Chapter Twenty-Four: The Heir of Slytherin

The failure of the foe glass had served a severe blow to Victoria's pride, yet behind the sting of disappointment lay a twinge of curiosity. It would have been one thing for the magic to fail completely, but the fact that it worked for Draco and Susan merited a deeper investigation, one that saw Victoria immediately seeking answers in the library.

After she had declared the foe glass broken, Susan and Draco had each begun to doubt what they had seen—Susan, because she had seen so little of note; Draco, because the glass had shown him a house-elf—yet despite their protests, Victoria was convinced the glass had worked for them. After all, the girl Susan saw could have been anyone… Madeleine, perhaps, or even another girl who fancied Draco. Vague as the vision was, it made sense. As for Draco… well, Victoria knew something he did not. She couldn't tell him, lest she be forced to confess her own snooping, but she knew that the house-elf Dobby had helped her spy on the Malfoys performing deep magic in the woods. That was surely a betrayal of the loyalty owed by an elf to its master, and reason enough for the glass to count Dobby among Draco's enemies.

Even though the foe glass showed the others confusing visions, it at least showed them something. For Victoria, on the other hand, the glass merely reflected her face, the same as it had always done. It went against everything she knew about the Anamorphosis Charm.

She spent the rest of Sunday afternoon surrounded by books in the library, barely noticing as the day's light faded. The shadows cast by the tall, stained glass windows lengthened, and Madam Pince began her daily patrol of the bookcases, opening fairy lanterns as she went.

Victoria's first instinct had been to open even more advanced books on the Anamorphosis Charm. Attempting to understand exactly what had gone wrong, she tried to muddle through all the references to complex spell theories—the books were designed for N.E.W.T. students—but she quickly realised this was a dead end. So far as she could tell, it was impossible for the Charm to work for some people but fail for others. The whole point of the Charm was to show different things to different people, which meant that Victoria seeing something different was a sign that the Charm was working.

The magic was in place; it was simply malfunctioning somehow.

She quickly moved on to explore the possibility of removing the Anamorphosis Charm from the glass. Once removed, she figured she could then cast it again, hopefully with more success. But it turned out that removing magic from an object was rather tricky—there was a reason why counter-spells were not studied in depth until fifth year. The Finite Incantatem Counter-Charm, which they had learnt in first year, worked only on the weakest of charms and jinxes; for most spells, the art of counter-spelling involved applying a spell of equal and opposite effect, such that the magic reached a balance and cancelled itself out.

The basic principle was easy enough to comprehend. An object under the Engorgement Charm had to be countered with the Shrinking Charm; the Jelly-Legs Jinx had to be countered with the Freezing Jinx. This much Victoria already knew from Defence Against the Dark Arts, where Professor Quirrell had taught them various jinx and counter-jinx combinations. In practice, however, it was rarely possible to just find the counter in a book and cast it, because all but the simplest spells contained a complex mix of powers which each required their own counter.

It was really quite fascinating. Victoria soon forgot about the foe glass, losing herself within a short but engaging book called The Cheering Charm: A Case Study in Magical Equilibrium. The Cheering Charm had many different effects, depending on how it had been cast, from giddiness and euphoria to hiccups and uncontrollable crying. There was therefore no single counter-charm; rather, one had to counteract the specific behaviour of the charm in question. For euphoria, the Sobering Charm was required; for tears, the Dry Eyes Charm; and in cases of extreme giddiness, a Calming Draught might be necessary. Each of these partial counters had to be applied in perfect balance; if you overpowered your Sobering Charm, for example, you might overshoot the mark and end up with a very sombre subject.

Unfortunately, the Anamorphosis Charm was exactly this kind of advanced charm, the type for which it was impossible to learn a counter by rote. The goal was to snap the anamorphic object out of its dream state. For basic anamorphosis, like the spell Victoria had cast on the chocolate frog cards, a simple Reenervation Charm might have been sufficient, but more complex cases could require all sorts of other counters, from the use of loud noises to splashing the object with cold water.

To make matters worse, the charm on the foe glass was now tied into the magic of the boggart. That was where Victoria's reading went from fiendishly complex to completely baffling. Counteracting a spell which had mingled with the magic of a creature went far beyond her understanding, and by the time the bell rang for dinner, she had become resigned to the fact that the spell would be impossible to remove. The foe glass was complete, its magic set in stone. While the Charm might eventually wear off, that could be years away. If she wanted a working foe glass now, she would have to start from scratch.

There was no chance of that happening. Even if she had been prepared to repeat all that work, she simply didn't have the time for it. She was far too busy with her school work, what with all the additional reading her teachers continued to give her, not to mention her struggles with the Locomotion Charm. She hadn't even got around to asking Tom more questions about deep magic.

She was so busy, in fact, that she had taken to reading at breakfast, just to fit everything in. On Monday morning, when details were posted in the Entrance Hall of their upcoming Defence field trip, Victoria forced herself to ignore the excitement spreading across the Great Hall, focusing instead on Chapter Seven of A Nice and Accurate Account of the Goblin Wars—a difficult task, given that Tracey had brought a copy of the parchment to the breakfast table.

"It says here we'll camp in groups of four," Tracey was saying. "We'll stick together, right?"

Victoria pretended not to hear. The International Confederation of Wizards was founded in direct response to the Wand Wood Wars, which commenced in 1618, she read, trying to blank out Tracey's voice. This series of wars, which lasted several decades and took place across Europe and East Asia, marked the first time in history that the global wizarding community had united against a common enemy.

"Of course we'll camp together!" Pansy said. A clink of glass on china followed—that would be her pouring milk into her tea. "So long as we don't put our tent near the boys. I can only imagine what they're going to be like, out there in the wilds... they'll probably start hitting each other with sticks like Muggles."

Daphne laughed. "We're going to the other side of the valley, not the jungle. And besides, Draco's having a party in his tent, I heard him talking about it with Zabini. You don't want to miss out, do you?"

"Well, no," Pansy said, her voice conciliatory. "But Vicky should Flame-Freeze our tent, at least... knowing Vince, half the forest will be on fire by the morning."

It seemed that Pansy and Daphne were back to being best friends, having recovered from their argument over Spring Witch. Probably Pansy had found some way to save face while letting Daphne get her way, Victoria mused, before catching herself—she wasn't supposed to be listening. She returned her attention to the book.

