– – – – – Rebirth Chapter 05 – – – – –

By May, there were five students petrified in the infirmary. Tom was exceedingly frustrated. It was as if there were some bizarre magical force working against him. Every time he brought out the basilisk, no matter what, whoever they came across was somehow saved from the deadly stare, and only got a grazing glance through some sort of reflective surface. Looking in a mirror; reflected off of a puddle of standing water; looking through a spyglass. One of the damn students was even saved by having caught sight of the basilisk while looking through a ghost!

Tom was seething; Heri was secretly relieved, and the school was in a total panic. The muggleborns were especially on edge since every single student who had been petrified so far was a muggleborn. Tom had at least been able to manage that. Not a single pureblood had been hurt. Heri wasn't even sure how the hell Tom was managing it.

And then, in the last week of May, Tom finally succeeded. A Ravenclaw muggleborn named Myrtle was killed by looking directly into the basilisk's eyes. Tom was elated because he had found her especially annoying. She was one of those exceedingly whiny girls. Overly emotional, and bitchy to an extreme. Tom was barely able to contain his glee from the public view and Heri had to kick him in the shin a few times during meals or classes to remind him to tone down the maniacal look in his eyes.

However his glee was short lived because three days after Myrtle was found dead in the very bathroom that housed the entrance to the Chamber – which Heri had insisted was an exceedingly stupid place to kill someone – Headmaster Dippet stood before the entire school in the Great Hall and announced that if the cause of these attacks could not be found and stopped, that Hogwarts was going to close it's doors for good.

Heri and Tom both instantly realized the percussions of this. If there was no Hogwarts, there was only the orphanage. They had no where else to go, and returning to the orphanage for two months out of the year was already horrible, but to return their permanently and without finishing their magical educations...

Heri shot Tom a very hard glare, silently demanding that he figure out some way to fix this! Tom looked slightly sick, but his face took on a stoney determination very quickly.

By the end of the following week, Tom had 'caught' the perpetrator. He pinned the whole thing on the stupid halfbreed oaf, Hagrid – a third year Gryffindor who was obviously half-giant, and who had an obscenely ridiculous fascination with creatures that could eat you. Tom had apparently noticed months earlier that Hagrid was tending to a few dangerous creatures, and that the boy was stupid enough to be hiding a live acromantula in the school. Anyone with half a brain would know that an acromantula small enough to live in the cupboard where Hagrid was keeping it, would not be capable of killing anyone. Not to mention that acromantula didn't petrify people. And yet, the Headmaster, and the Ministry Aurors easily accepted this explanation and Hagrid was promptly expelled and had his wand snapped.

Heri almost felt sorry for the poor sod.

Almost.

Dumbledore came to the rescue of his poor Gryffindor though, and managed to talk the Headmaster into keeping the boy on as an assistant to the groundkeeper, Ogg. It was obvious that Dumbledore knew Hagrid had not been the one responsible. Fortunately for Heri and Tom, he seemed to be the only one.

Hell, Tom even got an award for special services to the school! Heri would have laughed if he hadn't been so high strung with stress from the whole ordeal. But his stress did not instantly dissipate. Dumbledore not only realized that Hagrid hadn't caused the girl's death, he also seemed to know that Tom and/or Heri, had. He watched the two of them like hawks, and it became nearly impossible to slip away and do anything without him being near by. Heri and Tom suspected that Dumbledore had the many magical portraits around the school reporting to him.

Again, Heri wanted to rant and rave at Tom's stupidity at allowing the one successful kill to happen in the same room as the Chamber's entrance, because Dumbledore seemed to be watching that particular room with extreme interest. Thus, Tom found it near impossible to go back down there, even just for the books.

The two kept their noses clean for the rest of term, not doing a single thing out of the actions of normal students. This also meant that Heri's training in Necromancy was put on hold since he couldn't risk going into the Room of Hidden Things, or it's Training Room.

They did, however, finish the hereditary trees, and the both of them now had a clear and detailed picture of their family history, going back several generations. This particular thing had dropped quite a bombshell – although it was one that Heri had been entirely expecting.

