The Riddle Trial
"He's feral, Hermione."
"Feral?" The word was a frightened whisper.
"Yes," Harry replied simply, glancing over his shoulder towards the black-haired boy. Harry had placed him in the corner of Hermione's office fifteen minutes ago; the boy had not moved since. He sat, still as the grave, staring blankly into space with those unsettling scarlet eyes of his. "He can't speak, or he won't. He barely even moves. I had to carry him here." Harry stole another glance at the pale-skinned boy, and frowned, an involuntary shiver running down his spine. "Hermione, I have no idea what we're going to do."
Hermione sat at the other side of her desk, dressed in the deep-blue robes of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, her bushy-brown hair pulled back into a neat bun. A small plaque on her neatly-organised desk read Head of Department. She took a long time to respond, her eyes narrowed in thought, her features an unreadable mask, and Harry found himself starting to panic. He'd been sure that Hermione of all people would understand, that she would help him. But what if she didn't?
"Hermione-"
"Tell me again how it happened, Harry," Hermione said suddenly. "Tell me how you found him."
Stomach churning, Harry recounted his story to Hermione; how he had descended through the tower, how he had found the black-haired boy, the spitting image of Lord Voldemort at eleven years old, chained up in the jaws of a colossal snake-statue. The boy had been in some sort of sleeping trance, but when Harry had untied the boy's chains, those unsettling eyes had flickered open. Harry told Hermione how he had brought the boy back to the Ministry, smuggling him straight into Hermione's office beneath his Invisibility Cloak - though he omitted the part of the tale that involved his recurring visions of the tower. He had a feeling Hermione might frown upon those.
When he was done, Harry glanced again at the boy, sitting behind him in a darkened corner of Hermione's cramped office. This time, however, the black-haired boy met Harry's gaze. His pale, pallid face turned slowly to face Harry's own, and Harry released an involuntary wince as the boy's scarlet eyes swept over him. With long-practised instinct, his hand rose to rub his scar soothingly.
"Something wrong?" Hermione asked immediately, her voice concerned. "Is your scar hurting again?"
"No," Harry said quickly. He didn't want to start a panic; the last thing he wanted was Hermione fretting over nothing - or headlines like You-Know-Who Returns in the news, for that matter. "It's just when he looks at me."
Hermione's concerns didn't look entirely assuaged. She stared past Harry for a long moment, her dark-brown eyes focused on the black-haired boy, her lips pursed in worry in a very Mrs. Weasley-ish manner. Harry felt it wouldn't be wise to mention that to her either.
"So, Hermione," he said urgently, as her eyes slid back to his, "what - what should we do with him?"
Again, Hermione took a long while to answer. Time was, Harry thought, Hermione wouldn't have let a moment pass with a mystery like this on the table; she'd have dashed off to the library already, with barely a muttered word to Harry and Ron to explain her intent. That was a long time ago, though.
"I think," she said eventually, "that we don't know nearly enough about - him - to even begin discussing what to do. I mean, what is he? How was he created? How long was he in that tower? What was that tower? Can he speak? Can he think? Is he just a boy, or is he like a Horcrux - just another part of Voldemort's soul?" Her eyes flitted back to the black-haired boy, skinny and ragged in the corner, before she continued, her voice a hushed whisper. "Is he dangerous?"
"I don't know, Hermione," Harry mumbled weakly.
"Neither do I," said Hermione, her tone frank. "This is bigger than you or me."
"Kingsley-"
"Bigger than the Minister," she interrupted smoothly. "This has to go to the Wizengamot."
"Hermione... the Wizengamot?" Harry spluttered. "You really think that's the best idea? I mean, Malfoy is on the Wizengamot!" Again, as if magnetically drawn to the small, silent boy, he glanced over his shoulder. Those crimson eyes, strangely bright in the half-darkness, were fixed, unblinking, on the boy's bare feet. "You really want to put him in front of that?"
"I don't think we have a choice."
"But - like you said, we don't know anything!" Harry exclaimed. "If we take this to the public now, there'll be a panic. If we wait, try to figure out what's going on..."
