraxas pretends the boy does not exist for the remainder of the year. It is therefore a great shock to discover his own name under the mudblood’s in every subject on the day final marks are nailed outside the Great Hall.
Something sour gathered high up his throat, Abraxas turns towards the others.
“Do you suppose I should have spent less time with you, and more time reading under the table at dinner?”
Laughter echoes through the corridor. The mudblood’s gaze unfastens from the noticeboard, and lands on Abraxas.
Exhilaration gives way to embarrassment.
He shouldn’t have said that.
He shouldn’t have said anything.
This is exactly what people like Tom Riddle want: to be noticed by people like Abraxas.
September 1939
Year Two
On the train ride, one topic of conversation reigns supreme: the Muggle war, announced this morning by all the papers.
“This is why they should not be in positions of power. They’re animals.”
“Let them kill each other. Less work for us.”
Abraxas watches the changing landscape.
After dinner, the boys gather on his bed. Lestrange has brought Chocolate Frogs from Russia, and they take their time inspecting the unfamiliar cards. Given the day’s news, Grindelwald’s provides the most excitement.
“How was the South of France?” Rosier asks. “Are Rowle’s daughters as pretty as they say?”
Abraxas spent August with Mother at their chateau. Amongst their guests were the Minister’s wife and their three daughters, educated in America.
“France was alright.”
“Nobody cares about France,” Black says, pushing the wrappers to the side and stretching his legs. “Tell us about the girls.”
Abraxas did not pay too much attention to the girls. Their company was grating, and anyhow, Abraxas has been engaged since he was seven to a much more satisfactory match, the only daughter of the last duke of France. The girl is even attending Hogwarts so the two of them can become acquainted. Still, he summons a photograph of himself and the three girls.
Mesmerised, the boys bring their heads together. A collective outcry rises from the group when the eldest blows a kiss towards the camera.
“Mais elle est magnifique,” Black says, ripping the photograph from Abraxas’s hands.
“She’s beautiful,” Rosier chimes in, just as Riddle enters the dormitory, a book under his arm.
Lestrange straightens up. “Tom, come see.”
Riddle comes to an abrupt halt. A hush falls over the room. Black finds Abraxas’s eyes and mouths Tom?
Abraxas shrugs, appalled. He did not take Lestrange for a mudblood lover, and feels terribly embarrassed for him and his family.
“It’s a photograph of Rowle’s daughters,” Lestrange insists in his madness.
It is only because they do not wish to insult Lestrange outright that nobody objects when Riddle approaches. He stills by the foot of the bed, just shy of touching Abraxas’s quilt with his thighs, and waits. His shirt is fastened at the throat, tie neatly tucked into his waistcoat, though it is late and Abraxas and the others have loosened theirs. The hem of his robes is cut in a simple, unfashionable style, but the fabric is spotless and bears the sharp creases of an ironing charm; elf magic that, it strikes Abraxas, Riddle most likely cast himself.
Lestrange elbows Black, stunned into silence.
“Right—here,” Black says, turning the photograph towards Riddle.
Riddle studies it attentively. His eyes appear brown in the wavered candlelight, and his lashes are unusually long, like a girl’s.
Without warning, he glances at Abraxas, and their eyes lock. “The sentience charm is impressive.”
“Of course it is,” Abraxas snaps, pulse quickening. He was not aware he had asked for an opinion on his family’s photographer, nor, for that matter, permitted the mudblood to address him. He grabs the picture from Black and sends it to his nightstand with a flick of his wand.
Riddle follows its flight, then looks back at Abraxas.
Lestrange shifts uncomfortably. Black gives a panicked laugh and says, “So, Riddle. What did you do this summer?”
For a brief and weightless moment, Riddle holds Abraxas’s gaze. Then, he looks away, and makes for his own bed, robes billowing in his wake. “I read.”
That becomes obvious soon enough. The professors are beside themselves. They interrupt their lectures to gush over Riddle’s wandwork, recite passages from his essays, gasp over his shoulder during exams. Only Dumbledore meets his arrogant displays with indifference, keeping to the other side of the room when Riddle casts.
Black and Rosier are consumed with jealousy, but Abraxas finds the whole spectacle in bad taste. Yes, Riddle is skilled. One must be when they are a mudblood with nothing to their name.
Abraxas is expected to do well in school, but his duties extend further than that. One day, he will take Father’s place, and become a man of great influence. He is learning Legilimency and Occlumency, so he can know what others think but never let others know his thoughts. He speaks French, German and Italian; he has private lessons about current affairs. His bride was chosen for him by his father, and so were his friends. His duty is to sire an heir so that the ancestral Malfoy name will perdure, and maintain these friendships so that they will, one day, become fruitful.
He will not enter a competition with a man unworthy of competing with him. When Merrythought demands Abraxas pair up with Riddle in Defence, Abraxas refuses curtly, then writes to his father to inform him of the insult.
A week later, he receives a formal apology from Merrythought, which he reads out loud at dinner. A flush spreads on Riddle’s neck as he turns the pages of his book, a few seats down from them.
Lestrange does not join in the laughter.
September 1940
Year Three
Riddle has grown tall over the summer. Girls from the other houses stare at him from across the Great Hall. They gather in knots wherever he goes, popping up outside Abraxas’s classes, bumping into Abraxas’s library chair as they peer at Riddle through the gaps in the shelves, hands clasped over their mouths to hide their giggling.
It makes Abraxas seethe, and he does not even understand why. Plenty of girls have been giggling at him ever since he can remember, and he has always found it terribly irritating.
