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Work Header

Rating:

 Mature
Archive Warning:

 Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Category:

 F/M
Fandom:

 Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling

Relationships:

 Amy Benson/Tom Riddle

 Amy Benson & Tom Riddle
Characters:

 Amy Benson
 Tom Riddle
 Albus Dumbledore
 Minerva McGonagall
 Eileen Prince
 Original Characters
 Original Rosier Characters
 Armando Dippet
 Herbert Beery
  Malcolm McGonagall
Additional Tags:

 Young Tom Riddle

 Manipulative Tom Riddle
 Magical Amy Benson
 Hogwarts
 Post-Hogwarts
 Pre-Canon
 Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
 1950s
 Dubious Morality
 Bad Decisions
 Period Typical Attitudes
 Dysfunctional Family
 Dysfunctional Relationships
 Unhealthy Relationships
 Murder
 Politics
 Pureblood Politics (Harry Potter)
 Dark Magic
 Present Tense
 POV Third Person
 Internal Conflict
 Mother-Daughter Relationship
 Family Drama
 Slow Burn
 Blood and Violence
 Parent-Child Relationship
 Single Parents
 Bad Parenting
 Abusive Parents
 Abusive Relationships
 Childhood Trauma
 Childhood Memories
 Ministry of Magic (Harry Potter)
 Pureblood Society (Harry Potter)
 Pureblood Culture (Harry Potter)
 Character Study
 Female Friendship
 Bullying
 Moral Ambiguity
 The Ministry of Magic (Harry Potter) is Terrible
 Parseltongue
 Suspense
 Government
 Hogsmeade
 Minister for Magic Tom Riddle
 Flashbacks
 Government Agencies
  Coming of Age
 Unreliable Narrator
 Implied/Referenced Torture
 Psychological Trauma
Language:

English
Series:
← Previous Work Part 2 of the Barbed Wire, Grass Crown series

Stats:

Published:

2020-02-09

Updated:

2020-10-05

Words:

224582

Chapters:

33/?

Comments:

1108

Kudos:

388

Bookmarks:

83

Hits:

14309

And the grass will become my crown

dwellingondreams
Summary:
"O, isn't this what my mother never wanted?" - Analicia Sotelo, 'South Texas Persephone'.

Tom Riddle was not the only strange child to come out of Wool's. After eleven years of self-imposed
exile, Amy Benson returns to Hogwarts to protect the only thing that matters: her precocious
daughter, Mae. Offered the position of Potions Master, her alma mater seems like the safest place to
keep Mae away from the darker elements of their world. But the wizarding world of 1957 is not the
one Amy remembers, and while the threat of war may be over, she quickly discovers that peace in
magical Britain is far from assured. As a radical new faction led by a charismatic Tom Gaunt rises to
power in the Ministry, and a rapidly expanding Hogwarts braces for a post-war generation
determined to leave its mark, Amy and Mae find that the secrets they keep for and from one another
may be their undoing.
Notes:
I'm not going to make any promises with the schedule here. I don't want to rush out chapters and I'm
already updating another fic twice a week. Ideally this will update on Saturdays/Sundays, so that's
when I would check here for new chapters (or just use a bookmark or subscribe, whatever floats your
boat).

You can find me on tumblr at dwellordream.

Chapter 1: In friendly persuasion
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text

GIBRALTAR, MAY 1957

Some habits are hard to break. When she was a little girl at Wool’s, sleeping in was never a question;
everyone was expected to be dressed for breakfast by half past eight o’clock at the very latest, and
even if you were willing to skip a meal to get more sleep, there was the constant rotation of chores.
She knows now that the routine was important; they had sixty unruly children to look after, they
needed to keep everyone on some sort of schedule. They had to prepare them for adult lives; they
needed the discipline to occupy them, to keep them from dwelling too long on their bleak
circumstances. It didn’t mean much to her as a child of six, but she’s in some way grateful for it now.
She doesn’t look back on it fondly, but the memories don’t sting the way they perhaps ought to. If
anything, it is a dull, comforting ache, like the reminder of flesh and bone when you clunk your knee
on the underside of a table.

