Alastor Moody, October 16, 1943

There's a certain point before a House game, when I'm about halfway through lacing on my arm guards, when the bottom drops out of my stomach. Up until then I am utterly calm, wolfing down my breakfast as the rest of the team looks green around the edges, showering and towelling and pulling on my robes as if it were just another practice. It's when I have padded leather on my hands that my nerves kick in, and every tick of the clock over the sinks, counting down to eleven, makes me shake. One day Mundungus started taking bets on what part of the gauntlets I would be lacing when I suddenly went sheet white.

Five minutes to the game, and I'm tugging the laces home with my teeth and willing my knees to stop shaking. Four, and Minerva is coming into our room, as she always does, and giving me a glass of water, and worriedly tightening the ties on her hair. Three, and our captain is waving us out and over to the great wooden doors that open onto the pitch, and we shuffle up before them as he faces us, broom in hand and resolute frown on face.

"Okay, lads," says Mundungus Fletcher, looking a little pale himself, "this is it." An amplified voice outside shouts something, and the crowd roars back. "First match of the season. Some of the Slytherin players are new this year. Watch for the third Chaser and their Keeper--he's the new captain, too. We don't know what kind of strategy changes he might have implemented, although any captain would have trouble banging anything into that lot." Bright sunlight shines through the crack between the doors. Walden's club is poking my back. "And watch for their Seeker, of course, 'cause he's a bloody menace. I want you folks to focus on getting as many goals as possible before the Snitch shows up." A tightening of hands on broomsticks; somebody nods fiercely, somebody salutes. "'Cause their Chaser team is probably still weak--I doubt the new guy can hold together Kylee and Smithley. Got it?"

Six emphatic nods. He told us the same thing today at breakfast. And last night in the common room, and all three meals yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. He even stood up and shouted it in History of Magic when Binns fell asleep again. There are days we love our Dung.

But it all means something different when the game is about to begin.

"Right!"

He throws open the doors to a wash of sunlight and grass and noise.

"And here we have the Gryffindor team!" bellows Anastasia Longbottom. Good god. Even without the megaphone she's louder than the rest of Ravenclaw put together. "No changes in the lineup from last year...we have McGonagall, Moody, and Stoffenson!"

We three Chasers mount up and speed out together, flying within feet of each other. We're the strength of the team, have been for three years running--probably the best Chaser team at Hogwarts. Minnie gives me an encouraging glance, and I pass it on to Mikey, and he returns it, and we circle high over the field and hang in position to watch the others fly out to join us. My nerves fade, replaced by a pounding, gleeful excitement. There's something about having nothing but a broom and adrenaline between you and fifty feet of thin air that makes anxieties disappear, because once you're up there, once you're flying, you're there, and you're going to do it, and your worries have to be back on the ground. The wind tries to tear my hair out of its tight tie at the nape of my neck, and I grin widely.

"Fletcher and Macnair!"

Wiry Mundungus and steely Walden sling their clubs over their shoulders and fly up in tandem, passing uncertain looks as they go. They're both excellent Beaters, but they have no sense of teamwork. We've never dared to try to replace Walden, though. He's like a flying brick wall. With stubble.

"Dobson!"

Keeper. Quiet. Reliable as hell. He falls into place, completing the semicircle, and the wind blows his baby-blond hair straight on end.

"Aaaaaaaaaand Ajax!"

Our Seeker. He's competent, unlike our last one. Unfortunately, there are a couple of Seekers around who are far more than competent. He streaks up to hover high above us, waving his feet in the air and looking down at us with a grin. I don't think his nerves kick in until the Snitch shows up.

"And now the Slytherin team is ready..." All our eyes go immediately to the barn doors on the other side, being thrown open by a sandy-haired boy I don't recognize--probably the new captain. "Kylee, Gringorson, and Smithley!"

Gringorson's the new one--on the large side even for a Chaser, but he takes his run with grace and speed and regards us with an only mildly apprehensive stare. Could be bad in direct contact with me or Minnie--we're both smaller than him. Minnie and I both shoot a look at Mikey which means 'You handle the ape,' and he nods, and I can feel my fingers gripping my broom a little tighter. Kylee I'm used to, a scrawny little fourth year with the temper of a weasel. She usually gets us at least three penalty shots a game, and her elbows feel like they could drill holes in concrete. Smithley, heavy-browed with a nasty left lob, exists mainly to not cooperate with Kylee.

"Manx and Manx!"

Beaters who are brothers are always terrors. The Manxes--black Manx and red Manx, we call them, for their hair--are fraternal twins, on the short side, and fast. Fletcher graces them with the expression he generally reserves for pubes in the sink, and I grin.

"Avery!"

Their new Keeper and captain. Unassuming looking fellow, unassuming as all hell, really, but confident. Goodness knows what he's up to. Dung looks at me, looks at him, shakes his head, and shrugs. Nothing we can guess now.

"Aaaaaaaaand... Riddle!"

Yeah, Tom Riddle. The Seeker from hell. On the large side for the position, but a terribly good flier, and with that 'get out of my way or die slowly' attitude that the worst Slytherins seem to ooze all over the place. He swoops out, his neatly combed black hair promptly blowing out of order, and hovers high above the semicircle of his teammates, sweeping the Gryffindor team with a death glare. Prefect or no, he does not behave in the air.

"And Acheron Fustusson, referee, is coming out with the balls..." The Head of Hufflepuff trots across the pitch in a billow of zebra-striped robes, crate under one arm, with his goggles perched atop his head and his broom slung over his back. Some of us watch as he kneels to open the crate; some of us are still staring, sizing each other up. The crowd is nearly silent, waiting. I wriggle my fingers, checking grip, checking friction, checking the security of the lacings, and feel my heart beating very fast.

"And the Snitch is out!" The little golden nightmare shoots between Riddle and Ajax, then up into the bright blue autumn sky. One last resettling on my broom, one last reassuring glance at Mikey and Minnie. "Bludgers!" They, too, pelt up into the blue yonder. "And the Quaffle is released!"

Fustusson's whistle sounds, and the game erupts.

"Gryffindor in possession--McGonagall already heading towards the Slytherin goal posts. We have no idea of Avery's blocking style, he's new this year, but we'll see--Bludger! Quaffle in freefall--Moody catches it--Kylee sideswipes--"

God, that girl's a terror. I pin the Quaffle under my elbow and streak up towards where Avery hovers in front of the Slytherin goal posts, his face blank and set. A Bludger streaks past my ear as I duck instinctively, and then I chuck the Quaffle--

"--and Riddle seems to be taking the lack of a visible Snitch as an opportunity to foul the Gryffindor Chasers!"

Bastard nearly hit his own Keeper, too, but we didn't score. Technically not a foul though--when the Quaffle is in midair, there's no rule against the opposing team's Seeker flying within a few inches of it to throw off the score. Mikey grabs the Quaffle as it falls out of Riddle's wake; Riddle wheels within an inch of the stands--girls scream--and tears off in the opposite direction.

Bloody Slytherin Seekers.

"And Gringorson comes out of nowhere, tackles Stoffenson--keep your knees out of that, boy, or that's a foul!--Slytherin in possession, Gringorson heading for the Gryffindor goals. Bludger, hit by Macnair--red Manx gets to it before it gets to the Chaser, nearly unseats Ajax..."

And so it goes. Mikey and Minnie and I never lose our paces--Avery is a fair Keeper, all things considered, but no match for the three of us in top form--Kylee and Riddle and the Manxes are a pain in the ass, and the new Chaser manages to get a ball or two past Dobson, but Gryffindor pulls ahead quickly--and twenty minutes into the game my eyes are stinging from the sunlight and sweat soaks the back of my robes--

"Has Riddle spotted the Snitch?!"

Ajax turns at that, as the crowd lets out a unanimous hoot of excitement, and speeds after Riddle. I look as closely as I can before I have to dodge two Slytherins and the Ravenclaw stands--no glint of gold--and now Riddle's pointed his broom straight towards the ground and is streaking a hundred feet down like a bloody maniac.

"I don't see the Snitch, nobody sees the Snitch--for the love of god, Ajax, pull up, WRONSKI FEINT!!" Anastasia shrieks--and promptly gets sharply reprimanded by Jacob Westingham, the professor lurking behind her, for leading on the players.