Riddle does not heed the attention. He sits alone at meals and in class, always a book open on his knees. Like the years before, he leaves the dormitory before Abraxas and the others wake, and returns once they are already in bed. He does not lounge in the common room, does not attend the Quidditch matches, does not linger after dinner.
Despite this clearly anti-social behaviour, he does make an appearance at Slughorn’s private society the night before winter holidays. Fiancée draped on his arm, Abraxas considers leaving when he spots him among the guests, but ultimately decides against affording him such importance. It is the fashion nowadays to invite one or two of the likes of Riddle in order to appease progressives like Dumbledore, and his father had talked to Abraxas about the importance of projecting an image of moderation.
He is careful not to gaze in Riddle’s direction, lest Riddle take it as an invitation to address him now that they share a social circle, but when his eyes do happen upon him eventually, he finds Riddle otherwise engaged. Face red with drink, the Gryffindor prefect is breaking all decorum by leaning up to talk into his ear.
“Look at that,” Black says, handing Abraxas a narrow glass he snatched from an inattentive elf just as Riddle smiles down at the girl, making two dimples appear on either side of his mouth.
“I am, unfortunately.”
“The mudblood’s going to steal all of our girls!”
“Speak for yourself,” Abraxas says, and gulps his drink in a swallow.
How truly unfortunate that someone so insignificant should be so—anyway.
Abraxas wakes late the next morning. Packing in a hurry, he has one foot in Headmaster Dippet’s Floo when he realises he has left behind his signet ring.
“Be quick, Abraxas dear, your parents are waiting!” Dippet shouts as Abraxas runs down the spiral staircase. He barges into the dormitory out of breath, and collides with Riddle, who turns in one move, wand jabbed into Abraxas’s chest.
“Put that down,” Abraxas barks, taken aback.
Riddle scans Abraxas’s face, tie hanging loosely around his neck like a noose yet to be pulled. “I thought you were on the train to London with everybody else.”
“Well, I’m evidently not,” Abraxas says, and pushes Riddle’s hand away with the side of his arm. He expects Riddle to resist, and has already built up the indignation against this imagined resistance, for his heart is beating wildly, but Riddle lowers his wand, and steps aside.
“My mistake,” he says, tone lacking the mark of regret.
Abraxas summons his ring, and rushes out without a word. He is in a daze for the remainder of the day. It had not occurred to him that Riddle would remain at school for the holidays, and there is something dangerous about the thought of him alone in their dormitory.
Throughout the holiday, he is overcome by a strange urgency to get it all over with; the dinner parties, the luncheons, New Year’s at the Blacks. Then his father is called to London unexpectedly, and, reasons left unexamined, Abraxas demands to return to Hogwarts one day early on account of mounting homework.
The dormitory is empty when he arrives. Riddle must have kept the fire going for a fortnight, for the air is thick, suffocating. Abraxas puts it out, casting the room in semi-darkness, and lies on his bed. His heart is pounding in his ribcage, and his palms are damp. He briefly wonders if he is about to die. The minutes tick by, the last light of the day peters out, and his heart settles; fatigue overwhelms him. What was he so worked up about, anyway?
He is woken up by a violent thud. Abraxas lifts his head just in time to see Riddle’s fist crushed into the wall. Then the bed canopies collapse.
Abraxas screams, buried under heavy wooden posts and the thick, velvet curtains. Something sharp cuts into the skin above his right eye, and a hot, sticky liquid glides across his temple. It strikes him that this is what people call pain, and the reality of it, of having to endure it for a moment longer, is so unbearable and so unfair it drives all other thoughts away.
Footsteps still next to him, and the pressure on his chest eases. Abraxas opens his eyes. Riddle is staring down at him, the debris floating above his head.
“Abraxas,” he says, tone terrifyingly calm. “You keep popping up.”
“Are you insane?” Abraxas screeches, and rushes towards the bathroom, forehead throbbing.
Riddle follows behind. The torches lining the bathroom walls light up, flaring in the tarnished mirrors.
“Let me see,” Riddle says, grabbing his elbow and turning him around.
Abraxas freezes. Riddle is touching him—manhandling him! After hurting him! If Abraxas told, Riddle would be tried, found guilty, and Kissed for this.
Abraxas struggles to break free, but Riddle keeps him in place with a steady grip.
“Don’t worry,” he says, lifting Abraxas’s chin, eyes narrowed in concentration as he studies his forehead. “I’ll be careful with your pretty face.”
Something sharp rushes through Abraxas. Before he can defend against it, Riddle brings his wand to Abraxas’s forehead and mutters a spell under his breath. The pain dissipates.
Then, too soon, Riddle removes his hand from Abraxas’s chin and steps aside, exposing their reflection in the vanity mirror. “All good. See?”
Pulse ringing in his ears, Abraxas inspects his face. The blood has vanished, and his forehead is perfectly smooth.
Abraxas is pretty, it is true. His face is all sharp angles. He is tall and slender, and his blond hair reaches down to his waist. He has always been aware of this fact, of the effect it has on others, yet it never seemed of particular interest to him. Not until tonight.
Riddle, too, is very handsome. Only somebody in bad faith would fail to admit it. He is taller than Abraxas, and has dark, deep eyes, and loose waves that fall coolly across his forehead. His ascetic uniform is perfectly pressed, but his sleeves are rolled up and his fist is bloodied.
Abraxas looks up, and meets Riddle’s gaze.
“What happened?” he asks, an unfamiliar edge to his voice.
