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Dark Lord Lesson 1: A Noble Title
I think you should come up with a name, Tom wrote one day, his curved script a sharp black against the parchment of the diary. A private name or title to call yourself. You are of the Potter family, after all.
From within the diary, he remembered coming up with his own name: Lord Voldemort. It had been a revelation to discover that many wizards and witches today didn’t dare say his name out loud, that many people feared his older counterpart that much.
Like how my dad called himself Prongs, Harry wrote back. And Sirius is Padfoot.
Tom tamped down an urge like a sigh, which would have rustled the diary’s pages.
Yes, Tom wrote. Something like that. There’s a spell that you can use. Write your full name on a page in my diary, point your wand at it, and say, “Anagrammus.”
I could keep up tradition and see if I could come up with something based on my Animagus form. But I’m not an Animagus now. I wonder if I could ask Sirius
Try the spell, Harry.
Tom waited. Harry James Potter curled across the parchment, and possibilities unfurled--
...Pyjamas the Terror
The Temporary Jars
Therapy Jam Resort
Harem Ray Jetports
Jasper Artery Moth…
That one, Tom scribbled in the margins, underlining the last one confidently. It had the right Dark feeling to it.
I’m not calling myself Jasper Artery Moth, Harry wrote flatly.
Tom internally frowned. Why not?
It sounds like a heavy metal album that Dudley would sneak home and my aunt would throw a fit over.
Ugh, Muggles.
It’s a workable name, Tom insisted.
No, it’s not. Who came up with the idea of moving around the letters of your real name to come up with a fake name anyway? You would get really funny results, and you’re limiting yourself. If Zabini tried this spell, I bet he wouldn’t have a lot of options. Or if you’re Dumbledore and you had his long Albus Wolf Percy Brian Dumbledore name, you’d have too many options.
Tom was a diary, but he thought he could feel a headache coming on. Maybe he should have started somewhere easier, like getting Harry to distrust Dumbledore.
It is a neat trick, Harry continued, in an apparent attempt to placate Tom. Fred and George would get a kick out of it, I expect.
Later that evening, Harry announced with a flourish of his quill across Tom’s pages that Fred and George Weasley had made anagram name tags for everyone in the school. The professors were still trying to figure out how to Unstick the Sticking Charm that made the name tags cling to their robes.
Harry’s name tag said Hamster Jar Poetry. He was currently delighting in the fact that Draco Malfoy’s name tag said Lacy Florida Mucous.
Perhaps you could call yourself Harrison or Hadrian, Tom suggested.
Harry isn’t supposed to be short for anything, Harry wrote, baffled. It’s just Harry. ‘Hadrian’ sounds like I’m Malfoy’s brother. ‘Harrison’ sounds like that American actor.
Perhaps you could call yourself, Tom started, and gave up. Never mind.
Dark Lord Lesson 2: A Deadly Familiar
The Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets was certainly out of the question because when it came down to it, Tom didn’t like to share. But Harry, with his inherited gift of Parseltongue, could seek out a snake for himself.
There are many snakes in the Forbidden Forest, Tom said. You have to sneak out to the forest during a night of the new moon. Then, you must hiss out to the snakes and see who answers your call.
He drew a rough diagram of a clearing where he had once performed this ritual. He had replicated a ritual that Salazar Slytherin himself had once performed centuries ago, calling upon snakes to defend Hogwarts.
Depending on which scholar you consulted, Slytherin had either fended off angry witch-burning Muggles or a rat infestation with the help of the Forbidden Forest’s snakes. Tom preferred the first interpretation.
(He was, of course, wrong. It was a rat infestation because Rowena Ravenclaw used them for her experiments. A fertility charm had gone horrendously wrong. As a result, she was barred from ever using rats in experiments again on Hogwarts grounds. That pleased Godric Gryffindor greatly, for he had a soft spot for animals and didn’t approve of experimentation--for context, he was basically medieval Newt Scamander with a sword and muscles--but the rule made Ravenclaw angry and she refused to talk to the other Founders for weeks until they agreed to help construct an off-site research laboratory for her. Two weeks later, the newly built laboratory suffered another freak rat accident.)
A night of the new moon? Harry wrote back. That seems inconvenient. Do snakes operate like reverse werewolves?
It’s a ritual. That’s what the books say.
I don’t need a familiar, Tom, I have Hedwig.