They were both half-bloods. Tom's father was a muggle, while Heri's mother was muggleborn. Tom was utterly disgusted by this, and raged when they were first faced with the evidence. Heri had scoffed at Tom and told him he was over-reacting.

This, of course, was not something Tom wanted to hear. The thought of being 'tainted' by the filthy blood of a muggle, horrified him. Heri asked how he could be so surprised by this discovery when he himself had basically assumed both of their cases to be something along those lines all alone.

Tom's wizarding relatives on his mother's side were a family called the Gaunts. They were the last living descendants of Salazar Slytherin, and in the ten generations that the family tree displayed, Tom could pinpoint the exact place where the family branched off, and who his closest living relation was with the Slytherin name. He could literally see exactly how he was related to Salazar Slytherin. It was a thrilling discover for him. But aside from that, he could also tell one other significant thing. According to the family tree, two of the Gaunts were still alive.

Marvolo Gaunt, and Morphin Gaunt. Tom was able to send a few requests to the Ministry of Magic during the last few months of school to see if there was any records about either men, and it turned out that there was. Both had criminal records, in fact, Marvolo Gaunt was currently locked up in Azkaban for having attacked a Ministry employee. An address was on record for Morphin, and the man apparently lived just outside a little muggle village called 'Little Hangleton'. And so Heri and Tom made plans to visit it during the summer.

An especially interesting bit of information came up in Morphin's criminal records. It turned out that he had spent a short stint in Azkaban for having attacked a muggle. A man by the name of Tom Riddle.

As for Heri, it turned out that there wasn't a single living soul that the pair could hunt down for vengeance as every one of the people listed on his family tree was already dead. They did discover what his full name was actually supposed to be though, since apparently, his family had performed the proper rituals upon his birth to magically name him. Herakles Lucan Valerius. Heri and Tom had both gasped as they examined his family tree and realized just whom he descended from. The Valerius gens was one of the most ancient and most celebrated in Rome; and no other Roman gens was distinguished for so long a period.

Word was that they had also been an exceedingly wealthy family. Tom was the first to suggest that Heri should visit the goblin-run bank, Gringotts, to see if there was any chance he could claim an inheritance from the family. If he truly was the last of the line, and he had apparently not been disinherited for having a muggle-born mother – and according to the tree, no disinheritance had been set – then Heri very well could be quite wealthy.

It was certainly worth looking into.

And so the pair spent the end of their fifth year doing their homework, eating meals with their fellow Slytherins, spending most of their freetime in the common room, or the Library, and just generally keeping their heads down.

Term came to an end and the pair left the school on the train, heading back to London.

–

The first thing the pair did upon entering the city was go to Diagon Alley and visit Gringotts. Seeing as how they intended to visit Little Hangleton that summer, spending money would be a real boon. They had, once again, collected a sizable amount of junk from the Room of Hidden Things over the course of the year to sell to Borgin and Burke, but hadn't been able to do their last minute raid on the room thanks to Dumbledore's close watch. So any miraculous inheritances would be greatly appreciated.

The goblins had been extremely dubious of the pair. It was apparently rather common for ruffians to show up on their doorstep claiming to be the last heir of some ancient and wealthy bloodline that had died out without a will to designate where the money went. Thus, the pair spent a long and tedious day at the bank while the short nasty creatures ran a wide array of tests and rituals on Heri's blood to verify his claim.

In the end, the goblins had grudgingly admitted that Heri was an heir to the Valerius family, and according to their spells, in full right to claim access to the ancient family's vault. Their vault, however, was not in Britain. It was in Rome. Gringotts had a branch there, and could transfer a set amount of galleons from one branch to another, but if Heri wanted to personally visit the vault and see what objects or artifacts might be stored within it, he would have to actually travel to Rome in person.

By the end of the day, they had gone through with transferring a hefty sum of gold galleons out of Heri's new vault, and the pair had left the alley to return to the orphanage. Heri made his way back in a daze – stunned and overwhelmed by the enormity of everything he had discovered that day.