"No more secrets," Hermione replied calmly. "That's what we said when we joined the Ministry. It's time to stick to that, Harry." Her expression softened slightly, and she reached across the desk to squeeze Harry's arm reassuringly. "This is too big. You're worried about starting a panic? Imagine if word got out that we were sneaking Voldemort's son around the Ministry. Don't worry, Harry. Whatever is going on, it'll all come out in front of the Wizengamot. We'll do right by him." Releasing her grip on Harry's arm, she stood up. "I'd better go tell Kingsley."
Harry didn't envy Hermione that conversation. As Hermione stepped around her desk and walked, heels clicking softly, towards the door, Harry half-turned in his chair towards her.
"He's not Voldemort's son," he said, as Hermione glanced over her shoulder towards him. "He wasn't the fatherly type."
Flashing Harry a reassuring smile, Hermione pulled her office door open. Outside, life went on as normal. "No, he was not."
"How d'you think they'll react?" Harry asked softly. "The Wizengamot, I mean?"
She smiled thinly. "Not well, I imagine. But we have to try."
She turned, and was gone. As she left, Harry couldn't help but notice the boy's scarlet eyes follow Hermione from the room. Wide, cat-like crimson eyes, animalistic - but, still, oddly intelligent, and Harry found Hermione's parting words ringing in his ears. What is he? Harry was sure that the black-haired boy - Tom, he supposed suddenly, he couldn't be 'the boy' forever - was not Voldemort's son. Harry doubted whether Voldemort had ever wanted anything besides power. Voldemort had always claimed to have pushed the boundaries of magic, though - could he have created Tom? It was certainly possible. Why was Tom locked up in that tower, though? And why was he still a child when Voldemort died nineteen years ago?
If Tom was an accident, why did Voldemort allow him to live?
The black-haired boy was scared. He had been asleep for so, so long, curled up in the comforting coils of his dreams - dreams of hooded men, and ghostly skulls in the sky - but now, for the first time in his life, he was awake. He was alive. Alive, awake - but still chained. They coiled around his wrists, harsh, cold works of metal digging into his skin, drawing beady-drops of crimson blood that trickled, drop-drop-drop, to the stone below. For the hundredth time, he tried to loosen the chains slightly; immediately, they contracted, and the boy winced as fresh rivulets of blood flowed down his wrists.
It wasn't the chains that frightened the boy, however. It wasn't even being alive. It was the people. They sat on grand, circular stone benches, hundreds of them, rising up, and up, and up, a great sea of deep-plum robes and glinting three-pronged silver brooches. They stared down at the boy as if he were some caged animal. He could see their revulsion, their hate, their fear - but, most of all, the black-haired boy saw confusion in their eyes. They stared down, at the boy with gleaming red eyes and skin as pale as milk, and wondered what they saw. They jabbered to themselves in some language the boy did not know, this crowd, but the meaning of their whispers was evident; they were discussing him.
They stared down at the black-haired boy, and he stared back. Sweeping the crowd, his scarlet gaze found a middle-aged man with receding white-blonde hair, a pale, pointed face, and a tiny little wisp of a goatee upon his chin. When their eyes met, the blonde-haired man's face whitened, and he hurriedly looked away, striking up a conversation with the red-haired, freckle-faced woman who sat beside him. Or, at least, attempted to. The boy watched curiously as the red-haired woman turned away, her arms folded across her chest. Her brown eyes met the boy's for a moment; the woman's face betrayed no fear, but her grip tightened on the stone bench, and her knuckles whitened.
Movement, and the sudden, rapid clatter of footsteps on stone caught the boy's attention. Behind him, three important-looking people swept into the room. Two, the boy recognised; the other was unfamiliar. Walking at the head of the trio was an elderly dark-skinned man in purple-and-gold robes; he wore a golden earring in his ear. The dark-skinned man was conversing quietly with the man to his left, who the boy recognised; it was the thin black-haired man with piercing green eyes, who had freed the boy and brought him here. He had the most curious scar on his forehead, almost like a bolt of lightning. The third new arrival, walking on the dark-skinned man's right, was the bushy-haired woman, dressed in midnight-blue robes, who the black-haired man had brought the boy to after they had left the tower.
