Chapter 1
Déjà vu I thought, as I held the parchment envelope.
No. Not quite Déjà vu, but close.
I had experienced something similar in the past. I had held a parchment envelope with this same wax seal, that looked identical to this one.
I was in the place I loathed. An orphanage by the name of "Wools" with a matron called Mrs. Cole.
The walls were a light grey, the rooms small, with most children sharing, 2 or 3 of them per room. Although I had my own room, it was only through my own effort. I had terrorized the children that annoyed me. I made them fear me there to the point where they avoided me and looked upon me with hatred.
I was delicately grazing the symbol in the wax with my the tips of my fingers.
Hogwarts.
My home for 10 months of the year, every year, for seven long years.
The first time I saw this letter, was when I was 11.
A professor of the school came to Wools. He made a horrible first impression on me(he set fire to all my possessions).
Yet despite this, I revealed my secrets to him. He knew who I was because of that moment of weakness. That moment was the cause of my downfall in my later years.
Or in my future years.
No, that future wasn't mine, it was the past of a me that no longer exists. Of a Tom Riddle who didn't have what I do.
I opened the envelope and read the acceptance letter within. It was exactly the same as the one I read in my last life.
I was ready to go back to Hogwarts, my home.
My second home, my first one being the home I had here with the two people whom I may not love, but whom I didn't want to ever leave me.
My parents; Thomas and Merope Riddle.
My father Thomas Riddle was a kind man.
I had absolutely no respect for him.
He was an utter doormat of a man.
He was a man who doted on his wife to the point of madness and there were few who understood that side of him.
When I say 'doted', I don't mean he showered her with affection. In fact, I would dare to say he hated her, although I have no proof of this fact. He simply gave into every little whim she had.
My mother Merope Riddle nee Gaunt was a twisted woman.
She tormented my father.
She was willful, arrogant, sadistic, and completely smitten with Thomas Riddle.
She lorded over him with her magic and the son she birthed; me.
I don't think she realizes this but he never cared that she had magic.
He cared that she had me; his son, and he didn't wish to separate his son from his son's mother.
I wasn't only a smart child in my last life, but in this life too, before memories of another path joined my own. I was only five years old when a glimpse into my father's memories made me realize that he hated my mother. I saw the moment she drugged him with a love potion.
My father and I were walking home from the muggle preschool my father insisted I attend.
We noticed an old woman carrying a small cart with her groceries up a flight of stairs, into her apartment.
I ignored her of course.
"Excuse me, madam, would you like some help there?" My father asked her, with a smile you could tell he had used on women in the past. My mother would tell me stories about how much of a player he was, back when they were just neighbors in the same village of Little Hangleton.
The old woman accepted his help and my father carried her heavy grocery-laden cart for her all the way up to the 3rd floor. With no magic. He was a muggle after all.
The old woman was very talkative all the way up the stairs. Not even out of breath from all her talking. I really doubted she even needed any help with how much she was yapping about her grandkids and her cats. Yet my father helped her all the same with a smile on his face the whole way up.
When we got to her apartment he put her cart down and she offered my father and I some cookies and water.
My father took the water and I politely took a cookie.
I didn't intend to eat it as they looked a little too sweet for my tastes.
When the old woman looked away, I noticed my father pour out the water in her plant. He then gave me a look and glanced at the cookie with a clear warning not to eat it.
We then politely took our leave with the old woman thanking us throughout.
Once we were downstairs and had walked down one block my father stopped and took me aside.
"Do you still have the cookie?"
I nodded and showed it to him, handing it out for him to take from me. I wiped the sugary crumbs off of my hands and onto my clothes. Gross.
He nodded at me with a smile and took the cookie from me.
"I am sure her intentions were kind, but you should never eat food or drink that a stranger has given you. Do you understand?"
He was staring at me straight in the eyes. Suddenly I wasn't on the sidewalk with my father but in his memory.
Grassy hills were surrounding the entrance to a forest. There was an old cottage just visible when looking into the trees. with a dirt pathway leading to it.
A handsome young man who looked to have just left his teen years behind, my father, was running down another dirt pathway along the border of the forest.