The Wand Wood Wars constituted the last serious and concerted effort by goblins to develop wands of their own. The vigor of their race was spent in the struggle, and to this day the goblin nations remain diminished. All subsequent conflicts between wizards and goblins have been considered rebellions, not wars, and this nomenclature is indicative of the now-accepted fact of wizarding supremacy.

It wasn't long before her reading was interrupted by Tracey once again. "Bugger me, it says we'll have to enchant our own campsites to repel wolves. Vicky, how's your Anti-Interloper Charm?"

Reluctantly, Victoria looked up. "Fine, so long as there aren't any werewolves nearby. Does the notice say if it'll be a full moon?"

Tracey looked back at her parchment, scouring it for information. As she did so, Victoria took the opportunity to pluck a slice of toast from a cooling rack and cover it with a liberal quantity of butter and strawberry jam.

"It doesn't say anything about the moon," Tracey said. "But the trip's happening in the first week of May… is that a full moon, does anyone know?"

Victoria snorted. "On the Thursday." Unlike Tracey, she had never missed a single dose of her Moon Potion. She went to take a bite out of her toast, and it was almost in her mouth when some instinct screamed at her to freeze.

There! A hint of honeysuckle—its sweet, vanilla-like fragrance clashing with the familiar smell of strawberry, the wrongness of the scent immediately reminiscent of one of the many poisons Dumbledore had fed her. The jam was laced with Congealing Potion, which would turn her blood to jelly if ingested.

Someone had just tried to poison her. Again.

She was surprised at how calm she felt. Why wasn't she panicking? Panic was surely the normal response to someone trying to murder you, but she just felt… numb. Only the tremble of her hand, as she lowered the toast back down to her plate, betrayed the rush of adrenaline surging through her veins, and on its heels came a wave of vertigo. She felt oddly separated from her body, as if its reaction was occurring completely independently of her.

She gripped the table tightly, steadying herself as she looked around the Great Hall. She needed to focus. Was anyone watching her, waiting to see the poison take effect? Her would-be poisoner must have switched the potion into the jar just as she was serving herself, else half a dozen other students would have been convulsing on the floor. Yet as she cast her gaze from table to table, she couldn't see anything amiss: the cheerful breakfast chatter continued as normal, the student body completely oblivious to the crime which had just taken place in their midst.

It was only when she looked up at the teachers' table that she identified her culprit. Professor Dumbledore caught her eye, winked, and raised his goblet to her in a toast.

Victoria looked back down at her toast in shock. Dumbledore! Was it a test? A warning? Or simply an eccentric way of catching her attention?

She was so preoccupied that she barely noticed the arrival of the post, the rafters of the Great Hall filling with the flapping of wings and the screeching of owls, each one circling the hall before dive-bombing the recipient of its cargo. One of the owls swooped overhead, and her thoughts were interrupted by a letter clattering onto her plate, the parchment landing directly in the poisoned jam. Still rattled, she hoped the other girls didn't notice the shake of her hand as she broke the seal and unfolded the parchment.

Dear Victoria,

Please accept my apologies for failing to contact you sooner, but regrettably I have been kept occupied by the ever-demanding International Confederation of Wizards. Fortunately, I now find myself with a more forgiving schedule.

As you may recall, before the Christmas holiday I mentioned that we should maintain our dinners on an occasional basis, so that you may continue to broaden and refine your culinary horizons. I therefore look forward to seeing you tonight at 6pm.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Dumbledore

Victoria sighed, the tension draining from her. It all made sense now; the poison in the jam had been a mere prelude to the resumption of her lessons. She looked sullenly at her ruined toast, wishing that Dumbledore had chosen a method that hadn't spoiled her appetite for breakfast.

The North Tower bell rang and the Great Hall emptied. After a brief trip back to the dorms to freshen up, the Slytherin girls made their way to their first class of the week, History of Magic. Since Christmas they had been working their way through the Goblin Wars, and they were now arriving at the seventeenth century, where the Wand Wood War would bring them to a new topic—the foundation of the International Confederation of Wizards.

Professor Flamel was his usual self, sleepy and easily distracted, but he kept things interesting with personal anecdotes and engaging questions. This week, he wanted the class to ask themselves why it was that only wizards should be permitted wands.

"We invented them," Terry Boot suggested. "Why should goblins be allowed to steal something that wizards came up with?"

The class murmured with agreement.

"Ah, but that wasn't what the goblins sought to do," Professor Flamel replied. "The goblins were experimenting, attempting to discover for themselves how to create wands. Still, when wizards found out, we declared war before the goblins could succeed."

"Because the goblins were a threat," Draco said, not waiting for permission to speak. "Every time the goblins have had power, they've used it to try to defeat wizards. Just look at all the wars we've been studying! They can't be trusted with wands."

Professor Flamel nodded along, but it didn't seem like he agreed with Draco. "That is a common argument. But a goblin would say they were fighting for equality with wizards, not for dominance." A good number of students snorted in derision at that idea, and Professor Flamel looked around with amusement. "Of course, on analysis that may be too idealistic a view."

Victoria raised her hand.

"Sir, what if the goblins had managed to get wands of their own? Would they have been able to cast spells?"

"Not in the same way as you and I," Professor Flamel said. "A goblin's magic is different to a wizard's, and giving them wands doesn't change that. Nonetheless, a wand is a powerful tool for any magical being… one imagines that the goblins would have further developed and refined their own brand of magic, to the point where it might have rivaled witchcraft and wizardry."

"Well, thank Merlin they didn't," Draco said, "or we'd all be speaking Gobbledygook."

Professor Flamel tweaked his moustache, curling the ends. "Perhaps. Or perhaps they would have discovered how to conjure food, or block the Killing Curse. We may never know what feats goblin magic is capable of. Fear, it seems, is stronger than hope."

The class departed History rather more conflicted than when they had arrived—a conflict which was sure to continue, as Professor Flamel had split the class in two and set them opposite essays: one half was to argue in favour of goblins being allowed wands, the other against it. To Draco's great consternation, he had been allocated to argue the goblins' side of the debate.