Together, the trio crossed the room towards a raised stone table, set in the lowermost row of stone benches. When they took their seats, the low murmuring echoing around the room subsided instantly, replaced by a deathly-tense silence. The bushy-haired woman jabbered a few words in some strange language, then tapped her wand lightly on the stone tabletop before her. It was then that her eyes turned to the boy. Her gaze was unabashedly curious, but there was a hint of sympathy there that was sorely lacking from most of the room's other occupants. The crowd leant forward now in their seats, holding their collective breath as one. The boy supposed they were about to discover what all the fuss was about.
Amongst all the jabbering, the boy suddenly picked out one of the bushy-haired woman's words. A word he knew, somehow. Riddle. When she said it, the silence in the room suddenly intensified, as a hundred people forgot to breathe - and then the room descended into uproar. Many leapt to their feet, jabbering and pointing at the boy; some shook their heads in dull disbelief; others shouted, bellowing and screaming across the grand, tall-ceilinged room. The bushy-haired woman, the black-haired man and their companion watched all this with swiftly-deepening expressions of dismay.
The boy suddenly found himself grinning. All this fuss over him? He wasn't sure what he was supposed to have done that was so terrible, but it must have been bad.
"Order!" Hermione shouted shrilly, again and again, in a futile attempt to forestall the chaos that had overcome Courtroom Ten of the Ministry of Magic. Half the Wizengamot were on their feet, bellowing and shouting, heedless of Harry or Hermione or Kingsley or the few others who were trying to restore calm, and instantly Harry knew this had been a mistake.
"You told us You-Know-Who was dead!" yelled one man.
"How can he be back?" cried another.
"No, no, he can't, he can't," wailed one young blonde woman, sobbing into a silken handkerchief. "He can't be back!"
"KILL HIM!" someone screamed.
At the sound of that last shout, Kingsley rose to his feet. He boomed a complicated, unfamiliar incantation, and Harry felt a violent, sweeping pulse emanate from the Minister's wand. It shook Harry in his seat, but he was not its intended target. Kingsley's curse silenced the frantic Wizengamot, knocking every single one of them off their feet.
"Enough!" Kingsley snapped, as the crowd began to climb to their feet, groaning. "Return to your seats." Below Harry, Tom watched events unfold, unperturbed, though the pale-skinned boy's curiosity was obvious. Kingsley raised his wand-hand, and the air around Tom's chair shimmered for a second. Harry knew a Shield Charm when he saw one. "Now," Kingsley continued calmly, "Madam Granger will continue." He turned to Hermione expectantly.
Hesitantly, she returned to her feet. "Let me make this clear to you," she said icily. "This is not Lord Voldemort." Even now, half the Wizengamot winced at the name. "This is not in any way a danger or a threat. This is - well, it's strange, but it's nothing we can't address like grown-ups. We're not here to sharpen our pitch-forks, or - or burn him at the stake - we're here to find out what's going on, and why, and discuss what we should do with this boy."
A moment's hushed silence - and then a mocking laugh rung out. All eyes darted to Draco Malfoy as the blonde-haired man rose to his feet.
"He's not Lord Voldemort?" Draco repeated with a mocking sneer. "Oh, consider us all reassured then, Granger, if you say he isn't. Of course, if a big scaly creature with no legs slithered up to me, hissing, I would call that creature a snake, and not an innocent little boy, but perhaps we differ there."
"We're not denying there's some connection-" Hermione began, but Draco quickly cut her off.
"Oh, there's some connection," he repeated dryly. "How reassuring. There's only some connection to the worst Dark wizard of all time." Worryingly, there were approving nods from a few members of the Wizengamot as Malfoy spoke, and even a flutter of laughter. Emboldened, Malfoy pointed at Tom. "I knew the Dark Lord, and that's him."
