#the shadow apprentice

"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.

"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.

"…and that was all we got out of him," Harry finished, his voice carrying through the thick oak doors and vibrating against Tee's eardrums as he pressed the side of his face to the cool, smooth surface.

Really, Dumbledore, or some previous headteacher, ought to have placed some kind of enchantment to make the door Imperturbable. He supposed the gargoyle downstairs must have introduced a sense of hubris with respect to security.

Not that he was complaining. After all, Dumbledore clearly hadn't been intending to tell him that Slughorn had indeed knowledge about the other Horcruxes.

How could he have brought himself to do it again — five more times? Tee had been certain that he had been going to die horribly in that dungeon room, that years later, some curious student would happen upon a skeleton wrapped in fraying robes. Nothing could compare to the horror of being torn apart, limb by limb, atom by atom. How could he have gotten over it in such a short time to discuss attempting it again five more times?

Something must have changed between fifth and sixth year. Something must have convinced him.

You visited vengeance upon your paternal relatives.

Was there one between him and Mordred? Would he have dared repeat the process under Dumbledore's nose, after he had come under suspicion? Wouldn't he have waited until he was safely out of both school and Wool's Orphanage?

And if he came across one of the Horcruxes, what would he do? Surely, he would not deliver it into the hands of Dumbledore. Why destroy himself for someone else's gain? His quarrel with Voldemort was personal, not ideological, after all.

"What are the rest, then?" Now, it was Ruby's voice that buzzed against his ear.

Here we go.

Dumbledore did not answer immediately.

"Well, the two we do know of are very personal to him. His own diary and his mother's locket. They will not be inconsequential items; neither grains of sand nor beach pebbles nor a bottle thrown into the ocean. I think you will recall that he once worked at Borgin and Burkes."

Tee could only hope they would not have to pay another visit.

"You never seemed interested in your mother before," said Dumbledore. There was a teasing lilt in his tone. Tee tried to ignore it. He stretched his legs out under the table, trying to look nonchalant.

"Well, she was the one with magic, wasn't she?"

"Indeed, as it turns out." Dumbledore tore open a letter. "Still, I find this sudden. Did you come across something of hers?"

His gaze was very penetrating, but Tee was confident in his abilities to withstand it. "No, it's just that it's not far off from my birthday — when she died. Twenty years ago… seventy, really."

A look of something like pity came over Dumbledore. "I never met her, but I came across a memory or two of hers. Would you like to see?"

The back of his throat burned with acid. He didn't think he could stomach ever laying eyes on her again. "No. Thank you, Professor, but I'd just like to hear it in your own words."

"Certainly." Dumbledore steepled his hands, smiling his self-satisfied Tom-Is-Opening-Up-To-Me-And-I-Have-Won smile.

"You know I visited the Riddle House," said Tee, feeling eminently uncomfortable. He adjusted his posture, but something still felt stilted. "With Ruby. It was before all my memories came back. The old gardener, he said Merope bewitched Tom Riddle. And I found a diary… is it true, then?"

The girl he had seen did not seem capable of what he had thought at the time, neither a love potion nor an Imperius Curse. A witch with such skill should be able to manage a simple Episkey.

Dumbledore studied him for a while before answering. "Before I began my investigation, which was a good deal after you had left Hogwarts, any evidence that would have been forensically useful was gone. I would have questioned your father, but as it were, the whole Riddle family had been murdered. I suppose you know that." He paused. "You were, after all, the murderer."

It came flooding back to him now. The gardener.

But there was a strange, pale, dark-'aired boy climbing up the hill the day it happened. About your age. Your frame, too.

And the shade in the locket, saying, 'Call me Mordred,' as if it were an inside joke. Sometimes, Mordred was portrayed as King Arthur's son; he remembered. Didn't you know?

Dumbledore leaned forward, studying him.

"Were you plotting it at the time?"

The air left her lungs. The ground dropped out from beneath her, the room spinning as vertigo gripped her skull. No! It was not possible. There had to be some explanation for it — but the rook blocked her escape.

“No,” she said, her voice not her own, the room very, very far away.

“Do you have a rebuttal?” His voice echoed strangely against her ears, as if she wasn’t really there. Perhaps she wasn’t. Perhaps Azkaban had driven her mad, and her addled mind had created this nightmarish creature to speak her worst fears.

“There cannot be two of the same person,” she said, unable to speak above a whisper. “You are an impostor and a liar.”

“You will come to accept the truth in time.”

She steadied herself, found her voice, reached down and anchored the room to stop it from spinning and swaying, then stared at the man sitting on her bed, hands folded in his lap. Water soaked the burgundy quilt, dripping onto the floor.

“Gaunt, I can accept. That is logical. But the Dark Lord is no half-blood.”

“Really?” He smiled again. “Ask yourself this; if you’re proud of your father’s name, wouldn’t you bear it? I know what draws you to him, what makes you find him a wizard worth following. Do you believe his ceaseless ambition comes from living in the lap of luxury? Do you not see him and know he has clawed and fought for everything he has?”

It was all beginning to make the most horrible kind of sense. But she still had one last card to play.

“You still have not answered. If my master is Lord Voldemort, then who are you?”

Harry started walking first, Ron following close behind, glancing around at Tee every so often. Ruby was stuck looking at the back of his head, her stomach turning. I need to relax. She tried to tune out the uneasiness in the air and listen to the rhythmic clicking of the meridians on the false Time-Turner.

“Going to explain what’s going on, then?” asked Harry, turning around to face Tee with his hands in his pockets. The only response he got was a shrug. Ron muttered something under his breath, but Ruby was too far away to hear it. She assumed it was uncharitable, which was fair.