After History came Transfiguration, which they took with Gryffindor. Having concluded the topic of Simultaneous Shaping, they were now embarking upon the challenge of Total Transubstantiation. This subject, which concerned the transfiguration of a whole object rather than its individual parts, brought them to the last chapter of A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration. It was the final piece in the puzzle of inanimate transfiguration, and once mastered it would—in theory—mean that the class possessed the knowledge to transfigure any inanimate object they liked.

For most of the class, Total Transubstantiation was a nightmare. It brought together everything they had learnt to date, exposing any gap in a student's knowledge, any weakness of understanding or unpracticed principle. Even Hermione, who normally took to transfiguration so quickly, and who clearly understood each component part of inanimate transfiguration, seemed to struggle with the key concept which united everything they had studied, the Dumbledore Consensus.

"There are no physical substances, in the plural," McGonagall explained, pacing in front of the board, an unusual tone of excitement to her voice. "There is only the universal substance, magic-in-being, which manifests itself with different properties under different guises. What you are used to thinking of as separate substances—iron, wood, glass—differ only in form, not nature. Only when you understand this truth will you master Total Transubstantiation, for only then will you stop trying to change a thing's magical being—an impossibility—and start changing its physical manifestation."

Unlike the rest of the class, for Victoria the topic of Total Transubstantiation was like cutting into a long-anticipated birthday cake. She had read their textbook innumerable times, and the final chapter had always felt like its natural and inevitable conclusion. It just made sense, like the ending of a murder mystery—you would never have guessed it yourself, but you knew it to be true the moment you read it. And besides, after everything she had learnt about alchemy, McGonagall's description of matter was now second nature to Victoria. In alchemy, the celestial and elemental were simply different ways of understanding the ineffable truth at the heart of matter, like using different languages to describe the same thing. Transfiguration theory was no different.

She raced through the exercises Professor McGonagall set, which were supposed to take them two classes to complete. She deduced the table of Sympathetic Metals without needing to refer to the Hierarchy of Transubstantiation once. She identified the Transition Point of living and dead matter just by realising that it was no different to the passage of winter to spring. And she quickly worked out how the Dumbledore Consensus explained the five principal exceptions to Gamp's Law, which each represented a terminal point on the pentagram of the elements.

In fact, she completed the questions so quickly that Professor McGonagall was forced to set her another task, this one with a wand. She spent the rest of the lesson transfiguring iron into steel and back again, keeping the transformation flowing back and forth, trying to reach the point where the spells merged and the metal formed a constantly undulating mass which was neither iron nor steel.

She left Transfiguration invigorated and full of energy, so much so that she barely touched her lunch. Her mood was destined to be spoiled by Charms, however, which would last all afternoon. Most of the class was now well-advanced in the Locomotion Charm, with their totems almost ready for burning. Draco's peacock was covered with real feathers, which Narcissa had sent him by owl, and Pansy's magpie had accumulated a small hoard of shiny baubles. Even Daphne, who often struggled with Charms, had successfully fed her golden pheasant a number of berries.

Victoria's totem was rather sad in comparison. Its waxy surface remained as bare as the day she had transfigured it, and the only life it showed was an occasional crooning noise. She spent the whole of the lesson trying to tempt the goshawk into motion, going so far as to transfigure a totem of a rival bird in an attempt to trigger her totem's territorial aggression. But the goshawk didn't take the bait, remaining steadfast in its lack of animation, and Victoria was painfully aware of Professor Flitwick watching her closely.

How long would he let her continue with the goshawk before he forced her to change? There would surely come a point when she would have to move on, simply to avoid failing her end-of-year exam.

Fortunately, that time had not yet come. She gave the Professor a wide berth as she left Charms, not giving him any opportunity to forestall her, and hurried directly from there to the Aquarium for prep. She did her best to put Charms out of her mind as she got started on her homework for Professor Flamel, putting herself in the shoes of a Warlock of the seventeenth century Wizengamot, and her essay was almost complete by the time that the bell rang for dinner.

While everyone else took the staircase to descend to the ground floor, Victoria headed west towards Professor Dumbledore's office. His letter had called for her presence at six o'clock, which meant there wasn't any time to return to the dorms and dress up; she would just have to arrive in her uniform. She did, however, take a brief moment to stop off in a bathroom to make sure her plait had held and apply an Ironing Charm to her robes.

"A fine charm," the mirror said, its voice that of an kindly mother. "But you might like to fasten your top button, dear."

Victoria scowled. None of the girls did up the top buttons of their inner robe, not even Pansy, but she supposed she was heading to the Headmaster's office. She followed the mirror's advice and continued on her way.

Professor Dumbledore was waiting for her in his office, dressed in the same sky blue robes he had been wearing at breakfast. As usual, a table had been set up in the centre of the circular room, covered with a white tablecloth and decorated with a simple vase of flowers.

"Please, take a seat," Dumbledore said as he ushered her inside, and she took the spot closest to the door. Dumbledore settled down in the seat opposite with a weary sigh. "Well now, it has been some time since we last spoke. I hope you're well?"

"Well enough, sir," Victoria replied, slipping back into the persona she had come to understand Dumbledore appreciated: polite and respectful, but never docile or unthinking. "I suppose I could be better. My headmaster keeps trying to poison me, you see."

Dumbledore's lips twitched. "How troublesome. But I'm sure you will agree that practice remains vital, lest instincts fade and caution wanes." He clapped his hands and their starters appeared: a poached egg accompanied by spears of asparagus wrapped in ham. "Now tell me, how did you find your first wizarding ball?"

His question immediately wrong-footed Victoria, who had not considered in advance which details she was willing to share with him. She took a bite of asparagus to give herself time to think. Should she confess everything? Dumbledore had rightly warned her of the risks of Malfoy Manor—perhaps he could identify the Death Eater, or tell her more about deep magic. But her reason for keeping the full story from Susan applied just as much to the Headmaster: she liked the Malfoys. Draco was her friend, and Narcissa's motherly care compared very favourably to Petunia's. Even Lucius, though he clearly kept some questionable company, could make her laugh with his biting wit.

No, she couldn't tell Dumbledore about the Death Eater. To do so would be a betrayal of the Malfoys' confidence in her. If Draco found out, he would never forgive her for telling tales to his father's rival.

"It was beautiful," she said, settling on a very selective account. "The manor has almost as much history as Hogwarts, you know? And Mrs Malfoy was very kind to me, teaching me to dance and write letters and so on. Or, well, she tried to, at least. I'm not a very good dancer."