Then she went away to school, and while no one was forcing her to get up and scrub floors or sweep
stairs, she had classes and quidditch practice and matches, and living in a dormitory meant that as
soon as one of them was up, all of them were up, no matter how comfortable the bed or cozy the
room. She was always on the move, she recalls. She can count on one hand the number of times she
remembers lying in bed, letting the warm sunlight wash over her from the small ground-level
window above her head. There was always somewhere to hurry off to, things to be done, homework
to finish, library books to return, a meeting with Madam Amell at the infirmary, laps around the
quidditch pitch to run. Or Vera and Ruby were going down to Hogsmeade early and wanted her to
come with, or it was the first snowfall of the year and she wanted to see what the grounds looked
like, or it was exam week and she was too anxious to doze off again.

And then she was done with school, and she was out in the big, wide world, and whatever sleep she
got while working with the Relief Services, it was never enough, just short scraps and snippets,
dozing off while sitting in uncomfortable chairs or slumped against a wall or beneath a tree in some
war torn field where they were searching for more and more bodies charmed to be hidden from
muggle view. Once she fell asleep in the back of a truck rumbling down a bombed out street in the
middle of the day, the constant clamor and noise around her fading to a distant rumble in the back of
her eardrums. When she found out she was pregnant she was too worried to sleep the entire night;
she would lay awake feeling at the treacherous, definitive bump of her belly, or wincing because her
breasts ached, or her back was in agony, or her hands and feet were starting to swell.

After Mae, of course, well, sleep went out the window. She had an infant to tend to at all hours of the
day. She doesn’t think she got a good night’s rest until her daughter was at least three and a half.
Sleep has crept back into her life since then, the nights become restful once more, and she stopped
jerking awake from some unknown terror, stopped sitting up so quickly her head would swim and
looking around the room with wild eyes. She kept Mae’s cradle beside her bed, then her crib, then
she slept with her until she was five. Mae squirmed and kicked and clawed in her sleep and mumbled
to herself, but all of that was comforting, reassuring, compared to the thought of waking up and
finding her missing or hurt. But even when she could sleep easily again, she always woke up early,
usually before the sun had even risen. It felt like being ready, bracing herself for the day, not being
caught unawares. As if she could somehow see any danger approaching so long as she got out of bed
in time to meet it. As if fighting back was simply a question of preparedness and a good breakfast.

The morning after, she gets up before the dawn, puts on the dented kettle, and takes her tea outside to
the tiny, cramped patio out back, where there is perhaps a few yards of rocky, barren earth dotted
with old flowerpots and some cheerfully rusting lawn ornaments, and then the solid rock wall of the
Mons Calpe. She’s not facing the horizon, but that’s alright. She prefers to watch the shadow of the
sun rise over the rock. She finds it invigorating, usually. This rock has been here since the dawn of
time. It will be here long after all she and everyone she knows are dead. It will be here even if the
seas overflow and the sky rains down fire. No amount of war-machines or natural disasters could
topple it. She takes some strength from it, maybe.

She sips at her tea, and presently Vera slips out to join her, curlers in her hair. “What’s wrong?” Vera
asks quietly, without even seeing Amy’s drawn face, just knowing instantly from the way she is
huddled in the battered wicker chair, her feet pulled up under her, her hair spilling out of its messy
bun, her white-knuckled grip on her chipped mug. Amy clinks the teaspoon against the rim, dumps in
some more sugar from the almost empty pot, and massages her aching scalp. Vera is as unobtrusive
as ever; marriage and motherhood and a prosperous career have not made her any more assuming or
strident. Amy wishes she had that sort of grace under fire. God knows Vera's had her share of
hardships too, what with her parents and her brother. She sits down across from Amy, burrowing into
her thick lavender cardigan as the wind cuts into them a little. It’s supposed to be scorching today,
but for now it is still cool, especially in the shadows.

