February 10th, 1997
Instead of buzzing magical curiosities and thick tomes on Transfiguration, porcelain tea sets and a collection of kitten photographs lined the walls and shelves. Pairs of curtains, as pink and fluffy as Madam Puddifoot's Cafe on Valentine's Day, muffled the faint chatter of Hogwarts' former Headmasters.
Tristan flicked his wand, sweeping aside the curtains of the large portrait overlooking the mahogany desk.
"If I may suggest, Dolores-" Albus Dumbledore winced, shielding his face with one arm, "-perhaps, you could announce yourself next time?"
Tristan dropped the hood of his cloak. "I'm not Umbridge."
Dumbledore lowered his hand and his piercing blue eyes bored into Tristan. "No, you're much more interesting of a guest, albeit you still shouldn't be up here unaccompanied, my boy."
"You said so last time. And the time before that..."
"Did I?" Dumbledore frowned into his long silver beard. "And just how many of these conversations have I partaken in already?"
"A few."
Dumbledore chuckled. "If you sought me out in the past, you should know that I can offer you much better advice if I don't repeat myself unknowingly. And yet you keep obliviating me..."
"How big was the circle of people you trusted with everything, Professor?"
A shadow flickered through Dumbledore's eyes. "There was only ever one person I fully trusted when I was around your age. Alas, perhaps today's the day I'll win your trust, Tristan."
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, sir." Tristan hopped onto Umbridge's desk, ignoring half the dozen kittens hissing at him from within their frames, and cast a long look around the office. "Merlin, I think she's doing you all a favor with those curtains," he snorted. "I'd rather dive off the Astronomy tower than stare into that much pink all day."
"Dolores's taste in interior design is questionable at best, yes," Dumbledore chortled. "She has tried to remove a dozen portraits, including mine, numerous times already, but Minerva's and Filius' splendid charms work kept us all up on the walls so far." He folded his pale, wrinkled hands. "However, Dolores is no fool, and I doubt she'd appreciate you breaking into her new office."
"I can't imagine she would."
"Are you sure it's wise for us to continue having this conversation then? Dolores might be back any moment."
"Unlike her locking charms, mine will keep her busy for a while." Tristan unfolded the Marauders' Map on the table, tapping her classroom on the third floor with the tip of the elder wand. "Besides, I have this to keep track of her."
Dumbledore's eyes lingered on his wand, then dipped to the map and a half-familiar twinkle brightened them. "Ah yes, quite an ingenious tool. I remember James Potter revealing to me, rather reluctantly I should add, a very similar map during his Mastery in Transfiguration. I should've assumed he wasn't the only Marauder that possessed one."
Tristan filed the information away for later. "Professor, I need you to tell me everything you know about my father before he came to Hogwarts."
"You are his first-born child." Dumbledore mused. "Surely you know a great deal more than this shadow of paint and canvas that's left of me?"
"Father never talks about his past," Tristan murmured. "But I still need to know all about it. There's a group I'm looking for... I'm certain they know each other from before Father came to Britain, and I know you've taken a great interest in my father back then."
Dumbledore studied him for a long silent moment. "The official answer the Ministry and I were given, is that Harry Ignotus Peverell - after his parents' murder - was raised by his muggle aunt and uncle in a small village in Lichtenstein, where the Peverells had lived for generations after leaving Britain."
"That's as much as I've found out too."
"You're unlikely to learn anything else from external sources," Dumbledore said. "Even with the most considerable resources at my disposal, I failed to confirm his backstory."
"There has to be something you missed," Tristan murmured, seized by a flash of desperation. "Wizards like Father don't just appear out of nowhere."
"Alas, he truly did, my boy," Dumbledore replied. "Before your father arrived in Britain, no purchase in the name Peverell had been conducted, no bank accounts opened, no enrollments in societies, clubs, or schools completed in over five centuries in all of magical Europe." His gaze drifted out of the window to the distant outline of Hogsmeade village. "All I know, which the Ministry does not, is that he arrived from distant shores."
Tristan pictured a rough map of Europe and blinked. "Lichtenstein is a land-locked country, Professor..."