"Alas, we cannot be good at everything," Dumbledore said. "I myself am terrible at knitting, though my incapacity does not prevent my enjoyment of it. You also met Minister Fudge, I understand? I am curious to hear your impression of him."

Victoria cut open her egg, savouring the moment as the deep orange yolk spilled out onto the asparagus. "He seemed nice enough. He spoke to me like I was a grown-up, not a little girl. He did seem to want to take a lot of photos with me, though."

"And why do you think that is?"

She gave Dumbledore a flat look. "I'm not that stupid. I know I'm famous—that people like to use my name. Everyone was watching me very closely. Mister Swann, he said I was… making an announcement." She paused. "Him, I didn't like so much. He called me fair game, like I was some kind of animal to be hunted."

"You would be wise to be cautious around Septimus Swann in the future," Dumbledore said, taking a sip of white wine. "He is the power behind the throne, as it were. His family always has been. There is some magic at play in their bloodline… a form of alchemy, I suspect. Without fail, the firstborn of each generation seems to become a formidable wizard. Yet the younger siblings are frequently frail, or even squibs."

Victoria raised her eyebrows. Was Pansy actually right? "Are you saying the oldest child steals the other kids' magic?"

Dumbledore waved a hand dismissively. "Nothing so crude. It is quite impossible to give magic, or take it away. No, something more subtle is at work. Have you heard of the Felix Felicis Potion?"

She shook her head.

"It is a potion of great power," Dumbledore explained. "It grants the drinker luck; yet, if you rely on it too much, you become cursed with an ill fate."

That did sound powerful. "So the Swanns do something to… what, improve their first child's fate?"

Dumbledore nodded. "I suspect so. And in so doing, it seems that the other children suffer the consequences."

"But that's horrible!" Victoria said. "Parents shouldn't play favourites with their children."

"Horrible indeed," Dumbledore said, his gaze piercing. Victoria felt herself blush; she had said too much. "And yet, the magic is fascinating."

Their starters disappeared, replaced immediately by plates of beautifully pink baked trout, its top covered with a herby crust, with buttered new potatoes and a lemony pea sauce.

The appearance of the main course reminded her of something. "You knew!" she said, recalling the meal at the Yule Ball. "How did you find out what the Malfoys were going to serve? Even Draco didn't know! Was it some form of divination?"

Dumbledore looked very pleased with himself. "Divination is a powerful and mysterious art, but I'm afraid I lack the talent for it. I do, however, have a brother who owns a pub. You would be amazed at the things people discuss in front of their bartender."

Victoria laughed, picked up her fork and cut into the trout. She was avoiding the pea sauce—there was some smell in it that set her on edge, a heavy layer of lemongrass beneath the fresh citrus notes. Perhaps the elf had simply been heavy-handed… but more likely, Dumbledore had slipped a dose of Blood-Sweating Potion into the sauce.

"And how are your classes?" Dumbledore asked, watching her eat with keen eyes.

"Fine, mostly," Victoria said. "I'm, um, having a bit of trouble with the Locomotion Charm."

"That is quite unlike you," Dumbledore said. He turned to his own food, spearing a potato cheerfully. "What totem have you selected?"

"The goshawk."

Dumbledore's fork froze on its way to his mouth. "The goshawk?" His gaze turned serious, and Victoria suddenly felt like she was under a microscope, the sole object of Dumbledore's attention. She looked down, unable to bear the intensity of his eyes. "May I ask your reasoning?"

"It's a predator," she explained, still looking at her plate. "It's fast, and agile, and strong. I think maybe... too strong. I can't seem to overcome it."

An uncomfortable silence stretched out. Victoria kept her eyes down, but she could imagine that Dumbledore was still looking at her with that intense gaze. When he finally spoke, however, it was with his usual kind and patient tone.

"It is an unusual choice, to be sure. In all my years of teaching, I have only known one student to master the goshawk. It is perhaps no surprise that you are struggling."

Now, at last, Victoria looked up. Mercifully, Dumbledore's attention was on his plate as he cut off a piece of fish.

"What did you pick, sir?" she asked. "If you don't mind my asking."

Dumbledore smiled. "Ah, I remember it like it was yesterday. I picked the swallow, my dear… it gives me range and endurance, and its flocking behaviour makes it particularly suited for coordinating multiple animated objects. The goshawk, though, that is quite different. A lone hunter, elegant but ruthless… and uncontested in the skies."

"I've tried so many ways to master it," Victoria said with a sigh. "Nothing seems to work. I'd thought that if I just showed perseverance, that would be enough, but after months there's still no change."

"Perseverance is necessary, but not sufficient," Dumbledore said, pausing to stroke his beard. "To master the goshawk will require a steel will, and perseverance will only take you some of the way there. There is more than one aspect to willpower, you see. Determination is one. Focus, another. Stubbornness, discipline, self-control… you must show the goshawk all these qualities if you wish to overcome it. But, if you will forgive an old Gryffindor his pride, the most important aspect of willpower is bravery."

Victoria frowned. "Bravery? None of the books mention that."

"Bravery is fundamental," Dumbledore said. "It is the purest expression of will; the decision to disregard risk and pain in the relentless pursuit of a goal. Let us try an example. You have, I believe, detected the poison on your plate?"

"The sauce," Victoria said. "It's got Blood-Sweating Potion in."

"Very good. Now, eat it."

Victoria frowned. "That's not brave, just stupid. I'd bleed everywhere."

"You would indeed," Dumbledore said, but there was no sign that he was joking. "The sauce is quite delicious, I assure you. It completes the dish. You want it, do you not?"

"I'd prefer the one without poison in," Victoria said.

Dumbledore smiled. "That is not today's lesson. You want it, and it lies within your grasp. There is only one question: do you have the will to take what you desire, or are you too afraid?"

Victoria looked down at her plate, considering the deep green of the sauce. She was insane for even considering Dumbledore's idea. And yet… she didn't think she could endure many more classes of Professor Flitwick's worried looks, or the rest of the class leaving her behind. It came down to this: did she want to master the goshawk, or not?

She braced herself, dipped the tip of her knife in the sauce, and took a small lick.

