Chapter Text
“So? What is your formal diagnosis?”
“Well, the curse is broken. Just in the worst way possible.”
Headmaster Tom Riddle, in jade green robes light enough for the bright summer morning, hummed. Black Lake looked very much the same as it had only a few weeks ago, but even he, who’d never been formally trained in cursebreaking, could sense a difference in how it felt. Where once the magic rippled smoothly with the surface, it now snapped and snarled, almost boiling. It felt dangerous in the same way a heap of shrapnel left behind after an explosion felt dangerous, all jagged metal and broken glass. On balance, it didn’t seem like an improvement.
“It used to melt flesh and boil blood but now it’s…shall we say, less predictable.”
“Have you done any experimentation?”
“A bit. Not with anything alive, of course. But the house-elves donated a few raw chickens and let it suffice to say that melting flesh and boiling blood would have been an improvement.”
Riddle tried briefly to imagine what could be worse than the original curse on the Lake, then stopped when he decided it was not a productive use of time.
“What’s your professional recommendation, then?”
When he looked over, Bill Weasley was ruffling a hand through his hair and frowning.
“I don’t know. Build a dam, drain the bloody thing? But even then…”
Riddle hummed.
“Listen, Headmaster, I know the Lake was cursed before my time, but it wasn’t long before my time. I met people who were there when…when he…”
“Yes. He made quite an impression.”
“If he had a way he intended for the curse to be lifted,” Weasley continued, “then I really think the only way to fix the Lake permanently is to work backwards from that. With the magic fractured this badly, even the intended route may not work correctly, but it’s the only safe place to start. If you have a way to contact him…”
“I don’t.”
“Really? Not even you?” Weasley shifted nervously from foot to foot. “I guess I sort of assumed that, since he was Smokevigil…”
Riddle shook his head. “To be honest, Weasley, I can’t even confirm if he’s alive or dead.”
They both fell silent for a moment, staring out across the Lake. Perhaps it was Riddle’s imagination, but he thought he saw, just for a moment, a long tentacle briefly break the surface of the water before vanishing again into the depths. He’d seen the Giant Squid before, only once, when the man who would later become his husband insisted they feed it toast together. He wondered if it was still in good health.
“Well,” Weasley eventually continued, “Abigail altered the protective ward around it. They go all the way to the ground this time.”
Riddle almost smirked.
“And they’re also heftier. It’s not a permanent solution, but it’ll stop students from getting too close.”
“I appreciate it.”
“There are a few specialist cursebreakers I can recommend who might be able to help with the curse as it is now, but they’ll cost an arm and a leg, and honestly, when it’s this badly fractured, they don’t even guarantee successful removal.”
“Well, owl me their contact information regardless, when you have the time,” Riddle said. “Putting this sort of thing under a bubble will only keep for so long.”
“Of course. And do let me know if anything changes. I imagine I’ll be back in Egypt soon and unable to do much, but Hogwarts was my home for seven years. I’d like to know how it is.”
Riddle nodded. In general, he’d never been able to entirely shake the sense of confusion when people talked about things they loved, but with Hogwarts specifically, he understood. This castle, these grounds, the institution itself, was one of two things in Tom Riddle’s world that he loved completely.
And as it happened, the other approached him just as Bill Weasley departed.
“Still no luck?” he guessed.
Riddle sighed heavily. “Draining the Lake would be bad, right? Unethical?”
Hagrid paused. When Riddle looked over at him, his brow was furrowed in confusion.
“Drainin’ the…?”
“To remove the curse,” Riddle explained. “Building a dam to drain the Lake would be…bad.”
“Yeah,” Hagrid said slowly, “that’d be bad. Yeh’d be killin’ all the merfolk, fer a start, the grindylows, the Giant Squid…”
“Right, yes. Unethical.” Riddle was better, these days, at knowing right from wrong, but he was still glad he had Hagrid around to keep him in check. “Murder is bad.”
“We’ll see it fixed one day,” Hagrid assured him, laying one large hand on Riddle’s back. Unthinking, Riddle leaned into the warmth of it, and they stood together for a while in silence, watching the sunlight shimmer on the water’s surface.
After a time, Hagrid asked, “So, do I finally get ter know where we’re goin’ this year?”
They’d made a game, in the years since they’d married, of choosing where to celebrate their anniversary. In theory, they swapped the duty every year, picking the destination and arranging all the itinerary in secret to surprise the other—but in practice, Hagrid was terrible at secrets, and Riddle was a little too good at them, so how surprised the other actually ended up being always varied.
“Yes. Well, Headmistress Nishida Hideki invited me to Mahoutokoro this summer for a cultural exchange—comparing courses, student work loads, that kind of thing—and so I thought I’d do that for a few days, then head north with you to spend the rest of the month in Hokkaido.”
“Ooh, Hokkaido.” Hagrid’s eyes all but glimmered with excitement. “Yeh know, ice dragons live ’round Mount Asahi, or that’s what I’ve heard, at least…”
Riddle chuckled. “Of course that’s what you’d be excited about.”
“An’ now that I think about it,” Hagrid continued, “there’s lots of hot springs also, aren’t there?”
Riddle’s amusement faded to warm fondness—the kind he never felt for anyone but Hagrid, and his constant reminder that love was worth all the vulnerability it required. “Quite a few, yes.”
“There are worse ways ter while away an evenin’, I bet.”
“There certainly are,” Riddle said, and leaned up when Hagrid leaned down, meeting him in a sweet, lingering kiss.
“Lookin’ forward ter it,” Hagrid rumbled, and when he started away from the Lake and back toward the castle, Riddle followed. The improved wards around the Lake would be fine for now, at least.
Besides, Draco Malfoy couldn’t possibly break the curse on Black Lake twice, right?