Hermione wasn't dissuaded easily. "He may be Voldemort's son, or some creation of Dark Magic-"
"That's his body!" Malfoy exclaimed, throwing his arms wide as if inviting the Wizengamot to agree with him. "Not the Dark Lord's son, or cousin, or nephew - him! The Dark Lord always had plans, plans beyond the comprehension of the ordinary wizard. What if he's in there right now? What if this boy shares the mind? The brilliance? The madness?" Malfoy lowered his voice to a dramatic whisper, which nonetheless carried to every corner of the courtroom. "The urges?" Malfoy thrust a long, pale finger towards Tom, mute and tiny in the hard-backed wooden chair below. "The Dark Lord has returned, and you want to discuss it? I say we kill him."
"He's too dangerous to be left alive," called one slender dark-haired woman, high up in the seventh row.
"This is not what we are here to do," Hermione snapped, instantly forestalling the worrying mutterings among the Wizengamot. "This boy-"
"Tom," Harry interjected.
"This - Tom - is not on trial. We're not going to execute him for the crime of looking like Voldemort, I hope." Hermione glanced around the courtroom, eyes beseeching. "Are you really that scared of him?" Her eyes found Malfoy. "A little boy?"
"I-"
Malfoy fell silent as Tom began to scream.
Chained before the Wizengamot, he writhed in agony, his scarlet eyes wide and fearful. He screamed and screamed, and suddenly Harry was sprinting down the stairs towards Tom's chair, Hermione hot on his heels. When Harry reached the floor, Tom was still screaming. Harry rushed to the boy's side as he writhed violently from side to side, fighting and twitching and convulsing.
"Tom!" Harry shouted, grabbing the boy's shoulders, but he got no reply. The boy's scarlet eyes gleamed so brightly they seemed almost to be burning. Looking down, Harry noticed that Tom's chains were digging deep, bloody gashes into the boy's wrists. He had to get those off. "Tom, stop!" Harry yelled again, grabbing Tom's wrists, holding them still while he tried to unfasten the chains - and, suddenly, Tom's chains burned white-hot.
Harry leapt back, yelling in pain as the bubbling, boiling metal scalded his hands. For a second, Tom's anguished screams intensified; then the chains shattered into a thousand pieces and, finally, the screaming stopped. The Wizengamot stood still, frozen in fear, as Tom rose to his feet. He took one hesitant step, then collapsed to the floor. Harry rushed to the boy's side, and turned Tom over. The boy's face was paler than ever, his mouth moving wordlessly. His eyes were squeezed shut, and for a moment he could almost have been a normal boy.
Tom's scarlet eyes blinked open. As he sat up, cradled in Harry's arms, he groaned, a low, pained sound.
"I know you," he murmured. "You're Harry Potter."
"Do you know your name?" Hermione asked, flashing Tom a sympathetic smile. They were in the Minister's spacious office, five of them; Harry, Hermione, Kingsley, Tom and Malfoy. When Kingsley had dismissed the Wizengamot, Malfoy had flat-out refused to leave. Kingsley had tried to order Malfoy away, but several members of the Wizengamot had objected, so here Malfoy was; 'to represent the public', he said. The rest of the Wizengamot had gone home; Harry shuddered to think what sort of tales were already spreading about Tom.
"No," Tom was saying now, his young face showing his growing impatience. "I've told you people, I don't know anything. I don't remember anything besides waking up in that tower and coming here."
"Is your name Tom?" Hermione asked. "Tom Riddle?"
"I don't know!" Tom sat on the opposite side of Kingsley's broad pine-wood desk from the other four, perched uneasily on the edge of an armchair. "Tom Riddle's as good a name as any, I suppose," he added thoughtfully. "Why'd you think I'm called that?"
Hermione glanced, almost imperceptibly, towards Harry. She scrawled something onto a piece of parchment before her and slid it along the desk; I believe him, it read. Harry nodded back, but Malfoy seized the note and began to scribble something himself. When he handed the parchment back, it read Veritaserum? Kingsley shook his head.
"Is your name Lord Voldemort?" Hermione asked softly.
"Lord Who?"
Malfoy guffawed loudly at that, and Tom shrank a little into his armchair. "Well, of course he'd say that!" Malfoy exclaimed. He put on a mock high-pitched voice. "Oh, don't look at me, I'm not the Dark Lord, I'm just a nice little boy!"