“He knows,” Amy says simply. She doesn’t have to go into detail; Patsy and Ted O’Neill have
always taken her at her word as to how Mae came about and who her father is, but there was never
much hope of hiding it from the likes of Vera or Ruby, not from women who were her closest friends
during her time at Hogwarts. She’s already got so many lies to keep track of; it was easier to
privately confirm to them that what they suspected was true. They don’t know the whole of it, of
course- they don’t know what Tom’s done, they don’t know what she did to cut ties, they don’t know
what the consequences of this could be, but they do know her intentions, and that her intentions have
always been to stay here, raise Mae as best she knows how, and live a quiet, durable life.

“He wrote you?” Vera reaches over to take her hand, frowning. “How… did he say how he found
out?”

“You could say that,” Amy scoffs bitterly, then sets down her hot mug, pushing some flyaway hairs
out of her sleep-crusted eyes. “He… I don’t know that he’s completely certain. But he knows we’re
here.”

Vera’s hand tightens around hers. “He didn’t threaten you, did he?”

“No,” says Amy, although the clawing sensation in her chest says otherwise. “You know that’s not
his style. Far too aggressive for our Tom. Rising Ministry star. Newspaper darling,” she snorts
humorlessly. She's painstakingly kept track of his steadily increasing emergence in the Daily
Prophet, from the briefest of mentions to full page interviews. Gilda Skeeter described him as
'positively captivating, controversial policies aside' in her latest profile. “He’s just… making me
aware that he’s aware. I’ve no idea if he heard about the job offer.”

“You should write him back,” Vera suggests. “Lie. Tell him he’s- he’s got the wrong idea. She’s not
his, you had a fling, you’re happy where you are-,”

“I am happy here,” Amy snaps, then flushes like a schoolgirl, ashamed of her own thin skin. She's
not supposed to be this fragile. She's tougher than that now. She was, at any rate. ‘Here’ was exotic
and strange at first but now it’s utterly mundane. It’s not perfect and it never will be and she knows
she’s probably doing Mae some sort of disservice, raising her in isolation on some sandy strait jutting
out into the sea, knows this isn’t the ideal life for a child, but it’s better than what Amy had. It’s got
to be better. Mae has a mother. Mae has a home. Mae knows she’s loved, and wanted. And Amy
likes her work. It may not be groundbreaking, she may make barely enough to keep the lights going
and to purchase their groceries every week, but it’s still important. She feels like what she does
matters. She feels like she’s come to belong here, in her own way.

“You are,” says Vera gently. “But I know it must be very lonely at times, even with Pat and Teddy
around.”

“She’s pregnant,” Amy mutters, resenting how bitter the words come out. When Teddy found out, he
must have picked Patsy up by the waist and spun her about, shouting with glee. He probably rushed
out to start buying things for the nursery immediately, already began debating names. Amy found out
while sobbing with snot and wracked with coughs on a dreary October evening in rural southern
France. They were living in an abandoned farmhouse surrounded by an orchard full of rotting fruit
that had never been picked in time for the harvest. There were dead flies lying in clumps on the
windowsill and she cried so hard her eyes nearly swelled shut. No one was there to congratulate or
sympathize with her; she didn't dare breathe a word of it until she was nearly six months and it was
becoming blatant.

Vera stills. “Patsy?”

“Yes. She flooed me the other day, couldn’t contain herself until they came back from Granada. You
know they never thought it would happen for them.”