Tom wanted to start sucking out Harry’s soul right now, but unfortunately Harry was his inadvertent Horcrux and immune to the process. There are means of influence other than violence, he reminded himself. He merely had to keep urging Harry.
Maybe the snake itself would even have the common sense to help urge Harry toward darker paths.
Harry didn’t take the diary with him when he left for the Forbidden Forest. It was because he knew Tom wouldn’t approve of him departing at noon to stand at the boundaries of the Forbidden Forest by Hagrid’s hut, with Hermione and Ron accompanying him.
He came back with a turtle.
What in Mordred’s name, Tom wrote.
Snakes didn’t come when I called, Harry wrote defensively. There was this little bloke who needed some help. His shell got cracked by a bird.
Did you go to the Forbidden Forest on a night of the new moon to the clearing that I drew you a map of?
...Yes?
You did not, Tom wrote. What kind of familiar do you expect it to be? Potter, Parseltongue speakers cannot speak to turtles.
I can too, Harry wrote back. Turtles are reptiles, and I think I can make out some things he’s saying. Hermione said that it’s like if you’re French and you’re able to make out words in Spanish because they’re both Romantic Languages. I can technically become a Turtlemouth if I learn.
Romance languages, Tom corrected. There is no such such thing as a Turtlemouth.
The-Latin-word-for-turtle-mouth.
Harry was very much misunderstanding the etymology, but Tom stopped himself from delivering a lecture. Instead, he resolved that perhaps the turtle would do.
Maybe it was a Dark turtle of some sort.
It was not a Dark turtle. He was an ordinary turtle who liked to eat, sleep, and crawl.
Harry named him Leonardo-- After the Muggle inventor and artist? / No, after the cartoon Dudley used to watch-- and Harry began to tentatively learn how to speak turtle with surprising speed.
Leonardo got on very well with Hedwig, which was a good thing because a snake probably wouldn’t have.
Dark Lord Lesson 3: A Magical Inheritance
The Potters were a Pureblood family, and although they had modern stances on blood politics, they had intermarried with traditional Dark families across the map.
Ask for permission to go to Gringotts for your upcoming Christmas break, Tom told Harry.
After Harry scrawled a confused why? , Tom informed him about the potential of the Potter vault. He guessed that Harry must have only gone there for galleons and sickles and knuts, but there was likely a cache of family artifacts that might have sentimental value.
Tom didn’t mention the part where he was hoping that there were certain Dark magical artifacts, of course. Dark magical artifacts that could corrupt and tempt a young teenage wizard.
I never thought there would be anything else there, Harry wrote. I suppose I’d like to learn more about my family.
Tom did his best to convey an air of nonchalance. It didn’t occur to me until now to think much of your heritage, considering how much you talk about your Muggle relatives.
I know they would probably like to get their hands on all that gold if they knew about it, Harry wrote. Tom, I know you’re a diary and can’t give me a proper Christmas gift, but I’m taking this as one. Thanks, mate.
I didn’t originally think about it that way, but make of it what you will. Happy early Christmas. Tom felt smug.
That night before Harry left for Gringotts, Tom managed to leach some life force off of that dreadful cat owned by that Squib caretaker. He could conjure himself into an invisible ghostly form.
He wanted to see the Potter vault for himself.
To Tom’s annoyance, Harry couldn’t go to Diagon Alley alone. Dumbledore had given Harry permission, but only if his godfather Sirius Black could accompany him.
They were an unlikely group--Harry, with Leonardo the turtle perched on his shoulder, occasionally muttering something in the language he stubbornly persisted in calling Turtletongue; Tom, the invisible ghost tied to the diary in Harry’s robe pocket; and Sirius Black, escaped convict in the form of a large dog.
When they entered the vault, the goblin leaving them alone to wander the rows of gold and silver and bronze, Sirius shifted back to his human form.
“I’ve never been in here before,” Sirius said, peering around the room. “Smaller than the Black family vaults. Cosy.” He let out a wry bark like laugh.
Tom drifted, determined to comb the vault from top to bottom. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be much of a presence of objects other than coins.
An old bookshelf caught his eye, but the book titles were things like The Adventures of Winifred the Witch: A Children’s Story, The Days with You a Dream: Ilvermony Student Poetry from the Class of 1926, or alarmingly, Kama Sutra for Wizards and Witches.
