The Observer Effect

      Travelling with Tom on public transport turned out to be a confusing experience. It was hard to believe that no one except Harry could see him. He looked completely real, alive, solid—only if you looked more carefully could you notice details that destroyed this picture.       A strange blurriness around the edges, as if Harry were looking at him through fogged glass. The absence of a shadow.       All the way Harry kept stealing glances at Tom. He seemed to experience no agitation about what had happened. He calmly, attentively studied the surroundings; one could only guess whether he was comparing what met his eyes with the city’s appearance fifty years ago, or was absorbed in his own thoughts. The forced silence—Harry couldn’t talk to an invisible companion without attracting the attention of those around him—only intensified the mystique.       At the Leaky Cauldron, Harry barely forced himself to exchange a couple of meaningless polite phrases with the proprietor as he crossed the pub’s taproom. He practically ran up the stairs to his room on the first floor, and only then caught his breath. Finally, finally, they were alone together again.       ‘Did you know that would happen?’ he blurted out, barely entering. Tom walked past him to the fireplace, briefly surveying the room, then turned round. A closed, unreadable expression lay like a mask on his face. Yes, Harry couldn’t know what Tom was thinking, but he didn’t much like the result of his own reflections during the journey.       ‘Did you know in advance or not?’ he repeated. ‘Tell me!’       These last words, into which Harry had put all his emotional turmoil, sounded strange—somehow unexpectedly commanding and deep, as if they’d echoed off the walls with heavy reverberations. Tom tilted his head to one side, and a mocking smile curved the corners of his mouth.       ‘No,’ he answered with unexpected patience. ‘I supposed the possibility, but didn’t know in advance. Culpa lata, if you’re interested in legal terms.’       ‘Is that true? You’re not lying to me?’ Harry persisted, still not convinced. He himself didn’t know what was tormenting him so—the old woman was nothing, less than nothing, and honestly she’d fully deserved her fate, but… they hadn’t intended to kill her—Harry at least definitely hadn’t intended to—and now he felt as if Tom had violated some unspoken agreement. Which, if you thought about it, hadn’t existed at all, but again…       Tom’s mocking calm evaporated in an instant.       ‘Listen to me carefully,’ he said with quiet fury in his voice, and Harry was pierced by a shiver from the sensation of some monstrous wrongness, ‘because I’ll say this once and won’t repeat it again.’       His smile resembled broken glass. The room seemed to darken.       ‘I, Tom Marvolo Riddle, by the torn-to-shreds soul of mine, by the long-departed breath of my mouth, and by the magical power I have stolen, do swear that I have never told you a single lie, Harry James Potter, and I never will. And may magic bear witness to this.’       Harry stared at Tom in horror; his tongue was paralysed.       ‘I don’t tolerate lies, boy,’ Tom added coldly. ‘And I don’t lie myself. Lies are what weak minds resort to. From our very first meeting I’ve told you only the truth.’       Harry nearly burst into tears. He hadn’t intended to drive things to such a point, he didn’t want to…       ‘Forgive me! Tom! Forgive me, forgive me—I don’t know what came over me, I… I just…’ he couldn’t find the words. All this was a complete nightmare. How could he have doubted Tom? He didn’t doubt Tom, no, not for anything, after all this was—Tom. Tears flowed from under his glasses after all, and he covered his face with his hands.       ‘I didn’t want to…’ he mumbled; sobs were choking him.       ‘I think I understand,’ Tom said quite close, and that anger, that black bitter ice could no longer be felt in his voice. Harry, trembling all over, cautiously took his hands from his face. His fogged glasses wouldn’t let him make out anything. He pulled them off and fumbled in his pockets, looking for a handkerchief. His nose was running.       ‘You’ve been surrounded by nothing but liars all your life, and you’re too used to it,’ Tom continued.       His outburst had passed like a thunderstorm flying by, leaving behind only Harry’s wet face, which he was now clumsily wiping with his handkerchief, along with his glasses. When he put them on again and habitually raised his head, he saw Tom’s face turned towards him. From his height, Tom looked thoughtfully at Harry, his brown eyes seeming dark and deep, like peaty pools.       ‘You constantly doubt. But I’m not like all of them,’ Tom lowered his voice almost to a whisper, and Harry exhaled in agreement. No one had ever known him as well as Tom. No one was closer to him. Tom was his Friend, always with him, inseparably. He was his Secret. His elder brother.       ‘And don’t you lie to me either,’ at these words Tom grinned, and his grin looked frighteningly toothy. ‘Otherwise you won’t like the consequences.’       Harry nodded convulsively. He usually told lies as naturally as he breathed, that couldn’t be denied, but not to Tom, surely. That would be… simply wrong, that’s all. Such a thing would never occur to him.       ‘Now go and get washed, for Salazar’s sake. You look disgusting,’ Tom concluded matter-of-factly, turned away, and, as if nothing had happened, stepped towards the table where stacks of books lay and Hole’s cage stood.       ‘Tom,’ Harry called to him; his voice still broke slightly. ‘Tom!’       He glanced back, raising an eyebrow in a silent question. Harry approached him, timidly extending his hand.       ‘I… still can’t touch you?’ he asked, desperately embarrassed but burning with unbearable need. Never in his life had he wanted anyone’s embrace; he wasn’t even sure if anyone had ever hugged him at all, even in early childhood—he didn’t remember this, and before Tom it hadn’t felt like something he’d missed out on. But now everything had changed.       Instead of answering, Tom extended his own hand towards Harry’s palm.       And their fingers passed right through each other.       ‘How is this?…’ Harry was confused. He hadn’t expected this. ‘But how did you hold my wand then? And open the door, and…’       ‘Like a poltergeist. We have one at Hogwarts. You’ll see him soon,’ Tom said, smiling palely. ‘Up until today I existed in the most pitiful state, less even than a ghost—and now, look here, I’m fit to compete with a lowly mischievous spirit. A delightful career, don’t you agree?’       He turned back to the table again and began sorting through books, looking through titles. Harry only sighed bitterly and went to follow the advice given earlier—a wash indeed wouldn’t do him any harm. Having finished with this, he joined Tom, who had already opened Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century and was leafing through it at a speed that, as Harry sincerely hoped, didn’t mean reading—otherwise he was doomed to die on the spot from the blackest envy.       ‘Occupy yourself with something,’ Tom said distantly. He looked up from the book, surveyed the table with a cursory glance, and pulled a clean sheet of parchment and a quill towards himself. The construction Harry had built for his convenience made him raise his eyebrows. ‘Just give me something to write with first. Something normal, not this.’ Harry obediently pulled a freshly sharpened quill from Trunk.       Having fed Hole—the rat looked quite healthy, apparently being stunned multiple times hadn’t caused her any harm—Harry also took up reading. Since there was only one chair in the room, he kicked off his shoes and settled on the bed, leaning his back against the headboard and bending his knees. The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts turned out to be even more interesting than he’d thought, despite the author’s obvious bias, but gradually he began turning pages more and more slowly. Finally, the open book fell softly from his hands. Harry sank into sleep.       He was in the air-raid shelter again. This time at least the light was on—dim, flickering, casting strange, ugly shadows. People sat on bunks arranged in long rows—singly, in pairs, and whole families with small children. Opposite him, Martha hunched. Her eyes were like those of a dead fish, and she stared with them right into his face, but it seemed she didn’t see him, but looked somewhere deep inside herself, finding something frightening there. Overhead, far above, cannonading could be heard—boom, boom, boom—a distant rumbling roar, and suddenly—it crashed so that everything around shook: the floor, bunks, walls, people—and it started hammering—crack! crack! crack! crack! The light began flickering. Lime crumbled from the vaults. Unable to bear another minute of this hell, he lay down on his side on the bunk and covered his head with a pillow.       ‘I won’t die. I won’t die. I don’t want to die. I don’t…’       Harry opened his eyes.       Someone had removed his glasses from his nose—and thank Merlin, since sleeping in glasses was actually just dreadful. Someone had also wrapped him in the bedspread—you could say not so much ‘wrapped’ as ‘swaddled,’ turning him into something between a mummy and a caterpillar in a cocoon. The combination of care and mockery would have unmistakably suggested to Harry who this someone was—if only Harry hadn’t known anyway.       ‘Salazar save us all, and this is your heir,’ the ‘someone’ commented lovingly from the direction of the headboard, obviously enjoying how Harry writhed, untangling himself from the bedspread, which proved more difficult than one might have thought. ‘Get up and make yourself presentable. I need more books.’       The glasses were found on the windowsill. The book Harry had been reading before falling asleep had disappeared, but looking around, Harry discovered it on the table, in a pile of others, bookmarked in several places with narrow strips of parchment. While Harry slept, Tom had evidently not wasted time—two other history books had also acquired bookmarks, and the written sheets of parchment now represented a stack a quarter of an inch thick. It seemed that speed did mean reading after all. Harry remembered his early hypotheses—a mutant with superintelligence or a computer—and wrinkled his nose. A mutant and a computer, undoubtedly.       Having gathered himself under Tom’s mocking commentary—he promised to help Harry learn some household charms from the manual Between Us Witches—Harry went downstairs, once again exchanged bows with the barman and hurried on a raid to the bookshop. Tom strode ahead, Trunk trotted behind, and altogether this really did remind Harry of some armed detachment or a nobleman’s retinue. They passed through the enchanted archway—Harry had long since learned to go through it himself, there really was nothing difficult about it at all—and emerged onto the cobblestones of Diagon Alley.       ‘Nothing has changed here at all,’ Tom remarked in a strange tone, and Harry pricked up his ears, but no further commentary followed.       They purposefully stormed into Flourish and Blotts, grabbed another couple of dozen volumes on history—rather, Harry grabbed them while Tom indicated which to take—and several others that Harry had been eyeing earlier but had decided to postpone purchasing. Trunk accepted its new burden, and all three headed back to the Leaky Cauldron.       There Harry unloaded what already resembled a small library onto the table and left Tom to study the haul, whilst he himself went downstairs in search of some sort of sustenance. Having swallowed an unappetising lunch that corresponded more in time to either afternoon tea or early dinner, he returned to his room. Tom seemed not to have noticed his brief absence at all, and Harry made a mental note to study how far he could move away from his diary without feeling discomfort. However, even if he forgot, Tom would surely be interested in this question too.       Harry smoothed out the crumpled bedspread, a witness to his recent shame, dragged The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi—actually this was a textbook, but it looked terribly tempting—as well as everything else he wanted to at least glance through today onto the bed, and settled comfortably in this book nest, anticipating a good evening. But he wasn’t allowed to read for long.       Heavy footsteps creaked along the corridor. Harry paid them no attention—he wasn’t the only guest, someone was constantly walking about outside the door, even in the depths of night; but these particular footsteps stopped opposite his door, followed by a powerful blow that tore the latch bodily from the doorframe. In the doorway rose a figure in a billowing black cloak. It reeked of alcohol. The room filled with a low, velvety, bloodthirsty roar—this is how a panther would speak if it possessed a human voice, ‘Pooooottterrrrr!’       This sudden apparition caught Harry off guard; to his shame, he cried out in fright and surprise.       Only after he had already jumped to his feet did he recognise with amazement in the uninvited guest the hook-nosed professor—what was it he taught again? Potions, it seemed… hmm, and his distillation cube was clearly not idle—with whom they’d immediately quarrelled when he’d arrived to give Harry the key to the bank vault. This unexpected discovery floored him, in the literal sense—the mattress sprang, one of Harry’s legs caught on the other, he crashed onto all fours and tumbled off the bed.       His wand fell from his sleeve. No, it didn’t fall—it was pulled out; following it with his gaze, Harry saw it glide across the rush-covered floor towards Tom, who stood with a concentrated face by the fireplace.       ‘Knock him out with the potion,’ Tom commanded loudly and clearly, dropping to one knee. His fingers touched the wand’s handle.       Probably Harry should have asked ‘what?’ or ‘why?’