Chapter Text
Lillian thinks she must have been born angry.
Or perhaps the seed was planted when her parents were tortured, and watered every time she visited them. The sight of them laying on their beds with trembling limbs and vacant eyes was the healthy soil that nurtured its growth, every aborted call of her father's name on her uncle's tongue the sunlight it leeched its strength from.
Fabian and Dorcas Prewett did not deserve this. They were heroes and the war had been over for months when they were attacked. The Lestranges, who would have evaded prison if they had not been so hell-bent on finding a way to resurrect their lord, had targeted her parents for a stupid, infuriating reason.
Uncle Gideon told her all about it, though he made her swear on her magic to keep it from Neville because his grandmother forbid it. She hasn't found a loophole yet, but she will. He needs to know about the prophecy, because Voldemort isn't truly dead. He'll come back, and Lillian will be there to help Neville stop him and his Death Eaters. It will be her penance for the responsibility she bears for what happened to her parents, who will be bed-bound forever because she had the bad luck of being born at the end of July.
They did not deserve this.
Neville doesn't either.
Neville is a hero. He stopped the war, and the only thing he got out of it is abuse. She cannot change his family, but she can ensure he is properly shielded at Hogwarts. She can protect him from bullies, keep the rest of the world from inflicting its cruelty upon him.
They are everywhere.
Snickering about the Squib Saviour, shoulder-checking him down the halls, staring, staring, always staring. With pity, with disgust, with malice, it doesn't matter. They stare and stare, and Neville shrinks in on himself, meek as he only is when his grandmother looks at him as though she finds him wanting.
Hogwarts is unsafe and Lillian must have been born angry, because she burns with it, her rage hot in her belly.
Every time she looks at the Slytherins who point and laugh at Neville when he fails a spell. Every time Draco Malfoy mimicks their almost-fall from the quidditch stands as if it's the height of entertainment. Every time Pansy Parkinson grins meanly at them until Riddle arrives and she pretends at a sweetness she only wears as a mask.
Every time Riddle casts a spell on the first try and Nott watches Neville fail smugly, like he proves his assumptions right with every display of magic.
Riddle rubs her the wrong way for reasons she cannot quite explain.
Perhaps it is because he goes under an assumed name, likely to distance himself from the heinous acts of whatever relative made the farce necessary.
Or because he is who his whole cohort looks to as a symbol of the greatness of Slytherin. He has even snared in poor muggle-born Justin Finch-Fletchley. Poor Justin who does not know he is making friends with monsters in the making. They treat him like a curious pet and he simply does not get it, hapless as a lamb and just as fragile.
(Lillian is angry because she is afraid.
Her hands tremble at every reminder that someone tried to kill Neville and she was almost collateral. If Professor Dumbledore had not intervened, she would be…
Every creak of her bed makes her feel like she is falling. Every moving stair makes her heart pound and a scream catch in her throat.
The sound of wood groaning before it snaps echoes in her ear at all times.
If Professor Dumbledore had not…)
She tried to warn him away, but he looked at her like she was mad.
Neville shook her head at her, like he does so often these days.
He doesn't understand. He thinks the headmaster makes them safe, but adults aren't everywhere and there are too many snakes in the grass.
Like Professor Snape, who lurks in the third-floor corridor all the time. Who her uncle Gideon told her was a Death Eater. He said the man was pardoned because he spied for the Order.
When she asked what his spying did to help, her uncle had no answer for her.
He must have tricked the Headmaster, she is sure of it. He is too hostile to Neville for her to believe otherwise.
And he is trying to steal from the man who saved him from Azkaban. She does not know what is in this corridor, but the glimpse of the Cerberus they saw after Malfoy goaded her into a duel was enough for her to know it must be important.
She'll get to the bottom of it.
"You want Neville Longbottom dead."
His father, who was straightening Hadrian's collar with Quirrel's hands, pauses.
They have only just greeted each other. Voldemort has exchanged faces with his follower, making their interaction marginally less disturbing. He did not even know he could do that. The spell he used to facilitate the possession is more complex than Hadrian expected.
He asked how his father's quest for the artefact he is pretending not to know anything about is going; Lord Voldemort gave him a vague answer and changed the subject. He wanted to know about his classes. Instead of responding properly, Hadrian blurted out what had been on his mind since the quidditch match.
