Okay, so this is my first HP fanfic for this account, my first fic for the fandom in about ten years (middle school ftw) and so my HP knowledge is rusty-even with the helpful Wiki.
This isn't AU, but there are inevitably going to be canon deviations as I tend to make mistakes. For that reason there will probably be OOC as well.
Bella comes in towards the end of the chapter, she is not left out. Voldemort is only 'Marvolo' for basically this chapter and the very beginning part of the next one. Love that name, though.
Let me know what you think of this chapter, please.
:)
(1977)
Horace Slughorn was uncomfortable in the back corner of the Hog's Head Inn and Pub. Not only because the portly man was used to more luxury than clothless wooden tables, dim lighting and dirt encrusted windows, but also because of the man sitting across from him in the secluded, windowless booth lit by flickering candle.
Tom Riddle.
At least, that what how Slughorn had known the man back when he was just a boy, an exceptional and ambitious student of his. But who was he now?
"Tom—" Slughorn began.
"That's not my name anymore." The man interrupted. "It never was."
He looked unnervingly young for his age—which must have been about fifty years—yet at the same time unnervingly inhuman. His skin was pale, even for a Briton and his once dark eyes had turned red.
Slughorn knew why. But he did not dare say it.
"So what do you call yourself now?" he asked.
The man smiled. The smile was icy and emotionless like it had always been.
"I have chosen a new name…but it's not yet time to use it. For now, you can call me after my grandfather, descendant of Salazar Slytherin, Marvolo."
Slughorn grimaced at the name. He had heard of Marvolo Gaunt, an inbred criminal, much more of a disgrace to his famous ancestor than the halfblood seated across the booth from Slughorn.
"Well then, 'Mr. Marvolo', I cannot help but ask, where were you all these years? Nobody has heard from you since Dumbledore refused you the professorship of Defense Against the Dark Arts."
Again, the icy smile.
(1970)
The night was dark and moonless, lit only by stars. High in the mountains, where the air was thin and cold, and the dirt and brush on the ground were icy, was a clearing between the thick forest of tall coniferous trees.
From those trees on sticky white webs hung giant black Spiders, magnificent and grotesque. They hissed to each other in their own ancient language no other species could understand and stared out at the clearing with tens of sets of eight eyes.
In the clearing, on the frozen grass, stood a tribe of Centaurs. Despite the frigid temperatures, their humanlike upper bodies were comfortable without clothing. With folded arms, their leader squinted at the Spiders he knew from the Forbidden Forest warily.
So did the Goblins, their eyes accustomed to the dark enough to see clearly. Short and physically weak, they had been carried up the mountains on the backs of the Centaurs, the only creatures at this gathering they trusted. They still sat on the backs of the Centaurs, huddling to the half-horses' fur for warmth, the tips of their pointed ears turning blue.
Across from them, on the rocks that felt like glaciers, were a band of Werewolves. It was not the full moon yet, so they stood in human form, cold like the Goblins and breathing heavily.
Almost as tall as the trees, towered the Giants. Their footsteps had rumbled like thunder as they had climbed the mountain in a just a few strides. Less intelligent than the rest of the creatures, they were the most impatient for the meeting to begin. They gazed through the darkness expectantly at the center of the clearing.
There stood the Vampires, uncold on the mountain this icy night. They had called this gathering.
They were pale skinned and red-eyed, just like the legends.
Tom Marvolo Riddle resembled them so much so he was assumed to be one of them…until he stepped forward to address the groups of supernatural creatures.
He pulled out his wand from his long black robes. The eyes of the magical creatures widened in surprise. The man was not a vampire, he was a wizard!
From the wand a soft yellow light glowed, illuminating the clearing.
He cleared his throat and then spoke. His voice echoed more loudly than natural throughout the clearing, that must have been a spell, too.
"You must be wondering why you're all here. Your species have nothing in common—except that you were all cast out by the Wizarding World, just like the Muggles cast out the Wizards and each of your kinds. We could have built a world together, our numbers and our powers overwhelming the weak and ignorant muggles. But instead, the Wizards forced you out, even choosing to accept mudbloods born to muggles into their society instead of creatures more pure in their magical ancestry."
He looked at the Goblins and the Centaurs.
"You Goblins slave in the wizarding banks yet cannot even use wands. You Centaurs guard the forest of the Wizarding School, Hogwarts, yet cannot send your children to learn magic in its halls."
He turned to the Werewolves, Spiders, and Giants, next.
"Werewolves, Giants, Spiders. You all were driven to the margins of the Wizarding World, constantly hunted by wizards as abominations. Monsters."
And finally, he looked at the Vampires he stood among. "And you Vampires, once European Royalty before the Wizards ever ruled, now hide in the shadows. You took me in when I needed to hide from my enemies. Now, I want to bring you into the light—figuratively, of course."
