#rfmd

Hello there. I just want to let you guys know that I know that (1) I missed the update last Sunday due to it being finals week and (2) I may or may not post Chapter 4 this coming Sunday (6/14), but there will be a delay in posting Chapter 5 after that as my rotation advisor last quarter seriously screwed me over and played an Uno reverse card (this is a Difficult Time for Science in the U.S. (TM)) and as a result I'm under a lot of pressure to find my thesis lab and sign off on the agreement before the end of summer or else I risk dismissal from my program. Thankfully I have a lot of support from my mentor and my department who really want me to find a lab, but obviously, I will be focussing all my spare time and energy towards securing my lab and advisor. I'm not the only one in my program in this position (this is a Difficult Time for Science in the U.S. (TM)) and I probably will find a home, but this is a super stressful time for me (I've cried in three different offices this week and have barely slept or eaten) and RFMD is not a priority right now. This is not to say it's been abandoned or this is a dreaded hiatus. It's just not a priority right now.

Anyway, he had things to consider. Like the accelerated timeline. It was clear to him now that the Ministry was planning to close in on Hogwarts by this time next year, and likely the Order, too. No more dissent would be possible. It was only logical that this would be the next step.

And what about me?

Tee had sealed his own fate when he chose to cross wands with his older self, of course, and a sinking sense of despair and regret had been eating away at him ever since. Surely this hadn't been the right choice, surely it was another lapse in judgment — because it was surely going to end in his death. In the end, he would be just another Horcrux between the Order and Voldemort, another trinket to be destroyed.

And yet there was the weight of Dumbledore's letter in his pocket. Tee had read the pages over and over until they curled at the edges and felt soft as cloth in his hands. He knew each word by heart, charging him with what had once been Dumbledore's role; maintaining the balance of power and keeping Hogwarts autonomous, whether it involved fending off the Ministry or Death Eaters. But Tee had never been one for duty. It was convincing himself to start doing his 'duty' to Salazar Slytherin that had gotten him into this mess to begin with. Why repeat the idiocy?

Dumbledore would regard him from over the top of his half-moon spectacles, with a reproachful twinkle in his eyes, and say 'Tom, it is because it is the right thing to do.' Even now, his tongue burned with acid at the thought. Despite himself, his hand went into his other pocket, brushing the rounded surface of the Resurrection Stone. Not since that disastrous rendez-vous with his mother had he dared turn it three times and coax a wraith from beyond the Veil.

I'm not scared, he thought. I just don't need to speak with him. He certainly made himself clear in his letter. I know what he wants me to do.

"Do I want to do it?" he said, aloud, to no one in particular, as he watched Lucius finally leave the premises. No trouble, then. His shoulders sagged with relief. Do I want to die?

Tee scoffed. After all this, to die for what? Just because his own experiences as an unfortunate side effect of Horcrux creation had dissuaded him from trying it again, didn't mean he was keen to throw himself before the sword. Sometimes he was certain that Dumbledore got him mixed up with someone else — Severus Snape, Lily Evans — one of his more pliant little prodigies from the Muggle world.

"Harry, mate, I know this is the pot calling the kettle black, but you're making a mess."

Harry's half of the space between their beds, usually fastidiously neat for anything belonging to a teenage boy, had recently become, just as Ron Weasley had said, a state. Day-old socks, pieces of parchment, and textbooks alike were piled in small heaps as their owner dug through his trunk, tossing its contents onto the floor without regard.

Ron, all too happy to shove his Charms homework away, slipped off his bed and waded through the jungle of clutter forming around him, then stared down at Harry, dipping his head over his friend's shoulder to peer at the contents of the rapidly emptying trunk.

"Come on, what are you even looking for in there?"

Harry paused, letting a jumper he hadn't worn in over a year fall back into the trunk. What was he doing? There was no reason for him to believe the ring was somehow waiting for him at the bottom of the trunk. He'd been wearing it the night of the last full moon, but by the time he woke up, it was gone. The only explanation was that it had been lost during all the chaos. He'd gone back to look for it the next day, but it was nowhere to be seen. Maybe the sensible thing to do would have been to tell someone, but he couldn't, not under the circumstances. There was always the chance it could lead back to Lavender, and he couldn't risk that. Nor could he risk being seen that way again. It was bad enough that people made sure to give him an extra wide berth in the halls, weren't keen to sit next to him at the Gryffindor table. They still whispered behind his back, calling him violent and dangerous, a freak and a monster. The only thing that kept them from outright shunning him was the fact that he had been muzzled.

He stared down at his bare hand. The absence of the ouroboros ring meant he might lose control at any point. The thought went through him like a lightning bolt, paralysing him and making his nerves sting. Was he crazy? He couldn't tell them. Not right now. Not today. After all, he'd held on for this long. He'd asked Ruby to make him one of her fire-marbles, like the one she'd used to scry before, a little flame trapped in glass which he kept in his pocket. It was always within arm's reach, but he could feel that the charm on it was nothing compared to the ouroboros ring. Now, the Obscurus whispered to him near-constantly, an incessant, triumphant buzzing in his head. At the slightest sense of danger, it strained against the binds of his will, threatening to unleash destructive power.

How would everyone treat him if they could hear his thoughts, Harry wondered? They'd only recently stopped whispering in front of him after Malfoy Manor. Not that most people knew the circumstances of the rumour Malfoy and Nott had been spreading; no, all they cared about was that Harry Potter was an Obscurial, he was responsible for the scorched hole on the third floor, and he'd done it again.

Harry looked back at Ron, who was still regarding him with a worried expression.

"Nothing." He shut the lid of the trunk harder than he meant to. "Just — it's not important."

"If you say so."

