Death in the mask

      Relief. Elation. Anticipation. So many emotions welled up all at once, washed over in a wave. For some time Tom simply looked up at the inky night sky, at the unusually dim constellations, head tipped back, listening to himself, a foolish smile wandering over his face. The rush of emotions settled, leaving an odd confidence that things would work out. The world was at his feet. If he had managed to change his future, then he was capable of anything, absolutely anything.       In the past couple days Tom had experienced more emotions than he had gathered over all the recent years. Perhaps the last time he had felt such a tempest was when he first saw Hogwarts, the magical castle, his new home, from the boat cutting through the smooth surface of the Black Lake. Even when he found out he was a wizard, it was just a realisation, like a puzzle finally solved.       Gradually his heartbeat returned to its usual steady rhythm, and his thoughts fell into the familiar flow of logic and causal relationships. A plan was required. It would be foolish to go back without finding out anything about the future. He needed to obtain the maximum possible amount of information to plan further actions in the past. He needed to find out his own fate. And for that, a source of knowledge was required. The most familiar, inanimate, indifferent source. His favourite source — books. Books about the magical world could be found in one place in London, its most magical spot — Diagon Alley.       Although adrenaline and dopamine were still coursing through his veins, invigorating his body, Tom understood that at most he had slept five hours over two days, so his energy would run out soon. Lodging could also be found in Diagon Alley. He took out the wallet from the first attacker and peered inside. Then he fished out one of the gold Galleons, examining it in the lamplight.       The coin’s minting did not state anything about the year of issue, obviously goblins did not bother with such trifles. Tom did not find any identifiers in the image either. It wasn’t as if he frequently held gold Galleons in his hands, usually just silver Sickles or bronze Knuts, but the ones he had seen looked similar. He spilled a few coins into his palm and whistled — for him this was a small fortune. Though there was such a thing as inflation: in the nineties this money could surely buy much less than in the forties. So without anything to compare it to, it was difficult to assess how significant a sum he had right now.       Dumping the coins back in, he put away the wallet and Apparated to Charing Cross Road. Although it was nearby, it was late, and if he wanted to find a room, there was no need to dally pointlessly. He headed for the familiar inconspicuous door of the Leaky Cauldron. It seemed completely unchanged after more than fifty years.       Pushing the door open, Tom went inside, looking over the bar. Despite the late hour, it was open — it had the entrance to Diagon Alley, and some establishments there, especially closer to Knockturn Alley, were open around the clock. The proprietor was absent, but protective charms warded the counter from zealous drinkers. Dried godling heads hung overhead. Evidently some sort of surveillance system.       Tom approached the bar and discovered a silver bell on the counter. A whitish thread of magic that he could discern with some effort stretched off somewhere into the distance. He carefully touched the bell with his wand and felt the magical signal travel through space. Leaning on the dark wood of the counter, he involuntarily yawned. Folding his arms over his chest, he began waiting.       About five minutes later, the barman emerged from an inconspicuous door behind the bar — a hunched bald man with a crafty face. He eyed the guest keenly with a piercing gaze.       “A cot?” he asked in a croaking voice.       “A separate room, if possible. What time is check out?” Tom asked politely, radiating maximum friendliness. The barman’s eyes, however, did not become any less suspicious.       “Two Galleons a night,” he spat out.       Tom fished out the coins from his wallet and placed them on the counter in front of the man. He swept them up with barely a glance.       “Breakfast included, until nine,” he added, already more politely, and held out a key that had appeared as if from nowhere. “Here you are, Mr…”       “Stubbs,” it was unlikely anyone here knew the name of his orphanage neighbour. “Bill Stubbs.”       “I’m Tom,” the barman nodded.       Without showing any surprise at the common name, it was not at all strange to meet a namesake, Tom took the key with the number “102” and, after a nod from the barman toward the stairs, headed up under the attentive gaze boring into his back.       The room turned out to be small but, most importantly, private and even with its own bathroom. After setting protective charms around the room’s perimeter, he quickly undressed and collapsed onto the bed; fatigue was already taking its toll, and the flow of thoughts was slowing down and becoming sluggish. He could think about everything else tomorrow. He only managed to mentally visualise a clock face with the hour hand on the eight and the minute hand on the twelve, as usual. The time he needed to wake up. And then he fell into a dreamless sleep.       

