.

= Riddles =

'-

On Homes

Some things have been unaccounted for by Tom.

'-

"The Force really does feel different here," Anakin said as he settled on the grass beside Tom.

They were in the backyard of the orphanage again, enjoying the spring sun and dodging Amber's frustrated attempt at locating them. She was merely one among the many older kids that had failed to watch over them now. Just relaxing and spending a morning on what limited greenery existed was strangely enjoyable—then again, if one had slavery to compare to, an orphanage might just feel idyllic. The twins had a running bet with each other about how long Mrs. Cole was going to give up trying to corral them anywhere, payable in desserts. Right now, the blond wasn't meditating yet, just experimentally feeling out. His twin nodded.

"Let me guess; it's either a bit distant, or not as easy to manipulate?" Tom asked.

Anakin frowned in concentration as he closed his eyes again, trying to touch the flow that had always been so easy for him before. Here, he felt more apart from the Force than he had ever been, and he didn't like the loneliness he felt. If he wasn't so tightly bound to Tom, it would grow annoying very quickly, like an itch he couldn't quite scratch. He opened his eyes.

"Yes, you're right. It's as if there's a thick layer between or…"

"Harry mentioned something like that," Tom said. "He said that there's probably an explanation as to why wizards and witches have always had to use some sort of focus on our planet to do purposeful magic—" He smirked at the way Anakin wince at the word. "—as opposed to the instinctive bursts that people can access in life or death situations. Something about planetary structure, some combination of the composition of the core or the crust—the mantel, as it is. Not that I paid much attention to the details, as I was too busy not getting sick."

Anakin was still muttering something under his breath about the Force. His twin was smirking.

"You know what? The Force is magic. You should get used to that soon. Everyone calls it that way here."

"But it's not really magic. It's explainable—"

"Good luck in convincing everyone else," Tom said. Anakin took a deep breath and gave up, admitting the point.

"Right. So, where we were the last time around? Meditating, right?"

The good humour left Tom's features. With a disgruntled expression, he almost looked like a normal five-year-old. "Why are we meditating, again? This is boring."

"Because your Force—"

"—magic—"

"—training is behind mine, as is your control. We have more time to practice here than in Tattooine and I certainly don't want to wait until the Jedi found us to begin. It would've been a pain to juggle that while balancing your Temple classes. I know. I experienced that the first time around. Unless you actually enjoy suffering, and if so, we'd probably need to have a different conversation about how masochism isn't the way of the balanced Force, and excess pain is also a path to the Dark Side."

That earned him an unamused look from Tom. "Very funny, Anthony."

"Hey, spare me. I have to match your sense of humour somehow."

'-

Anakin had just finished relaying what he had overheard about the couple currently holed up in Mrs. Cole's office. They were in backyard again, because he was relying on the older kids looking for them to not have expected them to hide out in the same place twice in a row.

"I don't understand. Nobody ever wanted to adopt me before." Tom said, frowning. The surprise and bewilderment was evident in his voice. If he was anything but worried about what they have to do now, Anakin would've laughed.

"You were a brat, then," Anakin said, ignoring the cool glare Tom gave him. He rolled his eyes. "Hey, I saw you. You're just a smooth talker now, but you're a major bootlicker when you're younger and hadn't always fooled everyone. Then, there's the anger issues and I bet Mrs. Cole would've informed them of how well you socialise."

Which was barely, if at all, he thought, but that wasn't what Tom seemed to notice.

"Everyone has some anger issues," the answer came a little too quickly. Anakin shrugged. He wasn't in any position to accuse people of it himself.

"True. Who cares? I was a bit of a brat too, anyway. Kids are always a bit rough around the edges, that's nothing unexpected. What is annoying is how adults want to work with their ideal, well-behaved kid, but didn't want to think about what one has to do to get there." Anakin said, his voice surprisingly vehement. He couldn't help running his hands through his blond hair.

"Speaking from personal experience?"

He shrugged, "Sort of. You remember the Jedi Temple and the Council?"

He had expected Tom to express his displeasure, true. He hadn't expected his twin to have to take a deep breath and release it to the Force. He didn't know Tom was that annoyed, and somehow it eased the worst of the feelings that he got from his own memories.

"They really went at it wrongly, didn't they?" Tom asked.

"You know what they said; I was already too old for training. They didn't know what to do. Now that I think of it again, maybe it's just because they lacked experience in handling anyone like me."