Riddle makes for the sink. Water and blood swirl towards the drain in streaks. “I received some bad news. Forgive me for frightening you.”
“What news?”
“Nothing of any consequence to you.” A pause. “Do you still want to go to the Hospital Wing? I can come with you.”
“It’s fine,” Abraxas says quickly; too quickly for what has just transpired, he realises with a delay.
“I’ll go fix the beds. Unless there’s anything else?”
Abraxas stalls. At the bottom of his mind, thoughts rattle and sting. They’re alone. Abraxas has only to—but then—
“No.”
Everything is as it was when Abraxas walks back into the empty dormitory. Riddle comes back much later. Abraxas listens to the rustle of fabric, still attempting to determine how much of himself he had betrayed tonight.
Despite Abraxas’s efforts to dispel the memory of that day, it resurfaces every time he enters the dormitory. He wonders if the two of them will find themselves alone again; and if so, what might happen. But they do not, and then the school year is over.
Abraxas spends August in the South of France with his mother, as usual. Bored of the women’s company, he has no choice but to befriend the gardener’s son, a boy two years his senior.
His name is Fernand. They spend long hours together, hiding from Rowle’s daughters. Each day, they go further than before. One afternoon, they leave the forest bordering the grounds and venture into the open field.
Under the blazing midday sun, Fernand takes off his shirt. His skin is golden and full of freckles. When they tire, they hunt for shade. Backs against the smooth, mottled bark of a plane tree, Fernand tells Abraxas about the Germans, the controls, the food rationing.
Abraxas listens, mind wandering. Is this happening back home? Does Riddle have his food rationed?
He turns towards Fernand. “Have you ever been to an orphanage?”
“No. There’s one in the village. We can go if you want.”
They go. The orphanage is just a weathered stone house with wooden shutters and a heavy door. In the distance, lavender fields give the landscape its only colour. Abraxas can make out the sound of chatter, but a tall fence obstructs the courtyard, and he cannot see any children. Abraxas wants to see the children.
He rings the gate, ignoring Fernand’s pleas to stop. The door opens at last, and an old woman steps out. She’s dressed in a black tunic, and has a large cross around her neck. Her eyes widen when her gaze falls on Abraxas.
“Lucifer. Dieu, aide-moi, c’est Lucifer.”
A second woman appears, waving a stick towards them.
Fernand grabs his arm and they start running. After a while, they are not running from the women anymore, they are running because it feels good. Rows of plane trees line the dusty streets, and there is something exhilarating about passing in and out of splotches of sunshine and shadow.
They only stop when they reach the forest bordering Abraxas’s chateau. They lean against a tree, shoulders heaving and touching; heaving and touching. Flushed with heat and exhaustion, Abraxas finds he has no more energy to pretend he does not understand the nature of his exhilaration. He grabs Fernand’s hand and pushes it between his legs. He holds it there until Fernand stops struggling.
September 1941
Year Four
Abraxas notices things he never has before: students slipping behind tapestries, dragging each other into broom closets and abandoned classrooms. He notices the way Lestrange looks at Riddle when he thinks no one is watching, how sometimes the two of them forget they are in a room full of people and start talking, heads close together, smiles showing teeth.
One day in late October, instead of blocking Abraxas’s hex with the appropriate counterspell, Black settles for stepping out of the way. Abraxas watches in a curious stupor as the spell hurdles past his head towards the windows.
The glass makes a terrible sound as it breaks, startling Riddle who is reading a few feet away. He is so ahead in Defence he can only duel with the teacher, or otherwise risk insulting half of the pureblood families in the UK. When Merrythought does her rounds, he is free to do as he pleases, and only reading pleases him.
“Who did that?” Merrythought barks.
Black gloomily raises his hand. The room fills with laughter.
Abraxas searches for Riddle’s gaze. Avoiding a spell instead of blocking it, disturbing everybody: those are the sort of inconsiderate things Black always does. No one could fault Abraxas for rolling his eyes at that. And if the direction of his exasperation happens to fall on Riddle, well, that’s only because Riddle is in his line of sight.
But Riddle blinks once in Black’s direction before returning to his book.
Abraxas quickly looks away. He wouldn’t have done it. Had Riddle dared to meet his gaze, he would have turned away.
As Abraxas steps back into casting position, he locks eyes with Lestrange.
* * *
“You should be careful,” Rosier tells Lestrange the day they see him and Riddle walking together towards the forest, shadows long on the amber grass. “Somebody’s going to tell your parents.”
“We were talking about homework,” Lestrange says dryly, tossing his fork. “I can talk about homework with whomever I like.”
The next day, a first year finds him unconscious in a toilet stall, the words blood traitor inscribed on his forehead.
They visit him in the Hospital Wing.
“Who was it?” Black asks, cross legged at the foot of his bed.
“I don’t know,” Lestrange says, avoiding their gaze.
A week later, Lestrange’s cousin is discovered bound and gagged in a broom closet. When Riddle walks into the common room that evening, Black looks at him for a long minute.
“A seventh year. Done like that. Can you imagine?”
“You don’t think—” Abraxas starts, then stops, a feeling like a fist on the inside of his throat.
* * *
The paper crane does a few laps before crashing into the dark window, where the rain streams down in violent streaks.
“My Lord,” the foreign affairs tutor’s voice echoes in the empty classroom.
Abraxas turns towards her. Behind her, he can still make out Binn’s sloppy handwriting, now half faded. The gob- revo- of 15-.