And a damn good one. Both of 'em pull up at the last moment, Ajax's tail twigs kicking up a substantial divot, and he's half unseated--shit! He dangles underbroom for a moment, rising a dozen feet a second even as he does, and only a fast beat by our Dung saves him from a Bludger. Fletcher aims the black menace at Riddle, but the bigger black menace flattens himself to his broom to dodge it, and tears within inches of Ajax and Fletcher to speed off into the current Chaser fight, laughing.

I join the Chaser fight too, come out with the Quaffle having gotten practically cobbed by half the Slytherin team--sons of bitches!--and tear off with Smithley in my wake to knock the thing past Avery's sandy head.

"GRYFFINDOR SCORES! Ninety points ahead now--twenty of that from Kylee, if that girl would just learn how to behave--"

Kylee grabs the Quaffle from behind the Gryffindor goalposts and screams something so obscene that it's a damn good thing all the first year Hufflepuffs and their virgin ears are safe at the other end of the field. Macnair sends a Bludger straight into her stomach. People cheer.

Where is that Snitch, anyway? Hell, Riddle might've missed it, being so busy with screwing us up and all, but Ajax wouldn't have. It's taking a bloody long time to show itself. Not that I'm going to complain, 'cause we can score--Mikey scores with a neat tail swipe, and we're a hundred points up, Minnie zig-zags before the goal posts and puts one past Avery with no help but her own diversions, a hundred ten, Mikey and I double-pass through the Manxes while Minnie flies circles around Gringorson, a hundred twenty... I swing up over the goalposts and breath, then see Minnie on the other side of the field being body-slammed by Kylee and Riddle and it's definitely time to rescue her--

"Keep your elbows off Moody, Riddle, or that's cobbing with intent to maim!" Anastasia snaps.

Intent to kill, more like it, with that look in his eyes--scorching and ruthless and utterly determined. I've got Kylee on my other side now, my left. Trapped between loony Slytherins, lucky me. Minnie slams into Kylee as fiercely as she dares without fouling; Kylee bares her teeth and lets go of her own broom to seize the handles of both mine and Minnie's--once we get out of this, we are so getting penalty shots, but in the meantime--

"Bloody reptiles!" I scream. Where the hell is Mikey? Oh, getting Bludgered to distraction by the Manxes. Shit. My broom's locked with Riddle's--he's close enough I can smell his sweat, and his arm is pressed painfully against mine, trying to force the Quaffle out of the shelter of my elbow. He can't touch it, at least, not legally--thank god for the Quidditch division of labor--and it's safe from Kylee because it's on Riddle's side, but then he gives me another powerful body slam and I feel my grip loosening even as I try to yank Kylee's hand off of my broom. His other arm jerks the handle of his broom, steering us straight towards the stands--Hufflepuffs scream and scatter--the four of us are locked together by Riddle's knees and Kylee's reckless grip--how the hell is she staying on her broom anyway?--and I'm going to drop the Quaffle any moment now or Riddle's going to dislocate my elbow--

"THE SNITCH!!"

Two things happen at once--Dung manages to knock a Bludger straight into Kylee's ear--she's turned her head to scream obscenities at Minnie--god bless you, Mundungus--and the Snitch streaks an inch from all our noses. Riddle nearly tears me off my broom, he turns so fast, and cuts off Ajax, who's already after the Snitch himself, and they tear off across the stadium at top speed, weaving fiercely and trying to cut each other off. Kylee tumbles shrieking from her broom, which drifts lazily into the Hufflepuff stands--red Manx manages to break her fall before she gets hurt, and Macnair takes the opportunity to wind black Manx with a Bludger to the stomach.

Minnie and I share a look. Gryffindor is a hundred and twenty points up. The Snitch has been spotted. We need to score. We are in total understanding. Then we both scream for Mikey, and he joins us in a Hawkshead with me at the point and we race towards our goalposts. Dung and Macnair follow us--in a rare moment of cooperation, they knock both Bludgers at Avery's stomach just as the Quaffle enters the scoring area--

"GRYFFINDOR SCORES! GRYFFINDOR IS A HUNDRED AND THIRTY POINTS UP!"

The crowd is on their feet. Minnie grabs the Quaffle before Smithley can get to it and passes it to Mikey to score again, now that Avery's out of commission--and red Manx can't hold his own against Macnair. Dung streaks off to try to protect Ajax--

"ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY--but Slytherin in possession, Smithley's got the Quaffle, pass to Gringorson--Riddle and Ajax neck-to-neck--body slam from Riddle, that's one near foul, Mr. Prefect!--and another--how the hell Riddle's getting that kind of speed from a Shooting Star, even if it is a Platinum, god only knows--"

Nothing for it--I dive at Gringorson, recklessly trying to force the Quaffle from his long-armed grip--

"Moody, don't you DARE foul! Avery seems to be recovering, the Slytherin Keeper is back on his broom--the Snitch is taking both Seekers lower and lower but they're staying on it--BLUDGER! Do they have any room to--MY GOD, RIDDLE IS ROLLING--he's gone underbroom to dodge, an inch from taking his own head off, but he's still got his eye on the Snitch--GRYFFINDOR IN POSSESSION!"

I have to score before Riddle gets the Snitch--have to--seems every Chaser and Bludger and Beater is in my way, and Avery's rising back to his post--but I'm running on pure adrenaline, careening through the air with the world drawn in too-bright colors--

"Bludger grazes Ajax's arm--he falters, but he's still on the Snitch, they're within ten feet of it and inches from the ground, Riddle overbroom again, Ajax obviously in pain but not falling back--"

I shoot--Avery rockets towards the Quaffle--Dung gives me a huge wink and knocks a Bludger into his gut, but then the one that nearly took out Avery catches me in the back and black bursts into my vision and I can't see the Quaffle anymore--Anastasia is screaming at the top of her lungs, the words coming almost too fast to comprehend--

"Riddle has left his broom--RIDDLE HAS LEFT HIS BROOM--dived after the Snitch, utterly reckless move, Ajax pulled up to avoid collision--"

A hoarse shout rings out from below, and the whistle sounds a moment before the cling of my score.

"RIDDLE HAS THE SNITCH! RIDDLE HAS THE SNITCH!!"

The stadium explodes into screams.

I drift to the ground, my back throbbing from that last Bludger, my Chasers and Mundungus at my side. Ajax is hovering a few feet from the ground, white and gasping. I'm only half aware of the defeat. My ears are ringing and I feel light-headed, disconnected, like the world is made of glass--don't know whether it's adrenaline or that Bludger hit, but I stumble when I hit the pitch and the world lurches. Dung punches my shoulder in consolation.

Riddle is picking himself up, spattered with mud and grass from head to toe, a rip in his robes, a bruise blossoming on his pale, handsome face from where he'd rolled after he'd flung himself off his broom, the struggling Snitch still clutched tightly in one hand. He holds it aloft, brandishing it to the stadium with the little wings still beating helplessly against his fingers, a fierce light of triumph in his strange blue eyes.

"Slytherin wins, a hundred-seventy to a hundred-sixty!"Anastasia bellows. "Would've been a tie if Riddle had gotten the Snitch even a second later, as Moody was about to score another ten points for Gryffindor. That's one of the closest games I've ever seen at Hogwarts!" She takes a breath, seemingly for the first time in the past five minutes. "All of you with Omnioculars, that was worth replays, both for the Seekers and the Chasers--magnificent flying from Riddle and Moody in particular during the last twenty seconds of the game..."

I touch ground, watch the screaming sea of green pouring out to raise its Seeker on its shoulders--the boy still panting from what must have been a terrifying bit of flying--and suddenly understand why half the school is desperately in love with Tom Riddle.

Chapter 2: Silver

Tom Marvolo Riddle, October 16, 1943

Curtains closed, locking charm, silencing charm, a prod to relight the jar of witchfire strung over my headboard. Wand in the pocket next to the witchfire, quill and ink out, book out from under the pillow. A ritual I've had since first year--although it's hardly necessary now--when Derrick Junior decided it would be good fun to steal the Mudblood's diary. Ironically enough, it was when he read it that he finally believed I had wizarding blood.