Amy never thought it would happen for her, either. But she was stupid. It would be just like her to
pull a grand plan off and then trip up on the way out the door. For a while it felt like some spiteful
finally victory on Tom's part, although he couldn't have possibly known. She's been telling herself
that for years. He couldn't have known. They were just children. Regardless of the rest, he was just a
boy, and in some small ways still very innocent. She recalls an excruciating conversation just before
their first time, her pointedly explaining exactly how to use a rubber and how under no circumstances
was he to give her grief over it or suggest that she ought to be solely responsible. The look of thinly
veiled disgust on his face had derailed her sober lecture and sent her into near hysterical giggles at
how contemptuous he seemed about the whole thing; she can still hear his boyish voice; "Honestly,
Amy, I'm not an imbecile, I've read medical texts-," Right. Medical texts. Fat lot of good that did
either of them when they were rolling about in the long spring grass. Of course, she had other things
on her mind at the time, and he... well, what did it matter to him? They were going to be together
always. He'd likely written children off as an unpleasant but unavoidable consequence in the distant
future.

“That’s wonderful,” Vera says uncertainly, letting go of her hand. “What does that mean for the
clinic?”

“I have no idea,” Amy exhales. “They have savings from Teddy’s parents. They were talking about
taking a break from work for a year or two, maybe going back to England themselves.”

She gave birth here, on on a ragged quilt atop the cold exam table. Sabath had delivered babies
before but after a brief inspection, left her to it with the local midwife, who gave her something to
bite down on and told her to think of waves crashing on the beach. She'd thought of Cornwall and the
orphanage's yearly trips to the seashore, until the war broke out. She'd thought of the cold sand and
the seashell Tom had given her, to tempt her into exploring the cave with him. She'd thought of the
bloated corpses in the water, vomited twice during her labor until nothing came up but warm spittle,
and then thought of the opposite of the ocean; the bonfires at Samhain, roaring to life in her belly,
bearing down on this guest who'd overstayed their welcome for far too long. She'd thought of the
heat of the flames baking her tears into her cheeks, screamed herself hoarse, and pushed Mae out into
the world in the sputtering light of kerosene lanterns and the nauseating smell of burning sage.

“You can’t run this place full-time by yourself,” Vera points out sensibly, and Amy almost hates her
for it.

“I can’t,” she agrees after a long silence. “I’d need to hire help, figure out new schedules… And the
position at Hogwarts, it would double what I’m making here. They’d cover all of Mae’s school
expenses as well- her books, her uniforms- everything.”
“But you don’t want to bring her back there,” Vera’s tone wavers between question and statement.
The rock wall is beginning to lighten; Amy can feel the air warming up even as they sit here. Her tea
is growing cold. She takes another sip, grimacing.

“I don’t know what I want right now. Yesterday, I knew exactly. I made a choice. I chose to leave. I
chose to keep her. I chose to raise her here. Now… you know she found the letter last night. From
Hogwarts.”

Vera sighs quietly. “Was she upset?” That seems like a moot point.

“Well, she wasn’t thrilled with me,” Amy mutters. “It’s not a wonderful feeling to feel properly
shamed by your own child.” And she does. Feel shamed. She remembers her own exhilaration, her
joy at receiving her letter from Hogwarts, at that first visit from a stranger. She was so happy. She
was leaving Wool's. She was going somewhere else, somewhere she was sought out, wanted. They
wanted her, for her powers. Even the idea of having powers thrilled her. Of being powerful. She'd
spent eleven years of life feeling nothing but powerless. It was a heady rush, and Tom felt it even
more so than her, she thinks. It was like they were walking on air.

“She’d be safe at Hogwarts,” Vera says. “From… from whatever you’re worried about.”

For Vera, of course, this is a domestic dispute, between two old childhood sweethearts. No less brutal
and vicious, but not quite on the scale it takes up in Amy’s headspace. “He might just feel a duty to
provide for her,” she adds in a softer voice, as if hesitant to even say it. “I know you… you have your
reasons to want to be rid of him, but he hasn’t got any children of his own. He might just wonder…
what it would be like.”

“Well, he will soon enough,” Amy finishes off the last of your tea. “You didn’t see the headlines in
the society section, two months back? He’ll be married by this time next year. He can have plenty of
little darlings with his society doll fiancee. Not her. She’s mine.” She knows her voice has grown
ragged and rough. “The one- she’s the only thing I ever had all to myself. That I was responsible for.
That… that loved me instantly. Mae is mine. Not his. He doesn’t… he doesn’t get any claim to her.”