His gaze slides back to the desk by the window where Riddle had sat that afternoon, writing furiously. Distracted by the rasp of his quill, Abraxas kept glancing at him, trying to determine if he was actually jotting down Binn’s stream of consciousness. Then Riddle looked up, and Abraxas was caught staring.
“My Lord?”
Abraxas blinks away the white-hot shame.
“Yes.”
The woman purses her lips.
“You seem tired, My Lord. Maybe it’s best we stop here for tonight.”
Abraxas summons the paper crane from Riddle’s desk, and throws it in the bin on his way out.
He passes by Riddle and Lestrange whispering to each other in front of the fire in the common room, and goes to bed early, filled with blind, inexplicable rage.
* * *
The new Ravenclaw captain, a fifth year Abraxas sees at functions sometimes but has never been formally introduced to, crosses the lawn through walls of pelting rain, and offers Abraxas his ungloved hand.
Letting go of the Snitch, Abraxas removes his own glove. Water streams down their shoulder pads as the boy’s thumb presses into Abraxas’s palm.
Abraxas lingers under the hot jet until, veiled by thick steam clouds, the Ravenclaw captain slips through the shower curtain and kneels. Leaning his naked back against the cool tiles, Abraxas closes his eyes.
As usual, Riddle is not amongst the crowd celebrating the Slytherin victory in the common room. Abraxas walks past the commotion, ignoring the pleas to join, and up the stairs into the deserted dormitory. As if it were some wound he does not dare touch, he avoids looking at Riddle’s bed, and falls asleep quickly, still in his uniform.
He awakes to the sound of footsteps, and glances at the clock; at this hour, they can only belong to Riddle. The shower hisses for a while, then two doors open and close in quick succession.
In Potions, Abraxas is too aware of Riddle’s presence behind him, like a thorn in his nape. Lunch, from which Riddle is absent, feels interminable, followed by a jolt in his stomach when Abraxas turns the corner towards the Runes classroom and sees him leaning against the wall, a book in his hand.
After dinner, he abandons the others and makes his way to the library to catch up on homework, but after spotting Riddle at a table spread with books, he turns on his heel and walks to the Ravenclaw tower, mind in splinters.
* * *
Abraxas sits too close to Lestrange on the large sofa upholstered with Black’s ugly crest. At the back of his head, the idea that he has overdone it with the gilly champagne comes and goes.
“Are you and Riddle—you know?”
Flush with drink, Lestrange does his best to appear insulted. “I’m not bent,” he whispers under his breath, even though nobody is listening. Most people left after the New Year was called, and the remaining ones are too drunk to care.
“Sure,” Abraxas laughs. “Me neither.”
Lestrange hides his fluster by gulping down the rest of his drink. It occurs to Abraxas to do the same. In tandem, they turn towards the open balcony doors, where Abraxas’s father is conversing with an Italian witch. His mother excused herself when his father put a hand on the small of the Italian’s back.
“So?”
“Tom and I are just friends.”
“How can you be friends with a mudblood?” Abraxas asks, snapping his fingers at the senile elf of the Black family. It hurries towards them, the glasses clicking together as it stumbles forwards.
“How do you know he’s a mudblood?”
“Well. Isn’t he?”
“I don’t know. He doesn’t know who his parents are.”
Abraxas muses on this as his father whispers something into the Italian’s ear.
“Wizards don’t abandon their children.”
“Maybe these ones did.”
A gust of wind carries inside the sound of father’s laughter, sharp and crisp. His hand drifts up her naked back.
Could Riddle actually be a pureblood?
Impossible. No purebloods would abandon someone like Riddle.
* * *
Abraxas is dismissed early from his private lesson for the third time in a row. He glides through the crowd gathered around Black duelling some lower house heir, and closes the dormitory door behind him. He is startled to see Riddle at the edge of his bed, expression obscured by the darkness pooling under the canopy. He is usually in the library at this hour, or, if he lets himself be persuaded, downstairs, duelling.
Heartbeat skipping, Abraxas loosens his tie and asks, “Early night?”
“What?” Riddle says, looking up at Abraxas with a jolt.
Abraxas halts by his bed, struck.
Tom Riddle, a mudblood who should kiss Abraxas’s feet every time Abraxas as much as does him the favor of addressing him, had not looked to see who was coming into the room, when all the while it might have been Abraxas; had not been waiting, hoping that, out of everybody, it would be Abraxas who would arrive first.
Instead, it is Abraxas who looks when a door opens, just in case it is Riddle, because something happens to the world when Riddle walks into any room, something terrible and—
“Yes,” Riddle says at last. “Early night. And you?”
Abraxas turns on his heel and exits the dormitory without a word. He wins three duels that night, and does not notice Riddle watching until the end of the last one, when he is spelling the blood off his robes.
It does not matter. He will not look at the mudblood again.
A couple days later, Riddle falls into step with him outside the Great Hall.
“You forgot this,” he says, and hands Abraxas his Potions textbook.
Abraxas slips the book into his bag. Dusk deepens outside the windows as they walk in silence side by side, passing by empty classrooms and deserted corridors. At every corner, Abraxas tells himself he will take a different route to the common room, and at every corner, he does not.
Riddle stops in front of the archway leading to the dungeons. His shadow stretches down the stairs, bleeds into the darkness.
“Abraxas,” he says, and Abraxas stills. “Forgive me for the other night. I did not mean to offend you.”
“I do not know what you are referring to,” Abraxas says, and walks past him.
Riddle’s arm shoots up and he seizes Abraxas’s elbow. Abraxas looks up at him, pulse throbbing against Riddle’s palm.