One thing did occur to him though. If there were any Necromancers in his family, they would have left their Grimoires in the family vault. And he was fairly sure that there were necromancers in his family since he was positive that he had seen the name Lucan Valerius – his grandfather, according to his family tree – in one of the books he'd found that talked about the art of Necromancy, and mentioned a few people who were historically known as practitioners of the black arts.

He would definitely need to find an opportunity to go to his family vault. But the idea of traveling all the way to Rome was a bit overwhelming, even with his sudden and unexpected surplus of funding; and especially on such short notice. It would have to wait though. Probably the following summer when they actually had the time to plan it.

This summer was going to be focused on Tom's family. And Tom's revenge.

– –

The second week of July the pair, through means of muggle transportation, made the journey to Little Hangleton. Tom had insisted that they keep their travels as inconspicuous and untraceable as possible, and Heri certainly wasn't going to argue with him.

During the previous school year, Tom had managed to get some rather useful information out of one of the seventh year boys whose father worked for the Ministry in the misuse of magic office, and who also intended to go onto a similar career path. It was one of this department's jobs to identify and track down any instances of magic being used in the presence of muggles, or use of magic to attack muggles. They worked closely with the obliviators department, and also with the department that kept track of, and punished, the use of magic by underaged wizards.

When Tom had realized all of this, he had grilled the boy for any and all details he could give him about the different measures used to determine when magic had been performed by a minor. He had learned a great many very useful details.

The first line of detection were the wards the Ministry had placed around the orphanage. Any underage wizards, living in a muggle environment, had wards placed upon their residence to identify and catalog every instance of magic use. The wards couldn't specifically identify exactly who had cast magic, only that they could identify that magic had been cast, make not of exactly what magic had been cast, and alert someone at the Ministry immediately.

The second line of detection was a trace placed on all wands sold to underaged wizards, at reputable shops, such as Ollivander's where they had both purchased their wands. That one was easy enough to get around if you knew exactly how. Specifically, you had to break the wards protecting the trace spell using an unregistered, untraced, wand. For that, they had purchased one from a shady shop in Knockturn Alley. It didn't work particularly well for either of them, but it was enough for them to dissolve the traces from each of their wands and then to chuck the nearly worthless wand into the bottom of one of their trunks for any future emergencies.

There was another 'line of defense' that the boy told them about, but it was still in development. Apparently it was a trace that would be put on the child, rather than on their wand. The boy had explained that it was the Ministry's intention that at the first alert of powerful accidental magic being performed by any magical child, the Ministry would send someone out to apply the trace to the child, in secret. That way even during the early years of the muggleborn populace, should any powerful accidental magic be performed, the Ministry would be alerted right away and could send out obliviators, should that be necessary.

He'd gone on to explain a number of other things, but in the end, the basics were all they'd needed.

As long as they were not within the wards of the orphanage, and used either wandless magic, or wands with the Trace removed, the Ministry could not detect what they were doing.

With this knowledge bring them a small degree of security, they arrived in Little Hangleton and began the search for the shack that Morphin Gaunt apparently lived in. It took longer than either had expected, but they were finally able to find it by following a snake the Tom came across. He had conversed with it in parseltongue for several minutes while Heri had stood there waiting patiently. Finally the snake began to slither down the road and finally turned and disappeared in a small overgrown opening in the hedgerow that they had passed earlier and apparently missed.

The house at the end of a long, twisting, path was made mostly of stone, covered in moss and other overgrown plant matter. The roof looked as if it were moments away from collapsing in on itself, and the windows were thick with grime, and several were cracked or even broken.

A dead snake was nailed to the front door, but Tom paid it no mind as he went straight up to it and knocked. There was no response for a long moment, but suddenly some muffled noises could be heard deep within, followed a moment later by the sound of angry hissing.

Heri watched as Tom's eyes widened slightly, but his face remained otherwise impassive. Suddenly the door flew open and a old, withered, and sickly looking man with dirty scraggly hair and filthy clothes appeared in the doorway.

He hissed angrily and Heri could see that the man was missing quite a few teeth, and the rest were yellowed and rotten.