A few of the vampires chuckled quietly—politely. Of all Tom Riddle's talents, humor had never been one of them.
"I want to bring all of you," Marvolo gestured at the different sects of creatures, with his wand hand and his empty hand, "back into society—not just as full citizens but as rulers."
"How're you planning to do that, human?"
A gruff voice had barked. Marvolo turned to its source.
A young, shirtless werewolf had stepped past the old, white-haired leader who had turned him when he was just a little boy. The leader glared at him but the young werewolf stared at Riddle in demand of an answer.
"By uniting all of us against whoever would oppose us." Marvolo provided that answer.
At that, the leader of the Centaurs scoffed. "Our species have tried to wage war against the Wizards before. Each time we failed. Why should we follow you now?"
"Because I am more powerful than any other wizard alive." Marvolo declared. It was an embellishment, of course, but one that would soon be fact as far as he was concerned.
As proof of his statement, he raised his wand again. The frozen ground began to crack beneath their feet, the trees began to shake from their deep roots.
The supernatural creatures glanced at each other in confusion and fear.
"Do you know why I wanted us all to meet here, on this particular mountain?" Marvolo asked, "It's not only because it's secluded, but also because a battle between two muggle armies was once fought here and there were thousands of casualties. The muggles left their dead to be buried by the snow."
Suddenly, the mountain clearing was punctured with hundreds of holes. Reaching out through them towards the dark, moonless sky, were human arms, withered and dead.
The Inferi.
The supernatural creatures, even the Vampires who had known of this plan in advance, gasped.
(1977)
So did Horace Slughorn.
In the candlelight, he held his palm to his open mouth. His eyes were wide as they stared across the gnarled wooden table at Tom Marvolo Riddle.
"Where did you learn to do that, Tom?" he asked, forgetting his former student's new name in his shock.
(1960)
It had taken years to find the last, hidden followers of Gellert Grindelwald and it had taken years to gain their favor—and their training in the Dark Arts once taught to them by their now imprisoned leader.
Tom Riddle had gained special training and special favor from one follower in particular. Idis' fair-haired and fair-skinned beauty was quietly fading into gray and wrinkles. She had once been the young follower, eager and loyal, of Grindelwald.
Now, she was older than the man in his thirties who called himself only Marvolo, who she had passed on the secret Dark Arts that Grindelwald had shown only to her—and to an old friend named Albus Dumbledore, many years before.
She led this group of followers, waiting for the night they would break their leader out of prison and try again to take over the world.
Currently, they hid out in a muggle town on the outskirts of the grounds of Nurmengard Prison. Though it had been fifteen years since the Muggle Second World War had ended, the town was still half-abandoned, its red-roofed houses in disrepair from the bombings.
In the master bedroom of one abandoned house in disrepair, fixed up by magic then charmed to appear empty and broken, Idis dressed in front of a full-length mirror.
It was the black coat and knee-length boot uniform Grindelwald's troops had worn during the war, almost the same as the Muggle Nazis except for the insignia on their armband. Instead of a Swastika, it was a black phoenix. More elegant than the Deathly Hallows' triangle, line and circle that lower ranks in the army had worn. More personal.
Idis knew why Gellert had chosen the bird.
Tom Riddle, who was watching her dress, knew too, though he did not admit this. The older woman did not know who he really was.
The phoenix was fitting, Riddle thought. Though Grindelwald was not technically dead, he would be soon if Riddle's plan succeeded. And even if it did not, the Dark Lord would already be reborn as Lord Voldemort.
But for now, Tom Riddle was Marvolo. He sat on the bed, pale legs hanging off the sides.
Did he enjoy this affair? Or just the satisfaction of knowing that he was sleeping with the previous Dark Lord's woman?
"He never loved me, you know." Idis stated in her German-accented English, as if reading Riddle's thoughts. And maybe she had, she was good at Legilimency—though not as good as him.
She made eye-contact with his red eyes with her own blue, through her reflection in the mirror. The room was empty but for the bed and the mirror and the witch and the wizard.
"Powerful men are often incapable of love." Riddle reasoned.
Idis shook her head. "No. Gellert was capable."
"So there was another?" Riddle asked. He raised a dark eyebrow. Maybe he was sleeping with the wrong person if his goal was to claim what Grindelwald had once owned.
Idis nodded.
"Who?" Riddle followed-up.
At that, the woman only laughed. She glanced at the black phoenix wrapped around her arm.
(1977)
"Much of my Dark Arts knowledge I owe to her." Marvolo told Slughorn, "So it was a shame to have to kill her when she discovered my plan to kill her leader. All those years, all that time knowing he never loved her like she loved him…yet she was still loyal."