“Forgive me anyway,” Riddle says, eyes sharp.
Abraxas swallows past the knot in his throat. “Stop spewing nonsense,” he says, wrenching himself free of Riddle’s grip and descending towards the firelit darkness, throat clenched.
Abraxas has a position to uphold; a reputation to enhance. Lestrange may trail after Riddle like a dog, not even bothering to be coy about it anymore, and Black and Rosier may have taken to pairing up with him in Potions whenever they need to improve their averages, but Lestrange is a blood traitor, Rosier’s a bootlicker, and Black is opportunistic like the rest of his inbred family, the three of them a disgrace to the wizarding kin, an indulgence Abraxas simply cannot afford.
Yes, Riddle is attractive. He is also a mudblood. That is all there is to it. It is not Abraxas who made the world like this, and it is not Abraxas who will change it. And if Abraxas has needs, they are to be met in a manner befitting his station, by individuals who share his standing.
When the Ravenclaw captain no longer holds his attention, Abraxas trades him for the Gryffindor beater, a pureblood with a fiancée of his own and hair as black as Riddle’s. They waste so much time in broom closets, Abraxas falls behind Black in Potions and Defence.
His allowance is halved.
* * *
No more summers with the women for Abraxas. He is old enough to accompany his father in matters of business. Since it is an election year, they spend most of their time in London, in and out of Rowle’s office.
When the luncheons drag and Abraxas loses track of the conversation, he passes the time imagining Riddle in a weathered stone house surrounded by plane trees, trying to read over the sound of children playing outside. At night, he peers out the window of the London flat, the flat that Abraxas will inherit after he graduates and marries, and wonders if Riddle is somewhere in the distance, where the sky is punctured by searchlights.
September 1942
Year Five
Abraxas awakens before the sun has risen, stomach in knots. He haunts the Manor until ten to eleven, when he joins his parents in the foyer. Together, they reach for the brass train on the credenza.
He sees him right away through the press of shoulders and vapour, clad in well-fitted robes, a shiny prefect badge pinned to his chest. A mix of younger and older students from the lesser families surround him, and Lestrange is by his side, looking displeasingly smug. Riddle says something, and they all laugh.
“Who is that?” his mother asks.
“The mudblood in my year,” Abraxas says dryly.
“Oh, my,” she says.
His father’s gaze rests on Riddle for a beat, but he does not offer any comment.
“Do write,” his mother says when Abraxas lifts his trunk. She no longer needs to stoop to kiss his cheek. “And do not give your father further cause for disappointment,” she whispers into his ear, before the two of them turn and disappear through the thick steam.
Abraxas smudges away the trace of her lipstick, then boards the train.
Riddle’s new entourage follows him for the rest of the day. They even flank him at dinner, heads tilted together, voices dropped to a whisper.
After the feast, Black and Rosier linger on Abraxas’s bed, talking idly. Midnight passes and neither Riddle nor Lestrange have returned.
“Where do you think they are?” Rosier asks after they have exhausted all other subjects of conversation, casting a forlorn glance at Lestrange’s bed.
Lying on Abraxas’s pillow, hands under his head, Black says gloomily, “A party we weren’t invited to, obviously.”
“You’d think they’d be tired of parties after the summer they had,” Rosier says.
“What happened this summer?” Abraxas asks.
Black turns to him. “Didn’t you hear? Riddle’s been making the rounds. My sister saw him at the Notts every week.”
“And I ran into him a couple of times at The Walpurgis. A guest of Rodolphus’s father, apparently.”
“Is that so?” Abraxas says. The Walpurgis is hardly the sort of club Abraxas would patronise, but even that is well beyond Riddle’s station.
Rosier shrugs. “He’s looking to marry a pureblood with no other prospects, no doubt. He could probably get one of the Reed daughters. They can’t possibly make good marriages for seven girls.”
“I don’t know,” Black says in the tone of somebody discussing war tactics. “He could have his pick of girls at school, some of them from decent families too, but I’ve never seen him sneak out with a girl. Have you?”
Abraxas stands, pretends to look for something in his trunk.
“Maybe he’s preparing to enter into politics. Merlin knows he will need a job as soon as school is over.”
“But why is Lestrange Senior vouching for him? That man never lifts a finger without something in it for himself.”
“Perhaps he’s trying to cleanse the family of the disgrace his son caused last year.”
“Perhaps.”
“I think he—”
Abraxas drops a bag of potion ingredients. A vial breaks against the bottom of his trunk.
“Must we talk about that mudblood all evening long?” he snaps.
Rosier and Black exchange a glance.
“What?” Abraxas says.
“We don’t really know if he’s a mudblood, do we?”
Rosier nods.
“Spare me Lestrange’s propaganda,” Abraxas spits. “What else could he be?”
“Maybe he was born into one of the lower houses,” Black says with a shrug.
“Or he’s a son made out of marriage,” Rosier adds.
“A family of blood traitors?”
Abraxas stares at them open-mouthed. “I see you’ve both put a lot of thought into this.”
“Well—” Black starts, but the door parts open and Lestrange and Riddle walk in.
Silence settles over the room.
“Are we interrupting?” Lestrange asks, taking them in: Abraxas standing by his trunk, Rosier and Black sitting on Abraxas’s bed, hands in mid motion.
Riddle walks towards his bed. As he passes by Abraxas, he runs a hand through his hair and nods at him, the first glance he spared him that day.
Abraxas looks away without returning the nod, palms suddenly damp.