Dumbledore was right; the sauce was delicious. But the poison worked fast, and within seconds she could feel the heat rising within her, as if she had stepped into an oven, sweat immediately beading on her skin. She glanced down; her white inner robe was already splotched with red pinpricks.

"My robe!" she said, dismay in her voice, watching as the red spread with alarming speed. "Antidote, please!"

"Not yet," Dumbledore said, watching her closely. "There is little bravery in a danger quickly averted. You must bear the pain, prove your capacity to endure."

A wave of dizziness took her, but she steeled herself, letting out a strangled sob as her robe became sodden with blood.

Dumbledore leaned forward. "Good. Now, eat some more."

Trembling, Victoria licked at her knife again. It took three attempts to swallow it; her body was rebelling, her magic seeking to expel the foreign substance. Blood was dripping from her chair onto the stone floor. The office began to spin, her consciousness slowly slipping away—and then Dumbledore was there, moving faster than she believed possible, forcing the antidote into her mouth.

Immediately, the spinning stopped and the overwhelming heat passed. She was still weak, still soaked with blood, but no longer in danger.

"Well done," Dumbledore said, but his face was grim. "I do wish you had picked something other than the goshawk, my dear." He waved his wand, and the blood was sucked from her robes and the floor, gliding through the air and into Dumbledore's wand, as if it were a very powerful vacuum cleaner. She looked down, dazed, and her robe was white again. "A Blood-Replenishing Potion is in order, I think." Dumbledore crossed the room to a cabinet full of potions and took out a vial of crimson liquid. "Here."

She drank the potion and the weakness in her limbs began to fade. Then, to her shock and embarrassment, her stomach rumbled.

Dumbledore chuckled and took his seat once more. "You have earned a reward, I believe." He clapped his hands and the main course disappeared, replaced with a steaming slice of apple pie sitting in a pool of custard. "It contains no poison, I give you my word."

Victoria dug into the pie, allowing its sweet warmth to rekindle her strength. "Please tell me I don't have to do that again."

"Deliberately poison yourself?" Dumbledore asked with a wry smile. "Not necessarily. But you will need to perform acts of discipline and mastery, yes. The goshawk will never be yours if you live in complacency."

"Great." Victoria sighed. "You know, magic really seems to be getting much harder."

Dumbledore raised one of his bushy eyebrows. "Oh? You have some other difficulty?"

"I tried to make a foe glass," she explained, not seeing any reason to keep it a secret. "With Susan and Draco. We figured it might show me the Heir of Slytherin, since he poisoned me and all. But the Anamorphosis Charm didn't work properly."

"An interesting strategy, and a most ambitious project for a second year," Dumbledore said. "But I suspect you would have been disappointed, even had the foe glass functioned properly. Foe glasses are fickle things, and often show us petty rivals rather than true threats. They are very sensitive to proximity, you see. Like most Divination, foe glasses are most accurate when directed towards the trivial and the immediate." He took another sip of his wine, apparently not partaking in apple pie himself. "Still, there is no shame in failing to cast the Anamorphosis Charm. It is the bane of many a fifth year."

"I guess I should be happy it worked as well as it did," Victoria said. "It showed Draco and Susan something, at least."

Dumbledore frowned. "I confess, I have never heard of the Anamorphosis Charm behaving in such a way. What, precisely, do you see when you view the glass?"

"Nothing," she said with a shrug. "Just my reflection, the same as always."

He looked at her sharply. "And have you considered the possibility that it is not broken?"

"Not broken?" She stopped eating for a moment, his question taking her by surprise. "You're saying my enemy is… me? That doesn't make sense—I definitely didn't poison myself!"

"No, you didn't," Dumbledore said. "But you were presumably closer to the foe glass than your poisoner, and I have just said that the glass responds to proximity." He sighed. "Do you remember what I said to you last year, in front of the Mirror of Erised?"

She cast her memory back, remembering the vision the mirror had shown her, an image of herself as a powerful adult witch capable of defeating trolls. "You told me not to focus so much on becoming powerful."

Dumbledore nodded slowly. "And remind me… why did you select the goshawk as your totem?"

Once again, Victoria felt the need to look down under his intense scrutiny, but this time she resisted the temptation, a mood of defiance taking her. "I picked the goshawk because it's powerful. And there's nothing wrong with wanting to be a powerful witch! Isn't that the whole reason why we're here, at Hogwarts? To become better at magic?"

"I would be the last person to dissuade you of the importance of magical education," Dumbledore said, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. "But consider the sequence of events. You sought power and chose the goshawk. Now your choice has resulted in a painful struggle to master a spell which should have been easy for a girl of your talents. You told me that magic is getting harder, but that is not quite true. It is you who has changed. You are setting your sights ever higher, and in so doing, you have created difficulties for yourself. Do you not see how the foe glass might show you a vision of yourself?"

Victoria put down her spoon. She wasn't hungry anymore, she was angry. Dumbledore was widely considered the greatest wizard in the world, and she refused to believe he had arrived there by accident. Who was he to criticise her for wanting the same thing? Hadn't he just told her of the importance of bravery, of pushing through difficulty to achieve something important?

She wrapped her anger in a glove of polite formality. "Perhaps you're right, sir. But I'm only my own enemy if I fail."

With the holidays in sight, the spring term entered the final straight to Easter and accelerated to a sprint.

After her dinner with Dumbledore, Victoria found her desire to master the Locomotion Charm renewed. She hadn't even realised how resigned she had become to the inevitability of her failure, but she could now see that her previous efforts had been half-hearted at best. Casting aside her doubts, she began to apply the lessons which Dumbledore had taught her, incorporating moments of discipline and self-mastery into her daily life.

Her brightest idea was to implement a dramatic change in her morning routine. Each day she dragged herself out of bed at 6 o'clock, and instead of taking a hot shower in the bathroom, she made her way up to the Slytherin pool and jumped into the icy water. She shrieked loudly every time, spluttering from the cold the moment she surfaced, but the habit was oddly energising. Now and then she'd even share the pool with the quidditch team—Marcus Flint insisted that swimming in the cold water would strengthen them—and, once she had ordered a wizarding swimsuit to replace her embarrassingly ratty Muggle one, she began to join them in their laps.