"Oh, I'm well aware of that." Dumbledore chuckled, but his eyes measured Tristan in a sharp, calculated look. "The words are not my own; they stem from a prophecy."
Tristan swallowed hard, a faint thrill stirring in his breast. "Who?" he demanded. "Who made that prophecy?"
"Sybill Trelawney."
"What?!" Tristan blurted, imagining Professor Trelawney draped in her thick scarves, bangles, and rings, her eyes magnified to twice their size behind huge glasses. A snort of laughter escaped him. "And you believed her?"
Dumbledore's serious expression snatched the humor right from his lips. "The state Sybill was in, and the fact she couldn't remember a word she said, led me to believe I had witnessed a genuine prophecy," he said. "It is the reason I decided to employ her here at Hogwarts."
"Alright," he conceded. "Do you remember exactly what she said?
"Oh yes, I do. Even if you were to obliviate this faint shade that's left of me in canvas and paint, Sybill's words that very day will be the last that slip from memory." Dumbledore's voice dropped to whisper. "The Dark Lord has chosen his equal… From distant shores, returned to the land he never left. From foreign tides, to face again the foe who fled from death. Neither can live while the other survives, neither can rest while the other strives. The Dark Lord has chosen his equal… both terrible in power, both destined to consume, both willing to sacrifice, both welcome of doom. A final victory, a total defeat. A burning sunset, as equals they meet."
Tristan sat there in silence, all the hair prickling along his arms and the nape of his neck, replaying the words in his head twice over. "My father and Voldemort were destined to kill one another?"
"Yes." Dumbledore offered him a slow nod, an unreadable expression saturating his many wrinkles. "Of that, I have no doubt."
"But what about that first part?" Tristan murmured. "How do you return to a land you've never left? Why does it say Father is to face Voldemort again? Is it implying they've met before?"
"I'm afraid I don't know," Dumbledore admitted. "You see, the circumstances made it somewhat challenging to openly discuss the content of the prophecy with your father."
'Father killed you shortly after you heard it.' Things fell in order within that sad gleam in Dumbledore's bright blue eyes. 'Is this the reason why? Because you learned of the prophecy?'
"What do you make of it, my boy?" Dumbledore asked.
"The Dark Lord has chosen his equal..."Tristan's thoughts strayed to that soft, insistent whisper of his former yew wand. "Voldemort's dead, gone forever; the prophecy has been fulfilled," he murmured. "It's nothing but yet another of Father's secrets. It won't help me."
"This group of people you mentioned before; why do you seek them out?"
The rage stirred in Tristan's veins, a soft, insistent hunger that suffocated all other thoughts. "They've murdered the woman who was like a grandmother to me. They've slaughtered my Aunt. My Uncle. My cousins." His voice caught, snared on searing thorns of bitter guilt. "They've killed my little baby sister."
Dumbledore's face fell like a mask still as stone. "I was heartbroken to hear about the McKinnons, but I only now learn of your sister. Your pain is one I'm most familiar with; any loss of life, but especially that of children, is a tragedy."
Tristan clenched his fist around his wand, smothering the wrath and the swirl of his magic to a slim cool trickle, dark as ink around his pale wrist. "They'll suffer for it."
"The paradox of vengefulness is that it makes men dependent upon those who have harmed them, believing that their release from pain will come only when their tormentors suffer." Dumbledore shook his head. "No true satisfaction awaits us at the end of the path leading to revenge, my boy."
Tristan stared at his wand, liquid heat prickling in his vision. Before his mind's eye, all the warmth and all the light died in his mother's smile, again and again, snatched from her trembling lips by something cold and cruel and dark. "I don't care." The hatred churned, swelling in his heart and tightening around his chest like white-hot claws. "I will wipe them all away," Tristan whispered. 'But first, they will suffer.'
"You should visit me as often as you like, my boy."
Tristan took a deep breath and glanced up; beyond that calm, calculated stare, a gleam of concern lingered in Dumbledore's bright blue eyes.
"I know what you're trying to do, Professor." He hopped off Umbridge's desk. "My parents told me all about your talent for meddling; it didn't work on them, and it certainly won't work on me."