When Tom hissed back, the man's face slackened in shock. Heri almost chuckled, but managed to refrain, keeping his face blank and impassive while his hand continued to subtly grip his wand at his side.

After a few more minutes of hissing back and forth, and a few glares at Heri from Morphin, they were apparently invited inside. The interior was just as sad and decrepit as the outside and Heri refused to sit in any of the chairs present. Tom clearly shared his opinion as his lip curled in distaste at what he saw and he resolutely remained standing while Morphin walked over and sank into a disgusting looking old armchair.

Hissing continued and Heri shifted his attention to Tom's face. He couldn't understand what either of them were saying to each other, but he could at least observe Tom's reactions to whatever the hell Morphin was telling him.

Several times he saw a fire of pure fury suddenly begin to rage behind Tom's dark eyes, only to see it quickly masked away.

Finally, and with an almost surprising suddenness, Tom turned his face to Heri and said, "We're done here."

For a moment it looked as if Tom was simply going to turn and leave the rotting hovel, and Morphin seemed to expect as much as well, but an intense, pointed look from Tom instantly told Heri that something was about to happen. He'd known Tom all his life and he new how to read the other boy.

He began to act as if he were turning to leave as well, but kept his eyes on Tom's body movement, waiting for the exact moment...

Suddenly, Tom's wand arm whipped around and a stunner flew from his wand and hit Morphin square in the chest. The man was thrown back and he collapsed back into the chair, unconscious.

Heri blinked at it for a moment before relaxing.

"Alright, so now what?"

"Now, we go kill my filthy muggle father." Tom sneered.

Heri paused and then looked back at the unconscious Morphin. "What about him?"

"We'll pin it on him. I'll take his wand and use it to perform the finishing spell, then we bring it back and place a memory charm on him. He's already got a record with the Ministry for having attacked the man. It'll be simple."

"So you're father's still alive then?"

Tom's eyes narrowed and flashed red for a moment. Something that Heri had only seen happen a few times, and only when Tom was exceptionally angry.

"Oh he's alive alright," he said through clenched teeth.

–

The pair had made their way back up the road to a large muggle manor house, surrounded by finely kept gardens. They'd used notice-me-not charms to prevent anyone from really seeing them, or making note of the presence. On the way there, Tom had explained what he had managed to learn so far from his uncle.

It seemed that his mother, Merope Gaunt, had fallen in love with the handsome muggle boy from down the road. Morphin had accused her of being a squib, but Tom was hesitant to believe it. Heri could see the pain and disgust behind Tom's eyes at the thought of having had a squib mother, and a muggle father.

After Marvolo and Morphin were taken away by the Ministry and both locked up in Azkaban, Merope had run off with the muggle. Morphin had been released from Azkaban after a year and a half since all he'd done was attack a muggle with a fairly meaningless hex. Marvolo was still there because he had attacked a Ministry official. Morphin had returned to find his sister missing, as well as a family treasure – a locket that had belonged to Salazar Slytherin himself.

Not too long after that, the muggle, Tom Riddle, had come back to Little Hangletone, claiming to have been bewitched by Merope. That she had somehow tricked him – put him under a spell or something – and forced him to marry her. When his spell had worn off, she'd tried to trap him in the marriage by getting pregnant. But he was no fool – no. He wouldn't be trapped by some nasty woman. So he'd left her. Abandoned her and his own unborn child, and returned to live with his parents.

And that was who Heri and Tom found when they got to the tall, beautiful manor house on the hill. Tom Riddle, Charles Riddle, and Elizabeth Riddle. All muggles. Tom's living blood relatives. His father and fraternal his grandparents.

Their deaths were not pretty. They were not painless. They were not quick.

When done, the two returned to Morphin's little shack, and returned his wand. Tom had then done something that gave Heri pause for a moment. Tom had gone over to the still sleeping wizard and removed a ring from his finger. Once done, he had placed the memory charm on him and allowed the sleeping spell they'd left him under to slowly wear off as they quickly left Little Hangleton, with no intention to ever look back.