Other changes were less drastic but just as difficult. She denied herself the pleasure of strawberry jam on toast at breakfast, allowing herself only cereal or porridge, and at dinner she stopped eating desserts. She made an extra effort to sit like Pansy did, with a straight back and her knees together, resisting the constant urge to slouch and tuck her feet underneath her. She even resumed the letter-writing which Narcissa had instilled in her over the Christmas break, sending polite messages to Astoria, the Malfoys, and Minister Fudge.

All these little changes seemed to add up. Her totem had taken to occasionally flapping its wings, and her Locomotion Charm improved in turn, no longer sending the target flying for the nearest window but instead causing it circle the ceiling like a predator. In spite of these small advances, Victoria's charm remained a far cry from complete, and she was forced to watch with envy as the rest of the class burned their totems, taking the animal spirits into their magic forever.

Luckily, it seemed that Professor Flitwick had seen enough to let her persevere with the project.

"You've made encouraging progress," he told her after the burning. "And I confess, I'm curious to see what the goshawk will do next! But you'll have to continue your efforts in your own time, I'm afraid. We're starting Substance Charms next week, and I want your full attention on that!"

But if Professor Flitwick was concerned about keeping his students' attention, he would have more to worry about than Victoria. The second years had become obsessed with their upcoming field trip, and the only class which interested them now was Defence Against the Dark Arts. The prospect of actually needing the spells had the Slytherin girls studying with a level of diligence Victoria had never before witnessed, and she was inevitably recruited into helping them practice the Get-Lost Jinx and the Potification Charm each evening in the common room.

The only thing capable of distracting the students from Defence was the Quidditch Cup. Slytherin slaughtered Ravenclaw at the end of February, a scoreline quickly matched by Gryffindor when they defeated Hufflepuff in early March. With just two games remaining, the cup would go to either Slytherin or Gryffindor, depending on which House won their final game by the higher margin.

Victoria was less enthusiastic about quidditch than her classmates. While she didn't dislike the sport, and was always happy to support her House, a number of other interests took priority. The last match of the spring term, between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, was therefore the perfect opportunity to slip away for some time alone with Tom Riddle's diary. As an extra layer of privacy, she decided to avoid the Slytherin dorms and instead use the hidden study she had found in the Restricted Section.

She found the room exactly as she had last seen it: a spartan, rectangular space, with assorted books and scrolls neatly arranged on the shelves, a fire burning in the hearth, and a strange circular pool of water in the centre of the floor. She sat down at the desk, placed the diary in front of her, took out a quill and ink pot, and started to write:

Hello Tom.

The response came immediately. Good morning, Victoria. At least, I think it's the morning. As you know, my sense of time is weak, yet I feel that some time has passed since we last spoke.

Victoria pushed down her guilt at leaving the the diary alone for so long. She was being silly—it was a book, for goodness' sake, no more than the product of some clever spellwork. Still, it would be best to keep the diary placated, if she wanted it to teach her about deep magic.

Sorry, she wrote. I've been busy with other things. Your goshawk idea hasn't put me in Professor Flitwick's good books, you know.

Perhaps your will is not as strong as I had thought, Tom wrote, causing Victoria to frown with consternation. Was he calling her weak? Book or not, that was just rude.

Tom continued to write. But perhaps I can help you with that. There are ways to strengthen the will, if you have the stomach for them.

That sounded ominous. I've got it covered, thanks, she responded, glad that she had spoken to Dumbledore first. With Susan's warnings in mind, she still didn't entirely trust the diary, even though it always told her interesting things. I'd prefer you tell me about deep magic.

Of course, Tom replied. I am always happy to share my knowledge of deep magic. If I had my way, everyone would practice it. However, deep magic must be experienced to be understood; it is insufficient to describe it with words alone. I can show you, if you like.

Victoria frowned. Show me? How?

You are not the first I have taught. Let me show you a memory, one which will explain more than we can communicate in writing.

That was interesting. She'd seen memories before, of course: at the theatre when she had seen Lockhart's play. Did the diary work like a pensieve? Perhaps that was the basis of its magic... a lifetime's worth of memories, sewn together with enchantments to produce an imitation of personality and knowledge.

However it worked, it didn't sound dangerous. She pressed her quill to the page.

OK.

The pages of the diary began to blow, as if caught in a gust of wind, before coming to stop on a blank page. A date appeared in the top corner, written by hand: 12 May 1944. Then lines of ink started sketching themselves out on the page, the first outlines of a scene: a grove of trees, and a circle of figures sitting at the centre of a clearing. As Victoria watched, the image became clearer and more detailed, and then colour was seeping into the frame, showing the group to be gathered in the darkness of night, their forms lit only by a shaft of moonlight which pierced the trees.

She leaned closer for a better look—and then, with a familiar tilting feeling that upended her stomach, she was tumbling forward into the page, colours swirling all around her as she fell, before she landed on the forest floor with a soft thump.

She found herself sitting in the circle of figures, as if they had left a place just for her. She was certainly the odd one out of the group: the others in the circle were all boys, and much older than her besides, sixth years at least. They were wearing Slytherin robes of a different, more formal cut to those Victoria was used to seeing, and four of them were looking avidly towards the fifth, who sat slightly apart from the others.

Victoria blushed as she looked at him. This was Tom Riddle? This was the wizard she'd been speaking to, all these months? He was most definitely not a creepy old man, as Susan had feared. Tom was frightfully handsome, with high cheekbones, pale skin and neatly combed black hair. Though they were sitting, Victoria could tell he was very tall. He was surely the leader of the little group, a fact made evident when he began to speak.

"Well, now that Avery has seen fit to join us, shall we begin?"

He spoke with the type of refined accent that reminded her of the royal family, and though his words were harsh, his eyes danced with friendly charm. It was clear he was only teasing.

"Ah, come off it, Tom," said a boy with a round face and beady eyes. "I was only a few minutes late. Wanted to catch the news—they say Grindelwald defeated Rasputin in a duel today. Doesn't bode well for the Russians, does it?"

A murmur of interest ran through the boys.

"Rasputin will be back," Tom said, speaking with such authority that you almost forgot he was a schoolboy far from the Eastern Front. "He is a wizard not so easily done away with, even at the hand of Grindelwald."

A black boy with expensive robes was shaking his head. "Only you, Tom. If anyone else had said that, I'd have laughed in their face. Go on, then. Tell us the secret."