Harry and Sirius didn’t seem like they were having much luck, either. Harry found some old letter openers emblazoned with the Potter crest, and Sirius found a stuffed griffin head that was animated to blink, turn its head, and open its beak. It was disconcerting to look at.
“I think I remember him,” Sirius said to Harry, nodding toward the griffin head. “Your great aunt Dorea thought he was funny, but she and Charlus probably stashed him in here when they realised that he was too creepy.”
There wasn’t a sword or dagger or staff or wand in sight. Not even any probable magical jewelry or accessories, either.
The thing about the Potters, you see, was that they were an immensely practical family. Besides gold, their heritage came down to two things: the Invisibility Cloak (which Harry already had) and their knack for medicinal or herbal knowledge, passed down through home remedies and oral tradition from parent to child. You can’t really keep plants or potions in a vault, and the sad thing is that the talent had lessened and pretty much died off in recent generations.
If James Potter had been alive, he probably would have taught Harry some basics he dimly remembered about herbal gardening, with Lily filling the blanks for potions.
Luckily, Harry did find something that you could keep in a vault, after all.
He found a box of Sleekeazy’s Hair Potion. Hair products rarely expire, especially if they’re well preserved in a magical vault.
“Hermione used this for the Yule Ball,” Harry said, reading the label that boasted that ‘Two drops tames even the most bothersome barnet.’ “Er. I suppose that my ancestors liked it, too. Or didn’t like it, if they meant to stash it away like the griffin head.”
Sirius picked up a can and he grinned. “Your granddad invented this stuff, actually. Sold the company when he retired. So many of my yearmates at Hogwarts used to swear by it--except the Prewetts, of course, because this potion works oddly with redheads. Fabian and Gideon were half-bald for days until they found the right combination of hair growth potions. James snuck photographs of them and left the flyers all over the Hogwarts grounds. We were engaged in a prank war vendetta with the Prewetts for weeks.”
Harry laughed. He picked up a can, too, turning it over in his hands, and he haltingly repeated the story back to Leonardo in a series of hissing clicks.
Sirius looked at Harry with a warm smile, then said, “I almost forgot--Sleekeazy’s never worked on Potter hair. Never. Your family’s hair can’t be tamed. It just can’t be done.
“No matter how much your granddad slathered it on his own hair or James’ when he was a kid--it would still flop up.”
Crazy, ridiculous Potter hair. Harry ran a hand through his, and he thought of the family members he had seen in the Mirror of Erised.
Tom, floating nearby and invisible, listened to the story with disinterest, but there was something that struck him, made something ugly twist in his chest. He had never had anything like this, even as a descendant of Salazar Slytherin--but it wasn’t like it was something he ever wanted, was it? Harry didn’t have a Basilisk; he wasn’t Lord Voldemort.
But nevertheless, Harry Potter walked out of Gringotts with a can of hair product tucked under his arm and he thought that this moment was worthy of a Patronus.
It was New Year’s Eve, and Tom thought of nothing in particular as hours passed by. He wasn’t thinking about Harry smiling like a fool, and he wasn’t thinking about his failed plans.
Things are changing, Tom thought. Maybe he would have to resort to more drastic measures after all.
Then he noticed a trickle of ink on a page of the diary. Harry.
Happy birthday, Tom.
Tom, despite himself, was startled. How did you know?
There’s a book in the Hogwarts library that lists some information about students who won the Special Award for Services to the School. Your birthdate was in it.
Interesting, Tom wrote back, unsure what more to say.
I tried Sleekeazy’s in my hair earlier this evening, Harry wrote in a sudden tangent. Sirius was right, it didn’t work. Me and Ron were fighting a battle to try and wash it out. I still look a right mess right now.
Tom concentrated. It took a burst of strength, the last of energy he had left from that blasted cat, but he half-formed and he could see Harry.
It was just Harry alone in the Gryffindor common room, fire blazing merrily in the fireplace. Keeping with tradition, everyone was celebrating in the Great Hall, and Harry had very obviously dashed up to wish Tom happy birthday before midnight struck.
Harry was settled on one of the armchairs with a blanket draped around him, Leonardo curled in his lap, and the diary in his hand. And he was right--his hair was a mess, still shiny from the remnant of the hair product, still wild as ever.
Things are changing, Tom thought again, and he realised that maybe it was him after all.