"Lillian Riddle thinks that the Harry Potter books are just that, books …until the day she finds herself chatting with a snake. Lillian ends up on an adventure round the world to discover information about her father, the wizarding world, and most importantly, herself."

Author's note: This story is AU after GoF, and my vision of it is as a sort of cross between the usual 'Voldemort-has-a-daughter' fic and the wonderful fanfic Make a Wish by Rorschach's Blot (I recommend you read it, BTW).

Harry will be a bit more Slytherin in this than in the books. I make no apologies for this. Harry's got Voldie after him: he needs to be a bit more Slytherin. I always thought he as very stupid not to be. I consider his lack of academic effort stupid, too – if Voldemort were after me, I'd be doing everything I possibly could to try and even the odds against me. It's just basic common sense. How Harry's survived for so long in the books, I don't know. He's got a lot of luck.

Oh, and I'm not going to even try and explain why there's a book about Harry's fourth year when he's only just finished fourth year. I don't have to explain everything, you know. Life contains a lot of inexplicable things that just sometimes happen. I don't see why life in a fic has to be any more logical or understandable than real life.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, nor the wizarding world expressed therein. Behold my grief.

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THE MAD ADVENTURES OF LILLIAN RIDDLE

CHAPTER ONE

Lillian thumped down in the grass to read Harry Potter #4. She had read it a bazillion times already – after all, it was a Harry Potter book, and therefore destined to become cherished and hopelessly dog-eared – but was quite happy to read it again.

Lillian was very much a Harry Potter fan. She was tall for a ten year old, and slim, with sleek black hair and refined features, the most noticeable of which were the big, almost-black brown eyes that dominated her face. She was an introverted child with a love of books and an incomprehensible love of Aqua and Britney Spears songs, sherbet lollipops, and Star Wars movies. The Harry Potter books were her favorites however, being both well-written and imaginative (The Enchanted Forest Chronicles weren't quite long enough to qualify as her favorites) and possessing a villain who happened to share her surname: Riddle.

Lillian was something of an orphan. Her mother had died when she was three, and well, no one knew who her father was. She'd looked at her birth certificate once, and where her name was listed as 'LILLIAN SEMPRONIA MEROPE RIDDLE' and her mother's as 'ALEXANDRIA LAURANA CICILIA ELDRED,' the line for her father's name simply said 'unknown.' He must have been a Riddle at least, Lillian supposed, since her mother's surname was Eldred, but apart from that Lillian knew absolutely nothing about him. Not that she knew much about her mother, really; mostly a few blurred, oddly-scrambled memories of a tall, lovely woman with a cool, low voice and a graceful way of moving, who rarely lost her temper.

So, Lillian settled comfortably back into the grass to read her book, and was startled almost out of her wits when an angry voice snapped,

"Watch it, imbecilic child!"

She slewed round but saw no one, but was horrified to discover a snake within alarming proximity to herself.

Lillian screamed and scrambled backwards, dropping her book with a thud. It barely missed the snake.

"Watch it!" the snake hissed. Lillian's jaw dropped as her conceptions of the world spun dizzily.

"W-what?"

The snake jerked back.

For a moment the two just stared at each other, neither quite believing what they'd just heard.

"Did you just speak to me?" Lillian asked hesitantly. The snake tasted the air incredulously.

"You are! You're a speaker! You're a snake speaker!"

Its head weaved in an agitated pattern.

"Great shells, the only other speakers are the boy-wizard and the wrong-wizard that frightens the other wizards!"

Lillian closed her eyes for a long moment.

"Tell me about the other wizards," she said finally.

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AN: Sorry this is so short! More to come!