Slughorn could not look into the red eyes of the man across the table. He stared down at the mug he clutched tightly in his hand. It was empty.
"I had to flee Germany." Marvolo continued, "The Vampires in Romania took me in. I pretended to be one of them for years—I even drank the blood of muggles."
Slughorn tensed in shock and disgust. Then he shook his head solemnly, finally looking up at Marvolo, and into his eyes.
"By Merlin himself, Tom, who—no what—have you become?"
Marvolo smiled his ice smile again. It was almost sincere. Proud.
"You will see." He promised.
Slughorn was not sure that he wanted to. "Why did you ask me here today? To the Hog's Head of all places? Albus Dumbledore doesn't want you anywhere near Hogwarts and you know that. Dumbledore's brother Aberforth owns this place. He'll know you're back."
"I want him to know." Marvolo declared, "Soon everyone will know." He glanced to their side at the pubs few disheveled patrons, chatting at other booths or drunk at the bar. "And as for the reason I asked you here, I want you to tell me who your best students are."
"Why?" Slughorn questioned, though he suspect the answer.
"Don't ask questions you don't want the answers to, Professor." Marvolo warned, "Tell me."
"I won't name any current students, they're still just children." Slughorn circumvented, "But I will tell you of one graduate. Her name is Bellatrix and she was the most promising student I've taught since—well, since you, Tom."
Pride flashed in both his eyes and in Marvolo's. They both missed the school days where Tom Riddle was just a brilliant student and Horace Slughorn was just his favorite teacher.
"Anyway, she's wasting her talents as a housewife for Rodolphus Lestrange." Slughorn continued, somewhat bitterly, "You know how Purebloods are about women. Marry them off young and make them mothers to the next Pureblood generation, nevermind that they too could be the greats of their own generation as well as the men could—or better, perhaps, in Bellatrix's case."
"Bellatrix." Marvolo repeated the name, "That's a constellation name."
"Yes." Slughorn nodded, "She is your classmate Cygnus Black's daughter."
Centuries ago, the Black Family had been lords of muggles. They own the farmland and village on their acres of estate, surrounding their several-story manor.
Now, the farms were gone, replaced by overgrowth, the village was a small town, and the townhall had been bulldozed by muggles to put up a petrol station for the metal contraptions they called cars along the highway winding though the English countryside.
The secluded manor was somewhat dilapidated itself. Vines grew clinging to the chipped brick walls, biting at the shuttered windows. There were dead leaves in the raingutter and on the crumbling cobblestone pathway leading through the yellow lawn towards the building.
They scratched at the path as Marvolo approached. The noise was grating so he stomped on the closest leaf. The crunch was satisfying.
He thought, at first, that the state of the manor was a charm to fool muggles into thinking the house was abandoned. Then, he realized, that it was truly in such a sad and pathetic state.
Where had the tradition Black Family pride gone? Had everything so severely changed in the years he was away?
Marvolo wondered if Grimmauld Place was in similar dishevelment.
The afternoon sun gazed down at Marvolo as he climbed the stone steps towards the front door. He glanced up at it, shielding his red eyes that had become more sensitive to light.
A flash of motion.
Marvolo turned to it. There was a dark figure in the highest window, a silhouette behind a curtain like a shadow puppet.
He squinted at it. Quickly, it was gone.
The front door to the manor opened without him having to knock.
Bellatrix Black—no, Lestrange (it was Lestrange no matter how many times she almost intentionally forgot during the seven years since her wedding day)—was twenty-five years old. Too old to be home with mummy and daddy.
Yet her she was, sitting at the window sill of her childhood bedroom. The dolls on the shelves, untouched for over a decade, stared at her. The titles of dusty books did, too.
The room was the same as how she had left it to go off to Hogwarts when she was eleven years old. She had not bothered to redecorate in the summers and winters since; she knew that as soon as she graduated she would move in with her husband.
And where was dear Rodolphus Lestrange, anyway? Off doing business in France with his younger brother and his father. No need to bring a woman along, even his wife.
That was the way of things. Men and women had separate spheres, orbiting each other but never breaching. Tradition. As pure as pure blood.
Bellatrix was watching the window, waiting for the sun to set.
When it got dark, she would venture out into the nearby muggle town to find a temporary cure for the boredom of being a housewife, and visiting her parents who were basically senile in their fifties and still distraught over the disowning of their middle daughter, Andromeda, who had married that Mudblood Bellatrix had forgotten the name of.
She looked away from the sun in the gray sky, stubbornly not setting, to look down at the dark figure approaching the manor.
She did not recognize him.
Immediately, she tensed, long fingers tightening around her wand.