“If he can find plausible evidence that he’s her father, he could take you to court over it,” Vera warns
soberly. “If they obtain an order of Veritaserum-,”

“I know,” Amy bites out, closing her eyes, not wanting to think about as she feels the sun’s rays
finally reach her face. “Unwed mother of dubious origins. Raising her child in some hovel in
Gibraltar while she works like a dog healing gamblers and wannabe mobsters and idiot tourists. If I
was a muggle they would have already taken her from me.” She can’t even say the rest. It is too
painful. “I know, V.”

“You have to decide what’s best for both of you,” says Vera, “and you know Danny and I will do
whatever we can to help you. Ruby would come back from New York in a heartbeat. But I would… I
just wouldn’t do anything rash, Ames. I know you want nothing to do with him or his career or his
life. But the job at Hogwarts… it might be the best thing for it. You’ll have Dippet and Dumbledore
in your pocket, and the staff’s always been very close-knit. They have connections all over the place.
They could really be useful, if it does… if he does escalate this.”
“The money wouldn’t hurt either,” Amy stands tiredly, rolls back her shoulders and groans. “Well. I
should have seen it coming, really. Friends in high places and all that. Couldn’t keep scurrying
around just out of sight forever.” Her tone is light, but the words fall like lead weights all the same.
Vera stands as well, winces when she hears the clatter of footfall indoors.

“The boys are up already. We should start breakfast, yeah?”

Once back indoors, it’s easy to leave the coldly pragmatic conversation out to sit in the sun like her
forgotten mug. Amy bustles around with Vera, dodging elbows in the tiny kitchen, scolding her
rambunctious sons for not saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, cautioning Mae against pouring the
orange juice so quickly, they don’t need another spill, thank you- She hasn’t sat down to eat her
breakfast in over a decade, but she leans against the stained counter-top like always and licks bacon
grease off her fingers while Mae sprays toast crumbs across the front of her pyjama top and Isaac and
Joel jostle and argue over the last fried egg.

Despite their argument last night, Mae is utterly devoid of resentment or tension now, smiling
toothily when she catches Amy’s eye, smearing jam across her toast as contentedly as ever, whistling
along with the muggle radio station crackling from the windowsill. A child’s easy forgiveness is
almost worse than the fights, Amy thinks. Maybe she doesn’t deserve to be forgiven. For any of it.
She’s been living a lie. A safe, well-intended lie, but a lie nonetheless. If there’s anything Mae, bright
and beautiful and glorious Mae-flower, hates, it’s being condescended or lied to. She could forgive
the omission of her acceptance to Hogwarts. Amy knows she could never forgive the rest of, even if
she wanted to.

If they go back, there is a strong possibility of Mae finding out. Amy always meant to tell her
someday, but only after she was grown and settled herself, when she wouldn’t need a mother
anymore, when she could hate Amy, ignore her letters, never see her again if she pleased, and still
lead a prosperous life of her own with other people. You always find a family. You do, Amy knows
that. She’s not worried about that, has never fretted about Mae not having a father or siblings or a
‘normal’ life. What she is worried about is her child hating her and that hate bringing her childhood
to an abrupt end. Mae deserves better. She deserves a carefree, happy, easy life, where she doesn’t
have to be afraid or hateful.

And she is worried about Tom, of course. Of course she is. She’d have to be willfully foolish not to
worry. She assaulted him, in every sense of the word. She betrayed his trust and his body,
blackmailed him- threatened him, really- and then left him lying there on the ground, paralyzed,
drifting into unconsciousness, while she fled into the night like a coward. Well, she is a coward. She
chose the coward’s way out, she didn’t stay and fight, and she doesn’t regret it, has never regretted it.
She is not his chosen other half. She rejects the notion that she could not live a fulfilling life without
him. She doesn’t believe in fate, and she doesn’t want ‘love to conquer all’. She has no interest in
being conquered or succumbing to something that has always felt more like a free-fall than flying.