Dumbledore met the tip of the elder wand with that half-familiar sad smile. "I owe it to our world." He closed his eyes and folded his hand. "In repayment for the many grave mistakes I've made in my life."
"Good luck, Professor." Tristan erased the memory of their conversation like gentle waves rinsing away foam along the shore.
Raising the hood of the invisibility cloak back over his head, he slipped out of the office, taking down his own and sealing the door with the handful of simple locking charms Umbridge had used.
Dumbledore's words ebbed from the back of his mind like the tide as Tristan's feet carried him deeper into the Castle through still and silent corridors.
"I wish I knew more about prophecies." Inspiration struck and he fumbled the locket out from beneath his shirt, flipping the fleur-de-lis covered lid open and feeding a little magic into it until the metal warmed in his palm.
But as the seconds trickled by like sand in an hourglass, the mirror's smooth silver surface remained cold and empty, and Tristan watched his heart sink in the blue eyes of his reflection.
'She's busy again...'
The longing rose like a thirst, screaming and smothering him in searing flares so sharp it hurt to breathe. "Why is she always busy?"
Tristan flipped the locket shut and fed the howling storm in his heart down to the emptiness beneath it, scattering the yearning like ashes in the wind.
Cramming the invisibility cloak back in the pockets of his robes, he headed for the entrance of the Great Hall, settling at the back of the Slytherin table.
Across the Great Hall, several smaller gaps stood from the Gryffindor table like missing teeth in a smile, but Tristan's eye was drawn to the Hufflepuff table. A pair of slim white candles flickering there in a two-person gap, surrounded by bunches of tulips and flower-plaits interwoven into the letters M.
'Margarete and Markus.' A jagged pang tore through his gut and the mashed potatoes turned foul as ash on his tongue. Tristan forced down a couple more spoonful with gulps of water and headed back out of the Great Hall.
A clutter of black-robed, upper-year Hogwarts students lingered on the first step of the Giant Staircase.
"You shouldn't be here, Peverell," Roger Davies muttered.
"I know." He sidestepped them. "I should be up in Transfigurations, as should you."
They shifted and blocked his path.
The smooth length of pale elder slipped into Tristan's palm. "Move." Half-familiar words rolled off his tongue. "Or I'll move you."
"You're just going to kill us, huh?" Cedric Diggory thrust a finger back at the Great Hall. "Like you killed the McKinnons?"
Tristan flinched from the sting of the words. "I didn't kill them."
"Everywhere you and your rotten family go, good people die;" Diggory accused. "Margarete and Marcus deserved better, they deserved to be here; you don't."
"They were my family, too."
"And look where it's gotten them," Diggory spat, raw hatred blazing in his pale gray eyes. "You're a disease, Peverell, corrupting everything around you."
"Are you and your pals going to play healer and cut me out now?" Tristan laughed, a smooth cold chuckle reverberating from the stairs and walls. "Remember the dueling club, Davies? This time I won't hold back..."
Diggory glanced left and right over his shoulders, grinding his jaw. "There are other ways to make your last months here miserable." He tapped the sparkling silver I next to his golden headboy badge. "See that, Peverell? Handpicked by our new headmistress. You don't want to mess with the kind of power this gives us over you."
"Power?" Tristan wrung his wrist and Diggory stumbled sideways, slamming into the wall. "Some random letters pinned to your chest don't give you power, Diggory." He stepped over the twitching tangle of limbs and robes, watching the glowing tips of half a dozen wands trained at his heart. "Only magic does."
Diggory slapped his mates' helping hands away. "You're going to pay for that, Peverell," he growled, hauling himself upright.
"Go ahead and take some house points, Cedric," Tristan called over his shoulder as he climbed the stairs three at a time. "I'll see you in Transfiguration."
Professor McGonagall stood by the blackboard, sketching neat lines of equations with her wand. "Nice of you to finally join us, Mr. Peverell."
"Sorry, Ma'am."