An equal part of the ritual: the five minutes of silence before I begin to write. The play of witchfire on green velvet curtains, the familiar weight of the book in my hand, the worn softness of the black leather cover. Time to rearrange my pillow and lean back against the footboard--the headboard is cluttered with the jar of witchfire and the pocket for my wand, strung between the posts on securely knotted rope. Time to slowly unscrew the cap of my inkwell, revealing the sparkling field of the No-Spill charm, and lose myself in the depths of the black liquid within. Time to bury my bare feet in my blanket, unbutton the top two buttons of my pajamas, and breathe.

Then time to write.

Quidditch was quite exciting today. If I had caught the Snitch a heartbeat later, Moody would have scored for Gyffindor, and the game would have tied. It was rather a stressful catch, but most enjoyable.

That game also leads to the interesting strategic question of whether it is better to take your own head off or let a Bludger do it for you. I had to wash copious amounts of muddy grass out of my hair after I rolled to dodge a Bludger while several feet from the pitch. Had the Snitch not been terribly close to myself and the other Seeker, I would have risked a hit. However, Ajax took it in the arm, which did rectify the situation. I caught the Snitch, at any rate. I also might have collapsed afterwards, when my knees started shaking, but it was not a problem, as most of Slytherin carried me off the field.

Dear Symus was most excited at winning, it being his first time at captaining, and my attempts to explain that it was not his doing did nothing for him. Manxes and Kylee, insufferable as usual, held a party, and Parkinson commenced the usual debaucheries. Dealing tomorrow with the aftershocks of that shall be annoying. I excused myself as soon as I could to finish my Charms study, as I had to work in the Restricted Section for at least two hours. It was the extended section on tracking charms for my advanced credit--fascinating. Perhaps I could do the essay on comparison between the theory behind tracking charms and that behind some of the Dark spells for bodily control? Certainly would not need to worry about disturbing Coulter with such a topic.

Moody did nearly beat me out for the score. Worth consideration.

I set my quill back into the inkwell and lean back to stare at the upper canopy of my bed. Time to take my mind off Quidditch. There are greater things. Such as the importance of a certain Gryffindor Chaser.

Alastor Moody, sixth-year, same as I. Appointed Prefect due to his excellence in classes, although he tends to be awkward at best and irresponsible at worst with his duties. Taking advanced Defense credit in noisily publicized hope of being an Auror, and in the higher unit of Transfiguration, along with myself and the other fifteen or so best students of our year. Highly dangerous in combination with Mundungus Fletcher, as they are aggravating pranksters. Even more dangerous on the Quidditch pitch, once you add the Head Girl and Stoffenson.

It might be time to pay attention to him.

--------------------

The perfect opportunity to do so, of course, is at the Sunday prefects meeting. It takes place in a pentagonal room in the North Tower, brightly illuminated by elaborate stained glass renditions of the four House crests and the Hogwarts crest, one per wall; the only furniture is a massive, five-sided oak table and suitable numbers of chairs. I am exactly two minutes early, as I have been since my first week last year. The only others yet there are Dippet, close to slumbering at the center of the faculty's side, basking in the sun under the window with the Hogwarts crest; the four heads of house--Coulter, Westingham, Fustusson, and Dumbledore--flanking him; McGonagall at the seventh-year girl's seat on the Gryffindor side, on the right of the professor's side; and Bones at the seventh-year boy's seat of Hufflepuff, other side of Gryffindor. They have their own meeting, just the professors and the head boy and girl, before the prefects come in; technically they adjourned several minutes ago, and I am always early.

I set my bag down and nod about at the circle.

"Professors, Minerva, Joseph--good day."

"Hey, Tom," says Bones cheerily. I pull out my chair--sixth-year boy's at the table to the teachers' left, with green light splintering over my robes--and sit carefully, resisting, as always, the urge to scream at the idiot. When a Hufflepuff is Head Boy, Hogwarts is in dire straits indeed.

Not so next year.

Two of the Ravenclaws are next to arrive--including Damian Mulciber, who spares me a brief nod, and I return the favor--then the Rosier cousin, Aurelian, who takes the fifth-year Slytherin boy's seat right next to me. More Ravenclaws and Slytherins filter in--Warrington and The Tiger are arguing again, and she, as usual, has the upper hand--and the two other Gryffindor girls, and then the Hufflepuff prefects arrive all in a pack, grinning and waving and babbling at Bones and Fustusson. The rest of the Gryffindors arrive together as well, Weasley seventh-year, Weasley fifth-year, and Moody. I watch him as he takes his seat, looks over the table, nods at Dumbledore and Dippet, and spares a glare for the Slytherin side. Elladora Black slides into the fifth-year girl's seat on my side; a final Ravenclaw, little de Vries, trickles in, panting from the stairs and her overloaded bookbag, and Dippet waves his hand to close the door.

"Settle down, settle down," Dippet wheezes. "I have a few words first, then we can move on to House reports..."

Most of us rustle out parchment and quills. Weasley fifth-year just looks over at Weasley seventh-year and makes a face, and Weasley seventh-year nods and waves him off. Stebbins, Hufflepuff fifth-year, has a Muggle notebook color-coded with little bits of paper; Moody is using a mere torn scrap of parchment. I smooth a blank sheet before me, set out my blue ink, and prepare for the usual lingering torture by deadly boredom. I pride myself on not doodling or chewing on my quill, as others do. Instead, as Dippet drones on and on and sounds more like a vacuum-cleaner with each passing minute, I might write down the incantation of every hex I can think of, or the ingredients and quantities of the most complicated potion I can remember, or run through some simple Arithmancy exercises. Thus it is not all a total waste of time.

Today, however, I am studying Moody.

He is, as always, looking out the window, quill brushing the sleeve of his robes as he taps his fingers silently on his parchment. He does not look comfortable in the least; his eyebrows are lowered, making his face look more hawklike than usual, and there is a sharp frown stuck at the corner of his mouth. He's got a halo of gold and red in his hair, light from the window behind him trapped in his springy little curls.

"--Weasley, Arthur Weasley apparently initiated the fight."

I tighten my grip on my quill and curse myself. McGonagall is giving the Gryffindor House report, including an account of yet another spate of fisticuffs between disgruntled first-years. How long have I been looking at him?

Impossible. I have more control than that.

I shove the thought to the back of my mind and concentrate on the inevitable argument.

"The Weasleys and the Malfoys have been feuding for generations," says Annabel Goyle--the Tiger, we call her, one of our seventh-year prefects. "You can hardly expect them to stop now." Ah, so Arthur Weasley and Martinet Malfoy--the wall-eyed second son who has a disconcerting habit of watching me, sideways--went at it again. Incorrigible brats.

"Can we, Miss Goyle?" Dumbledore, of course.

"Two of young Arthur's brothers are prefects," Westingham, head of Ravenclaw, muses aloud. "Yet they are naturally in Gryffindor, and the Malfoy boy will respect neither their authority nor that of the Head Boy and Girl." His penetrating gaze turns to the Slytherin table. "Forgive me for being blunt, but you six are the only students with any authority over Mr. Malfoy, and I have not seen that authority being exercised."

"And forgive me for correcting you bluntly, sir," I reply, twisting my quill on the parchment, "but the only person with any authority over Malfoy Junior is Malfoy Senior. Have you considered owling his parents?"

"Have you even attempted to discipline the boy?" Fustusson now, twirling a bit of his salt-and-pepper hair around one finger.

"I have not, sir. I cannot speak for my colleagues. Any attempt on my part to discipline Malfoy would be useless--he has more wizarding blood than I."

Dumbledore raises an eyebrow.

"Is this really a matter of blood, Mr. Riddle?"

"It is Slytherin, sir," Warrington says quietly. "Everything is a matter of blood."

Easy enough now to leave this conversation--my father has excused me. A deception, naturally, but any explanation to this council of why Malfoy might actually listen to me if I told him to behave would have to include unnecessary details of the boy's disturbingly fascinated attitude towards me. A bare glance from Coulter, silent as he always is in these arguments, asks that question; a bare glance from myself answers it. Saving our face is now up to my fellow prefects, all of whom can trace their pure blood back to at least the sixteenth century, and all of whom have done this almost every week since they first received their badges. This sort of thing is constantly an issue, as the other houses often blame us Prefects--and sometimes even Coulter himself--for the disruptive actions of our baby serpents. We do not condone them, but we would hardly discipline for them either--without them, Slytherin House would not be the same. And I suspect it will be a while before even Dumbledore dares to owl Lysander Malfoy.