—but everything happened so suddenly that he simply obeyed. The potion still lay in the left pocket of his trousers. He rose, genuinely swaying—the fall had been quite hard—and stepped forward, as if trying to recover his balance, whilst at the same time slipping his hand into his pocket, feeling for the phial.       ‘He’s drunk, apparently—that’s good,’ Harry thought so quickly and so coolly that he would have been surprised at himself, but there was no time for surprise. ‘If only I could distract him with something. I could try to talk him round. Yes, exactly, and his name was…’       ‘Professor Snape!’ Harry bleated, employing all his acting talent. His forearm tensed in readiness, his fingers clenched around the rubber bulb. ‘What are you doing here?’       And on the word ‘doing’ he whipped out the phial and sprayed the Confusing Concoction right into the face of the man who would be his teacher for the next seven years. But there was no time to be horrified by this deed either. Harry leapt back to the window. The professor crossed his eyes to his nose, sadly twisted his mouth, and began to sway.       Tom, with Harry’s wand in his hand, went round behind him and slammed the door shut.       ‘Stand there. Wait. Silently,’ he instructed tersely and turned to the professor, pointing the wand at his face. ‘Obliviate!’       A whole eternity passed—in reality, probably several minutes, but they seemed incredibly long to Harry. Then the wand lowered. Snape straightened, his face smoothed and acquired a calm, even somehow peaceful expression. He turned round, no longer swaying, and walked out. The door opened and closed again behind him, its latch hanging on a single nail, making a pitiful clinking sound. Tom traced something quick and casual with the wand tip.       ‘Reparo!’ he said, and the latch fell into place—good as new.       ‘That’s all.’ Tom spun the wand in his fingers and smiled unexpectedly. ‘It’s all over, Harry, unfreeze, it’s safe now.’       ‘You wiped his memory!’ Harry guessed. ‘Blimey, that’s clever. And, er… how far back?’       ‘Correct,’ Tom agreed, still playing with the wand; it seemed to give him pleasure simply to touch it. ‘I wiped everything up to the moment when he gave you the key. He won’t remember that he brought you here, and his visit today—either. Fortunately, he seems already to have told someone that that’s how it was. But I didn’t go deeper and work out what was what there. He’ll have a gap in his memory anyway, and if it comes out too long—anyone would be suspicious, let alone an experienced mind-mage. And this man is just that. His Occlumency barriers are impressive—I could barely get through them, even with the potion.’       ‘And if it hadn’t worked?’ Harry asked in horror, having only just managed to rejoice at the thought that attacking a teacher wouldn’t become his calling card at Hogwarts.       Tom favoured him with a condescending look.       ‘But it had.’       ‘Well yes, after all you’re Salazar’s heir, and it would be strange to expect less of you,’ Harry couldn’t resist the sarcasm. He vengefully used the exact same argument that Tom had used when teaching Harry the Stupefy spell. Tom saluted him with the wand.       ‘Exactly.’ He seemed not to notice the irony at all; or perhaps—preferred to ignore it. Harry sighed.       ‘The wand,’ he requested, extending his hand. ‘Please, give it back. Actually, I wouldn’t mind doing something about this. You should have your own—is that possible?’       Tom returned the wand to him with some reluctance, as it seemed to Harry, but without objections—as before, handle first.       ‘I’m working on it,’ he answered vaguely. ‘In general—yes, it’s possible.’       ‘Interesting,’ Harry mused, putting the wand up his sleeve. ‘And when you’re invisible, will it be visible? What a strange sight that must be.’       ‘It won’t be,’ Tom shook his head. ‘The principle of unity of parts and the whole operates here. Animagi, for instance. Their clothes and wands remain with them, just as worn amulets do—all of this transforms as a whole when transitioning to animal form, and transforms back in exactly the same way. It would be amusing if they had to disentangle their heads from sleeves or, worse still, change into torn trousers every single time. Not to mention the wand—they’d probably carry it in their teeth, claws, and beaks then.’       Harry giggled.       ‘But fortunately, nothing of the sort happens. My wand will be visible or invisible together with me, as long as I’m holding it in my hand.’       Harry thought. Tom walked about the room, straightened his robe and sat down at the table again. Guessing that he would now dive into another book, Harry asked, ‘So we need to buy you a wand?’       ‘No,’ Tom replied without raising his head; he was sorting through his notes. ‘I already have a wand. And I even have an idea where to look for it now.’       ‘But the other you—isn’t it with him?’ Harry was confused, but then understood. ‘Oh. The other you is dead. You know this for certain now, don’t you?’       ‘Exactly right.’ Tom looked up at him. ‘I don’t know what to feel about it, but now I’m completely certain.’       ‘Found it in one of these books?’ Harry was surprised, but not greatly. Tom should have grown up to be a powerful wizard.       ‘One day,’ Harry decided conceitedly, ‘my name will be in a book too.’ Then he remembered that it already was. Even in more than one. The thought wasn’t terribly cheerful—he wanted real fame, the fame of an unsurpassed spellcaster, not… this.       ‘Cool,’ he smiled, driving away sad thoughts, ‘show me later which one.’       ‘Language,’ Tom said, frowning. Harry rolled his eyes in suffering.       ‘Yes, yes, I know. Sorry. By Salazar’s name, show me later where you found him! Will that do?’       ‘Quite,’ Tom smiled back at him. ‘Yes, Harry. I’ll certainly show you.’       Satisfied with this answer, Harry returned to his books.       They sat up late. When dusk thickened, Harry was about to light a candle, but Tom snorted—and showed him the Lumos spell. First the simple version, which lit a light at the wand tip, then—the enhanced one, where instead of a light there was a whole searchlight, and finally—variations creating coloured lights and many freely floating orbs of light dancing in the air like fireflies. By their magical radiance, they peacefully read until midnight struck—a dull, measured chiming had reached them from time to time from the direction of the window before, and Harry had involuntarily wondered where it came from—surely not a church lurking somewhere here. ‘Those are the clocks on Gringotts,’ Tom explained, looking up from his studies for a second.       It was surprisingly pleasant to be near him. When the only means of communication had been writing in the diary, Harry simply couldn’t stop, and they would talk and talk, for hours. Now the need for words seemed to have disappeared—not completely, of course, but Harry no longer needed to chatter with Tom; his presence alone seemed enough.       But the midnight chiming gave Harry a new thought.       ‘It’s my birthday,’ he said, setting aside Ghost Animals of Britain and stretching luxuriously. ‘It’s just begun.’       Tom propped his head on his hand.       ‘Happy birthday?’ he suggested. ‘I don’t know what one’s supposed to do. They didn’t celebrate them at the orphanage. Besides, mine’s New Year’s Eve, so it gets lost in all the other celebrations.’       ‘I know,’ Harry pulled his knees to his chest and hugged them. ‘But I’ve never celebrated either. My Muggles… I don’t even want to tell you about it.’       ‘Don’t continue—I understand.’ Tom shook his head. The curling strand of hair, as always, fell over his forehead, eyes glinted from beneath it, and now, sitting at the table surrounded by books in the scattered dim light that stole shadows, he looked alive, so alive—and it was so hurtful to know this wasn’t true.       ‘But I’d like to try,’ Harry rested his chin on his knees and sighed.       ‘As you wish,’ Tom agreed easily. ‘What do you want to do?’       Harry didn’t think long.       ‘Visit the house where I was born. And where I lived when I was very small,’ he announced decisively. ‘I don’t remember anything at all, but there was a time once… I don’t love my parents, you know. You’re supposed to love them, but I’m too angry. And I never knew them at all, and still don’t. Anyway… I think I don’t understand myself what I want to say,’ he finished confusedly.       ‘The house in Godric’s Hollow? Why not?’ Tom sat up straighter and interlaced the fingers of both hands under his chin. ‘An excellent idea. Frankly, I’d be interested in looking at it. After all, it’s a historic place.’       Harry groaned angrily, ‘Don’t you start!’       ‘I’m sure you have a monument there too,’ Tom teased. ‘Very well. Shall we go there in the morning?’       Harry glanced at the window. The moon, still almost full but already waning at the edge, crept over the rooftops of Diagon Alley, and in the sky, not bleached by Muggle lights, stars sparkled like bright, sharp sparks.       ‘I want to go now. Right now. May I?’       ‘Are you asking my permission?’ Tom seemed almost surprised. Harry thought that this flattered him.       ‘You were a prefect at Hogwarts,’ he teased in return. ‘And anyway, you’re older.’       ‘Gratifying that you still remember that,’ Tom said sarcastically, rising. ‘But we’re not at Hogwarts yet. If you’ve decided—don’t delay. Will you travel by Floo?’       Inspired, Harry got up from the bed, put on his shoes and took his cloak from the nail hammered into the wall.       ‘How else? I don’t know how to Apparate yet. Or do you have enough strength for two?’       Tom shook his head and smirked, ‘Not the slightest desire to test it. The result could be… like mincemeat.’       The innkeeper, who was passing the time by doing a crossword, watched as latecomers nursed their pints and helped themselves to free peanuts. He looked up at Harry.       ‘Sir?’ he asked, surprised.       ‘Sir! Do you happen to know whether there’s a public fireplace in Godric’s Hollow?’       There was a fireplace—also in a drinking establishment. Harry, using such transport for the first time, was nervous, but Tom (his Tom, not the barman, damn these identical names) prompted him on how to act.       ‘There’s Floo powder in the pot. Scoop up a pinch. No, that’s too little. Now that’s enough. You throw it in the fire and say the fireplace address aloud. Speak clearly and distinctly, or it’ll dump you Merlin knows where. Go!’       ‘The Star and Hops!’ Harry said as clearly and distinctly as he could, stepping into the green flames that had leapt high. He was whirled, spun, as if on a maddened carousel. Fireplace grates flashed past, flashes of green swirled from all sides like a blizzard whirlwind, but not cold, not hot—nothing at all. And suddenly he was ejected headfirst through one of the grates and landed on the floor, hitting his knees painfully, and was covered all over with soot. A second later Tom appeared beside him too—in perfect order, as far as Harry could judge by his appearance. Harry clumsily got up, brushing himself down, and looked around.       The pub on this side turned out to be quite tiny: only four tables—whitewashed walls, a red wood bar, a blackened plank ceiling, and wrought-iron decorations on the walls. It felt like a locals’ place.       He quickly greeted the innkeeper, a stout, blonde witch in a dark blue robe, and went out, followed by the gazes of the patrons—all four tables were occupied. At one they were playing cards; at the others, drinking beer and eating something like very thick soup.       Primeval darkness reigned in the street—not a single lamp, only the same moon shining from the sky. A long double row of houses with pointed roofs and tall chimney stacks stretched as far as the eye could see—the settlement turned out to be larger than Harry had thought. He walked slowly forward, looking about constantly, then finally got out his wand and managed to cast Lumos on the third try—he could be proud of himself; now he knew a whole two spells. Three, if you counted Finite. Much more to come.       His wanderings were brief. Harry froze before a sagging gate. The hedge had grown out of control—what would Aunt Petunia say when she saw such a disgraceful sight? —and had completely lost its shape. The grass on the former lawn had grown waist-high. Ivy, like a shaggy dark carpet, covered the cracked walls. Nature was imperiously claiming its rights here—the house looked wild, grim, abandoned—which it was, essentially. Above Harry’s head, brushing his hair with its wing, a bat flashed by. Somewhere in the darkness an owl hooted with laughter, another answered with its thoughtful ‘hoo-hoo.’       ‘Yes,’ said Harry, having seen enough. ‘Quite a monument. I rather like it.’       Tom whistled grimly behind him.       Instead of half the first floor gaped a hole. No, not even a hole—a huge, gaping chasm, as if from a direct hit by an artillery shell. The roof had partially collapsed—apparently the snows and rains that had penetrated inside hadn’t been merciful to the beams and rafters. Windows gaped with the absence of glass. The door was blackened with rot.       However, a memorial plaque with a copper lustre gleamed on the entrance gate, which was grey with wood mould and flakes of peeled paint. Harry lowered his eyes and read what was written there.       ‘On this spot, on the night of 31 October 1981, Lily and James Potter gave their lives. Their son, Harry, remains the only wizard to have survived the Killing Curse. This house, invisible to Muggles, has been left in its ruined state as a monument to the Potters and as a reminder of the violence that tore their family apart.’       The edges of the plaque and all the space under the inscription were covered with graffiti.       ‘Long live Harry Potter’       ‘If you’re reading this, Harry, we all support you!’       ‘Good luck, Harry, wherever you are’       ‘Thank you, Harry!’       ‘I love Harry Potter’       ‘Mordred take you, bloody morons! Tom, how do you say “shove such love up your arse” in a non-Muggle way?’       ‘You can put it just like that. That body part is the same for Muggles and wizards.’       The path had grown over and long since merged with the lawn, its presence betrayed only by the crunch of gravel hiding in the tufts of grass. When Harry reached the porch, his shoes were completely wet from the night dew, which did nothing to improve his mood.       The door, swollen from countless rains, didn’t want to budge, but finally opened with a strained nasty creak—not completely, about a quarter of the way, but Harry was thin, and it was enough for him to slip through into the hall. Inside the picture was even more depressing—a mildewed ceiling, peeling, darkened wallpaper. Half-collapsed furniture lurked in one corner, while elsewhere it remained intact. Every cupboard resembled a coffin, every little table—a tombstone.       ‘The bedrooms should be upstairs,’ Tom remarked, turning his head. His hands were idly shoved into his robe pockets, like a visitor in a museum.       Harry followed him, carefully stepping on the warped stairs. The staircase groaned and shook as if about to collapse right under his feet, but he still managed to reach the first floor safely. The door to the room without a ceiling was open. The starry sky sparkling overhead made it somewhat fairy-tale-like, though actually it was horrific. This was a nursery.       Almost nothing had survived here—fragments, scraps, complete mess. Only by the far wall stood a little cot—half the bars in its high railing were missing, but still, undoubtedly, this was it. Above the cot on the wall hung an alphabet, once probably cheerful and colourful. Harry didn’t remember it at all.       Neither it, nor the cot, nor the room—everything was unfamiliar, as if from someone else’s life. But it was his life. Harry felt… disappointed, probably. He couldn’t have said exactly himself.       Tom, who had followed him into the ruined nursery, for some reason circled around the cot, looked into corners, rummaged through debris on the floor—and suddenly, bending down, picked something up.       ‘And here it is,’ he said; his voice sounded very strange.       ‘Hm?’ Harry tore himself away from examining the cot.       ‘Have you ever wondered,’ Tom asked, turning some thin, long object in his fingers, ‘exactly how a wand chooses a wizard? There must be some affinity between its core and your magic. That’s precisely why casting spells with someone else’s wand is so exhaustingly difficult, sometimes even impossible—there’s no compatibility. But there are exceptions too.’       ‘What are you getting at now?’ Harry didn’t understand. Tom was periodically seized by the desire to give him a spontaneous lecture, of course, but this time it was rather unexpected.       ‘You’re still rather thick,’ Tom noted tenderly. ‘I wasn’t wrong about that from the start. I’ve been waiting and waiting—for you to guess, but you’re still not even close, are you?’       Harry listened to him with growing amazement. Humiliation sessions were quite in Tom’s spirit too, but usually they were followed by explanations.       They followed now as well.       ‘I,’ said Tom, ‘can use your wand. Easily, as if it were my own. What do you think that means?’       Harry pondered his previous words.       ‘That there’s affinity… well, with magic. Hey, wait, that really is interesting!’       Tom smirked—in the half-darkness his teeth gleamed wetly.       ‘Really,’ he repeated, savouring every syllable. ‘What wand do you have, Harry? You must remember—it can’t be that Ollivander didn’t mention it.’       ‘Holly and phoenix feather,’ Harry reported. ‘And yours?’       ‘Yew. And phoenix feather. Come now, you’re so close. Still haven’t guessed? Very well. There are wands—this is rare, an exception rather than the rule, but still they exist—which are customarily called sisters. And what makes them so is the…’       ‘Co… re…’ Harry mumbled slowly, as if in a dream. Something stirred in his memory, something he’d heard about these very cores. And there was something about phoenix feathers there too. In his brain a memory flashed—the bony finger of the white-eyed old man pressing into his forehead, right into his scar.       And suddenly he understood.       ‘Ah,’ said Tom, who had been watching him attentively, ‘finally.’       That thing in his hands, this thin long object that he was so lovingly fingering, was a wand. Tom raised it and briefly traced glowing red letters in the air:       ‘Tom Marvolo Riddle’.       And then the letters flickered and rearranged themselves in a new order:       ‘I am Lord Voldemort’.