"As I was saying, today we-"
"Hem, hem," Umbridge squawked from the corner of the class, clutching her clipboard in short, fat fingers. "Surely Mr. Peverell ought to be punished for his tardiness, Minerva?"
McGonagall paused and took a deep, long breath through flared nostrils. "One point from Slytherin, now take a seat Peverell, or I'll make it two."
"Yes, Professor." Tristan swept past her and Umbridge to the empty bench in the back of the class.
"Now then-"
The door opened again. "Apologies, Professor McGonagall-," Diggory and Davies poured inside, "-we had to deal with-"
"I don't particularly care, Mr. Diggory." McGonagall's stern, thin-lipped gaze swept over them and lingered on Umbridge. "One point from Hufflepuff and one from Ravenclaw each, since we want to treat everyone fairly. Now take a seat."
Tristan sneaked a glance at Umbridge, grinning at her glower.
"Today, we'll-"
"Hem, hem, Minerva, I was wondering-"
"The next person who interrupts me will leave my classroom, no matter if they fancy themselves a student, Headmistress, or High-Inquisitor." McGonagall whirled around. "I gave you permission to do your... inspection, Dolores." Her tone dripped with pure contempt. "Donot interrupt me again. Have I made myself clear?"
An ugly flush crept up Umbridge's fat neck like a toad holding its breath, and she straightened the parchment on her clipboard, scribbling away in fury as the class snickered under their breath.
A ghost of satisfaction flitted over McGonagall's face. "Conscious transfigurations are those that act out the conjurer's will, but interpret it with a degree of independence," she said. "Today's fundamentals will nicely complement your recent lessons on animations under Professor Flitwick. Start by copying the contents on the blackboard and then turn to page two hundred eleven in A Guide to Advanced Transfiguration."
'Nothing new or exciting.' Tristan dug through his bag for his textbook but found his slim, leather-bound journal instead. 'My parents' notes on rituals.' That faint glimmer of worry in Fleur's bright blue eyes gnawed through his thoughts like a maggot. 'I'm sorry Fleur. But I know you'd understand; you always do…'
He brushed his thumb along the rough spine of the journal; following a faint prick and dwell of crimson, lines of black ink in his handwriting spread over the pages.
'There has to be something I can do.' Tristan flicked through the pages. 'Something to make me stronger.' He followed the light tug of temptation to the very last page.
'Horcrux.'
The word stood bold from the blank page like blood from snow, and Ekrizdis' warning soaked his thoughts in unease. 'Of the Horcrux, wickedest of magical inventions, I shall not speak nor give direction.'
Tristan wrote out the words and underlined them twice.
'But if I've truly exhausted all the potential of blood magic, then isn't soul magic the only logical next avenue? And perhaps D'artagnan is right; I've killed before, my magic is already twisted, my soul is stained either way.'
The minutes trickled past and the beams of weak winter sun streaming through the windows sank lower and lower. 'It can't hurt to at least get a better understanding of it.'
Tristan scribbled tiny notes in the margins, rewriting equations over and over again, and listened to the chatter of the class with half an ear.
"Pay closer attention, Mr. and Mr. Weasley," McGonagall chided as she swept through the benches. "This topic is of utmost importance to any witch or wizard, no matter the career path they might choose after their NEWTS.
"I doubt that," one twin grumbled. "It's just boring theory."
"As with all magic, an understanding of the underlying theory is necessary. I'm sure one of your classmates can share some practical applications of this very concept. Mr Peverell, perhaps…?"
Tristan's head snapped up and he closed his notes shut. "Ma'am?"
McGonagall's pursed lips met him over the Weasleys twins' identical freckled grins. "I asked for a useful practical application of conscious transfigurations, Mr. Peverell..."
Tristan's thoughts drifted off into the distance like leaves on an autumn breeze; before his mind's eye, a great, two-headed eagle flapped wings of pure gold through a cloud of alabaster and lurched with a furious scream, its red eyes flashing like rubies.
"Dueling," Tristan murmured. "It's useful for dueling."
"Indeed, Mr. Peverell." McGonagall crossed her arms over her chest and leveled him with her sternest look. "Which is why you of all people should pay close attention, given that you will most certainly encounter some of the techniques discussed today in barely a few weeks' time."