Moody has a sharp line between his eyebrows and is glaring at all of us. The Weasleys just look disgruntled, McGonagall studiously neutral, Beckett petulant, Narayan aloof. Next to them, the Hufflepuffs pout; next to them, the Ravenclaws scribble studiously, except for Damian Mulciber and Claudia Snape, who sit still as statues. I can feel both of them watching me, their gazes heavy and curious--Damian because he knows me, Snape because she does not.

"It occurs to me," Westingham says quietly, having sat in pensive silence through the defense of Slytherin--delivered this time by Tiger in full form. "Might this brawl not have been sparked by yesterday's game?"

The tension level in the room jumps up at least one notch, and the eyes of all are upon myself and Moody. A spark of pure anger forms in Moody's dark eyes as he glares at me. I set my quill down and force myself into calmness, even as I speak words that might be words of anger.

"Professor, Quidditch is Quidditch. Should I have caught the Snitch a second later to attempt to save us from first-years with jelly legs?"

"We are hardly implying that." Fustusson again. Well, they did bring up Quidditch--natural that he, with his little golden charm bracelet of badgers and Snitches, should join the fray. "Any change in the outcome of the game, and that fight would probably still have happened. It's the attitude towards it all, within the Houses, that's the problem. Quidditch is a game, not an excuse for violence."

But, my friend, games are the perfection of violence, and, as such, the perfect excuse. I do not say that, but I write it on my parchment, and watch the ink lose its shine as it dries in the green light of the window behind me.

McGonagall clears her throat.

"Professor, the maturity of the teams and the maturity of the prefectural leadership of both houses can hardly be called into question." With the exception of Mierka Kylee, of course. Unspoken, naturally, but it is there in the twitch in Moody's eyebrow and the rolling of eyes from the Hufflepuffs. And Mundungus Fletcher, I want to add savagely. The things we cannot say at prefects meetings.

I do have to admire the boldness with which she speaks. The Tiger or I would give such a statement for what it was--an implication of attack on a teacher's statement--but I would never have expected to hear it from the Head Girl. She hides any anger she might feel deep behind bland professionalism, but Fustusson shifts a little uncomfortably, and I have to suppress a smile.

"The maturity of first years, on the other hand," she continues, "cannot be expected. Weasley picked a fight with Malfoy because--what were his words again?--'We shoulda won that game but their Seeker's a cheating bastard.'" She delivers the insult deadpan, keeping an eye on me the whole time. I merely raise my eyebrow. Every play I made was legal--I'm very careful about that--and she knows it. Coulter raises an eyebrow as well, but she does not flinch under his stern gaze. Fustusson snorts, and Dumbledore readjusts his glasses with a weary sigh.

It should be coming any minute now.

"Oh, I think a certain amount of maturity can be hoped for," says the Tiger--quite cheerfully, really, without a hint of malevolence in her voice. "Malfoy at least, no matter how resentful he may be of the talent amongst the Gryffindor Chasers--" a curl in Moody's lip at that, almost triumphant, "does not automatically write off any skill or creativity from the opposing team as unfair."

Any minute. Bones is starting to develop a frown. It doesn't fit well with his round face--looks more as if he badly needs to visit the lavatory than anything else.

"Now, now, have you spoken with the boy, Goyle?" Bones bursts out. "And you must admit, no matter the integrity of individual players, that enough fouls come from the Slytherin team that it's really not surprising that somebody would think that..."

The second insult to my honor in as many minutes. I dig my quill deeper into my parchment and flash Bones a full-blown glare. He blanches slightly.

"Anyone who thought that Tom was cheating obviously wasn't paying attention!" Parkinson--the other sixth-year Slytherin--interrupts Bones' trailing-off sentence loudly. I grit my teeth. So tempting to rip out the one shred of tact she possesses and stab her with it.

"Children, children." Dippet's wheezing voice breaks into the discussion for the first time since the fistfight was brought up. We all fall silent and look at him, attempting to stifle our varying degrees of outrage. Finally--I'm surprised, given his track record, that the old man let it go on this long. "I assume Malfoy and Weasley have received detentions?"

"Yes," Tiger and McGonagall both say quietly.

"People are always going to get worked up over Quidditch." Dippet waves his hand. "We've weathered the worst of it, I'm sure, after yesterday's match, and it's not going to do us any good to make a tempest in a teacup. Let's shelve this discussion for the time being and get on with the agenda, shall we?"

Parkinson and both Weasleys fishmouth indignantly for a moment; the rest of us merely sigh and readjust our parchments. I suppose it is the old man's idea of peacekeeping--to simply shelve any discussion that gets even remotely out of hand and never bring it up again. Dumbledore and Westingham have never seemed happy with the strategy--nor are some of us--but Fustusson supports him out of principle and Coulter out of practicality, since otherwise he'd be in the center of a three-hour weekly debate on the honor of Slytherin House. Bones stops looking like someone had stuck a pole up him, and the rest of the Hufflepuffs smile a little beleagueredly at the Headmaster and stop having those twitchy expressions which mean they're cowering in their seats. The Tiger does not change expression, nor does McGonagall--and nor do I.

Moody is staring at me.

I do not answer his challenging gaze, but I feel the weight of it upon me, dark and beady and furious. I add another few words to my parchment, making the letters as tiny as I can--Dippet is a coward. It was the Gryffindor House Report that had stalled us; so we move onto Hufflepuff, where Joseph Bones cheerily reports no serious incidents, and Ravenclaw, where Claudia Snape does the same and then launches into a long, impeccably worded, and exceedingly dull requisition for two more desks for the common room. Dippet gives his approval; Westingham says he will inform the caretaker.

Moody is still staring at me.

Warrington and the Tiger have a brief staring contest; she, still sparking from the argument, wins, and delivers our House Report, noting that the incident with young Mr. Malfoy has already been reported, and lying with a straight face to all the present prefects and faculty that Mierka Kylee has been disciplined for her antics at the post-match party, which was not in fact condoned by any prefectural authority within Slytherin House, and we will do our best to prevent such happenings in the future. I know she's lying because she was the one who smuggled in the butterbeer, mixed the cocktails, and apparently danced half-naked on the couch with Kylee and Parkinson. Rosier reported this to me in high excitement; Symus reported that Rosier passed out. I had been the one to comfort a traumatized Barty Crouch.

Moody is still staring at me.

"Any reports of Cornelius Fudge going about the school naked and at a high speed are false," the Tiger finishes with a satisfied sort of tone. They weren't, naturally--Fudge had made the extremely bad mistake of entering into a bet with several of his year-mates, including Kylee. But it's a ritual of vast conspiracy, every time a House party occurs, to concertedly cover up as much as possible. Half of the room is obviously trying not to giggle. My House parties hard, and I can never figure out whether this improves or damages our reputation with the rest of the school. A few notes about discipline shot back and forth, and a highly amused comment from Dumbledore, and we're finally ready to move on.

Moody is still staring at me.

I wonder how much of the conversation he's lost.

The meeting is finally winding to a close. Moody has not said a word throughout. I've often noticed this; he's awkward and silent in meetings, seemingly irresponsible with his duties. Hogwarts prefect badges are pure silver, and one wonders what he has done to earn that weight. Or what he has done for Dumbledore to maintain the position.

One wonders why he's staring at me.

No, I can guess that, and it's far more savory than imagining Gryffindor sodomy. I cruelly beat him out to a Slytherin victory yesterday. He must be absolutely enraged. He must want to hurt me. I can see it in his eyes now, and I have to beat down a delighted grin at the prospect. Oh, this could be entertaining.

"Armando, you mind if I add a few words?" Fustusson says. Dippet waves his hand at him, so he clears his throat and props both elbows on the table. "Look, I don't know how many of you follow the news, but there was another skirmish with that Bavarian wizard a few days ago, and some folks are starting to get nervous. Your kids, they're going to be worrying that we've got a war on our hands, if they've heard, they're going to be worrying that Wizarding England is going to come under attack as well..." All the Mudbloods look at him very carefully, and deadened, animalistic fear hangs in the room.