When the paths crossed I saw a young woman with rough features walk towards him. She had a subtle determination in her eyes. She was walking here with what looked to be all the courage she could muster to talk to her crush. I pitied my father at that moment for having such an ugly creature pine for him.
My ever the kind man father smiled at her. It looked to be the same smile he gave the old woman and every other lady to meet his eyes politely. However, this smile was slightly lazy and his eyes droopy with exhaustion. His hair was damp and his back was wet with sweat, it seems he was running for a while before he saw her.
He took this chance to take a break it seems as he stopped and put his hands on his knees panting slightly.
The woman had approached him although she had stopped with quite a feet in between them.
This must be as close as she could get to him without losing her nerve.
I looked at her with contempt. I only every thought my mother could handle my father, even at the age of 5.
"W-where is….your horse?"
She seemed to have wanted to ask about something else as she was still looking around.
Her voice sounded familiar. Like how my mother would sound if she had no self-confidence and was as shy as this...ugly...creature.
My father appeared to know what she was talking about as he laughed out while recovering his breath.
"Cecilia... and I ...are not going horseback riding... for a while as... my horse has ...been taken hostage for... the time being until... my mother has had... her fill with riding it ...and Cecilia has recovered from her... cold."
Cecilia? Who was that?...a girlfriend he had before meeting my mother?
The woman gave him a shaky smile and with a voice just as shakey offered him some water.
"Water!?... I would love some…. as long as... the lady offers it!"
Did he call such a woman a lady? I could not understand how he could show such a smile and not a hint of disgust or disdain towards this ugly woman who had rough hands and heavy features with her dull, limp, brown hair and eyes that stared in opposite directions.
My father's smile had brightened at the mention of water and the woman blushed at him so fiercely I thought steam would soon come out of her ears.
My father's smile did not drop an inch even when she returned from the small cottage with a glass of what seemed to be, grape juice?
"I- I figured you would need the sugar for your run back...I-I...hope you don't mind that it isn't water."
She was still blushing while stuttering about nonsense.
"Thank you for your thoughtfulness, my lady, juice would indeed be better for me to power through the rest of my run."
My father spoke nonsense in return. A playboy indeed. Who gives someone juice after a run!? He asked for water!
My father drank the juice in one go and let out a sigh of content.
When he opened his eyes he gave the woman a look of wonder.
"I don't think we have been introduced before. May I ask the lady her name?"
He was bowing while holding her hand in one with the glass behind his back n the other, like a prince in a fairy tale, would.
The ugly woman's blush deepened as she looked at the ground.
"Merope Gaunt"
"Merope….The daughter of atlas the titan! A wonderful name!"
My father was in love.
That creature had the same name as my mother...and my father loved her.
At that moment despite my young age, I knew that my mother fed my father a love potion and that my father must have hated her.
Yet he stayed. I could tell that he was no longer under the spell as he was giving me a lecture not to make the same mistake he had. He also no longer acted like a love-struck fool.
Every interaction my father had with my mother always had underlining of fear, despair, and hopelessness that only my sadist of a mother could bring out in him.
This was when I realized that my father was a doormat.
Although I lost some respect for him that day I also realized that he loved me enough to give up his own happiness for me.
I knew that he did not stay because of fear. People don't stay close to those they fear but run from them. This meant he stayed for something else, and if that something wasn't my mother, then the only other thing it could be...was me.
I lost respect for him that day….but I, in turn, became possessive of him.
He was my father.
Mine.
Even if one day he wanted to change his mind and leave us...I would not allow it.
A/N: I am only starting this story on a whim so don't expect chapters to come out that often.
I do have an idea of what I want to focus on here and I'm going to just say it so beware spoilers for the fic below.
I want to focus on a time-traveling Tom Riddle Jr, a Thomas Riddle Sr who transmigrated into another world and a Merope Gaunt who was twisted into a sadist by getting a man who gives into her but doesn't love her back.
If anyone finds anything inconsistent with the harry potter books series (i use potter wiki, and some things I will be taking from the movies instead, but I could miss something) or if you notice any plot holes along the way please PM me as I don't feel like bothering with an editor and will just be putting chapters out as I go.