"Yet they made the call anyway so they have to own up to it, or admit their mistake. Probably both." Tom said, firm and unyielding. Well, it was nice to know that someone didn't think the Jedi Council had been all-knowing and all-correct, and could use a lesson in humility.

"They paid," he said softly. "with their deaths."

"So… adoption." Tom segued rapidly as Anakin's Force presence became increasingly choppy. "This would be the couple who came yesterday and looked a bit lost, I take it? I did ask them what they wanted, because they were milling around the hallway a little too long—"

"—and you don't like suspicious looking people," Anakin added, grateful for the change of topic.

"—and I don't trust people who lurked around orphanages, true. I guided them to Mrs. Cole's office while trying to fish information out of them in the guise of a chattering and curious kid. Then, she gave them a tour. I saw them again when they were passing the study hall. We were reading, then. That was it?"

This was another one of those things neither ever really thought about before getting reborn. The possibility that events may completely spiral out of control would scare him if he thought about it too much. So he didn't—not too much. At any case, he was distracted as Tom mused aloud on the probable case of people wanting to adopt him, out of all things. He thought they were strange enough to put most people off.

"I still don't know what made them interested. Were they book lovers? Are they looking for kids that like to read? We could just play in the mud the next time they come around and dissuade them with the mess." Tom said this with distaste. He didn't actually enjoy getting dirty.

"They might think it's cute. Anything can be cute when you have a bunch of kids doing it." Anakin said.

"Even being dark lords?"

"They will immediately humble themselves and pledge their eternal allegiance. Mothers will coo over your pictures and command their children and husbands to follow you." Anakin replied with aplomb, a grin on his face.

"Damn. I should've tried finding an age-reversing potion than trying to live forever. At least I would've kept my hair that way." Tom said dryly, not losing a beat. He was lost in thought again for a while. "What if I insist that I don't want to be adopted without my brother?"

"They might gladly take you up on the offer, and where would we be, then?"

"Probably with a supportive family. It would certainly be more comfortable, financially speaking." Tom mused. Anakin could see he was actually considering it and decided he had to stop this. He didn't really feel comfortable pretending to be a child to a couple who wanted children of their own to love. The two Riddles weren't exactly children.

"Yet we might drag them knowingly drag into the war, or whatever you call the upcoming conflict with Grindelwald." The blond countered.

Tom paused, tilting his head to one side, staring unblinking at Anakin in a way that would unnerve him if he wasn't so used to it. The dark-haired boy was just thinking as well as trying to gauge his twin's reactions and feelings; Anakin knew this by now. He also knew that while Tom wasn't particularly concerned about it, he'd still listen to his twin's objections. This was proved this by his twin's deft skirting of the issue.

"I still don't know what I did to catch their attention this time."

Anakin sighed. "They might have caught up with what we were talking about. We were reading the books we'd borrowed from the library. Stars, analog information storage is inefficient and unwieldy. I've never thought I'd sorely miss the ability to search for keywords in text."

"We already have ways to do that, you know?" Tom said casually. "They're called index cards."

The blond made a horrified sound at the back of his throat, to Tom's amusement, and continued on to another rant about low-tech worlds. Tom let him go on for a while before he said what was occupying his mind.

"What were we talking about, anyway?" Tom asked. His twin thought back.

"The treaty of Versailles? You were saying how it was unbalanced, and how it was a messy start to maybe a series of events that could lead to another world war. But then again, you went on and on about how the political, social and economic conditions in the continent were a pressure cooker waiting to blow." Anakin paused. "By the way, what's a pressure cooker?"

Tom pinched the bridge of his nose. "Damn."

"I'm also emphasizing those words because I can't remember if we treated it as speculation at this stage, or with the certainty of one that knew it would happen."

"Double damn."

"You got that one right."

'-

Maybe it was becausee they had seemed to be well-behaved and frighteningly intelligent kids, Tom thought, but there was a fine line between frighteningly intelligent and completely creeping people out. He would use that. Anakin didn't know what he was planning, but agreed this once to follow his lead. The Hatfields were a young established couple, and from the slight but matching worry lines etched in their face, he suspected they'd been trying to conceive a child for a few years now and the time and effort had left their traces on them.

"Excuse me, Sir, but I'm curious. Is your house in the greater London area?" Tom asked, perfectly polite.

"Yes it is. Why do you ask? Are you afraid to be too far to visit your friends in the orphanage often?"