I know the stink of it. I was in Muggle England during the summer of 1940, after all.

Fustusson goes on for a while about solidarity and courage and loyalty, about how nothing can really hurt us if we just stick together. One proper, ruthless strike and the whole Wizarding world could be in a panic, I observe calmly with quill and parchment, and the Ministry has no more solidarity than Annabel Goyle and Joseph Bones trying to plan a ball.

Then I feel another gaze upon me, one that has prickled the hairs on the back of my neck ever since I first came under its full scrutiny last June. Dumbledore. He regards me for only a few moments, but--without willing it--I meet his eyes. He raises one shaggy eyebrow and bloody twinkles at me; then he looks away, and I suddenly realize that he's been watching Moody.

Damnable man. Watching the watchers indeed. Probably making sure his pet Prefect doesn't go for broke and attack me--because, oh, he must want to. Probably biding his time to destroy me himself.

"And that's all I've got to say, my friends," Fustusson says, and leans back with a satisfied smile.

"Hear, hear!" Bones exclaims, and most of the room echoes him--Moody with a sudden and sharp smile, Dumbledore with quiet amusement, Coulter with quiet disdain... I mouth the words; my voice would be lost in the jumble anyway.

"Well, if that is all..." Dippet lets the silence grow until several of us nod. "Dismissed."

There is an immediate clatter of chairs, and Weasley fifth-year jumps to his feet like a cannonball, and de Vries squawks as her bookbag is upset all beneath the Ravenclaw chairs, and Moody flashes me one last glare and stuffs his parchment back into his pocket. Dippet asks the Weasleys to stay as Coulter rises and adjusts the elaborate clasps of his robes with one gloved hand, and I see the Gryffindors exchange nervous looks and Weasley fifth-year gulp visibly as the Head of Slytherin looms like a monolith of deep green velvet next to the Headmaster's chair. I carefully stow my parchment and leave with another bare nod at Damian Mulciber--though he is my friend, I do not need to speak with him now. There will be better times.

When I get outside, Symus is waiting for me, books in hand--we'll soon be off to the library. Weasley first-year is also waiting, hat jammed over carroty hair, shabby-robed and biting his lip. He peers anxiously up at the cluster of Gryffindor prefects walking past Symus and I, and I realize that they'd probably told him they'd have to bring the scuffle up in the meeting. McGonagall looks down at him with a stern sort of sympathy and opens her mouth, but Moody puts a hand on her sleeve.

"Minnie, let me."

They're the first words I've heard out of him all day, aside from the cheer after Fustusson's little speech. I'd been watching out of the corner of my eye, but now I give the scene my full attention without turning my head, as Moody lets go of McGonagall's sleeve and steps forward and sinks into a crouch before Weasley.

"Look, kid...Arthur..."

I can feel Symus' questioning gaze upon me, but I merely mouth, "Wait," even as I continue to pay very close attention.

"Look," Moody goes on, "we all love Quidditch just as much as you. And we're all ticked off about yesterday's game--it was frustrating as all hell the way things fell, and I'm not going to pretend it was easy for any of us, team or prefects or anybody, to take that loss. But it is the way things fell. I gave it my darndest, and so did Minerva here, and Ajax, and everybody else, and the reptiles all gave it their darndest, too--heck, Riddle nearly killed himself--and they won and there's nothing we can do but accept it."

"Malfoy called me names!"

"But you didn't have to fight him. He's not worth it--all it'll do is get you in trouble. Look, you think I haven't wanted to pop Riddle a good one ever since the match? But I haven't, because it would get nobody nothing except ten points from Gryffindor, and I don't want that--do you?"

Weasley shifts and squirms and shuffles his feet, and scrubs his nose with one hand, and bursts out, "But Riddle--!"

"Plays scrupulously by the rules," McGonagall breaks in. "Yes, he is aggressive and ruthless and will do anything he can without fouling, but he does not foul. And remember what the Sorting Hat said about Slytherins? He's doing exactly what he thinks he should, just as we try to be brave." She looks down at him sternly through those little square glasses. "You, on the other hand, did not play by the rules yesterday."

Weasley goes flaming red at that, and stares at the floor, and mumbles something wretched and incomprehensible.

"You understand what we mean now?" says Moody, still crouched before him. Weasley nods, still looking at the floor. Moody suddenly smiles, and gently pats Weasley on the shoulder. "Let me see your face, kid." Weasley looks up slowly, then turns his head, and I can clearly see the massive purple hex stain. "You did see Nurse Bob?"

McGonagall rolls her eyes; Weasley giggles weakly.

"He gave me med'cine."

"Good." Moody tweaks Weasley's hat, then rises with a smile. "Perk up, kid. You've learned your lesson, and that's all this is about. Go flying if detention gets to you, get some wind in your hair before they hand you over to the Black Widow. Always does wonders for my mood."

McGonagall frowns at the common, rebellious little nickname for our caretaker; Weasley giggles again, and smiles weakly at Moody. So the boy got detention with Osthryd Peeves--no wonder he's terrified. If what Symus tells me is true, he'll come out with I must not incite violence etched in blood on the back of his hand.

"Weasley," McGonagall says firmly, and the smile vanishes. "I want you to apologize to Mr. Riddle. You've insulted him." Weasley wilts in his tracks. "Mr. Riddle?"

So she knows I'm still here, pretending to talk quietly with Symus. Moody startles and turns to glare at me with narrowed eyes. Weasley turns bright red and sullen and looks anywhere but at me. I turn as if it was the first thing I'd heard.

"Yes, Minerva?"

She faces me with blank professionalism.

"Young Mr. Weasley has an apology to make."

I arch an eyebrow, and know without looking that Symus has as well.

"Does he now?"

"He is under the impression that he has insulted your honor." She is perfectly deadpan; I cannot keep a slight smile from my face.

"Is he now?"

"It was her idea," Weasley mumbles, almost inaudibly, held in place by McGonagall's hand on his back. I offer him my hand with a smile, feeling inwardly as if I'm approaching an alley cat.

"Apology accepted, Mr. Weasley."

He startles and looks up at me properly for the first time.

"'M sorry!"

We share an awkward little handshake, and he scurries back to Moody's side as soon as he can. Then McGonagall congratulates me on the match, as I'm sure she feels she must, and we shake, and then she notices Symus, and does it to him as well.

Two can play this game, and a Slytherin can play for far different stakes. I take a step towards Moody and intensify my casually friendly expression to the best I can muster.

"And you, Mr. Moody--you played excellently. I would not have grudged you your score."

I hold out my hand, and he shakes it with the sort of expression that implies he'd rather smash it against the wall than do anything polite with it. He wants to hurt me, but does not dare; and I can feel the little calluses on his fingers. Oh, I must continue to pay attention to him--this is simply delightful.

"Thanks," Moody says tersely, and he breaks the handshake as soon as he can. McGonagall watches me with one raised eyebrow; I flash her a smile.

The door opens again, and the professors and the two elder Weasleys file out. Dumbledore and Coulter both give me weighty looks, so I add, clearly enough for them to hear and with another smile for McGonagall, "I wish you and your fellow Chasers the best of luck in your next game."

Nothing to see here--just the hero of the Chamber bestowing his dashing charm upon those he has left alive. The two elder Weasleys soon rustle away McGonagall and Moody and their younger brother, so I touch Symus' shoulder and steer him towards the library.

"And here I was thinking Moody was an utter incompetent," I tell him quietly as we walk, fighting back the urge to laugh. "Not a word the entire meeting, but he can communicate with first-year Weasleys. A precious talent indeed, in Gryffindor. He's earned his silver after all."

Symus smiles that faint smile which I know means he is both amused and slightly annoyed by my latest interest.

"And what are you going to do to him?"

I slide my arm around Symus' shoulders and smile.

"Why, what indeed...?"

--------------------

Curtains closed, locking charm, silencing charm, a prod to relight the jar of witchfire strung over my headboard. And here we have the intrigue of Alastor Moody.

Symus is right: this new fascination will draw me inexorably, like a moth to flame, and I will go willingly--for, if nothing else, I am slave to my curiosity. But I wish to do more than study Moody. He startles so prettily. I wish to do something that will probably shock my dear friend as badly as my intended victim. Who would have guessed that a skinny little Gryffindor would pique my interest so?

