"Hermione, keep your mind calm and steady." Tom cleared a patch of ground and set up several targets. "Use any spell you know. I only have one request. Cast as slowly as you possibly can. Even if you're capable of casting silently, draw the process out and go through it in the most standard, complete form you can manage."
Hermione had no idea what Tom was actually researching, but she nodded seriously all the same and, after a moment's thought, started with the simplest spell she knew, the Levitation Charm.
As the girl swept her wand through the motion, Tom's vision filled with a rush of shifting light, runes and arcs of energy flickering past in sequence. In his eyes, the world around him and the girl herself dissolved into pure black and white, with only the dispersing magic remaining vivid, the single thread of color in it all.
Tom didn't call a stop, so Hermione simply kept going, holding out far longer than an ordinary witch could have thanks to the strengthening potions she'd taken over time.
"Well done, Hermione."
Surfacing from that strange, absorbed state, Tom hurried to steady her as her strength gave out, gathering the small witch into his arms.
Hermione shook her head gently. "I'm fine. I just need a little rest."
"Alright. Sleep for now. I'll stay with you."
Tom didn't offer her a revitalizing potion, letting her recover the natural way instead, better for her body in the long run.
Cradled against him, Hermione drifted off quickly, and Tom let himself sit with what he'd just learned.
Sure enough, wizards varied wildly in how they performed within that exchange. For the same spell, Hermione had to pay a steeper price to achieve the identical effect, a price paid in magic, in the intensity of emotion behind it, and in that exchange she stood at a distinct disadvantage.
He himself, by contrast, now stood close to equal footing in the transaction, and could even add extra leverage to the deal after the fact, adjusting the terms as he pleased.
That was the nature of being Century Sovereign. But what about beyond that tier?
Could someone eventually simply seize the exchange outright? Take without giving?
...seeking flowers...
His thoughts were sharpening by the moment. He looked up at the blood-red sunset and felt, quite suddenly, the urge to reach up, pluck the sun straight out of the sky, and swallow it whole.
...
Life settled into a quiet rhythm after that. With a new direction to pursue, Tom's days took on a steady shape, carving out a little time each evening to pick apart the nature of magic through Convergence of All Arts, while the bulk of his energy still went toward the Wizard's Workshop.
It was an enormous undertaking, requiring not just branch offices across every signatory nation, but a temporary headquarters in Diagon Alley as well.
Temporary, yes, deliberately so.
He felt Diagon Alley, cramped and outdated as it was, could never contain the sprawling organization he intended to eventually control the entire magical world through. It was bound to be outgrown and replaced someday regardless, so he wasn't putting much real effort into it, just enough to keep up appearances.
...
Before long, Valentine's Day arrived, falling conveniently on a weekend. Dumbledore, in an unusually generous mood, added an extra Hogsmeade weekend to the calendar, earning the gratitude of countless young witches and wizards.
Naturally, a few people were less than thrilled.
The perpetually single, for one. And also... Tom.
He despised Valentine's Day more than any other day of the year, mostly because there was no possible way to split himself into enough pieces to spend proper time with every girl in his life. Cho, Penelope, and Astoria were all considerate enough never to make demands of him, but that didn't do anything to ease his own guilt over it.
So he packed his schedule as tightly as he could manage. Early that morning, he took Cho into the Forbidden Forest to gather flowers and wove her a crown out of them. After lunch, he spent a long stretch talking business strategy with Penelope, handing her more responsibility than before.
Constant giving and protecting weren't the only ways to earn someone's deep affection. Sometimes, asking something of a person, making a demand, letting them feel genuinely needed, mattered just as much, giving them a sense of their own worth in the relationship.
Penelope was the textbook case of someone who needed to give more than she received. She wanted, more than anything, to actually contribute to Tom's ventures rather than simply being on the receiving end of his favor.
So Tom had been steadily building up her knowledge and experience in business matters, and had already handed the entire payment system over to her to manage, letting her handle negotiations with the goblins directly.
Once she graduated in a year's time, the Held Workshop and the whole sprawling commercial empire he intended to build afterward would all be hers to make her mark on, provided her skills held up to the task.
By midday, Ginny had prepared a lunch that looked... technically edible. Tom, sat through her complaints and her roommates' gossip, and finally gave her a firm swat on the backside before heading off with Astoria and Daphne to join the rest of the students in Hogsmeade.
The Three Broomsticks was hopelessly packed, and Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop had no table that seated three, so Tom settled on the Hog's Head instead. He'd already arranged things with Aberforth ahead of time, ordering a few bottles of light fruit wine so the two sisters could enjoy a drink together.
"That bastard Albus, that son of a—he's forgotten everything! He's got no right to that name Dumbledore!"
Tom's arrival finally gave Aberforth an outlet for his frustrations, and he launched into a long, thorough tirade against his own brother.
Daphne and Astoria, after the initial shock wore off, sat there with pink cheeks, scandalized by Aberforth's foul language and more than a little thrilled by it besides.
Someone actually cursing out Dumbledore this openly, right out in public. Hardly anyone in the world had the nerve.
They half wanted to write it all down and mail it straight to the headmaster.