“No,” Black says, jumping off Abraxas’s bed. “We were just going to sleep.” Then, turning towards Riddle. “Good to see you, Riddle. My sister said you cast the most impressive Cruciatus she’s ever seen.”
“You cast a Cruciatus?” Rosier asks, in the tone he reserved for Abraxas when they were first introduced.
“Only on a spider,” Riddle specifies, bent over his trunk.
“Yes, but the spider didn’t stop twitching for half an hour, did it?” Black says.
“No way—”
Abraxas draws the curtains around his four-poster. By the end of the week, Black and Rosier have found their way into Riddle’s clique.
Dressed in silk, Abraxas walks past the lot of them on his way to Dippet’s office, whence he will step into the Reception Hall of the Ministry, where nobody has heard of Riddle, where nobody will ever hear of Riddle, where the unnamed sickness that has befallen Abraxas, that makes him go weak in the knees when Riddle walks into any room, will dissolve into the knowledge that Abraxas has a place in the world, and it is right at its very top.
* * *
It is a matter of tradition that Abraxas must earn 12 Outstanding O.W.L.s. this year, and therefore the perfect excuse to spend his free evenings in the library, away from the ongoing Riddle performance taking place in the common room.
Just because the others have decided Riddle is not a Mudblood, all so they can enjoy his company without guilt, does not mean Abraxas will grovel for his attention like the rest of them. If Riddle wants Abraxas’s company, he can seek it himself.
Tonight, the library is mostly empty. Abraxas chooses a table by the dark window, and opens his Potions textbook.
One hour later, having accomplished nothing, he stands and pushes his belongings into his bag. As he turns, he spots Riddle a few tables behind, alone, leaning on his elbow, eyes darting over the page in front of him.
* * *
After the first win of the Quidditch season, two seventh years sneak in firewhisky from Hogsmeade. It burns the throat.
Arm hung around some boy, Abraxas is listening to the fourth retelling of his own winning move when Riddle walks into the common room. Suddenly, hands are pulling him in, and he lets himself be pushed onto the sofa across from Abraxas.
“I can’t believe you missed the match again,” a girl tells him, naked knees pressed against his thigh.
“Even though it might not be an intellectual endeavor, it’s important to support your team,” another one preaches, hand brushing over his back, and as he turns towards her he throws Abraxas a quick glance that seems to be saying not this again, right? even though this has never happened before, and Abraxas quite agrees it is preposterous that he does not come to the matches.
Tongue heavy, Abraxas reaches for his empty glass. Somebody refills it. He drains it and leans back, head tipped over the sofa cushion.
Perhaps he has been poisoned. Or cursed.
By the time he pulls himself upright, Riddle is gone, like the shape of dreams in the morning.
A week or so later, Abraxas overhears a girl complaining about Riddle’s refusal to accompany her to Hogsmeade the following weekend.
“If he lacks experience, I can remedy that,” she says loudly, drawing stifled giggles from the others.
Against Abraxas’s will, this adds a spring to his step for the rest of the day.
* * *
Between the expectation that he stands in for his father at events, Quidditch practice every Friday and Sunday evening, and the ensuing late nights with the Gryffindor beater, Abraxas barely has any time to do his homework.
“This is unacceptable, Mister Malfoy,” the Runes master says when he fails to hand in his homework for the second week in a row. “If your essay is not on my desk on Monday morning, you will not pass this class.”
Despite the warning, Abraxas does not pick up the Runes textbook from his side table until Sunday afternoon, when the library is, of course, packed.
“There’s Lestrange,” Black says with feigned nonchalance, as if Abraxas was blind and could not see Riddle right next to him.
“Whatever,” Abraxas says, irritated.
Riddle and Lestrange draw in their books in silence when Black and Abraxas join them. The hours pass slowly. Sunlight hazes over the table overflowing with bottles of ink and parchments. Nothing comes easy to Abraxas. There are translations he needs to check in multiple books, books with hermetic tables of contents, books with missing footnotes, missing books. Riddle’s fluent writing mocks him from the other side of the table, and Abraxas has to keep himself from gazing up at him every few beats.
The sky beyond the leaded windows darkens, and the oil lamps are lit. Black has left at some point; Abraxas has not noticed when. One by one, students drift away, waving at their friends, placing books back on the shelves. When Lestrange stands up, Abraxas looks up at him in sideration.
Surely, he will not leave Abraxas alone with Riddle. That would not do. That would certainly not do.
“I’m expected at tea with my brother and cousins. Do you care to join us?”
“Hm?” Riddle says, eyes on his notebook. Then, looking up. “Oh, no, thank you.”
Abraxas watches Lestrange’s back until it disappears through the double oak doors, pulse quickening. Riddle must move to another table, there is no other option. He cannot possibly expect Abraxas to be the one to move, and he cannot expect to be seated next to Abraxas alone in public.
Yet this must be exactly exactly what Riddle expects, because he starts writing again, unbothered.
Paralysed by what presents itself as an impossible choice—leave like a servant, or stay and elevate Riddle’s status even further—Abraxas stares blankly at his essay until too much time has passed, and the choice has been made for him.
He dips his quill in ink, but he cannot think of anything to put down on his parchment.
Why isn’t Riddle saying anything?
Is there nothing Riddle would like to tell him, now that he has been given this unearned chance to?
“There you are!”
Startled, Abraxas gazes up. One of the Slytherin reserves is staring down at him, breath choppy.
Quidditch. Abraxas forgot about Quidditch practice.