Tom smirked. "You of all people should know of my particular interest in these magics. The signs are there, Lestrange, for those who know how to look. Rasputin has died twice now. Unless I am mistaken, Grindelwald will need to defeat him seven more times before his death is final."

"Nine lives?" another boy said. This one was scrawny, buried within his baggy, oversized robes, but he had piercing, intelligent eyes. "If such magic exists, why have we never used it ourselves?"

"The cost, Rosier," Tom said. "You gain nine lives, yes. But when your lives are spent, your soul is doomed to eternal torment, no better than if a Dementor had consumed it. It is a feeble attempt at immortality, little more than a postponement of death." He paused and looked up at the moon. "But we did not come here tonight to discuss the intricacies of eternal life. Draw your wands, please."

The boys took out their wands and placed them down on the grass. Victoria gave her robes a pat and, to her surprise, she felt the unmistakable shape of a wand hanging from the loop at her waist. She quickly took it out and copied the boys' actions. Would her magic even work inside a memory? There was only one way to find out...

"The purpose of this lesson is to understand the relationship between wizard and wand," Tom began, his voice slipping into a tone which reminded Victoria of Professor Dumbledore's dinnertime lectures. "Too many wizards depend on their wands as if there were no other way of casting magic. It's pathetic. We are magical beings, not Muggles with access to a wandmaker."

Avery nodded eagerly. "Hear, hear!"

"Yes, wizards carry within them a greater fate," Tom continued. "And yet, for all that we are beings of magic, the bond between wizard and wand is not to be underestimated. A profound connection exists between a wand and its bearer, the wand learning from the wizard… and, if you are open to it, the wizard learning from the wand."

Victoria looked down at her wand in confusion. How could she learn from a piece of wood with a feather inside it? None of her teachers had ever mentioned anything like this.

Her confusion was apparently shared by the boys.

"Learn from our wands?" Lestrange said, and there was derision in his voice. "This sounds more like Dumbledore's mystical nonsense than hard magic. What's next? Are you going to tell us about the power of love?"

Tom's smile hardened. When he spoke, his voice was barely more than a whisper. "You question me?" Lestrange shifted uncomfortably beneath the intensity of Tom's dark gaze. "The magic is quite real, I assure you. Of course, if you would prefer not to learn…"

"No!" Lestrange said quickly. "I apologise. I was just surprised."

"Very well," Tom said, and he smiled again, all brilliant white teeth. "I forgive your surprise. This is… unusual magic, unlike anything you will have attempted before. You see, to learn from your wand, first you must understand how to listen to it."

Avery held his wand up to his ear like a seashell.

Tom sighed loudly. "Not like that."

"How then?" Avery asked, his wand still held to his ear.

"It is both incredibly simple and devilishly elusive," Tom said. "You will need these." He flicked his wand and a pile of rags appeared in the centre of the circle, along with several pots of wand polish. "To hear your wand, you must care for it as if it were your offspring. Only then will your bond be deep enough."

"You are teaching us about love," Lestrange said—but it was clear that he was joking this time, and Tom laughed with the others.

"Not as Dumbledore teaches it," he said. "This is not about the vagaries of feelings and emotions. Yet I have never denied the power of bonds, where they are based in concrete action and magical truth. The connection between wand and wizard is very much a real one, borne out of years of mutual exchange. That relationship must be nurtured if it is to bear fruit."

They each took a rag and a pot of polish. Strangely, there was a set left over at the end, as if Tom had got the numbers wrong. Fully expecting her hand to pass through, Victoria reached for the remaining cloth and was shocked to find that she could pick it up. It felt... real. She wrapped the cloth around her index finger and dipped it into the pot of white, waxy polish.

Would wax composed of memory-stuff even do anything to her wand? She shrugged, not seeing any harm in trying, and she used her cloth-covered finger to rub small circles into the wood. She looked around, feeling rather silly, but the boys were all taking the lesson seriously. A silence stretched out as they worked, each of them focusing their full attention on their wands.

"That's it," Tom said softly, his gaze passing over each of the boys. "I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that this is stupid. You are thinking that I promised to show you magic, and instead you are polishing your wands. But have faith and you will be rewarded."

His voice washed over them, almost hypnotising in its richness. Victoria found herself lost in that voice, all self-consciousness passing away, her vision narrowing on her wand until it was all she could see.

"This is the essence of deep magic," Tom continued. "It is not about spells, flashing lights or loud bangs. It is about actions. Deep magic is nothing more than living your life as a wizard should. It is about establishing the habitual ritual of magical life, rituals which separate true wizards from the Muggle-lovers who would have us consider Christmas a wizarding holiday. I promise you, if you follow these rituals of habit, you will imbue magic into your lives in a way which transforms your being."

His words barely registered. There was nothing now except her wand, its close grain smooth beneath her finger, the pale wood gleaming slightly more with each pass of the wax. Her focus deepened and, as it did, a new awareness came to her, a heartbeat not her own, slow and powerful. Her own heart slowed, moving to beat in time with the rhythm of the wand, and a warmth spread through her limbs—exactly like the first time she had bonded with her wand, all the way back in Ollivander's shop.

Without thinking, almost involuntarily, she raised the wand. With a squawk, a tiny red robin burst from the tip, breaking the silence of the forest as it flew to the trees, chirruping merrily.

"I did it!" Victoria said with a gasp, coming out of her daze. "I conjured something!"

Tom turned, his dark eyes locking with hers. "Very good, Victoria."

She froze, her heart jumping to her mouth. He could see her!

"I… I thought this was a memory," she said weakly.

Tom smiled warmly. "I am a memory," he said. "Whether you are within the diary or writing in it from the outside makes little difference."

"Oh."

Suddenly Victoria was extremely aware that she was alone with this powerful, handsome, older man. Against her will, she felt her cheeks go red and she looked down at her wand. "So this is deep magic, huh?"

"This is but a taste of deep magic. The first lesson. There are seven such lessons, each of which must be mastered before you take the First Oath."

"So Draco… he's done all this already, then?" she said, still looking at her wand. "He took the oath at Christmas, so I guess he's way ahead of me."

Tom reached out towards her, and he used a single, long finger to lift her chin so that she was looking him in the eyes. She felt like her heart might stop there and then.

