DISCLAIMER: JK Rowling created Harry Potter and its characters; I didn't. I don't own the characters or their surroundings; JK Rowling and Warner Brothers do. I do not want, expect, or deserve financial compensation for my writing. I am writing for my own amusement and ego gratification.

Still, I retain the rights to Colonel Marco Battaglia, Hereward Granger, Horatio Dursley, and now, Nahum Snape.

Also, how am I doing? A review would be nice.

Author's Note: This is an alternate universe Harry Potter story, set in the same universe as my Daria Ravenclaw (Harry Potter/Daria Morgendorffer) fan fiction series and years before most of the canon Daria characters were even born.

What might the consequences might have been if Tom Riddle, Senior hadn't been home at the Riddle Manor when the future Lord Voldemort came to call in July of 1943?

This story is rated M for violence, cruelty, adult situations, and coarse language. This is a war story. If you are looking for a cheerful Harry Potter fan fiction with good values and moral uplift, read no further. This is NOT that kind of tale.

Tom Riddle's War*Tom Riddle's War*Tom Riddle's War

Interior Sicily

By early August, the enemy now had possession of the Catanian plain and was encroaching on the town of Catania and threatening Adrano. Despite Colonel Battaglia's training and experience as an artillerist, his kampfgruppe fought as infantry, not as artillery. After heavy fighting, Adrano fell, and his unitretreated up the slopes of Mount Aetna.

There were few survivors of Colonel Battaglia's coastal defense unit left. Most had been wounded, killed, or taken prisoner. Reinforcements were few, and what few there were either came from shattered Italian Army units or occasionally stray would-be deserters given the choice of returning to duty or being shot on the spot. One or two he recognized as having deserted back when his unit had been posted to the coast. Colonel Battaglia made a show of welcoming them back, but pulled a couple of reliable officers and underofficers aside and told them to summarily execute them if they acted like they would flee again.

Colonel Battaglia hated fighting like an infantryman. He was an artillerist, and in his opinion a pretty good one—far better than the Spaniards and assorted foreigners he'd fought in Spain, and better than the Reds he'd fought in Russia. But he'd been an artillerist without artillery—until he found an abandoned gun lying in a gully not far from the narrow, twisting roadway that threaded alongside Mount Aetna.

He did some scouting and discovered a wheel rim and intact tires a few miles away. He got permission from the Tedeschi commanding his kampfgruppe to salvage and move the weapon to a new position. Using the skills he'd learned in Russia, then refined and taught others in his kampfgruppe, he hid the weapon under camouflage. If he could find shells for his piece, he'd have teeth again.

-(((O-O)))—

Tom Riddle hoped that would be Merope's one and only appearance, but the ghost dashed his hopes. She appeared several times on subsequent nights, frightening him enough drive him out of his quarters. To his chagrin, he learned that he wasn't the only one who saw her: Barnes, a Captain newly posted to his unit, could see her too.

"Interesting gal you've got in your quarters, Riddle," he said. "I'd have thought that if there were any ghosts around here, they'd all be Italians."

It was all Riddle could do to keep from swinging at him. It wouldn't have gone well if he had. Barnes was younger, senior to him, and had gone in for boxing at public school.

Matters worsened a couple of days later. Barnes had initially attempted to be friendly and civil on the occasions he dealt with Riddle; now his demeanor turned cold, formal, and he only spoke to Tom when he considered it to be in the line of duty. Tom suspected that Barnes had had words with Merope, but the little shit was too shrewd to publicly let on that he'd done so.

-(((O-O)))-

The Allies' offensive ground northwards.

By August 3rd, the Allies had taken the town of Catania and were pushing towards Adrano and other towns near the slopes of Mount Aetna.

Riddle and Barnes continued to do convoy duty, seeing to it that trucks were loaded, riding with the trucks to where supplies could be off-loaded and handed off to front-line troops, then offloading them and taking the occasional load of prisoners and broken equipment back to where it could be repaired. By now their lorries had been getting some hard use and Riddle noted to his dismay that they'd started breaking down more frequently.