“McLaggen sent after you—”
“Yes, yes,” Abraxas says, standing swiftly. He starts gathering his books. How could he be so stupid. How could he be so bloody—
“Go,” Riddle says, an amused expression on his face. “I’ll take your things back.”
Mortified, Abraxas turns on his heel and storms out of the library. He lingers after practice, too embarrassed to face Riddle; but he cannot linger forever.
The dormitory is still when he walks in, all the curtains drawn. The books he left behind with Riddle are perfectly stacked on his nightstand, his essay rolled with the utmost care.
Abraxas picks it up. Somehow, at some point, he must have decided Riddle has slipped something inside, a note, or some meaningful page ripped out of some meaningful book, and disappointment fills him when he finds nothing but his own unfinished essay. Then, in waves, rage.
In the morning, he staggers to the library. Riddle is already there, alone at his usual table, half hidden by a tower of books. Abraxas sits with his back to him.
The library fills with groggy students, then empties again when breakfast is served. Abraxas has no way of knowing if Riddle is still behind him, and finds his mind drifting to this line of inquiry every time his quill stills on the parchment.
At last, the bell rings. As Abraxas rolls his parchment, Riddle passes him, fingers lightly brushing Abraxas’s table as he walks by.
After Abraxas hands in his mediocre essay, after lunch and private lessons and dinner, Abraxas locks himself in the bathroom and imagines Riddle’s fingers around him as he spends all over his own.
* * *
A first year hands Abraxas a note. Abraxas’s father is travelling to Hogwarts, and expects to see Abraxas in Dippet’s office at 8 o’clock sharp.
Abraxas knows his grades haven’t improved as much as they should have, but he did not expect—
“Are you alright?”
Abraxas looks up from the note. “What?”
“Are you alright?” Black repeats.
“Yes—No. Yes. Tell Slughorn I’m sick.”
“Are you actually sick?” Black yells after him.
Abraxas strides out of the Great Hall, against crowds of students rushing the other way. Door slammed and locked behind him, he collapses into bed, heart galloping. He paces. Splashes his face with cold water. After twenty minutes or so, his heart settles, and he walks to class.
He does not even notice Riddle is sitting across from him at lunch until lunch is almost over, and the realisation that things could be this way—that it is possible to move through the world without the constant awareness of Riddle’s position in time and space—is temporarily more disturbing than his father’s impending visit. Then the bell rings, and Abraxas forgets all about Riddle until dinner, when Rosier mentions his absence.
“He’s helping Slughorn with something,” Lestrange chimes in all-knowingly. Abraxas throws him a look full of unrestrained disdain, then stands.
It is time.
Voices make their way to him as he climbs up the circular stairs to Dippet’s office. He hesitates in front of the door, pulse throbbing in his throat.
“…couldn’t say…”
“…are we sure…very wise…”
“...as brilliant as they…”
Abraxas stills, ear pressed against the door.
“…Riddle…”
All the blood leaves his face. Is he being compared to a mudblood now? He stumbles back, and the floor creaks under his steps. Behind the door, silence falls.
While Dippet gives his father a detailed account of all of Abraxas’s recent failures, Abraxas watches the fire.
“I see,” his father says at the end of all that.
“He’s still one of the best students in his year,” Dippet adds, an edge of pity to his voice. “And an extraordinary athlete, of course.”
His father does not reply. After a beat, he says, “Armando, remind me. How many professors have complained about his behaviour as of late?”
“Four, Your Grace.”
“Four,” his father echoes. “And what do they all say?”
“That his mind seems elsewhere.”
“Yes. Elsewhere.” The chair squeaks under the father’s weight as he turns towards Abraxas. The fire grows tall; it warps and splits one of the logs, filling the silence with the sound of crumbling wood. “Where exactly, I wonder? What else is there other than upholding the family name?”
“Nothing,” Abraxas says, a painful lump in his throat. “Forgive me, Father. It will not happen again.”
His father leans back on the chair, and slices the air with his hand. “You may go.”
Without looking at either of the men, Abraxas stands. He is still in a daze when he enters the dormitory, and sees Riddle and Lestrange facing each other on Lestrange’s bed. Lestrange freezes, lips parted, hand on Riddle’s elbow.
Lestrange’s curtains scrape closed behind Abraxas as he walks to his four-poster, eyes prickling.
* * *
Abraxas buries himself under piles of textbooks in the far corner of the library while Riddle holds court in the common room. Black and Rosier would much rather be with Riddle, Abraxas knows, but they accompany him nonetheless, then spend their time passing notes under the table until Abraxas has had enough and dismisses them.
Riddle arrives sometime later. He settles at a table across from him, and cracks open a book bound with the red ribbon of the Restricted Section. Abraxas scoops his chair to the left, banishing him from his line of sight.
By midnight, only the two of them remain. After the Matron closes the shutters with a flick of her wand, their long shadows move together towards the double doors. Abraxas dashes through the arched corridors, the echo of Riddle’s heels loud against his eardrums.
The following evening unfolds in much the same way: shutters slammed shut, their shadows, Riddle’s footsteps behind.
The evening after that, Riddle is already there when Abraxas sinks into his chair after his private lessons. They are silent on the way to the common room, not quite together, not quite apart.
They dance around each other like this all throughout November, gazes never crossing, shoulders almost brushing on the way back.
Then Abraxas gets a poor mark on his Herbology homework, which he wrote in a frenzy, gazing up every time the floorboards creaked because Riddle did not show that evening, mind reaching for reasons why he must have been kept away against his will. After that, Abraxas moves to a different corner of the library, and always leaves before midnight.