A familiar cough sounded from the corner. "I'm afraid you're referring to outdated information, Minerva." Umbridge let out a burst of high-pitched, girlish giggles that made half the class cringe. "Mr. Peverell is not fit to represent this school, and as such, a much more suitable candidate has been found to… replace him."
The entire class held their breath, eyes darting back and forth between McGonagall and Umbridge like they were watching a quidditch match.
McGonagall raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "Even if we overlook the fact that Mr. Peverell is the best duelist Hogwarts has seen in decades, it's too late for any changes to be made. He already entered a legally binding magical contract with the representatives of the ICW that organized the tournament."
Tristan blinked. 'I did?'
Umbridge's head snapped back around, her small beady eyes brimming with bright fury.
"Ah yes, of course." Tristan smothered his surprise, schooling his features. "They made me sign all those boring documents…" He caught McGonagall's eye and the tiny snowflake floating from the tip of her wand. "But that was already long before the Yule holiday."
"Why was I not consulted on this?" Umbridge's breathing quickened as she turned red. "This is unprecedented… Most irresponsible of you, Minerva."
"It was simply outside of your jurisdiction, Dolores," McGonagall replied. "As the instructor of the dueling club and Headmistress at the time, Professor Flitwick and I made the decision."
"He is not fit to represent this school!" Umbridge fumed. "He's a danger to society, from a family of deranged lunatics as recent events have proven once again, and all of you children have a right to know of the magnitude of the threat surrounding you."
Tristan rolled his eyes. "What are you even talking about?"
She turned to the class, smiling her broad fake smile. "Seven months ago, Marlene Peverell avoided judgment at her trial under the pretense of her pregnancy." The ugly gleam in Umbridge's brown eyes smoldered into something crueler. "She should've been due over the Yule holiday, but no one has seen her at St. Mungo's or in public, and I personally checked Hogwarts' enrollments; no child by the name of Peverell has been added in the last few days."
"Dolores-"
"Do not interrupt me, Minerva!" she snapped, turning back to the class. "There's a reason why Mr. Peverell's siblings were forbidden from returning to Hogwarts; their parents fear they might share what they've seen over the yule holiday. The Ministry - as we speak - is reviewing evidence that the Peverell's sacrificed their innocent, unborn baby in some wretched dark ritual."
Ink pots shattered along the benches and students shrieked.
Tristan rose to his feet, pushing back his chair. His breath misted and the chill of his magic crept across the windows of the classroom like frost.
McGonagall strode between them. "Mr. Peverell, sit back down!"
"No, Minerva, let him stand." Umbridge's eyes burned with bright triumph. "I think it is high time Mr. Peverell and I got to know each other better. Collect your things and follow me."
Tristan bit his tongue, eyes flickering to McGonagall, but she only shot him a long pleading look.
Breathing out his fury, he swept all his school supplies into his bag and shouldered it.
Umbridge marched him out past his whispering classmates and through the door, her chest puffed like a proud fat pink toad.
"Expecto Patronum." A silvery cat leaped from the tip of her wand.
"Find Argus and tell him to meet me at my office at once." She sent the patronus on its way with a sharp flick and strutted toward the Giant Staircase, her heels clicking with every short swift step.
Filch waited for them by the gargoyle, watching their approach like a hawk its prey. "Headmistress Umbridge." He folded at the waist. "How may I be of service?"
"Come along please, Argus." Umbridge strode up the spiral staircase and Tristan followed her, hearing Filch's labored breath right behind him.
The dozen kittens along the walls greeted Umbridge with soft purrs and Tristan with irate hisses. She strutted around her desk, drawing the pink curtains of all the portraits shut with a swish of her wand.
Tristan smothered a flash of humor. "I hear they give excellent advice to their predecessors."
"Take a seat, Mr. Peverell." Umbridge offered him her sweetest smile. "Would you like some tea?"
"I'm fine, thank you." Tristan took the seat in front of her, with Filch standing just beside him, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and cracking his knuckles.