He hadn't expected it. Foolishly, he thought that Neville not being in the air meant that he was safe. Seeing the fall shocked him. Torn between his instinctive desire to help and the reminder of who he no longer was, he had raised his wand a second too late. Daphne, who had noticed the movement, had gripped his arm.
"He'll be fine," she'd snapped when she realised he meant to cast the spell anyway. "The headmaster will never let anything happen to his precious boy saviour. Let me have this."
And she had watched with unconcealed glee as Neville and his friend were extracted from the crumbling structure. Hadrian could only stare at the splintered wood, above which an echo of Harry Potter stared at him accusingly.
If he had truly wanted to, he could have saved Neville. An eleven-year-old girl with a grudge would not have stopped him.
And yet.
He had not moved.
"Are you offering your help, my son?"
The dark lord looks amused. A little intrigued, like he itches to look into his mind.
Hadrian suppresses a flinch. His palms are clammy. He flexes his fingers, restraining the urge to wipe them on his thighs. The blood in his veins seems to have turned to ice.
"I just… wanted to know. I was surprised. When the stands collapsed."
Hadrian curses himself. That was the opposite of eloquent.
His father tilts his head, observing him. A finger traces a soft line from his temple to his ear. The gesture is tender, yet utterly alien.
It pains him.
Hadrian has always yearned for this, but he is not sure he can bear the cost of having it.
"I apologise, for ruining your first quidditch match at Hogwarts. Quirrel suggested it in the stands, and I was loath to refuse him."
Would Quirrel have kept quiet if Hadrian hadn't encouraged him to take more initiative? Surely it would have happened anyway. The sequence of events mirrors his first life too neatly, after all.
(Except that Severus Snape did not lift a finger. Hadrian checked.)
"I— there will be others." He tries for levity. "It might have been more of a disappointment if I had been playing."
He attempts a smile. His father smooths down the small crease above his eyebrow.
He must not have been convincing enough.
"You enjoy quidditch then?"
The question makes him blink. He finds his voice after giving an owlish look at the face that had once haunted Harry Potter's nightmare.
It is open. A comfort rather than a cause for wariness. Lord Voldemort has not yet learnt the ins and outs of fatherhood, but he has always been a prodigy.
He learns fast.
His father's magic tastes curious on his tongue. It coaxes answers out of him when he thought he only had questions.
"I do. I like the freedom of being in the air."
Lord Voldemort hums. In Parseltongue, he says, "I taught myself to fly by my own means. I will have to show you the trick of it."
Hadrian perks up. The ice recedes, though the guilt remains. It has been gnawing at his insides since Neville's near-death experience.
(He is not Harry Potter.
He is only a shadow of what that boy was.
Harry Potter would have never forgotten Hermione. He would have never left Ron alone to weather the storm that followed her departure. He would never have hesitated to save Neville.
Hadrian Riddle has killed Harry Potter as surely as Tom Riddle did.
He haunts him still.
He will have to write Sirius. Perhaps he will have advice for him.)
"I look forward to it."
His father smiles. "Tell me about your flying."
Hadrian breathes out, and speaks. Out of words, he paints the landscape of the secluded beaches and forested areas Barty apparated him to so he could fly, and gestures as if he truly was grabbing the odd cursed snitch he unleashed for practice. He found it in his mother's things, and on it were engraved the initials of his grandfather Priam Mulciber. The artefact sometimes went randomly invisible or duplicated itself, which made catching it more of a challenge. Hadrian likes it a lot.
He should ask Draco if he wants to play a game or two during the winter holidays. He is curious to see how the blond would react to the challenge.
Lord Voldemort listens attentively. He only makes a few comments; it is clear that the sport is not something he holds much interest in. He says Priam was Slytherin's seeker in their sixth-year, and that his playing gave him excellent duelling reflexes. He says he wishes to see his son on a broom.
Hadrian has to blink back tears at that.
Later, after the conversation has lulled and Hadrian has run out of things to say, his father looks at him and says, "I want the Longbottom boy dead, yes. It is distasteful, but he is a symbol for those who oppose me. He cannot be allowed to live."
Hadrian nods.
"I understand, Father," he lies.
Hadrian is brooding.
He has been brooding since the incident.
