Game On, Your Move

Chapter 1: Grapevine

It began, as trouble was wont to do, with too many Firewhiskey shots in the Gryffindor common room. Ignatius Prewett maintained a healthy supply in the seventh-year boys' dormitory, despite the fact that most Gryffindors were complete lightweights. With Albus Dumbledore too distracted by the ongoing war in Europe to discipline his house, weekend parties had become a common occurrence.

Tom never bothered attending, preoccupied as he was with more productive pursuits like Horcrux research and secret chamber hunting. However, Abraxas enjoyed flexing his popularity with the other houses, and few things delighted him more than a flirtatious glance from a pretty pure-blood witch. Honestly, Tom sometimes questioned Abraxas' membership in the Knights of Walpurgis, but always reminded himself that wealthy and well-connected pure-bloods were assets, no matter how vapid they might be.

Today was an exception: Abraxas would attend the party on a mission. A new transfer student had shown up last Sunday and been Sorted privately into Gryffindor. Much enigma surrounded the true identity of Harry Evans. Transfer students were already a rarity at Hogwarts; the last documented one came from Beauxbatons during the eighteenth century to escape the French Revolution. Transfer students who showed up at the beginning of May, with fewer than two months remaining in the school term, were illogical.

Of course, Tom had some theories of his own. The frontrunner was that Evans, given his dark hair and facial structure, was a newly legitimized Potter bastard child. Then again, that didn't explain why he didn't adopt the Potter surname, or why the Potters enrolled him at Hogwarts as a seventh-year rather than hire private tutors.

A more exciting theory was that Evans was a spy for Gellert Grindelwald tasked with infiltrating Hogwarts. On the other hand, Tom had trouble believing that Grindelwald would entrust such a mission to a no-name Muggle-born, particularly one who would live right under Dumbledore's nose.

Or there was nothing to theorize at all, and Evans was just as boring as the rest of the school. Another person fortunate enough to be blessed with magic, yet utterly unworthy of mastering it.

Whatever the case might be, Tom needed to find out to decide whether he should expend effort befriending and recruiting Evans. After all, there was only room among his Knights for the best or the most useful.

"I want to know everything about him," Tom had commanded. "Who he is, what he knows, and more importantly, why he's here."

"I will not fail you, my Lord," promised Abraxas.

That exchange had been two hours ago, and Abraxas had yet to report back. Tom tapped his quill against his Potions essay. What was taking him so long? Had he succumbed to the wiles of yet another witch before completing his mission?

Impatience spilling over, Tom grabbed his two-way parchment, an invention of which he was rather proud. Until he found a way to physically brand his Knights, everyone carried a clone of the parchment so they could communicate with Tom at a moment's notice.

Abraxas, he wrote, any update?

The ink seeped into the parchment and disappeared, signaling its reception on the other end. If Abraxas came back to the Slytherin common room drunk and empty-handed, Tom had a human subject for a new hex he wanted to test out.

Fortunately for Abraxas, an answering buzz came from the parchment. Tom squinted at the response. For a member of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, Abraxas had the most atrocious handwriting. Inebriation certainly did not improve matters.

Be on guard, my Lord, he seemed to have written, the new transfer student intends to kiss you.

Tom stared at and reread the words multiple times. Harry Evans wanted to...kiss him? Why? They'd had exactly zero interactions since Evans' arrival, being in neither the same house nor the same year. Tom was surprised that Evans even knew who he was.