Heri had asked Tom about the ring and had been informed that Morphin had said it was a Slytherin family heirloom. He'd allowed Heri to look at it, and Heri had been transfixed with the small stone set in the ring. It had a strange symbol carved into it. A triangle with a circle and a line inside it. But the stone itself seemed to vibrate with powerful black magic. Necromantic magic...

Heri had asked Tom to tell him everything that Morphin had told him about the ring, but there had been very little to tell. Morphin said it was handed down from the Peverell family, to the Slytherins, to the Gaunts. Heri continued to examine it as the two rode the bus back to London, but had to reluctantly hand it over to Tom once they'd gotten back.

In the end, they were only gone from the orphanage for two nights, and no one paid their absence any mind.

After that, the two resumed the summer routine they'd developed the summer before. They slept in their beds at the orphanage, bathed there, and sometimes ate breakfast there, but left for London as soon as possible, and spent the remainder of their days in the wizarding Alleys until it became late and they had no other option but to return to their small, dingy, beds.

Heri could tell that Tom was secretly affected by what had happened. Even the death of that Ravenclaw girl had been rather intense for him. It was one thing to kill the pets of people who had annoyed him, or angered him in some way, but now he had killed people. Tom was now directly responsible for the deaths of four different people. Myrtle was slightly indirect, since Tom had simply guided the basilisk to kill her for him, but there was absolutely no denying Tom's very direct role in the deaths of the Riddles. Heri had stood by and watched, so he was unquestionably an accessory, but he had left Tom to do the actual deed.

About a week and a half after the whole incident, Heri and Tom had been reading a copy of the Daily Prophet while eating lunch at one of the wizarding pubs they often ate at, when they'd spotted a small article several pages in, about a wizard having been arrested for the murder of three muggles in a small muggle village called Little Hangleton. It described the gruesome nature of the muggles deaths and mentioned the wizard's history of encounters with one of them.

Tom's eyes had almost glowed with manic accomplishment as he read the article. He'd done it. He had achieved his vengeance and had successfully managed to place the blame upon his uncle.

Heri could tell that Tom felt an supreme sense of power from his accomplishment. Like he could do almost anything and get away with it. Heri had made an effort to bring Tom back down to Earth by pointing out that he had very nearly not gotten away with Myrtle's death, and he couldn't afford to get cocky.

Tom had scowled at him, but seemed to accept the wisdom in Heri's warning. Heri was the only person alive at this point who could dare to 'scold' Tom, and not instantly gain the boy's hatred for it. Tom respected Heri's opinion and his words. He trusted him, and was trusted in return. They were each other's worlds. They were all each of them had, and neither of them could imagine their world ever not being that way.

–

They returned to school to begin their sixth year at Hogwarts. Minerva McGonagall of Gryffindor was made Head Girl that year and she seemed intent on making Tom's time in the prefect meetings living hell. She did not like him one bit, and he liked her even less. There were times that Tom would come back from a prefect meeting in such a huff that Heri actually wondered how much longer McGonagall would live.

September passed with very little happenings, however on October 2nd, Tom came across a book in the restricted section of the library that would change his and Heri's lives... forever.

The key word... Horcrux.

Heri would easily tell people that Tom had little to no fears. But death was one of those rare fears. Heri knew that Tom had been absently looking for anything in any of the books he read – especially those down in the chamber – that mentioned reliable methods for achieving immortality.

'If we're magical then we should be able to do anything. Even defy death!'

During the course of his occasional researching, Tom had come across a few things, but nothing quite up to his required specifications. There were a number of rather Dark rituals that could slowdown, or even halt the physical aging process, but none of those protected you from sickness or from major bodily harm via attack or accident. What Tom wanted, was a way to guarantee that he would not die at all. He wanted invulnerability, or as close to it as he could get.

Heri had often insisted that he was being ridiculous about the whole thing and that death really wasn't something to be so terribly feared. Tom would retort sharply that he was not afraid of anything; least of all death. He simply wanted to guarantee that he continued to live for as long as he desired it so that he could accomplish all of the things he wanted to do with his life. Which were a great many things, indeed.