He has every reason to want to hurt her just as badly as she hurt him. And that would be one thing, if
it were just her. But it’s not just her. It’s never been just her. And when she found out she was four
months pregnant and that her lack of monthlies and the weight gain had not simply been the stress of
uprooting her entire life and tearing out the remnants of dark magic across Europe all while
constantly looking over her shoulder, constantly on edge, expecting him to show up at any moment,
for her entire plan to cave in around her- well, she thought about this then too. She found out much
later than most but she still could have done something, could have ended the pregnancy, ridden
herself of any lingering, stubborn trace of him. She didn’t. She was selfish, and weak, and eighteen.

Mae doesn’t deserve any of this. Mae deserves a safe, happy life, not one where her mother has to
seriously consider not just whether her father might try to take her away, but whether or not he might
hurt her simply for the sake of hurting Amy. She should have left Mae off at an orphanage. She
should have given her away to a nice family, a well-intentioned couple who could raise her in luxury
and comfort. She should have known better than to think she could do this. She can’t do this. She is
thirty years old and within the span of twelve hours and one little note, she has turned back into that
same frightened girl, the one who almost stopped, who almost went back. The one who almost turned
around, almost stayed.

She doesn’t know what would have happened if she stayed. Well, she does. She does know. It would
have been a life of very comfortable captivity. Mae would have brothers and sisters, and a big house
to run around and play in, and all the toys and clothes a little girl could ever want. She would have
family dinners on the weekends, she would have tutors to teach her French and Latin and the piano
and ballet. She would have splendid birthday parties with all her little friends looking on enviously
while presents piled high around her, she would have a broom and a pony and she would never eat
beans on toast for dinner. Her name wouldn’t be Mae, either, that would be far too gauche and
common.

She would have a father rapidly climbing the ranks of government, a father who would likely ruffle
her hair and kiss her on the forehead and buy her anything she liked, a father who would try to love
her the only way he knew how, and if it was a cold, stunted, demanding sort of love, well, she
wouldn’t know much different, would she? He would be genial and kind so long as she did what was
expected of her and he would spend as much time with her as expected, if he didn’t have a meeting to
attend to or a brief to read.

She would have a mother who sank deeper and deeper into quiet self-loathing with every year. She
would have a mother who her father hated, he hated, with every fiber of his being because even after
everything, all his efforts, she still was not happy. She would love him but she wouldn’t be happy
with him, and it would infuriate him, and he would be cruel about it because he would not know any
other way to be, and they would despise one another, and they would try to hide it from their children
but it would seep into that house all the same, it would fester in the very air they breathed, and leak
out at every opportunity.

Two days later all these thoughts are still rattling around like coins inside her head. She hates feeling
paralyzed, feeling trapped. She hated it as a child, she hated it when she was eighteen and facing
down the barrel of a life neatly laid out before, a slow, gruesome demise of any sense of self in the
making, and she hates it now. She knows what she ought to do. She ought to leave. Go. Take Mae
and run, disappear. Go over to the States; Ruby must have some connections, disappear into some big
city, change both their names, dye her hair, and vanish. That would be the smart thing to do. How
can she justify taking any measure of risk with her own daughter? She knows very well that Tom has
no qualms at all about hurting others to get to her, and that was when he was doing it with what he
considered the best of intentions- trying to prove how much he cared for her, how much he needed
her by his side.
She doesn’t want to think about what he might be capable of doing now. He is stronger than her.
She’s known that since she was fifteen. She is a far more capable dueler at thirty than she was back
then, has been in plenty of dangerous situations before and had to rely on her own instincts and quick
thinking, but somehow she doubts he’s simply spent the last decade reclining behind a desk with his
feet up, smoking a pipe and growing fat around the middle. She may have improved, may be sharper,
more cunning, resourceful and willing to do whatever it takes to win a fight, but he will still outclass
her whether they’re using wands or not. Her sole advantage is that she knows how he thinks, and she
knows how to trip him up.

