Harry Potter and the Third Riddle

Prologue

On Spinner's End

Dark mist blew silently through the crumbling alleys and streets of the forsaken Spinner's End. A door of what had once seemed the only unforgotten house hung loosely on its hinges allowing any passerby to simply enter. That is to say, any passerby who was able to catch a glimpse of the house. You see, to any Muggle (non-magic folk) whose unfortunate afternoon stroll brought him down through Spinner's End, there would appear to be nothing but a plaster wall stained by the damp air. That was not the case with the two men who now strode purposefully down the street toward that very same wall.

One man bore round spectacles that rested on the bridge of his nose like and owl on a perch. There were scratches on the silver frames that captured what little light fell from the streetlamps and swallowed it. He pulled his overcoat tighter around himself, for though the air was still, the chill of the moist night air crept through the handmade cable of his sweater. To the observant onlooker, the tip of a wand sticking out from the right sleeve of his jacket was the only indication he was any different than anyone else who lived in this forgotten part of town. The same could not be said for his companion.

Humphrey Instantent, or "The Insistent" depending on what member of the Auror's Office you asked, was like most wizards: completely out of touch with modern fashion trends. Unlike Harry, he had not grown up in a Muggle household and the lime green of his suit vest was the loudest thing Harry had heard since they'd apparated in.

"Right, Potter, I'll take point. You just wait until I…"

Harry shook his head. There was a great deal he needed to learn, he knew, but unlike most trainees he was rather famously capable of holding his own against dark wizards. A rulebreaker, though he had been at Hogwarts, with ministry dispensation to head straight to the Auror's office rather than repeating his final year of Hogwarts, Harry had become a little more attentive to what he was an was not supposed to do. He did not, however wait for Humphrey to declare it safe, before he entered the dilapidated frame of Severus Snape's former abode.

Inside, Harry was taken aback by the lack of comforts. Though almost certainly it had been looted at some time, the overturned chairs and broken tables had wear to them that betrayed many decades of use. A stab of sympathy pinched in his chest. He'd learned much of his former potions master over the years, much that he had not expected. It had taken seven years for him to learn the truth of why Snape hated him so, but now, seeing how he had lived, Harry was even more saddened by the cruelty with which the world had treat the man he'd come to respect.

The Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, had ordered the homes of former Death Eaters to be searched. Though Snape's name had been cleared of such charges at Harry's testimony, it remained true that he was not always a law-abiding man, and that on many occasions he had hosted Voldemort's followers in his home. Thereby, it was still deemed necessary to search his home for any artifacts of a dark nature to be confiscated and destroyed. As trainees, Harry, Ron, and a few other young wizards had been assigned to this taskforce as the missions were deemed "without significant risk."

Dust puffed up from the grimy carpet. It had no discernable color to it other than that it was currently gray-brown. As Harry looked around, he realized that they were entirely unlikely to find anything in the house. Though Harry had hated Snape to his core in school, the man had been anything but stupid. His sixth year had shown him that. Anything that Snape had once had was likely to either be hidden or gone already. Nevertheless, Harry uttered the spell necessary under his breath. As he had expected he found nothing in the room other than a few Doxy eggs lying beneath a window sill.

At first he thought he had only imagined the noise he was now hearing. There had come to his senses a soft thump in a room upstairs. He transferred his gaze to Humphrey who seem oblivious to anything but the task at hand. The noise came again though, and this time Harry transferred his gaze to a bookshelf. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Humphrey do the same. He stepped toward the bookshelf, and slid his hands into a crack around the side of the wall. Several books fell solidly off the shelves as it swung miraculously freely open. A door was on the other side revealing a thin set of stairs whose integrity did not look promising. Without hesitation, he ascended the spongy staircase. Humphrey, he took notice, did not, however, follow.

Harry pressed a hand against the rotting wood door and it creaked unsteadily open before dropping off the hinges and collapsing onto the mildewed wall. He walked forward, every step he made cautious, and pointed his wand around the corner as he came to the end of the hall. "Protego" waited on his lips. The door on this room had already fallen from its hinges, and lay, half broken, propped against the wall just opposite it. Harry stepped through the slight opening and turned into the room.

His hand nearly dropped from his hand at the completely impossible and unnerving sight before him. A very young child stared up at him, dark and intelligent eyes round with curiosity from where he sat in a pile of blankets on the floor. In contrast to the rest of the house, this room had been kept meticulously clean, as had the child, despite his poorly accommodations. This did not register to Harry, however, for despite the gentle gurgles of a toddler, he saw only a chilling familiarity in the shape of the face and the darkness of those eyes. It was not possible. Harry's mind reeled trying to make some sort of semblance of reason to explain what he saw. Short of a hallucination, he could think of nothing. He stepped forward and as he crossed the threshold into the room something hurdled into him knocking him to the floor. With a resounding thud his head hit heavily against the side of the rotting door.

Harry could hear hurried footsteps from downstairs as Humphrey presumably had heard the crash and came to investigate. His wand lay several feet to his right and he could not reach it. Small hands were grasping at his neck and he realized through the spots dancing across his vision that he currently was staring at a very irate house-elf. He reached up and grasped the front of the house-elf's shirt, prying her away from him as he had done Dobby from lamps many times.

"Potter, are you alright?" Humphrey demanded.

Humphrey, however, made no further move to help Harry, for he too had seen the child.

"Fine," Harry grumbled, setting the house-elf on the floor.

"Humphrey keep an eye on her; I'll see if the kids alright."

"Potter, I'm superior t…"

Harry shot Humphrey such a look of anger that the highly ranked Auror did exactly as he had been told. Harry crossed to the boy. He must have been about the same age as Teddy, just over a year. Harry suppressed a shudder as the young boy's eyes crossed his own again, yet in their inky depths, he thought he saw something more, a glimmer of questioning that belayed the striking resemblance. For all the coldness in that young boy's calculating gaze, there was something there that was deep underneath the challenge.

Harry reached out to pick him up and the house-elf launched herself forward. Humphrey stunned her on the spot but not before her voice squeaked, "Leave Tom alone!"

The chill that Harry had suppressed earlier now ripped through him. This boy had been named for his father.