So when Tom first found mention of a bit of incredibly dark magic, known as the Horcrux, he nearly became obsessed with it.

A Horcrux was a piece of one's soul, broken off from the main soul and attached to a physical object, kept somewhere in the physical world, to act as a tether for the main soul. As long as part of the soul was permanently tethered to the physical world, the rest of it would remain there as well, even if the teather holding the soul to the body was broken – which was what happened when the body died. Creating a Horcrux would prevent the soul from ever returning to the astral plane and going through the natural process of death and rebirth. Rebirth, that Tom still insisted there was no proof for, anyway, but that Heri frequently insisted was the way the afterlife worked, and the way spirits were intended to exist.

Most books that mentioned the Horcrux (and there were not many books that mentioned it) did only that. Mention it. No detailed description. No explanations. No instruction on how to do it.

But one did.

One book, that Tom had finally found by the start of November, did in fact describe in detail, exactly what was necessary and how to perform the ritual to create a horcrux.

Heri's years of study in the Necromantic arts gave him a rather deep theoretical understanding of how souls functioned and how they were attached to the body. He could even slip into a special kind of magically induced trance that allowed him to project his consciousness outside of his body in order to examine the astral tethers that connected all living beings with their astral self. He wasn't yet advanced enough to force his consciousness back along his own tether and into the astral plane, but he'd come a long way.

Heri had come to learn from his various Necromancer books that the Astral Plane – as most sources referred to it, although some simply called it the Spirit Plane, or the 'after life' – was where all life has to initially exist. In fact, they all still existed there at that very moment. But they co-existed in the astral plane and the physical plane at the same time. The astral plane still housed their soul, but it was connected to their physical body by a 'tether'. A thread-like magic that a portion of their soul traveled along and lodged itself inside their body in order for their consciousness to be there.

What the horcrux did was draw out an additional portion of the soul from the astral plane and attach it to an object. But in order to draw out another portion of the soul you had to cause a fracture in your soul first. Fractures were caused by a few different extreme circumstances, but an absolute guaranteed way to do it was to commit murder.

When Heri first came to understand this fact, he was momentarily worried that Tom was going to go and kill another one the mudbloods in the school just out of impatience and the supposed 'need' to get this started as soon as possible, but they discovered that fractures from murder healed slowly and could be taken advantage of for even several months after the actual act was committed. The fact that Tom had killed three people in July meant that his soul was probably quite fractured at the moment and it would take a while longer before the fractures were healed.

While this was good in one aspect – Tom could get started right away – it also meant that Tom could get started right away. Heri was worried that Tom was jumping into something that was horribly stupid. The fact that he only had so much time left to take advantage of the murders he'd already committed meant he was in a rush and Heri really would have preferred if Tom had taken more time to think about what he was doing. It seemed insane to Heri.

As far as he was concerned, this Horcrux nonsense sounded tantamount to self-mutilation. The soul was what made you you. It was the real you. Your body was nothing more than a temporary vessel. As far as Heri was concerned, as long as your soul continued to exist and be reborn, you almost already were immortal. But Tom didn't agree. He wanted immortality in this life.

Reluctantly, Heri agreed to help Tom with his task if for no other reason than to make sure Tom didn't horribly maim himself in the process. His experience with necromantic magic helped him greatly. He already understood the basics of sort of 'poking at' the soul tether since he'd been examining and experimenting with his own in his attempts to reach along it and access his astral body and the astral plane directly.

Applying that experience towards tugging at Tom's soul through his tether wasn't that hard, and the spells described in the book covered the rest.

Tom had to chose an object to place tje piece of his soul into and the object he chose actually surprised Heri a bit. It was an old diary. One that he had started when the pair of them first got to Hogwarts when they were eleven. Heri had seen Tom writing in it many late nights over the years, but never intruded on Tom's little bit of privacy. They shared everything, really, but Heri was more than willing to give him his space when he obviously wanted it.