Either way, she cannot rationalize bringing Mae into any of this. They just need to leave. Not
immediately, but sometime this summer or fall at the latest. It will be painful, and terrible for Mae,
she won’t understand, she’ll be furious, but Amy will figure out some excuse, come up with some
plausible story. She’ll home-school her if she has to, no matter how limited an education that might
be. She’ll teach her to defend her, make sure she knows to be careful, that just because she’s a witch
does not guarantee invincibility, and- and when the time comes she will tell her the truth. That Amy
did it out of love for her. That she had no choice. She was just trying to protect her, to keep her away
from all of this. And Mae will hate her.

“Mum, you look like you’re going to cry,” Mae tells her bemusedly as they walk back to the clinic
after seeing Vera and her sons off. “Auntie V said they’d come visit again in the summer.”

Amy composes herself, plasters on an exasperated smile. “It’s just the dust. What, you think I’m
going that soft already, huh?” And her daughter bursts into peals of high, childish laughter as she
tickles her around the middle, squirming and giggling, swatting at her hands. Amy kisses her hot
scalp, winces into the setting sun looming down on them overhead, and tries to quell the buzzing in
her head and stomach and chest, a thousand anxious gnats, with little success.

How can she do this? How can she do any of this? This is ridiculous. She can’t spend the rest of her
life on the run. She can’t spend it huddled in a series of shabby flats, always double checking the
locks, either. Tom’s proved he’s very capable of tracking them down. For Merlin’s sake, he found
their address, didn’t he? God knows how long he’s had that up his sleeve, waiting for the right
moment. When she was a child at Wool’s, all she wanted was to stop running, to finally have a home,
somewhere she felt safe and secure. She didn’t want to worry about bombs or planes or sirens. So
what? Now she’s going to put Mae through the same thing, have her live a life full of tension and
fear and anger over something that’s not her fault? Her blood broils; motherhood might have
tempered her impulses the way it does most, but in other ways it’s also made her more of a live-wire.

How dare he. This is her life. She fought for it, she earned it. She tricked him. Her, unassuming,
humble, little Amy Benson. She outwitted him, everyone’s favorite savant. She is nobody’s fool,
least of all his. He underestimated her once, underestimated the lengths to which she would go, and
he’s still doing it, all these years later. If he thinks he’s going to send her running like a kicked dog,
he’s got another thing coming. And if he thinks she’s going to dutifully present herself for whatever
sick judgement he think she deserves, well, then he’s going to be sorely disappointed.

No. She needs to think like him. Who is one of the few people Tom is actually afraid of?
Dumbledore. Therefore it stands to reason that the last thing he’d want her to… would be to go back
to Hogwarts. Under no circumstances would he ever want the possibility of Amy, who knows some
of his ugliest secrets, working alongside Dumbledore, who has always seen more of what he really is
than most people. She’s chopping the vegetables for dinner a little harder than necessary now, while
Mae sighs over her homework at the kitchen table, casting longing looks outside. “Why don’t you
take the bike out for a ride,” Amy suggests, and some newfound hardness in her tone makes her
daughter look up in surprise.

“What’d I do now?” Mae demands. “I even kissed Joel and Isaac goodbye-,”

“Nothing,” says Amy, “but I can see you getting ready to crawl up the walls. Go out before it gets too
dark, and come back in an hour for dinner.”

“Alright,” Mae says suspiciously, flinging down her chewed-upon pencil, and shoving her feet back
into her shoes.

Once Amy is sure that she’s gone, she leaves the cooking, goes upstairs, and sits down to write her
reply.

Notes:
Chapter title comes from Pat Boone's "Friendly Persuasion (Thee I Love)", which was a top-hit
British single in 1957. If this fic had a soundtrack, 90% of it would be deceptively cheery love songs
from the 50s and 60s.