But it is not his body, nor his face--it is his anger and sullenness, mixed with his brilliance in the classroom and his hopes for his future. Of course I know he plans to be an Auror--everybody knows. He wants to walk up to evil, stare it in the face, and beat it into submission. But he will never defeat me. It would not matter if there were a hundred of him. His power means nothing to me.

No, I know what intrigues me. He dares to hate me. Oh, I can tell. I recognize the expression. I've seen it too often in my own mirror. Even if it is simply because I beat him out at Quidditch, even if he suspects nothing of my true nature, he dares to hate me. The others, the other people who fancy themselves good, pretend I'm one of them--or, if they distrust me simply because I wear the Serpent's colors, they pretend to like me anyway. But Moody does not mask his distaste for me, has not for years. It merely took yesterday's game to bring it out so strongly.

Sanctimonious little Gryffindor brat.

I reach for my quill with a smile. I have found a new plaything, and I intend to have entirely too much fun.

Chapter 3: Trousers

Alastor Moody, October 18, 1943

Git! Snake-faced, two-timing, arrogant bastard, screwing our shots six ways to Sunday but oh no Mr. Fustusson sir, I didn't do anything wrong, stupid cheating and how did he juice that Shooting Star to do that, bloody slimy little grandstander, so full of himself he's bursting at the seams, wouldn't somebody like to...

Oh, yes. Half an hour after the game, the rush and shock wears off and all I want to do is punch the pretty little git's lights out. And, all right, maybe it's starting to wear off today, but yesterday was--god damn, had to sit across from the git all through the meeting, and tell Weasley with a straight face that yes he really should behave himself when I've been sitting on my hands to keep myself from bloodying my knuckles on the bloody walls because I can hardly...

"Al."

Mundungus Fletcher's hand falls on my shoulder, and I nearly jump out of my skin.

"Dung, what in hell do you think you're doing sneaking up on me--"

He spins me around, puts both hands on my shoulders, and sits me down on the window-seat of the alcove I'd been brooding in. Then sits down opposite from me and gives me a long, long look out of bottle-green eyes, his usual toothy grin missing entirely.

"You did this last spring."

I stare at him. What in... Oh.

I know what he's getting at. I just don't want to admit it. Dung leans back and shrugs, and the light from the sunset outside mixes with his hair--it's been purple since yesterday, when he let Terry Weasley play with it--and turns it a color so garish it hurts my eyes.

"Sod off," I say, not entirely pleasantly. Dung doesn't even blink.

"Stop being jealous of Riddle, Al."

I brush hair out of my eyes.

"Why?" I snap.

"Because you need to come downstairs and do your ruddy Transfiguration homework. Do I need to give you the same talk you apparently gave Weasley Micro?"

"No." I say defiantly, prickling at my own hypocrisy. "And I'm not jealous of him."

"Then why did you spend a week last spring muttering 'it was Hagrid, I should've seen it' every night when you thought I was asleep?"

I look away.

"Look, Al, the bloody reptile's too smart for anyone's good. Some of us just don't have fits about it."

"It'll wear off," I mumble.

"Good. Now get down to the common room and do your bloody homework."

Ah, friends. Who else can swear at you to make you feel better? I let Dung badger me down the stairs into the common room, which is mostly occupied by sixth and seventh years buried deep in homework. Minerva, aloof and lovely as always, lounges in state in one of the armchairs, little square glasses perched on her nose, large square book perched on her lap, while Rhiannon Beckett, the Irish beauty who shares the sixth-year prefecture with me, elaborately braids Minnie's long, thick auburn hair.

Minnie's hair, you see, is one of the great mysteries of Gryffindor Tower--along with where Dung got his invisibility cloak, how Sitinder Narayan can levitate herself without even using her wand, and why Nearly Headless Nick is still fixated on that bloody Headless Hunt. It was flaming red when I first met her, in her second year, and now it's a deep auburn--at the rate she's going, it's going to be black by the time she hits twenty. Dung says it's the result of too many transfiguration exercises.

The Weasleys have a table to themselves, with Arthur reading his elder brother's homework with puzzlement. I wink at him, and he grins back, face now devoid of purple stains. Terry ruffles his hair without even looking up from his book, and Rob pushes his glasses further up his nose and bends so low over a Divination chart that they promptly fall back down. Johnny Dobson and Ianestos Ajax are in a corner together poring over Quidditch Through the Ages, and Dung shoots them an envious look before plopping down in a chair; Walden Macnair sits alone in another corner, constantly stroking the spine of a great shaggy black book even as he reads from it, and Sitinder Narayan crosses her legs and eyes him, and another fifth-year girl leans to whisper something in her ear...

Oh, yes. Gryffindor common room. Home. I sit down next to Dung, who's at the same table as Mikey Stoffenson.

"What was the assignment again?"

Wordlessly, Mikey slides a sheet of parchment towards me. I read it over and groan.

"Sometimes I just hate the man..."

"Bottomless candy jar and all?" Dung says with a grin.

Well, yes. There are some advantages to having Dumbledore for your head of house.

--------------------

Tuesday. Transfiguration, double with Slytherin, but only the smarter half of either house because it's the advanced unit. And I am ignoring Riddle, damn it, I am. And Professor Dumbledore is going on about a variation of Switching Spells, demonstrating by switching bits of a black and white pair of guinea pigs around until they're checkerboard inverts of each other, and I'm taking notes, until all of a sudden I feel rather cold from the waist down.

Then a toad hops off my chair.

Somebody screams.

I look down and realize my trousers are gone. Another moment, and I realize that my pants are gone as well, leaving me naked from shirttails to socks.

"Merlin's balls!" I yelp, then yank my robes closed over what's left of my uniform.

There's a moment more of stunned silence. Dumbledore looks up from the poor guinea pigs, and his eyebrows fly up to his hairline. The toad hops obliviously across the floor and attempts to eat a circling fly.

Then--led by the teacher, no less--the classroom breaks into uproar. People laughing, of course, and poking other people in the arms, and laughing some more. Goyle's desk shakes as she pounds on it, and Dumbledore's desk becomes a prop as the old man doubles over chuckling. I'm laughing too, of course, albeit slightly hysterically--desperately trying to keep my robes closed as I do so--because the joke's just too bloody well done not to. It takes a long while for us to calm down. Finally, as the last giggles die off, Dumbledore catches the toad and examines it.

"Your trousers are gone, Mr. Moody?"

"My trousers are gone, sir." I'm bright red. "My pants, too."

Another surge of laughter. Guess nobody noticed. Thank god for desks.

"Impressive," Dumbledore murmurs as the laughter dies a long and painful death. "Most impressive."

He strolls around the classroom, eyes twinkling, and deposits the toad on the desk of his target.

"Riddle."

I whip my head around and stare. Him?!

Riddle looks up at him slowly, the hint of a grin still tugging at his mouth.

"How did you know, sir?"

"Because nobody else in this class could have easily transfigured Mr. Moody's clothing into a perfectly functional toad. It's extremely difficult to integrate two objects into one animal, even if they are in contact at the time of the transfiguration."

"Well, sir, I was reading up on some of the references you gave us last week, and I realized that when it comes to full-fledged inanimate-to-animate transfigurations, it would almost be easier to work with two objects, using one, probably the smaller, for the élan of the target creature, and the other for the physical form."

Dumbledore raises his eyebrows.

"You turned my pants into the soul of a toad." It's out of my mouth before I can stop myself. Riddle looks over at me, and the grin has turned into a lazy smirk.

"Yes. Your pants are probably now engaged in a deep philosophical contemplation of the consumption of flies."

"Because we all know Al's pants are hungry," says Mundungus, still grinning from ear to ear. I gape indignantly at him, then go back to staring at Riddle.

"Brilliant!" Dumbledore declares lightly. "Quite brilliant! The solution's been arrived at before, but rarely, I dare say, by a sixteen-year-old, and more rarely still for such a comical purpose. I should award points to Slytherin." He lowers his eyebrows and stares at Riddle, suddenly quite serious. Riddle barely flinches. "On the other hand, I should take them away. So there's only one thing to do."

He twitches his wand.

A ferret scurries off Riddle's chair. Everybody gets a glimpse of a very long line of pale, strong leg before he snaps his robes shut, shocked.