"Then it wouldn't have made a difference," he said. His tone was soft, as if he hadn't meant for the words to be overheard. Mr. and Mrs. Hatfield exchanged a confused glance at each other.

"What wouldn't make a difference, Sweetie?" Mrs. Hatfield asked.

"It would still be a bombing target, like the rest of London. Like this orphanage."

He could feel surprise rising at Anakin, before he could feel his brother trying to knock some sense into him through the force. It was distracting, but he could ignore it for now. Really, he thought Anakin should know enough to trust him by now.

"Bombing?" Mr. Hatfield asked, amused this time. "Why are you worried about bombing? The war is over children."

"Oh, not the last war. I meant the next one." Tom said with a measured calm as he watched realisation that things were going of control begin to unfold in their minds. "The last one that everyone calls the Great War? It would end up being World War I. The upcoming one is World War II."

Anakin mental presence was banging in his head, so much that Tom had to turn and glare. The blond was unamused. What are you doing?

Freaking them out. Look, just observe for a few more minutes and then you can interfere to your heart's content.

"I see it in my dreams, you see," Tom said. His pose was calm and eerie conviction filled his voice. "I see the smoke rising from Buckingham Palace, the V2 bombs dropped over London. If I and my brother went with you, we would still not have enough time to be a family. We would've been evacuated to the countryside like the rest of the kids, split up so quickly after only being a family for a while. It would only be too sad. I'd rather stay here and do what we can to help Mrs. Cole when the time comes, not to mention that we'd probably be all evacuated together. There'd be more of kids like us, sadly."

The two Hatfields were exchanging concerned and helpless glances. Mrs Hatfield knelt in front of Tom.

"Look, honey, I know that sometimes we have nightmares and they seem so real—"

"Watch for the rise of a man known as Adolf Hitler in Germany," Tom said. "Before that, watch as inflation rises and Germany plunges into a recession. Watch as democracy fell into a gridlock there, and the tired masses longing for a saviour and someone to blame for their sorrows unknowingly chose the wrong man to be their beloved dictator. This I did see. This I know will come."

He could feel the surprise radiating from Anakin through their bond. He knew that his explanation as to what happened in his world hadn't reached this point, but from the echoes and flashes of memories he caught, he knew Anakin was remembering something similar that he'd witnessed in his own time, a shadow falling over the galactic republic. Talk about history repeating itself, Tom mused.

The two Hatfields were still confused, but now Tom could feel the beginning threads of their fear through his enhanced sensitivity to the magical field around them (and yes, Anakin, I know you call it the Force).

"I'm afraid we're boring you. Please excuse me and my brother for now," Tom said with a polite bow. "I'm sure you have many things to discuss with Mrs. Cole."

And with that, he left the shocked couple and made his exit. Anakin said his goodbyes and caught up with him soon enough. They weaved their way through running children, the occasional knots of older kids talking, and all the way to the kitchen. Hilda Swinburn had never minded hiding them there as long as they could help out, especially once she figured out how she didn't intimidate them and they were sensible around tools. The smell of boiling stock met their nose. Tom nodded to Mrs. Swinburn as he walked in with Anakin, his twin waved to the old cook. A crooked smile with some missing teeth rose on her usually fearsome visage.

"You know where the peelers are. Get to it boys."

The kitchen could never have too many hands to start working on the potatoes.

"Yes Ma'am." They said, in unison.

They found the peelers, the stools, and a single three-legged stool shorter than the first pair that they would nevertheless need to climb up and dragged them all the way to the pile of potatoes visible. Then, the brothers set to work. It was relaxing, in a way, as the Cook (as she prefers to be called) didn't care whether they seem unusual for their age as long as no horsing around happened in the kitchen, no one was lollygagging and things are left in their proper places. Tom and Anakin, on the other hand, gained a comfortable nook they can freely talk in, doing things they were ironically already used to, if their time in Gardulla's kitchen was any indication.

"So, how did the mad child-oracle act went?" Tom asked.

"Convincing—I'm surprised that they didn't start running in the other direction. If you could actually feel the rolling mess of emotions they were in…" Anakin said. Tom only nodded as he knew Anakin's Force-sensitivity was greater than his own. "…still, you could've said something! I thought you were going to blow our cover for sure."

"Do we even have a cover?" He asked back, unimpressed. "We're known as weird, unusually intelligent kids and it still fits."

"What, being mad? Do you want us to be locked away, or something?"