Pansy suspects he knows more about what happened to Longbottom than he will admit.
Considering the secret he has shared with her, it is no surprise. She is dying to know, of course, but she holds her tongue.
She understands how important this is.
She is already thankful that he let her tell her father. Ambrose Parkinson is a Death Eater, but he was not in the inner circle. Of their cohort, only Draco's grandfather and father and Theo's father had that honour, and Abraxas Malfoy has long passed. They were Knights of Walpurgis, the first Marked.
Her father did not have that connection to the Dark Lord, and he was not rich enough, not influential enough, not ruthless enough to earn his place by other means. He fought and killed of course, but he was no Bellatrix Lestrange.
He is a gentleman scholar and had great success exploiting his extensive knowledge of law and history to support the Malfoys in their soft takeover of the Ministry.
He is also very proficient at the Imperius curse.
(Mother says it is because Father is a control freak. Pansy thinks it is funny coming from her. Both of her parents are very particular in their own ways.)
It is his friendship with Uncle Fenrir that brought the werewolf revolutionary under their banners, though he and the Dark Lord were still negotiating the terms of their alliance before he disappeared, leaving them all bereft.
Similarly, her father did not get the chance to be rewarded for his efforts.
Having the Dark Lord's heir's confidence, the confirmation that he will be back means a lot to her family.
(She wishes she could tell Lilith. In many ways, the girl is like her sister.)
And being inducted in the small circle of students who know the identity of Hadrian's father is thrilling.
The other students have all noticed that they are all in on some kind of secret, and being part of the privileged few has granted them an unbelievable amount of status. It has also brought her closer to Draco, who confides in her about the underlying disquiet in his father's letters, which he does not understand. The poor lamb has not realised that Lucius was only playing lip service when he said he longed for the return of the Dark Lord and that the Malfoys benefited tremendously from being the face of their faction in absence of their master.
She and Theo discussed it with Hadrian, who had looked amused but not surprised. She is still getting used to her new proximity with the boy.
While they grew up together, Theo always kept to himself, preferring the company of his books to that of others. He has always been kind, though. Where Draco liked to lord his superiority over others during their shared tutoring, Theo would help her if he got his nose out of his parchment for long enough to notice she was struggling.
They discuss art and politics together. She is more comfortable with Lils, Millie and Sally — Daphne is more complicated. They are friends. But they are also rivals. Pansy is angling to steal Astoria's fiancée and Daphne knows that. It makes things… complicated. — but the two boys are as ambitious as she is. They understand her hunger.
Hadrian does more than understand it, even.
He feeds it.
The others all recognised Hadrian's last name, but Pansy is the only one who was told. Who was chosen. Trusted with the knowledge without prompting, and that only because she took a boy who she thought should have been raised with them under her wing.
She put a hand in a wishing well hoping for a bezoar and found a philosopher's stone.
That is why she pays no heed to Daphne's hissed warnings about Hadrian's attempt to help Longbottom, and her words of caution to Lilith and Sally-Ann about their growing friendship with a mudblood.
Daphne does not know what she is talking about. She looks at Hadrian and sees someone who is too soft.
She approved of him when he made a show of his power against Draco but now that they have gotten to know him, she scorns his avoidance of conflict and regards his open-minded rhetoric with suspicion.
Pansy does not disagree, exactly. It is odd for the Heir to the Dark Lord to be so reluctant to exert his dominion over them.
But she slowly comes to understand that he does not need to.
Not when he walks and talks like a prince, shouldering the weight of the crown placed on his brow with ease.
Not when he lives and breathes magic, capable and wise beyond his years, everything the Dark Lord's heir should be.
He does not need to be fearsome and forceful. His father paved the way for him. The world is his for the taking, he can afford to cradle it gently in open palms instead of planting sharp claws into it.
Unlike Daphne who always stayed remote until she knew where to cut, Pansy has always preferred soft power.
Influence is strength, though one needs to be selective about it. She sees no need to flatter those who do not belong on her spiderweb. She takes good care of those who do, as long as they return that sentiment.
That is why she wants Draco Malfoy. With him at her side, her position in their society will be secured. She does not need to lead, but she wants control, and that comes with the kinds of connections the Malfoys have.
Narcissa Malfoy is the queen regnant of their social circles. She doesn't need to be a magical prodigy; she is the richest woman in the Court of Albion.