The day Abraxas learns Riddle will spend the winter holidays at Lestrange’s townhouse, he leaves bruises on the Gryffindor beater, who seems to enjoy it, because he loiters outside Abraxas’s last class the following day.
Last-minute assignments keep him on the constant edge of panic in December. On the final day of term, he ascends to the Great Hall before the breakfast crowds. Relief fills him when he sees his name under Riddle’s in all subjects on the noticeboard.
Footsteps still next to him. “Congratulations,” Riddle says, hands in pockets.
Abraxas counts the people between his name and Black—five; his father should be satisfied with that—then turns towards Riddle.
“Don’t condescend to me,” he says, and strides away.
“I was not trying to,” Riddle says, falling into step with him.
Abraxas comes to a halt before the front doors. They have been left ajar, and the wind carries in gusts of snowfall. “What do you want?”
Riddle smiles, as if this was a game he did not mind losing. “Do I need to want something to walk with you?”
“Yes,” Abraxas says, fixing his rings.
“I see,” Riddle says, but does not move, and so it is Abraxas who has to walk away.
* * *
Wearing somber dress robes, flanked by Lestrange and his father, Riddle enters the Grimmauld Place ballroom one hour before the New Year is called. Abraxas chokes on his drink.
“I’m surprised the house let him in,” Abraxas tells his fiancée, then waltzes over to Black to tell him the same thing.
Black shrugs. “Father said it’s alright.”
“How is it alright?” Abraxas asks through barred teeth, looking for Riddle through the swish of dress robes and amber lights. “My father is here—”
“Your father seems fine with it,” Black says, motioning to the back of the room.
Abraxas follows the line of Black’s finger to where Riddle is, to Abraxas’s utter horror, shaking his father’s hand.
Black laughs. “Look at that. Even he’s a fan.”
“Shut up,” Abraxas says, raising a hand to block Black and his stupidity altogether.
Heads level against the gilded wallpaper, Riddle and his father take turns leaning in the other’s ear. His father must be in a good mood, because he dispenses words generously, and pats Riddle’s shoulder. Riddle smiles his most charming smile. They shake hands one more time, and then it is over. Riddle is dismissed, and his father directs his attention back to the Minister for Current Affairs.
Abraxas finishes his drink in a swallow, then strides towards Riddle, head humming. He intercepts him in the warren of shoulders, seizing his arm. If Riddle is surprised by this, he does not show it. He makes no effort to escape Abraxas’s grip, and lets himself be dragged out of the ballroom and into the servants’ pantry, where a dozen elves are hurrying about.
“Get out,” Abraxas orders.
With a slam, the door seals them off from the clamour of the party.
“What did my father want with you?”
Riddle gives a short laugh. “You should ask him.”
“I’m asking you.”
“Then I shall politely decline to answer.”
Abraxas takes a step forward, unafraid. Riddle might be a genius. He might be better, stronger, more talented than Abraxas; it does not matter. He lost all the duels against Abraxas the day he was born a nobody.
Another step, and the back of Riddle’s head scrapes against the wall. His lips part, in shock or an attempt to speak, Abraxas will never know.
“You will answer me,” Abraxas says, only distantly aware the game he is playing has shifted.
“Will I?” Riddle says, a little breathless, gaze skipping to Abraxas’s lips.
In a fraction of a second, Abraxas makes up his mind.
He unclasps his cape in one motion.
“Get on your knees.”
Riddle gives another laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous—”
“On your knees.”
Riddle considers him for a beat. Propping his hand against the counter by his side, he slowly lowers himself to one knee, then settles the other one, the gesture only somewhat undermined by his entertained expression.
“I assure you, there is no need for this.”
“I will be the judge of that,” Abraxas says, struggling to unbutton the first layer of his dress robes.
“You can just say you like me.”
Abraxas laughs, grateful for his drunkenness. “Aren’t you presumptuous?”
“I like you,” Riddle says, more serious this time. “You know I do.”
Does Abraxas know that? It seems to him that this is precisely the knowledge that has been kept from him, unfairly, all these months.
“Grand,” he says, warmth swelling in the pit of his stomach. He lets his outer robes slide off him. “Consider this my gift to you, then.”
Riddle grabs the pleated front of Abraxas’s shirt, and pulls Abraxas down. Too drunk to defend against it, Abraxas falls to his knees.
Hand still clenched around Abraxas’s shirt, Riddle says, “Do not confuse me for one of your boys, Abraxas.”
“What’s your problem?” Abraxas says, trying and failing to push his hand away. “You just said you liked me.”
“And you have not said it back.”
Abraxas lets out an incredulous laugh. “You are in no position to make demands of me.”
Riddle pulls him closer still. Abraxas’s breath catches.
“You will find I very much am,” Riddle says, hand sliding up Abraxas’s neck until it rests on his nape, fingers fanned out. “Do you like me back, Abraxas? It’s a simple question.”
Heart in his throat, Abraxas swallows. The immensity of what is asked of him shrinks and expands in the gap between their lips, until a small piece inside of Abraxas gives.
“Yes,” he hears himself saying, and this admission is so big, so monumental, it seems to cut his life in two, but he has no time to linger on the matter because something eases in Riddle’s eyes, and his fingernails sink into Abraxas’s nape, and Abraxas understands.
He leans in until their mouths are pressed together. Riddle’s lips part open for him, and Abraxas lets out a moan as tongue finds tongue, overcome with something heavy and painful.
The sound of muffled cheering reaches them.
They’ve entered the New Year.