Heri wasn't sure why Tom had chosen his diary of all things to contain a piece of his soul, but in a way it was somewhat poetic. A book where Tom had poured his soul out in words would now house an actual piece of it. Still, it seemed a bit fragile to him.

"It will have protections, obviously." Tom had said, exasperatedly. "The book has nearly a whole chapter dedicated to the protective measures alone. A person won't be able to burn it, even if it's made of paper. It will be impervious to everything."

"Nothing is impervious to everything. Even a Horcrux. Didn't the book mention something about magical smelting still being able to destroy them?"

"Fiendfyre? Yes, that will do it, but nearly no one can control fiendfyre. Most wizards are terrified of it, and who would think to use it? A person would have to know what it is first, and the only ones who will know what it is are you and me, and you're not going to tell anyone, are you?"

"Of course not!" Heri had sputtered. "It's a piece of your bleedin' soul, Tom! I still can't believe that you'd be willing to just stick it in some object and leave it laying around. I still say this whole thing is idiotic."

"It will be perfectly safe, Heri. And the point of it is that with it set aside and put somewhere safe, I will forever be safe from death."

"Your body can still die. It only keeps your soul around."

"And I can create myself a new body."

"Not alone, you can't. When you're just a spirit stuck wandering the physical plane, you'll be practically helpless! I'll be able to use your horcrux to bring you back and help you make a new body, but what will you do if I'm no longer around? You may wind up getting stuck floating around in a sort of purgatory. I really really wish you'd reconsider this." Heri ended with a whine.

"I'm not! I've set my mind to this! Now stop pestering me and help!" Tom had snapped angrily and Heri had finally heaved a resigned sigh and they had resumed their work.

–

Friday of the last week of first term, their head of house, Horace Slughorn had held another gathering of his favorites. This 'Slugclub' meeting had gone just as any other. Tom had fully achieved a position as most respected and followed in Slytherin House. Being the head of Slytherin House, Slughorn did tend to include more students from his own house than the others, and all of those Slytherins in the Slugclub were faithful followers of Tom. Even the two seventh years bowed down to Tom, despite being older than him.

The meeting had run long and Slughorn had dismissed everyone off to their beds. Heri had paused at the door when he realized that Tom was lingering behind. He'd shot him a questioning glance but Tom had subtly shooed him away. Heri had sighed and left the room, but waited outside. Nearly fifteen minutes passed before Tom emerged from the room. Heri was instantly tense as he saw that gleam of achievement in Tom's eyes.

"What was that all about?" Heri asked quietly as the two began to walk down the hall, back towards the Slytherin dorms.

"I needed an educated opinion on some things I've been thinking about with my... project. I knew Slughorn would probably know – although he would never openly admit to possessing such knowledge in public. The man is, fortunately, obscenely easy to manipulate, and I was able to get the information from him."

Heri's eyes widened. "Are you talking about your you-know-what?" Heri hissed quietly as his eyes darted around at a few of the sleeping figures in the portraits mounted to the walls.

"Of course."

"You didn't... say anything that could have... you know. Slughorn may be gullible, but he's not an idiot. He could put the pieces together!"

"He won't. And he wouldn't say anything about it to anyone either."

"How can you be sure?"

"I just am. I got the information I wanted anyway. I'm ready. As soon as the students are gone from the castle for the holidays I want to begin the preparations."

Harry sighed and shook his head. "Merlin, I hope we don't end up regretting this."

"Stop being so pessimistic! It's going to work."

"I just wish you'd wait. There's got to be a better option for... what you want to achieve, than this."

"I'm not having this argument with you again, Herakles! Drop it!" Tom said sharply, turning to face Heri and giving him a fierce glare. His eyes even flashed red for a moment and Heri's eyes widened in surprise. Tom had never been angry enough with him to look at him that way. Not really.

"I'm just worried about you Tom." Heri said quietly. "You're... you're important to me. You're all I've got," he whispered. "I don't know what I'd do if something happened to you."

Tom's face softened and his tense shoulders sagged. He sighed and his hand came up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry I was so short with you Heri. This is important to me. Please, stop fighting me."

Heri nodded his head. "I'll try..."

–