Very few people knew the location of the Black Manor. Fewer than the few that knew about Grimmauld Place, which was a secret itself.
Could this man be an attacker? Would she have to defend herself, her family and her property?
Finally something exciting! Bellatrix's heart was pounding in her chest under the black dress she wore.
The man looked up at her.
Quickly, Bellatrix darted away from the window, pressing her back flat against the faded wallpaper. She would hide and ambush this invader and—
The door creaked open.
"I saw you coming up the path, it's been so long since we've had a visitor." Her mother. Foolish enough in her grief to open the door to a stranger.
"Tom? Tom Riddle? Is that you?" Her father. He knew this stranger.
Bellatrix removed herself from the wall and lay down on the floor, ear to the hardwood boards. She listened to the conversation occurring two floors beneath her, muffled by the distance.
The faces that greeted Marvolo with shock were those of Cygnus Black, who he had expected, and of Druella Rosier—now Black, as she had been for the past three decades, it seemed. Marvolo was not surprised, the two had been promised to each other from birth.
At least Cygnus had not married his cousin like his sister Walburga had in her union to Orion. The Blacks were attractive people, but aged poorly and died young. There was a sting of madness in them, as well as a host of physical ailments more and more resistant to potions as generations passed.
Marvolo was impressed by the Old Families dedication to keeping their blood pure. It was the right thing to do, after all, but there had to be a better way. There were pureblood wizards and witches all over the world.
Once Lord Voldemort had taken it over, uniting it under Pureblood Wizarding Rule, he would solve the problem of inbreeding by marrying the purebloods of different countries to one another. That would also serve to strengthen ties between countries, and so his world rule and then—
All these details were for a later time. England first. An army first. A soldier first.
Bellatrix Lestrange first.
"Call me Marvolo." Marvolo told Cygnus and Druella.
They glanced at each other in brief confusion, but nodded at Marvolo in acceptance. They had always done what he had told them to, back at Hogwarts. Even then he was not someone to be refused. They knew he was the most powerful wizard of their generation.
"We thought you were dead." Cygnus admitted, "We heard you had joined the Grindelwald Army and that they killed you for killing their leader."
"Rumors." Marvolo dismissed, with the wave of his hand. His wand was in the pocket of his black robes, beneath the robes, a suit.
It was unnerving to see how Mr. and Mrs. Black looked now.
The once exquisite beauty, Druella, had streaks of gray in her blonde hair that looked unwashed. She wore a dowdy nightgown, even though it was almost dinner time, as if she had just pulled herself from bed.
Cygnus, once the dapper gentleman, wore casual robes instead of dressrobes. He was home in the middle of a weekday—he must have quit or been fired from his Ministry of Magic post.
The married couple looked like age and depression.
"You look so young…" Druella commented in bitter awe.
She reached towards Marvolo's face, smooth and pale, but then changed the trajectory of her wrinkled hand to stroke her own wrinkled face. Cygnus snatched her wrist and yanked her hand down.
"We weren't expecting company or we would've made the house—and ourselves—more presentable." He informed his former classmate.
At least he had some semblance of dignity left.
"Where are the House Elves?" Marvolo wondered.
He glanced past the middle-aged couple into the dimly-lit manor behind them.
The sittingroom furniture was draped with white sheets, making the couches and armchairs look like oddly shaped ghosts. The diningroom table had crumbs and several Daily Prophet editions strewn across its stained tablecloth. The spiraling staircase separating the two rooms had broken railing, making it dangerous.
Druella and Cygnus glanced at each other again, this time more awkwardly, before looking back at Marvolo.
"When our former daughter who we no longer speak of betrayed our family and became a Blood Traitor," Druella attempted, "Our eldest daughter, Bella…well, she was understandably upset and so she…"
"She killed them." Cygnus declared, swallowing.
Marvolo could not discern whether the shame on their faces was from the betrayal of one daughter or from the murders of House Elves by the other.
"She used an Unforgivable Curse?" he asked.
Druella shook her messy-haired head, blue eyes wide "No. She killed them with a knife."
At that, Marvolo chuckled.
Horace Slughorn had not failed him, he had provided him with the perfect student. The Potions Professor must have known what kind of witch Bellatrix Lestrange was when he recommended her, of all his current and former students.
Cygnus and Druella were offput but Marvolo's brief, quiet laughter.
He stopped, and said "How interesting. When can I meet her?"
Cygnus and Druella were even more offput by the request.
There was a creak on the spiraling staircase behind them. Their wrinkled heads whipped around to look.
Marvolo stared upwards at the source of the sound.
There, a young woman with long black hair wearing a short black dress, stood at the top of the steps. She smiled a smile of passion and fire.
"You wanted to meet me, Mr. Marvolo?"
Anyway, comments would be awesome.