***

      Opening his eyes, Tom studied the low peeling ceiling for some time, across which a sunbeam was crawling, pondering where he was and, most importantly, when. He slowly pieced together the events. Outside the murky window it was 1996, and what this current time was like still remained to be learned. He tidied himself up — although he had almost no belongings with him, but what was a wand for a wizard? — and went down for breakfast. His internal clock, as always, had woken him on time.       At the bar, Tom exchanged a silver coin for today’s issue of the Daily Prophet.       “Fresh off the press. The things this Minister comes up with,” the barman grumbled, handing over the newspaper. “Compulsory schooling for children, he still pushed that law through. Twenty years in that chair, and still useless, if only he’d pass something beneficial for the people.”       Tom shrugged, finally receiving a plate of scrambled eggs and sausages from his namesake the barman, and sat down at an empty table. People were always unhappy with those in power, no matter who sat in the Minister’s chair. He negligently tossed the newspaper next to the cup of coffee that had neatly floated down from midair — breakfast first.       He probably should take some measures to disguise himself until he understood what exactly had become of his future. If he was now a famous Dark Lord, he shouldn’t be showing his face: although fifty years had passed, some of his old acquaintances might still recognize him. With a light wave of his wand, Tom cast distraction charms on his table and started on the eggs.       He warmed his slender fingers on the white porcelain coffee cup, pondering where to go next. If a night at the hotel cost two Galleons, then he had enough money for at least a month if he spent thriftily. Of course, there were illegal ways to get money that he was perfectly capable of using (and this wallet had come to him not exactly legally), but he shouldn’t attract too much attention in someone else’s time before figuring out what was what. He had no desire to stay here longer than necessary — just get important information, which would hardly take more than a week. Now, with the unknown changes to the future, Rita Skeeter’s book as a source had become practically useless. He needed to stop by Flourish and Blotts, flip through history books. There should also be archives at the publishing house nearby where he could find old newspaper collections and study what had happened over the past fifty years. But visiting the archives would require documents, so he’d have to acquire those.       Suddenly feeling a chill on his back, Tom shuddered. The protective charms had dissipated. He gripped his wand under the table and turned around irritably, trying to figure out who had been stubborn and curious enough to remove them. And the next moment he met the shocked eyes of Professor Horace Slughorn, sitting at a table behind him.       The elderly man tried to discretely hide his wand in his pocket, pretending he had nothing to do with the falling concealment charms, but to his surprise he missed on the first try. Obviously he had recognized Tom, and now his face showed incomprehension, quickly replaced by disbelief, then certainty and bewilderment. Slughorn seemed hardly changed after these fifty years, except his mouse-grey hair had gone completely white, and he had more wrinkles.       Tom froze, not knowing how to react to his old professor. He desperately clutched his wand under the table as thoughts rushed through his mind. Obliviate him? There are too many people around here. Need to gain trust and lure him to an isolated spot. But Slughorn was an experienced, cautious schemer, and even fifty years ago he had been powerful enough to be a serious duelling opponent. And how exactly to gain his trust when Tom didn’t even know what had happened over the past fifty years or who he himself was now in this time?       After a brief hesitation, Slughorn suddenly stood up, grabbed his plate of half-eaten eggs, and approached the table, eyeing the boy distrustfully as if he were a museum exhibit.       “Tom? Tom Riddle?” he asked uncertainly. “My boy, is that really you? This is unbelievable!”       Without invitation, Slughorn plopped down on the chair across from Tom, but the food no longer interested him at all — he only eagerly darted his gaze over his conversational partner’s face. Suppressing the inappropriate irritation at the stupid situation he had gotten himself into, Tom decided this was, after all, not a bad chance to find out at least some information.       “But how?” the old Potions master kept mumbling. “This is unthinkable! We thought you had died. Long ago, so much time has passed already… Is it really you?”       “It’s me, you’re right, Professor Slughorn,” tilting his head, Tom politely replied. He tried to quickly orient himself in the incoherent speech of the flabbergasted old man.       “When you didn’t return to school from summer break, we assumed you had died in the London bombings. Ah, that war! Many people went missing back then, even wizards. Don’t get me wrong, of course as your Head of House I went to that orphanage and tried to find out anything about your fate, but got absolutely no information. You left somewhere before the raid, and no one saw you after that. Ah, if only I’d known! You’re alive, what a load off! And you look like you haven’t changed at all, when over fifty years have passed…” Slughorn suddenly faltered. His eyes had bulged so much in astonishment that they seemed about to pop out of their sockets any moment. “How can this be?!” he finally exclaimed in surprise.       The picture was slowly coming together. He had been presumed dead, and even if he had returned to 1943, he did not reappear at Hogwarts or in the wizarding world at all. This was extremely strange, but he needed to find out the details to fully understand what and why had happened.       “If only I knew how,” Tom sadly sighed and made a mournful face. “For me this all happened literally yesterday. The last thing I remember is the sound of the German planes flying over. I got scared, panicked… I guess I had some kind of spontaneous magical outburst. And suddenly — I’m here! In the middle of London, but the city looks strange, the buildings are completely different. I’m trying to figure out why this happened and where I ended up. I’m right that it’s no longer 1943, am I?” He blinked naively.       “Oh my boy,” Slughorn groaned. “It’s 1996 now,” he said mournfully. “See for yourself.”       Horace pushed the still unread newspaper toward him and jabbed a finger at the date at the top. Tom obediently stared at the numbers, feigning surprise.       “I have no idea what happened,” he murmured.       “I’ve heard of such things, yes, yes, heard of them sometime,” Slughorn mumbled thoughtfully. “When people disappeared then reappeared somewhere else or at another time. Even Muggles noticed such things. What do they call it? Wormholes? I guess your accidental magic outburst during the ruptures from those demonic shells somehow flung you here, to safety,” Horace concluded. He nodded to himself contentedly, pleased with the explanation he’d found, and relaxed. “Oh, my poor boy… What’s to be done with you now?!” He waved his hands dramatically.       “Oh, I don’t think you need to worry about me, Professor…” Tom said politely. “I’m nearly of age, I’ll manage. Got my head and hands, that’s the main thing.”       “No, no, no!” Slughorn suddenly started decisively. “I must help you! I still blame myself and consider your fate partly my fault! After all, you asked Headmaster Dippet to let you stay at Hogwarts because of those bombings. I was your Head of House, I should have intervened, ensured your safety! Yet I did nothing…”       “It’s not your fault, Professor,” Tom tried to object, but the old man could no longer be stopped. There was much he would give now to knock him out with something Dark or at least an Obliviate, but there were far too many people around.       “No, you were so talented, you had such a brilliant future ahead! You simply must complete your education! You’d only finished fifth year, right?”       Tom jerked his shoulder irritably. Slughorn’s interference, when he sometimes turned into a puffing, pushy steam engine, was so poorly timed.       “Especially now that the law on compulsory education has been passed. Of course, the Minister consulted me as his old friend and expert in the field,” Slughorn winked with importance. “And I spoke out wholeheartedly in favour! Wizards, talented young people like you especially, simply must receive a proper education. Just think, many purebloods are still homeschooled, as if some charlatan at home calling himself a professor could provide the proper level of knowledge rather than just syphon away money!” the old man worked himself up. “And what will become of these children who could have been the cream of the crop, raised in decent professional company?” He proudly puffed out his chest.       “You’re completely right, Professor,” Tom nodded. He was already starting to feel like a bobblehead doll. No matter, just a little longer to endure.       “Are you staying here overnight?” Slughorn suddenly sharply changed the subject. Tom nodded for the hundredth time, but didn’t get a chance to open his mouth before the professor continued, talking over him: “No, this is a completely unsuitable place. Full of bedbugs,” he whispered and furtively glanced around to make sure the barman hadn’t overheard. “No, you shouldn’t be living here. Since I failed you so, Tom, allow me to at least partially atone for my guilt by doing everything in my power. We shall go to my home at once! I will gladly provide you lodging. Of course, I was going to stop by… ahem… one place for some rare ingredients… But that can wait. I’ll write Dumbledore right away! He’s the headmaster now, and will only be glad to accept you back at Hogwarts, he always loved you dearly!”       “Thank you, that’s a generous offer on your part, Professor,” Tom smiled tightly, doubting, however, Professor Dumbledore’s sincerity of warm feelings toward him. “But I absolutely don’t want to interfere with your business. Why don’t you go for the ingredients first while I wait for you at Flourish and Blotts, for example? I can look around in the meantime.”       “You’re still such a sweet, polite boy,” Slughorn said approvingly, clapping him on the shoulder and getting up from his chair. “I like your suggestion, let’s do just that! Come on!”       Just a couple minutes alone. Shove into a secluded corner, Obliviate. At worst, he will have to kill. The plan was made, his hand confidently gripped the wand in his pocket. With a fake smile, Tom rose and watched Slughorn hurry off. He had already killed six people, one more elderly man was no obstacle. His fingers touched the newspaper on the table, and his gaze automatically lowered to the paper. He still hadn’t read the fresh Daily Prophet. And in the next moment his heart skipped a beat as Tom unfolded the creased sheet with clumsy fingers, staring at the front page article. Or rather, at the photo accompanying the text.       The photograph showed a man who appeared around fifty, with refined features and a handsome face. Even in black-and-white you could tell how pale his flawless skin was and how black his shortly cropped hair. And although the facial features seemed unfamiliar, Tom knew that thin, fake smile very well, that cold gaze. He could even confidently state that the man’s eyes were blue. He had seen those eyes. In the mirror.       The headline above the photo read: “Compulsory Schooling — New Law from Minister of Magic Thomas Gaunt.”