"Worry not about the achievements of others," he said. "You did very well. I've never seen anyone make the wand connection on their first attempt."

She smiled widely, his words filling her with pride. Maybe she could catch up with Draco, if she tried. "You'll teach me more?"

"Of course," he said, and he withdrew his hand. Unable to meet the intensity of his gaze, Victoria looked around as if interested in her surroundings. As she did, she noticed the Prefect's badge pinned to Tom's robes.

"You become Head Boy, you know," she said, making conversation. "I looked you up."

"Did you indeed?" Tom said, and there was amusement in his voice. "And what did you find?"

She shrugged. "Not much, to be honest. You were Head Boy, and you won some award for special services to the school. And… that's it, really. Sorry."

She felt bad, as if she were delivering bad news to a real person. With Tom sitting in front of her, able to touch her, it was increasingly difficult to tell herself that he was just a book.

"I've always been a private person," he said. "I'd have been surprised if you had found much more."

"You're not worried that you're… well, that the real you might be…?"

"Dead?" Tom asked, and Victoria nodded. "No, I think it's safe to say that death is the least of my concerns. Where I am, and what I am doing… now that is another question. I had planned to become a Professor at Hogwarts, but it seems that didn't work out."

Now that she had seen him, it was difficult to picture Tom as a stuffy Professor. "Perhaps it's for the best," she said. "I don't think teaching at Hogwarts is a career with a long future."

Tom didn't frown, but a small smile played across his lips which somehow communicated his confusion. "Explain."

"It's just… the school isn't the best place to be right now," she said. "The Heir of Slytherin has returned, you see, and opened the Chamber of Secrets."

The small smile disappeared. "Impossible," Tom said firmly, his voice carrying that same authority as earlier.

It took an enormous effort for Victoria to bring herself to disagree. "It's not. I know everyone thinks it's a myth, but it's not. The Heir's attacking people at Hogwarts—I've seen the blood."

"You misunderstand," Tom said. "It's not impossible because it's a myth. It's impossible because I already caught the Heir. What do you think that award was for?"

Victoria was stunned speechless. "You… what?" Something about his statement reminded her of Professor Flitwick's comments during her detention. "Again! Professor Flitwick said the Chamber had been opened before!"

Tom nodded. "It was, in my fifth year. The monster attacked several students, eventually killing one. They were planning on closing the school, but I was able to track down the Heir and catch him before they did. But then the Headmaster, Professor Dippet, covered it all up and forbade me to tell anyone the truth. The Ministry put about a story that the girl had died in an accident, and they gave me a trophy for the trouble. And now it sounds like the Heir has returned to Hogwarts once more."

"That's… wow."

What were the chances of her coming across the diary of the sole wizard in the world who had found the Heir of Slytherin? Remote, at best. She realised that she hadn't thought about where the diary had come from in a long time. Who had given it to her, and why? She had assumed that Dobby had made an innocent mistake, but surely not even a house-elf would accidentally hand out such a powerful magical artefact. Was this some further betrayal by Dobby of his master? Was he handing out Lucius Malfoy's prized possessions for free? But how would he have known to give her precisely the object that would help her find the Heir of Slytherin?

It was a matter which deserved further thought, but for now her curiosity got the better of her.

"So who was the Heir?"

"I thought you might ask that," Tom said with a smirk. "Here, let me show you."

He stood and offered Victoria his hand. The moment she took it, the scenery around them changed, the colours blurring like a painting which had got wet, and when the world snapped back into focus they were in Hogwarts' dungeons—Victoria would recognise the dark, damp corridors anywhere, the shadowy granite only broken up by the occasional fairly lamp. If she had her bearings correct, they were not far from the laundry room.

Tom led her into a room full of filing cabinets and closed the door, holding it just ajar so that they could see out into the corridor beyond. They didn't have to wait long, and soon enough sounds came from the other side of the door—someone was coming down the corridor. A shadow passed the door, its footsteps plodding and heavy. Tom waited for the footsteps to fade before creeping out of the door, moving so quietly that magic had to be involved. Victoria followed, trying to walk as quietly as she could, and for several minutes they pursued the sound of footsteps through the dungeons.

Eventually their quarry came to a stop, and a moment later they heard the creaking of a door. Tom sped up, and moments later they were standing outside the door to an old storeroom. A voice could be heard on the other side.

"C'mon... gotta get yeh outta here… C'mon now… in the box…"

Tom smiled, drew his wand, and burst through the door with a bang, revealing the room beyond. A huge figure was skulking in the shadows, leaning over a large wooden chest.

"Evening, Rubeus," Tom said.

The figure slammed the lid of the chest shut and turned around. Even without his beard, Victoria recognised him immediately. "What yer doin' down here, Tom?"

Tom stepped closer. "It's all over," he said. "I'm going to have to turn you in. They're talking about closing Hogwarts if the attacks don't stop."

"Attacks?" the younger version of Hagrid said. "Now, see 'ere, Aragog had nothin' t'do with any o' that!"

"The evidence will speak for itself," Tom said, and he raised his wand. "Stand aside, Hagrid. The dead girl's parents will be here tomorrow. The least Hogwarts can do is make sure that the thing that killed their daughter is slaughtered."

"It wasn't him!" Hagrid roared. "He wouldn'! He never!"

"Enough," Tom said, and he brandished his wand, the power of his spell palpable even in a memory. The dark room was pierced with a silvery light, so bright that Victoria had to shield her eyes, and Hagrid was thrown out of the way with a thump.

The lid to the chest flew open, and out of it crawled a monster that had Victoria rooted to the spot in fear. Eight hideous, hairy legs. More eyes than she could count, all of them focused on Tom, and beneath them a pair of razor sharp pincers. It was a giant spider, a monster not seen in Britain in centuries.

Tom raised his wand again, but it was too late—moving with surprising speed, the spider scuttled forward, knocking Tom over with its charge. Victoria screamed and jumped aside, but the spider had no interest in her, and a moment later it was out of the door.

Tom scrambled to his feet, but she didn't get to see the rest. The scene was dissolving to darkness, and suddenly Victoria was falling again, the sound of wind in her ears—and then, without warning, she was back in the study in the Restricted Section, the diary sitting innocently on the desk in front of her.

Victoria could barely believe what she had just seen. "Hagrid? The Heir of Slytherin… is Hagrid?"