It went without saying that it was the most uncomfortable walk to Dumbledore’s office she had ever experienced. Never before had she been so glad to see the gargoyle reveal the staircase, and her favourite chair waiting for her behind the double doors. Finally, something familiar, something solid. She sank into it with a sigh, her troubles dissipating for the moment.

Dumbledore looked up, his half-moon spectactles slipping down his nose as his eyes darted from her to Harry to Tee and last of all to Ron, still looking half asleep as he shuffled forward.

“Ah… you seem to have picked up some friends along the way.” His voice sounded strained. “Now, Ron, I have some news you might like to hear.”

Ron looked around, then blinked twice, as if he was surprised that the Headmaster was actually speaking to him.

“St. Mungo’s has just sent an urgent owl to notify that Bill is awake.”

“Wha—” His expression went from bewilderment to shock. “Bill? Really — I mean, you’re sure, Professor Dumbledore?”

“Absolutely certain,” said Dumbledore, nodding his head.

A noise behind her caused Ruby to turn her head. Tee was lurking behind her; she frowned, and turned back, staring at her hands.

Slughorn nearly spilt his mead on the plush carpet. "Why—why yes, as a matter of fact. You do know…"

"…That he's Lord Voldemort?" Harry crossed his arms.

"Yes. Yes. That." Slughorn still looked a little green-tinged.

Ruby supposed running into Tom Riddle was quite the harrowing experience. And yet, she got the feeling that Slughorn's curiosity had been piqued.

"You wouldn't happen to know what he was doing here? He's said all sorts of strange things." Slughorn gestured with his glass, his other hand wobbling along. "Dumbledore — the Order of the Phoenix — something about Obscurials, about my 'predecessor' trying to kill Ruby—"

Oh. That would be Gilderoy Lockhart. But what could Tee hope to gain by telling Slughorn all of this?

"—he insinuated that you were close, that she would know the reason he's here, which of course you don't, my dear girl?"

As he said it, he turned to her, and Ruby looked straight into his pale, gooseberry eyes, which were squinting even now for want of glasses in the dim light. She folded her hands in front of her, palms facing in, and smiled a little.

"Of course, I don't know anything about it, Professor Slughorn. Tom Riddle lies with every breath he takes. He's Lord Voldemort, after all."

"Quite, quite," said Slughorn, looking a little heartened at that. He took a swing from the glass of mead. "I thought as much."

Harry frowned, which Ruby didn't quite understand. Why should she shield Riddle? Even if it was the truth. Slughorn would never understand all the terrible things she had had to do. Slughorn had never stood in the howling, tearing, screaming midst of an Obscurus. Slughorn had never seen Vernon's meaty hand wrapping around Harry's neck. Slughorn had never stood in front of Lord Voldemort as he told her that Harry was dead.

Even the people who knew about it and had gotten over it — Anthony, Ron, Hermione, Lavender and Parvati to an extent, though she still feared to tell them everything — could only manage to forgive her because they had convinced themselves to forget. So, she had blood on her hands? Her hands had been stained red long before Mordred held her up to the future like a crystal ball, and the knowledge set her on fire from the inside out. She did not care. Was killing Vernon wrong? She loathed the act itself, but could not bring herself to grieve the outcome. She had gotten Harry out from Number Four Privet Drive. He would have died there, or at the very least, wasted away to being no more than the shells in the Kissed Ward. Even now, the shadow that lived within him was the violent evidence of a wrong that would never be undone.

In that regard, she had no regrets. If they were both monsters for it… Then so be it. But the fact remained that no one else could understand. Least of all Slughorn. Ruby knew now why Lily had been so secretive. How can you explain the things that only you can see?

"Well, I don't see a way out of this. I mean, you're the one—" He hiccuped over the words, as Ruby's expression grew more and more disbelieving. He could feel shadows unspooling from behind his eyes, from between his fingers, but he didn't care. "You're the one always saying all sorts of stuff, trying to sound like you know how everything's going to happen — You're going to kill him, Harry, you're not meant to die — but you didn't feel so confident about it in there, did you? And Dumbledore's dead. You didn't scry that, did you, even in the room with Bill? It's all going to shit now — how's that for your prophecies?"

Ruby looked like she wanted to scream, but could not find the right words to shout at him. She turned and stormed off a few feet into the darkness, slumping against the opposite wall.

No. Harry didn't want to give up. He wanted Voldemort dead, and to suffer before he did. But it all seemed impossible, now. He didn't see a way forward, so what was the point of going in circles? Here's to hoping Riddle gets a few good hits in, whatever the reason he decided to play the hero.

For he understood, far better than Ruby did, what it was like to be caught in Voldemort's trap. Only a freak accident on the Death Eaters' side would help them now. His mouth tasted sour. This place smelled like death. It was a tomb, and they were all going to die here.

Just then, there was the sound of a door opening from somewhere down the hallway. Both of them tensed, drawing their wands, the argument forgotten for now.

"What was that?" Harry whispered. "Death Eater?" After all, they had seen Dolohov earlier. And bad things tended to come in swarms.

"Maybe it's Bill and Ron," said Ruby, in a masterful display of wishful thinking, which he knew she had not even convinced herself of.

Harry knew better. He leaned around the corner and caught a glimpse of a Death Eater in full regalia striding towards them. Ruby had seen, too, the anxiety tight in the set of her shoulders. Slowly, Harry raised his wand. At the very least, he was going to go down fighting — like his parents had — like Dumbledore—

"On my mark," he whispered.