"You're being ridiculous, Draco," Hermione snapped. She turned to address Kingsley in an urgent whisper. "Minister, you can't believe this - this rubbish! Voldemort died nineteen years ago. He's not coming back. This - Tom - is clearly just the leftovers from some twisted experiment of Voldemort's. Voldemort spent years experimenting with Dark magic - this is the result."
"Minister-" Malfoy began.
"Enough," said Kingsley icily. "This boy knows nothing of Voldemort. Frankly, I'm more interested in how he seems to have picked up fluent English over the course of a bad headache."
"There!" said Malfoy, seizing upon a perceived opportunity to prove his point. "He speaks English! How could he, if he were just a normal boy who'd spent his entire life in a cave? Clearly, he-"
"Get out, Malfoy," said Kingsley. "Now."
"You're sending me away?" Malfoy exclaimed incredulously. "I'm a member of the Wizengamot! I - I have a right to be here-"
"I've decided this is no longer a Wizengamot matter. You are not a Ministry official, Malfoy," Kingsley said calmly. "We are, and we, not you, are qualified to make any decision required regarding this boy. Now leave."
For a moment, Malfoy looked as if he were about to argue - then, with a loud screech, he pushed his chair over backwards and rose to his feet. "Serpensortia!" he yelled.
A green-and-brown-scaled snake appeared with a loud bang on Kingsley's office-floor. It began to slither across the smooth tiles towards Tom, and instinctively, the boy yelled in a familiar hissing, spitting dialect. Parseltongue. Hermione leaned forward, eyes wide; Malfoy grinned. With a swipe of his wand, the snake vanished. "See, he's a Parseltongue, just like his old man! You can't just let him walk away, Minister, it's our duty to-"
"He won't walk away," Harry said suddenly. "Draco, please take Tom to my office."
"I – but…" Malfoy seemed to sense that the conversation would go no further while he was present. Grumbling furiously to himself, he escorted Tom from the room. "This isn't the end of this," he called as he strode out, cloak billowing impressively behind him. "The Dark Lord is back. I won't let you get soppy on this one, Potter. You know what needs to be done."
With a huffy sweep of his cloak, he left. When the door swung shut, Harry turned back to face Hermione and Kingsley. Hermione, in particular, looked baffled. "Harry, you can't mean to let Malfoy murder Tom-"
"No, Hermione, I don't," Harry said. Suddenly, he felt very tired. "We'll send him to Hogwarts."
"What?" she asked, disbelieving. "Harry - he'll be hated! Parents won't want their children going to school with him!"
"Maybe we should have thought of that before we put him in front of the Wizengamot," Harry retorted, more harshly than he intended. He took a moment to calm down, to assuage his gently-throbbing scar. "Sorry, Hermione. Long day. This - Hogwarts - I mean, don't you think it's what Dumbledore would have done?"
"Well, I like it," interjected Kingsley. "A fresh start for the boy. A happy upbringing at Hogwarts will prevent any potential... darkness from ever arising. It's a good idea. Indeed, no one could deny Voldemort's brains. If this boy is as bright, he may have a great future ahead of him."
"Maybe," said Hermione, unconvinced. "We still don't know what he is, though. There's so many questions... and what will the parents think?"
"Lily's starting at Hogwarts next year," Harry reminded her quietly. "Hugo too. I think that'll be enough to shut up any complaints."
"That's decided then," said Kingsley firmly, while Hermione still chewed her lip doubtfully. "He goes to Hogwarts. But until then..."
"An orphanage?" Hermione suggested. "A nice one," she quickly amended, seeing the scowl on Harry's face. "Nothing like the one Tom Riddle - the real Tom Riddle - was in. A wizarding orphanage. Somewhere he can have a happy childhood."
Something about the suggestion of an orphanage turned Harry's stomach. "I'd rather we found someone to take him in-"
"Harry," Hermione interrupted softly. "No one will take him in."
"OK," Harry reluctantly relented. "A nice orphanage."
"Very well, then," said Kingsley, rising to his feet. "I'll leave you two to arrange the details. Now, I had better go meet the press before we have a panic on our hands."