Ron ambled back to his bed and resumed his Charms homework with great reluctance. After a few minutes, he already started to look bleary, rubbing his eyes at regular intervals. Harry took that as his cue to leave. He was already running late, after all. He had just been hoping to find the ring before his appointment.

“Well,” said Harry, his eyes already half-lidded and body growing limp. “See you on the other side.”

It seems time has just run out. Voldemort finally got his way and killed Albus Dumbledore, the last thing standing in his path.

T.M. Riddle and the new Headmistress, Minerva McGonagall, try to shore up Hogwarts' defences, in a last-ditch attempt to stave off the darkness. But with a scattered Order and the Ministry cracking down on dissent, that's a tall order.

Harry Potter's not confident he'll make it to eighteen. For now, he'll try to lie low, piece together the information he's been left about the remaining Horcruxes, and fight back any way he can. Dumbledore's Army is rising.

The future speaks to Ruby Potter, and voices from beyond the Veil have joined in. If she can figure out how the hand needs to be played, she just might find the move that wins the game.

Death, as always, will take his inexorable course. Remember to live, because you have to die.

idk why but i literally never ever deeped the fact that molly never met harry or ruby???? like that's so crazy, my brain just assumed it's a given.

Honestly, same (even though I'm the one writing). I even meant to put it earlier because it feels like they should meet but it never seemed to be a good time.

i'm holding out a little hope that the teen-feels of hbp echoes in here?

There will be some!

wdym he's making her homicidal mad on her own bday smh, he can't read the room

He *can't* or perhaps he *can* and decided to be a menace anyway...

the death eater initiation is definitely interesting,

Lol when I said Voldemort made up a fake ritual based off a Pliny the Elder paragraph I definitely was not talking about me.

nott's so annoying that even voldemort got unsettled and bothered by him

He is, after all, Theodore 'master of invisibility' 'i don't' lurk' Nott.

voldemort's kind of funny with his internal monologue and lowkey being insecure

One of the best things about Voldemort is that he is literally just Tom Riddle in a trench coat and a funny hat (although he'd like to deny it)

and him trying to read bellatrix and thinking she's mad bc he maybeeeee has a bastard son and then leaving his 'talk' for tmrw

"don't worry babe i didn't cheat on you, that's just me at nineteen."

poor sirius really needs to move to hogwarts atp or he's going to burn the house down, that's a stressed and depressed father right there.

For real, he misses being 'Professor Gloucester' and keeping tabs on them all the time.

also i just realised ruby doesn't really have her own adult if that makes sense? like harry has sirius, tom has dumbledore and she was meant to have either of them but it's not the same

That's a good point! Dumbledore was originally Ruby's adult before Tom stole him back, Sirius is both Harry and Ruby's adults but recently he's been more Harry's.

i think she deserves to be mothered by andromeda

I mean Andromeda is the OG rebel Slytherin so I see the vision

minnie hitting a nerve with tommy?

Anthony:

Tonks:

Parvati:

Mafalda:

Daphne:

Tom/Voldemort:

also-

Hermione:

Ruby:

also:

Harry:

also

also

Bellatrix:

Ron:

Lavender:

Blaise:

Draco:

Pansy:

Narcissa:

Minerva:

Theodore:

"What's that?" asked Harry, looking up finally from Lily's letter to see the parchment grasped in one of her hands, and two thin notebooks in the other.

For some reason, Ruby wanted to say 'Nothing,' to keep it to herself. But that was selfish and strange, so she handed Snape's letter to Harry, who read it quickly, his expression growing more and more confused.

Folding up both letters and handing them over to Ruby, Harry said, his voice wavering: "What's he talking about? If he decoded Mum's notes six months ago, why didn't he tell Dumbledore? Why didn't he do anything about it? Why didn't anyone tell us?"

Ruby looked down the letters, then put them safely back in the envelope, along with the pictures, and tucked it under her arm.

"I suppose we'll never know," she said, feeling altogether listless. All of a sudden, the office felt particularly stuffy and cramped. Surely it hadn't been this small when she and Tee were here during Slughorn's Christmas party?

In fact, Ruby was quite sure that if she turned her head and looked a little over her shoulder, she'd see him, bent over the drawers, face twisted in irritation. But she was wrong. He wasn't. He was gone now, a fleeting apparition, a snow-maiden melted in the spring. After all, in the fairytales, creatures like boys made of salt and desperation were never permanent.

Instead, she stared awhile at a stack of exam papers on his desk — this year's practice O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s, half of them scribbled all over with red ink, and another half that he would never get to.

That's the cruellest part of all, thought Ruby. All the things you were planning to do — the illusion of time.

Absentmindedly, she flicked the meridians on the false Time-Turner, sending them spinning on their axes until the friction burned the energy away and left them as still as they had been before.

It's not that the scythe must fall, but how the break is never clean. The reaping always leaves part of the stalk in the ground.

Those breaks — those ragged edges — she felt them in her heart as keenly as the Second Sight burned in her veins, the shadow in Harry's.

"Let's go, then," said Ruby heavily.

Harry nodded, and without another word, they turned and left the office, pausing for a long time at the door, as if to memorise as it was, still giving the illusion that Snape was going to return within the hour and finish marking those exams.

Then, with a sense of finality, Harry shut the door behind them, and they started up and out of the dungeons.

"You can keep the envelope," said Harry, all of a sudden. "I've got the photo album from Hagrid. And he liked you better than me."

If Ruby hadn't felt so numb, she might have been amused. "That's true, but it's a low bar." And then, thinking better of it, she said: "Thank you."

A clock somewhere sounded out the hour. Soon, people would be leaving the assembly at the Great Hall; it seemed the atmosphere had already darkened in preparation. But for now, the corridors were empty.