"Professor!"

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, Mr. Riddle," says Dumbledore, with his own peculiar mix of high amusement and stern command. "You'll serve a detention, of course. In the meantime, can anybody tell me what we should feed Mr. Riddle's trousers?"

He stoops to scoop up the squirming ferret. During the ensuing argument about what ferrets eat, Riddle stares at the little creature, then at the wall, obviously quite embarrassed. It's strange to see somebody that pale be that uncomfortable but without a hint of color. I don't think it's possible for Riddle to blush.

I sit through the rest of class vaguely confused and vaguely seething. No idea what the hell Riddle thinks he's doing. Absolutely none. Bastard's inscrutable. I draw my robes tighter around my legs--it's cold enough that they're getting goosebumps. Absolutely bloody inscrutable.

Dung nudges me.

"So he got a detention, eh?" he whispers. "Count yourself lucky--Dumbledore's the only one who bothers to discipline him anymore."

Dumbledore's the only one who dares.

"I'm counting myself bloody half-naked, Dung," I hiss.

Because that's what it comes down to. He's a hero. The bloody bastard's a hero, god help us all.

I'm not going to pretend I wasn't here last year, after all, during the terror. Riddle saved us all--well, all except that Myrtle girl--saved Hogwarts from being closed, saved the terror from continuing through exams because goodness knows half of us would've failed. Saved the world before O.W.L.s without even mussing his hair. Does it matter that he's a smart-aleck, charm-your-pants-off bastard? Maybe it isn't supposed to.

Charm-your-pants-off literally. What in hell was he...he couldn't possibly be...

"Riddle, Moody, would you be able to stay after class for a few minutes?"

Oh, certainly. All that comes after this is lunch. We don't need to eat. The rest of the class clatters out; Riddle and I wait until the wind dies down before making our way carefully to the front of the classroom. He's clutching his robes just as I am, only I'm looking at the wall behind Dumbledore's head and he's looking out the corner of his eye at me with something I can only guess is satisfaction. Hell.

Dumbledore finishes notating the sheet of parchment for Riddle's detention, then looks at him sternly over the top of his glasses.

"I'm not even going to attempt to obtain an explanation for this, Mr. Riddle. Doubtless I don't want to know."

I feel myself flushing crimson again. Riddle merely arches an eyebrow. Bloody bastard's made of ice.

"Indeed, sir," he says calmly.

"I suspect, however, that Professor Coulter will."

"I am well aware of that, sir."

"Very well. Run along, now." Dumbledore waves his hand, and Riddle turns and leaves with as much dignity as an ice bastard can muster when he's got no trousers and Dumbledore's telling him to run along like a firstie. The door closes, and Dumbledore turns his gaze to me. It is a long while before he speaks. I shift uncomfortably.

"I worry, Alastor," he says at last, quite gravely. "There are many times when one has to live in the shadow of a man one reviles." He leans back in his chair with a sigh. "I do not think I have to tell you that it is rather unpopular to dislike Mr. Riddle, and I do not think I have to tell you that a mature person pays little attention to what is popular. And, quite frankly, I have no more idea than you as to what caused that odd behavior--perhaps less."

I shift my weight from one foot to the other.

"Me neither, sir."

"Well, then we are equals. It would seem that Mr. Riddle is more...impulsive than he would care to let us know." He pauses, turns his head slightly as if changing the angle at which he is studying a specimen. "Alastor, you're still getting top marks in Defense Against the Dark Arts, are you not?"

I feel my eyebrows crawling together. Dumbledore's in his enigmatic mood. Suppose it only suits to round off an utterly bizarre class.

"Yes, sir."

"You have a fine mind, and a fine awareness..." His voice trails off, as if he is deep in consideration of some massive problem. Then he shakes his head, his contemplative expression vanishing. "Carry on, Alastor, carry on." He reaches to shepherd the toad across his desk with one hand. "You do know how to reverse the spell, no?"

"Er... It doesn't look like a simple reversion would do the job, sir."

"Quite right--well deduced. Two objects into one object?"

I silently shuffle through my memories of spells.

"Double reversion," I say.

"And the modifiers concerning the animation and the élan?"

"Yes, sir!" I grin as I formulate the incantation. "Revertoduo a priori flexerus feravertus," I recite confidently. I can imagine it in my mind now, even without casting it, just as I can any Transfiguration I understand--can see the extraction of the two objects, the return to inanimacy, the loss of the peculiar sparkle of the élan. Dumbledore returns my smile, and my trousers settle in my hand with a cold plop of toadflesh.

"That should do quite nicely, Mr. Moody." He looks over to the side of his desk, where the bottomless candy jar--it really is bottomless, a bell jar with a little silver lid and a label that inexplicably reads Desert Sage Tea--sits on a scrap of brocade. "I would offer you a sherbet lemon except I fear it would meet its fate inside that and not inside you."

The ferret poses on a stack of books next to the candy jar and bares its needle teeth.

"It's all right, sir. I'm about to go to lunch anyway."

"Well, be on your way then, Alastor. I hear it's meat pie again. Run along. I have a few more parchments to attend to." He waves vaguely at his desk, and I turn with relief to scurry from the room, aiming for the boys' bathroom so that I can reconstruct my clothing in peace.

And to ponder what on earth Dumbledore meant by that. And Riddle, for that matter. My life's taken a sharp left into weird, and with that look on Riddle's face, I don't think it's over yet.

------------------------------------

Tom Marvolo Riddle, October 19, 1943

Damn Dumbledore.

It's one thing to know you've sent somebody stumbling out from class half-naked under his robes, high color in his sharp cheeks, clutching the loose black fabric around himself as he hurries to lunch. It's quite another to be in the situation yourself. Much less enjoyable.

Not that I'm blushing, of course. I don't. The tables in the Great Hall are solid wood. I can appear normal until I have time to slip away for fifteen minutes and conjure myself clothing.

"What is wrong with you, Tom?"

It's Symus, of course. He knows me too well, knows that I don't normally sit like this. I give him a hint of a glare.

"Professor Dumbledore stole my pants."

His mouth falls open. On my other side, I can hear a first year spluttering into his pumpkin juice. The Tiger reaches over and smacks him hard on his skinny back.

"If you choke on my watch, Malfoy, I'll have to exsanguinate you," she says genially.

Martinet Malfoy recovers, reaches for a napkin to wipe his pale, pointy little face, and blurts out an apology, the glassy stare of his wall-eye fixed on me all the while. I ignore him and turn back to Avery.

"It's not quite as bad as it sounds, Symus. I transfigured Moody's pants and trousers into a toad, so Dumbledore gave me a detention and turned mine into a ferret."

Avery stares for a moment, then breaks up laughing, and I let my mischievous grin break upon my face. We turn to look at the Gryffindor table, where Moody seems to have told the same tale to those who weren't in class with him, because they're all staring back at us, hands over mouths, snickering uncontrollably. McGonagall brushes them off and reaches for pumpkin juice. Malfoy smirks at them. Fletcher makes an obscene gesture. Nothing out of the ordinary.

I want to catch Moody between classes, slam him against the wall, and throw his robes open, just because I can. Not that I will. But I can.

A pity he wasn't the only one humiliated by the whole affair. But I turned in Hagrid. I have more status than Moody can imagine. It will be all too easy to make people forget. I am Slytherin, after all. The entire house is entitled and expected to mess with the Gryffindors. Some of us just do it properly.

But surviving lunch is the least of my worries. Coulter will have heard.

--------------------

Humiliatingly enough, he pulls me aside after class. Charms is the last class before dinner, and Coulter often luxuriates in the relative freedom afforded him to have long discussions with his favored students; I have waited here many times before, but never due to misbehavior. Now I listen to Coulter and the Tiger discuss advanced variants of Summoning Charms, and shift uncomfortably in my seat--hastily conjured trousers tend to pinch. I'll have to go over them more carefully this evening, for I have only two proper pairs to my name, and one is monkeying about on Dumbledore's desk. A few of the sheets of parchment we'd spent an hour layering with multiple charms detach themselves from the high-arched ceiling and start drifting slowly through the air, trailing sparks of a dozen colors. Another changes abruptly into a small pewter tiger and falls with a loud clatter to the bare stone floor. Coulter's eyes flick to it; so do the Tiger's, and a fierce smile curls her mouth. The clepsydra on Coulter's desk, made of clearest glass and hammered metal etched with twining serpents, splashes on.