The edges of Tom's lips quirked up in amusement. "They wouldn't. Imagine this, two adults who knew that things were unsteady in the continent, heard something so frighteningly outlandish that they didn't want to even think about it. Yet the more they consider, the more doubt grew inside them, as some of the pieces fall in place. Now consider the next step that they'd have to do; in order to tell Mrs. Cole what happened, they have to admit to another adult that a kid had frightened them. A kid! Who was probably only having nightmares!"

Anakin laughed, agreeing with the point. "Yes, they would convince themselves that they were just overreacting to what you were saying, wouldn't they?"

"Because most people wouldn't want to consider that a child had a true vision of a nightmarish future. I mean, think about it, that's the kind of stories pulp fiction are made of."

"Pulp fiction?"

"Those entertaining novels you see around here." He clarified.

"So, is this going to be our standing strategy for any possible adoption?"

"Why not? Unless you want to make up something else. If that's the case, be my guest."

True enough, when they left the kitchen an hour later, they heard from a mousy Amy Bennet that Caroline had been adopted by the Hatfields. Mrs. Cole came to find them later on to inform them about it personally. Tom and Anakin had been rather confused about it, though they hid it well. Then Mrs. Cole tried to carefully mention that it's normal for potential parents to try to talk to many kids at once, just to get to know each other. She also said that it didn't mean that there was anything wrong about the kids that weren't chosen, just that they didn't happen to fit with the character the parents looking, and that she was sure there are many people out there that would fit better…

Tom was keeping a face that seemed to be politely paying attention to Mrs. Cole, all while wondering when she'd end this weird lecture whose actual purpose he couldn't even discern. He was still trying to make heads or tails out of it. Anakin figured it out faster than he did, though, and stepped forward to hug her.

"Mrs. Cole," Anakin said, "thank you for worrying about me and my brother, but you don't need to. We're prefectly happy here to be honest."

Tom was still gazing at them with a mildly confused look.

"Anthony," Mrs. Cole started, but Anakin had rolled his eyes and turned to Tom.

"Thomas, do you want to be adopted?"

"No." Tom had answered without thinking. He looked annoyed at being tricked to answer. "What are you—"

Anakin had turned to Mrs. Cole again. "See? We don't really want to be adopted. Not yet."

What are you doing? Tom hissed. We're supposed to want to be adopted! Everyone else does that. We'd stand out even more!

I know what I'm doing. Trust me.

There was an implicit challenge there, right after Tom's own request earlier when he hadn't even explained much to Anakin. Tom knew he owed that much and complied, backing down.

"This place is home, Mrs. Cole," Anakin said.

Tom would take issue with that, really, because he'd much prefer Hogwarts, thank you. It wasn't as if he was free to practice magic during the summer hols here, and the boring children drove him out of his wits (the fact that the boredom also sharpened his cruelty as he sought other means of entertainment, and how that certainly contributed to the distance was something he was selectively not recalling for now).

From the way Mrs. Cole suddenly hugged Anakin, and then Tom (and she knew he wasn't that comfortable with hugs) made him realise that Anakin had somehow found the right thing to say after all.

"Oh you dear, dear boys," Mrs. Cole said. "Alright then. I'll allow you to hide if any prospective parents were coming around."

"Does this mean that you'll forgive us for possibly scaring the Hatfields?" Anakin asked, his voice completely innocent. To Tom's surprise, Mrs. Cole laughed.

"I knew something was up. No wonder they seem rather nervous and in a hurry after that. What did you actually do, hmm? Anthony? Thomas?"

Tom didn't really think he should answer that at all, incriminating as it was, but Anakin's blatant amusement at the whole scene relaxed him and made him less wary. Go on, Anakin said.

"I pretended I can see the future. A dark and scary future."

It wasn't a lie. He knew of a future, but he certainly didn't know how this one will turn out after he changed things. His answer seemed to have amused Mrs. Cole, because all she did was ruffle his hair, earning her a scowl, before she also ruffled Anakin's hair and walked away after telling them to behave. Tom didn't take it too seriously because he saw the smile she had. She had even forgotten that the twins weren't supposed to be running loose in the hallways.

"Wow, she didn't even punish us," Tom muttered. He was uncertain as to what exactly had happened, and his twin could read it on his face.

"Of course not." Anakin said. The ease with which he said that showed that he had completely expected this outcome. "Like you've said, it sounded ridiculous if one wasn't there, doesn't it?"

'-

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