Some Notes:

1. Oh boy. When I finished Barbed Wire back in October I had a brief concept of a possible sequel
but nothing solid enough that I felt comfortable openly discussing it. I know it is an Ao3 tradition to
write a fairly successful long-fic, then promise a sequel, start said sequel, and never follow through
with completing said sequel, either because real life intervenes, plot ideas fizzle out, or said sequel
just doesn't get much attention or feedback and isn't worth the investment of time and energy. I also
have an impulse to not 'ruin' the first fic, which I am overall generally quite proud of and pleased
with the character arc. So if people choose to view Barbed Wire as a standalone, I'm perfectly fine
with that. I definitely don't want to in any way cheapen it with a poorly planned or executed sequel.
However-

2. I've tried to talk myself out of this about a hundred times, but I couldn't shake some of the ideas I
had, and it's been actively distracting me from plotting out other fics. I've been intent on writing
another Marauders-era fic, but this fic kept taking up the head space this should have until I finally
began to come up with some semblance of an outline. So here we are. With Barbed Wire I wanted to
write a 'darker' take on the world of HP while also incorporating real life history and events and
coming up with what I considered a believable portrait of a young Tom Riddle, while also having a
very practical, pragmatic, take-no-prisoners heroine who didn't cut him much slack, make excuses, or
fall daintily into his arms because she was just so overcome with love.

3. My main interest with this as the sequel is showing a realistic adult Amy and a realistic adult Tom,
as well as how they've both adapted and changed to very different circumstances since Hogwarts. In
the time since graduating, Amy was thrust into parenthood as a single mother and also became a very
capable healer and potioneer. Tom pursued a Ministry career which has finally paid off with him
being in serious contention for the position of Minister of Magic. Both are still feeling the aftereffects
of their frankly quite traumatic childhoods and obviously neither is 'over' the other. Barbed Wire was
more of slow burn coming of age story/drama with some romantic elements and some moments of
suspense and even horror. Grass Crown is probably the closest I will ever get to writing a straight-up
thriller? I am going to be focused on believable world-building and slowly ratcheting up tension as
this devolves into a game of cat and mouse between Amy and Tom.

4. This fic is going to be fairly dark. Barbed Wire had its darker moments but overall was not very
graphic and I felt comfortable giving it a 'Teen' rating because of that. Grass Crown, despite there
still being a focus on young characters such as Mae and others, will likely earn the M rating. It
handles adult topics and there are going to be some very disturbing scenes. I will try to keep
everything properly tagged. I'm not trying to go for shock value or prove how 'gritty' I can be, I just
feel that it's appropriate for the sequel to be darker and more serious in tone and situations, given
how the characters have matured and developed.

5. We will be seeing some familiar faces from Barbed Wire, and some new characters who are still
from canon, but there will also be a wide range of original characters. I understand that will be off-
putting to some readers but I just don't see there being enough canon characters from this timeline in
HP for me to really 'draw on' without making up some of mine own. I am very excited about
introducing a few of them so we'll see how it goes. This will range from students Mae encounters, to
staff at Hogwarts, to workers at the Ministry and members of Tom's party, to magical socialites and
journalists, etc.

6. I don't think Barbed Wire is a shining example of historical accuracy, but I'm going to try to stay
hard on target with the late 50s/early 60s' time period in this fic. Obviously we'll spend more time in
the magical world than the muggle one, but this is a period of massive societal change and overhaul
in both, and Amy is going to have a bit of culture shock at how both wizards and muggles have
changed since the end of the war. There will also be a lot of pop culture references. Mae is a curious,
exuberant kid who is very much a product of her generation (the early Baby Boomers, haha) even if
she is a witch.

7. This would not exist without the overwhelming support and enthusiasm you guys showed Barbed
Wire. I really appreciate so many people taking a chance on a very niche and weird fic that started as
a one-shot about a girl and her lost marble.
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