Pansy wants that.
It does not escape her that she could have something similar by appealing to Hadrian instead.
He would let her climb to greater heights and she would not even need to manage his ego all the way there.
But she does not want to.
She won Hadrian's trust without needing to flatter him. She was genuine and it was enough.
Being a good friend was enough, so she will keep at it.
Which means figuring out how to stop him from torturing himself over Longbottom of all people.
Once a week, her friend vanishes after their study session. She does not know where he goes, but he either comes out of it full of the kind of childish joy she loves to see on him or he broods all evening until she can coax him into an inconsequential conversation or Theo gets him to lecture about one subject or another.
(Hadrian must have had a great teacher. She wonders if he'll try to get his father to give his tutor dominion over Hogwarts once the headmaster drops dead.
She is almost jealous of the next generation.)
This time, he is in one of his melancholic moods.
He joins their group in the library, and lets Lils and Finch-Fletchley pepper him with questions about a transfiguration concept Pansy could not care less about. The Hufflepuffs leave first, followed by Millie who plans to meet Daphne and Draco in the common room.
Daphne and Draco have been spending more time together, trailed by Vince, Tracey and Greg. Blaise Zabini goes back and forth, having not settled into the particular dynamics they have developed — unlike Hadrian who has the advantage of his name and of having met her on the train, Blaise is too much of an unknown entity. More, he does not seem to have any intention of remedying that. He seems to have developed friendships with older students and evolves in their periphery instead, there but not quite part of the group.
It is not a schism. Their cohort still spends time together in the common room. They still walk together to class and study together. It is only a slight shift, a consequence of the way Daphne has been snubbing Hadrian for his instinctive kindness.
The Hufflepuffs and Millie's departures leave only Pansy, Hadrian and Theo in the library.
She suggests they take a walk. Hadrian nods absently, docile in his distraction. Theo gives her a searching look, seems to understand this is an intervention, and starts walking.
"Do you want Longbottom dead, Hadrian?" she asks without preamble once they have left the castle.
Her friend flinches, hard. It startles Theo so badly he almost drops his wand, which he was playing with absently to occupy his hands.
Pansy winces.
"I guess that means you don't."
"I— don't know. Daphne told you, then?"
"Told you what?" asks Theo with a tilt of his head.
He puts his wand back in its holster and smooths down his sleeve. Pansy looks at the gesture fondly. Her childhood friend used to play with quills like that when social situations made him uncomfortable. It is sweet to see the habit has remained, if in a different form.
Hadrian gives her a pleading look. She restrains a grin.
"Hadrian had his wand out when Longbottom fell. He was about to save his life. Daphne stopped him. You know how she is."
Theo's eyes widen. He looks like a startled owl. "Why?"
"It was a reflex," he says, his voice barely above a whisper. "I didn't think. I don't— I don't know."
"I think you pity him," she guesses. "You're too kind. But he's the enemy, surely you know that."
Theo's brows furrow. His lips tighten like he wants to say something but thinks it wiser to keep quiet.
"Do I?" Hadrian murmurs. "His parents were the enemy. He's just a boy. Do you know what Daphne said? 'Let me have this.' Like the world owed her the chance to be cruel. He did nothing to her."
Pansy nods, unsurprised. Daphne's father was killed by Alice Longbottom during the war. Her mother remarried soon after and Daphne's stepfather always treated her like his own daughter, but she always resented having been robbed of the chance to know the man who had fathered her.
She knows Longbottom has nothing to do with it. It does not matter. In her mind, the Dark Lord avenged her father and the Boy-Who-Lived made that vengeance bittersweet.
Hadrian continues, his face twisting. "I let her, because I knew Father would not approve if I followed my first instinct. But my first thought was still to help. If that is who I am at my core, how can I make my-- him proud?"
"You know of the threat he poses your father," says Theo, crossing his arms. "You cannot treat him like an innocent, even if that is what he is. It doesn't matter. Our side killed many innocents in the name of our cause. If you do not believe those deaths were worth it to ensure our future, then you will not be able to serve, and the Dark Lord must be made aware of that. He is your father, not your master. If you want to stay away from the fight, I am sure he will allow it."