"Your wand please, Mr. Peverell." Umbridge opened the lid of a small rune-covered wooden box and pushed it across her table. "You won't be needing it for this detention."
Tristan slipped his wand into his palm and balanced it on his outstretched index finger. "Remember how upset I was last time you tried to confiscate something of mine, Ma'am?"
"I am your headmistress, Mr. Peverell," she sang, but her eyes flashed. "Nothing will happen to your wand; we will keep it nice and safe here."
"Last time you tried to take my little brother's broom." Tristan ignored her. "Now you're asking for my wand; something that's part of me as much as my right hand."
"If you refuse-"
"-you'll take some house points, give me even more detention, or expel me, I know." Tristan returned her glower with a thin smile. "Go ahead; I will never hand over my wand to you."
Filch limped a step forward with a growl.
"Very well." Umbridge flapped her fat-fingered hand at him and retrieved the wooden box, placing a black-feathered quill and a blank piece of parchment on the table instead. "Today I want you to write some lines for me, Mr. Peverell. It's the first of many steps to reeducate you."
Tristan slipped his wand back up his sleeve and reached for his bag.
"You won't need any ink," she simpered. "It's an enchanted quill. We're not primitive muggles, are we?"
"No, of course not." He took the silver-nibbed quill, weighing it in his open palm. "What would you like me to write?"
"You will write: I must not disrespect my betters." Umbridge's smile turned broad and bittersweet, revealing all her tiny sharp teeth. "And you'll keep writing until the messagehas sunk in..."
Tristan smothered a flash of cold hatred and drew the words in crimson ink; a sharp sting cut through his right hand and his eyes snapped to familiar words fading from sight as his skin crept back together.
Scribbling the full sentence once more, Tristan let the sting drown in boiling fury as he caught sight of the words on the back of his hand again, brighter than before.
He paused and placed the quill down, glancing up.
"Why did you stop writing, Mr. Peverell?" Umbridge's short thick wand met him from across the table, and Filch limped a few steps closer.
"I'm having a hard time with your quill," Tristan said, leaning back onto the rear two legs of his chair and swinging back and forth. "Perhaps the Ministry will have better luck figuring it out."
"The Ministry won't learn of it." Her wand tip rose to point between his eyes. "And you will keep writing until I allow you to stop."
Filch leaned forward, poised to strike and fingers twitching.
"How many?" Tristan asked, twirling the quill around his finger as he tipped the chair back further and further. "How many students have you tortured with this already?"
"Keep. Writing. Mr. Peverell," Umbridge hissed, her trembling wand tracking his head.
"My sister sat in detention with you before Yule," he murmured, recalling his mother's strange inspection of Valeria's hand. "Did you make her write with it too?"
"I said: keep-"
Tristan shifted his weight and tipped his chair all the way over, feeling Umbridge's curse whisper past his face. He smacked hard onto his back, the air driven from his lungs.
"Seize him!" Umbridge screeched.
Slashing his wand, Tristan hurled his magic into Filch, banishing him across the office. He leaped upright, batting aside a trio of sizzling yellow hexes, and ripped Umbridge's thick dark wand from her fingers with a flick of his wrist.
"How dare you-"
Tristan yanked her forward and flattened her hands on the table, layering his magic around each of her thick golden rings like veins snaking around tree trunks.
Umbridge screamed and squirmed at each little tug of his wand, her fingers breaking one by one like dry twigs in sharp crunches.
"I will ask you one more time." Lifting her chin, Tristan hovered the quill in front of her tear-streamed face. "Did you make my sister write with this?"
Umbridge trembled with rage. "You filthy-"
"Crucio."
The crackling beam of red hit her in the chest; Umbridge flopped behind her desk, kicking her heels, screaming and shrieking until her throat tore.
"I really don't want to enjoy this." Tristan lifted the spell and strode around the desk. "I'm not meant to enjoy this." He rolled up his sleeves, watching her spasm and sob at his feet. "But I think I will..."
Umbridge clawed at the wooden floor with broken, blood-spurting finger stumps. "Please," she pleaded, a raw, rasping whisper escaping her burst lips. "Please, I never-"
"Crucio."