-(((O-O)))—

In the meantime, Colonel Battaglia had managed to find an intact wheel-rim and tyres and after drafting enough enlisted men to help, was able to drag the canon out of the ditch and put it someplace useful. There was a narrow, twisting road over 1500 meters away that would force any motorized unit advancing on his position to slow to a dead crawl. They'd be lined up like fat, slow partridges, he thought happily. He wanted direct line-of-fire, but the Tedeschi wouldn't give him one; he'd had to place his piece behind a hillside. He cursed the Tedeschi's stupidity; the German was young and inexperienced, but in the off-kilter manner his kampfgruppe was constructed, he outranked him.

He still didn't have what he really needed. The last thing he wanted was to have a tube that could do nothing except attract enemy fire if it were spotted. Then one day his hopes were answered: he got shells. He smiled. He didn't think the Yankees or the Inglesi knew that there was any enemy heavy ordinance in his sector of the battlefield. He and his men would be a nasty surprise.

-(((O-O)))—

Tom's war went on. The Allies had driven the Germans and Italians slowly towards the slopes of Mount Aetna and back towards Messina. Once they captured Messina, the island was theirs.

He'd seen less of Merope of late. He could be grateful, but he suspected that Barnes had. Not only that, the one time he went into Barnes's quarters he'd seen a small vase of wildflowers arranged in a small vase on top of some doily that Barnes had gotten from God knew where.

He saw her again one evening. This time, she had company: an older woman, clearly some sort of relative. The older ghost looked at him with loathing. She said nothing, but he looked at her and saw that she'd been knitting something. He could see the knitting needles and the yarn trailing down over the long skirt she wore into some basket. Looking him in the eye and making a nasty grin, she picked up a pair of scissors and cut the thread.

-(((O-O)))-

Augusta, Sicily
August, 1943

This morning's convoy was bound to the front. The Bedford they were riding in was carrying high explosive shells for some artillery unit, one of Riddle's least-favorite cargoes. He had a sense of foreboding but dismissed it. Bollocks, he told himself. You've just been in this filthy country for too long, that's all.

The driver was already in the vehicle and waiting. He was unfamiliar, a man with brown hair and a large, hooked noise.

"Who are you?" said Tom. "I've never seen you before."

"Private Snape, Sir," said the driver in a Yorkshire accent. "Nahum Snape."

"What?" said Tom.

"Nahum Snape, Sir," said Snape. "Nahum, it's from the Bible."

"Right," Tom said irritably.

Granger got into the cab a few moments later.

"Why are you here, Granger?" Tom said irritably. "Dursley's supposed to be on this run."

"Dursley's with the quacks, Sir," said Granger.

"Is the bugger shirking again?" said Tom.

"No, Sir," said Granger. "Broken ankle. It's real."

I'll bet it is, thought Tom. He'd settle accounts with Dursley when he got back.

-(((O-O)))—

They set off. It was relatively safe going these days—at least until you got close to the front. Most of the rubble had been cleared, as had most of the ruined armour and vehicles, and the engineers had repaired or replaced enough of the ruined bridges so Riddle and other officers could run their convoys up to where they were needed.

Things got dicier the closer they got to the edge of battle. To be sure, there was even less risk of air attack than there'd been even a week ago. Rumor had it that the Axis had removed all their aircraft to the Italian mainland. Not long now, thought Riddle, not long until we have control of Sicily, although a part of him wondered anyone would want it. But the closer they got to the front, the more they came within range of the enemy's artillery.

The roads near this part of Mount Aetna grew narrow and twisted. Snape was new at this and slowed to a crawl, making Tom feel like centipedes were crawling up and down his backbone. He himself had done this route once. He'd been warned about snipers and managed to keep moving, but a freshly-minted clot from Britain didn't know any better and had attracted a bullet through his chest from some distant sniper.

By now, Tom had enough experience with convoy duty to know that there were things that he well and truly feared. Just after Private Snape gingerly took the Bedford around another hairpin turn, he saw that one of them had just come true: a broken-down lorry sprawled across the roadway.