"Very well, Miss Goyle. A most interesting line of thought indeed. You may go."

She nods, turns with a swirl of robes around her tall, solid frame, cocks an eyebrow at me, and leaves.

"Mr. Riddle." The change in his silk-over-steel voice is barely perceptible, but an unmistakable and harsh summoning. I rise and step before his desk, deliberately calm, hands clasped behind my back with near military precision.

"Professor."

Janosus Coulter, Charms teacher, Head of Slytherin. I do not fear him as I do Dumbledore--there is only one man who poses that kind of threat to me--but neither, even as one of his favored students, is it safe to ignore him. Coulter, like Fustusson, like Dippet, would not choose to destroy me; but Coulter I respect, because, unlike Fustusson or Dippet, he is dangerous, a skilled player of the game that is Slytherin House. Coulter has his flaws, flaws I've long been aware of, but he is not a man to bait or disobey, not even for me. Not yet.

His nod of greeting is almost imperceptible; I can distinguish it only by the way the reflected torchlight shifts on his immaculately hairless scalp. He reaches for a sheet of parchment, flicking the sleeve of his green robes out of the way with casual grace.

"Mr. Riddle. It would seem that you are to serve detention with me tomorrow night."

Silently cursing Dumbledore six ways to Sunday, I nod calmly.

"I was unaware it was to be with you, sir." I am wrenched with disappointment, though I do not show it--I would never show it. Tomorrow night is Quidditch practice. We play Hufflepuff the Saturday after next, and it would not do to miss a practice--not with the wild stories I've heard about their new Seeker.

"I, naturally," Coulter says quietly, "have the authority to postpone the appointment." He shifts his head slightly, and his gaze acquires a sudden weight. "We have a match to win, Mr. Riddle."

Those who say that Quidditch is but a game, that it carries no weight and responsibility, are fools. Coulter will likely let Gryffindor-baiting pass with little fuss, but losing the House Cup because I failed as the Seeker would be another matter. I do not think Coulter cares much for the game per se, but he has his own status to consider.

"Of course, sir."

"Be at my office at seven sharp. Thursday."

It continues to amaze me how Coulter constantly makes such a small, foppish gesture--the slight readjustment of the heavy silver clasps of his robes--so elegant and oddly menacing. Perhaps it is the deliberate flick of his hand, gloved in black leather with cunning and perfect fit, with which he makes it seem as if he were girding himself for battle.

"Yes, sir."

He does not need to tell me that we will talk then. It is implicit. He drops the parchment dismissively to one side of his desk--using his right hand, always his right hand. His wand hand is his left, and rarely further than a handspan from the pocket where he keeps his wand--unless, of course, that choice as well is deliberate.

"You may go."

I nod and turn, just as the Tiger did, and leave, my footsteps echoing on the bare stone floor.

--------------------

Symus catches me as soon as I come through the wall into the Slytherin common room--he had, I suppose, left dinner early, and I could guess at the reason from the large encyclopedia of potions ingredients under his arm. The common room is occupied primarily with a cluster of third-years; they will not disturb me or mine, and neither will Elladora Black sulking in one corner, nor young Crouch in the other with his book.

"Tom. About the trousers..."

I look at him icily; he does not flinch.

"And you wonder if I am going to leave off?" I glance briefly around my common room: the familiar leather couches, wrought-iron candelabras, the silver and green serpents that twist over the hearth. "Dumbledore has meddled with me before, yet not done lasting damage. This time will be no different."

"And what about Coulter?" he says softly.

I smile sharply at him.

"He will not stop me from bothering Gryffindors. Oh, he may interrogate me about it. But he will not stop me."

"Or Moody?"

"Heh." I look at him calmly. "Do you think he could hurt me?"

Symus laughs quietly, turns, and sets his book down.

"I certainly will not be able to deter you. Chess, Tom?"

"Perhaps tomorrow. Or the evening after. Soothes the soul after detention." I sit in one of the deeply comfortable leather couches, letting my back relax into it as it never can into the hard wooden benches of Hogwarts classrooms. "I've got it day after tomorrow, you see, at seven, with Coulter. Was to be tomorrow, but he postponed for Quidditch. You should be pleased, Captain."

Symus' eyebrow twitches at that.

"Well enough, then. And who gave you to Coulter?"

"Dumbledore, of course."

Symus' eyebrow twitches higher.

"I'm surprised he didn't force you to serve it with him."

I shrug.

"I'm surprised as well, and thankful." I allow myself a hint of a smile. "I suppose the optimistic interpretation is that he fears me." Then I pause, watching Symus' faintly bemused expression with distant delight. "Of course, optimists are fools."

"What rules are you playing by this time, Tom?"

I laugh softly.

"Why, Symus, the ones I make up as I go along."

"It is his move, I would say."

I lean my head back on the couch.

"Why, yes, yes it is."

--------------------

Later that evening, after an extensive bit of reconjuring on my new trousers, I settle on my bed and frown at the post-owl hooting at me from the top of my dresser. It is a school owl, small and brown, with a note tied to its leg with bright red ribbon. How it found its way to my private room--a luxury that only Slytherin and Ravenclaw bestow upon prefects--I can only guess; although, ever since my research into the Chamber, I have begun to suspect that there are more little passages through Hogwarts than anyone might ever record or even imagine. Owl-sized passages, perhaps? For the only ones I mapped were the basilisk-sized ones.

I untie the note and run the Gryffindor-red ribbon through my fingers. As I unroll it, I find Moody's name, scribbled in an unruly, heavily slanted hand, in the lower corner. Then a hard little object falls from it, bouncing against my knee and plopping to the bedspread. On instinct, I freeze, with one hand inches from my wand; but there is only stillness. After a few moments, I set down the note and cautiously pick the thing up: a plain, brownish-red stone, flat on one side, curving outwards on the other, making me think of nothing more than an uncarved cameo. Bewildered, I look to the note, and the first line catches my eye.

"Jinxing with a prefect, Riddle? I could get you caned for that."

I cannot stop a soft laugh, which fades quickly. He's right. He could. Not that it's been done for years. Between sheer ennui and Dumbledore's self-righteous discouragement, the old Hogwarts traditions of physical punishment--using, cruelly enough to those proud of their blood and heritage, thoroughly Muggle methods--are in high decline. I don't think Alastor Moody has gotten a switch across his backside in the six years he's been here; I certainly haven't. But all the rules still stand. Moody could have me beaten bare-arsed over Osthryd Peeves' desk, or even do it himself in some corridor. The prospect is humiliating beyond belief--but his fire is exhilarating.

Could. Only could, he says. Only a threat. I eye the stone sitting dark and cool in the palm of my hand. Then what does this threaten?

"And I don't know what you're playing at with this thing, but I'll be damned if I'm keeping it."

I look back to the stone. Don't know what I'm playing at? That, Alastor Moody, makes two of us. I hold the note in one hand, stone in the other, and consider.

By all logic, he found it after Transfiguration--after all, by all nepotism, Dumbledore would have returned the toad. And, had Alastor had this thing before, he would not have suspected me of plotting to leave some dangerous object in his possession.

Unless, of course, he is doing it to me.

But no. I am beginning to suspect this thing's nature, and it is not a dangerous one. I shall have to confirm my suspicions, of course, before I even begin formulating a plan of action. I shall have to look it up. And I shall have to research a rather obscure clutch of school rules as well--could I, as a prefect, be exempt from the punishment he threatens? Although Moody is an intelligent enough boy; he might have looked it up already.

Though if prefects are not exempt... Moody may threaten this step, but I could play it just as well. He gets in enough trouble. I imagine that tightly curling hair of his would swing into his eyes if he bowed his head. One, two, three strands, stuck in curlicues to his forehead by the thin haze of sweat from stress and pain. The owl flutters down to my bed and shifts from leg to leg on the mattress.

I wave it away. No reply, much as I'd love to write a witty comeback to those few rough words, charm the ribbon to Slytherin green, and send the owl back posthaste through whatever wormhole it came by. Not yet. I do not know enough. And he has made his move. It is my turn now, and I shall not waste it on a note.

End.