Pansy nods unconsciously. Many Dark families had sworn allegiance without pledging their wands to the fight. Hadrian will not have the respect of the Death Eaters if he stays away from the war, but it is his right.
"But I don't think you actually want to stay away, so you have to commit. You told me your tutor taught you the Knights' original covenant, not the perversion others made of it. Is that not worth killing for?" Theo asks earnestly.
Pansy remembers asking her father about it after Hadrian talked to them about his lessons.
He told her there were factions between the Death Eaters. Some followed the Dark Lord for his power and cared little for his ideology, others for the promise of a society where pure-bloods would stand at the top of the world. Some wished to see the end of the Ministry of Magic, whose only preoccupation seemed to be to preserve the Statute and keep the magical population weak, and others were concerned about what Hadrian told them about.
Industrialisation and its impact on ambient magic. The greed of muggle elites and the disproportionate development of their skills in warfare. Irons and plastics disseminated everywhere, threatening the extinction of species of magical plants and beasts, and the diminution of magical land. A slow death for a community that has prized itself in its care for nature, which they depend on to cast magic, until the Ministry's priorities shifted.
The Dark Lord managed these factions well, but the only reason why they had not come in conflict with each other is because the war ended before it could.
Her father assured he had faith in the Dark Lord's ability to handle it when the time came.
"Have you ever killed someone, Theo?" asks Hadrian, his eyes suddenly intense.
They glow with an inner light that half-frightens, half-entrances Pansy. She leans forward without meaning to.
At her side, Theo seems just as affected. He stays immobile, unblinking, his wide eyes drinking in Hadrian's expression like missing a single shift of his jaw will be both his doom and salvation.
"No," he murmurs. "I have seen someone die, though. Mother wasted away slowly while Father and I watched, unable to do anything. I was always scared I'd be away from home when she died, but I was right there. I saw the light leave her eyes. I would have preferred to be away."
He turns away to collect himself, then looks back. Hadrian dips his head. The light in his eyes has dimmed.
"Rufus Scrimgeour killed Mother," he shares, his tone even. "He and his Aurors. They didn't even know she was Marked. I heard the sound her spine made when the stunners hit her. Would I have heard it again when Longbottom fell to his death? Surely not. He was so far away."
His eyes are distant, as if he is remembering the scene.
Pansy swallows down a sob. She discreetly wipes down a tear, unwilling to draw attention to herself when this is not about her. Both of her parents are alive and well. Of her family, only her cousin Calix' parents died during the war, conducting experiments on a dementor. It was meant to be a gift for the Dark Lord, and they technically succeeded, but they will never get the chance to present it to him.
Perhaps their son can, on their behalf.
She hopes so. Calix deserves that chance.
"Death is kind," says Hadrian, surprising Pansy. His eyes are old then, and a little too knowing. The smile that slowly tugs at his lips is bittersweet. "It is kind to the dead. Never to the living. I want to believe there are things worth killing for, but to do that, I have to forget what it feels like to lose someone. I have to forget myself. I think only hatred can make you forget something like that, and I do not hate Longbottom enough."
It will come, thinks Pansy, though she dares not say it. It is not what her friend needs to hear right now.
Mother always said hatred blooms easily in their world. Wizards feel strongly and are quick to turn to magic to resolve their issues, which quickly results in violence when the problems are of a political nature. The Ministry has been trying to get them to curb that instinct, and that only fanned the flames.
That is what convinced so many to take the Mark.
Hadrian might be too good to hate Longbottom yet, but it will not last long. Dumbledore will make them hate each other, because it is the only way he can win. Hadrian will try to fight it with all his might and he might succeed if his father was there to coddle him, but the Dark Lord has been weakened.
He cannot shield his son from the world.
(He might not even want to. Theo is right that Hadrian is not the type to stay away from a fight. Like his father, he is a born leader. She doubts the Dark Lord wants Hadrian to be unsafe, but he will not wish for his son to pretend to be what he is not either.)
Well then, Pansy resolves, she will have to do it for him.
"You don't have to force yourself to hate," she assures him. "If you feel like turning your wand against an innocent is too much for you, then I will do it for you. Leave people like Longbottom to me. You can have the Scrimgeours of this world."
When it matters, she is sure Hadrian will do what he must.
Until then, she will do what she can to ensure he is not pushed onto a path he has not trodden willingly.