Phantasy

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Chapter 10
The Thief In The Night

The school response to the sudden knowledge of two Parselmouths walking the halls was something of a mixed bag, and none of it was good. That was, unless you counted the fact that suddenly even the older Slytherins knew to stay out of Potter's way now. The first, and only, person to even attempt to stop Riddle from going about his day in the common room was hissed at, and to say the seventh year had leapt backwards would be a bit of an understatement. Then again, if all the snakes had jumped off the upholstery to attack him, Severus Snape would freely admit to the fact even he might have flinched at that. The second that information had come to light, there'd been an 'emergency staff meeting' which in reality, had become little more than a gathering to gossip about Potter and her ridiculous friends.

Severus was tired of it all, and he quite honestly didn't have the patience to deal with anything else right now. So of course the universe threw him another curve ball, this time in the form of Lucius Malfoy. The blond aristocrat was sat in a plush armchair beside the warm glow of the fireplace within his quarters when he returned, and Severus pushed down the irritated sigh that threatened to escape his lips. Instead, he forced his face to melt into the usual mask of indifferent annoyance, stalking towards his liquor cabinet and snatching up the strongest bottle of scotch he owned.

"I believe Severus, that you reassured me there was little to worry about," Lucius began, accepting the glass he was offered with a regal swipe of his hand, taking a small sip whilst eyeing the potions master over the brim. Snorting, the potions master in question dropped bodily into the seat opposite his associate, one hand rubbing warily at his forehead whilst the other nursed the alcohol close to his chest.

"I believed so."

"Then pray tell, why did I receive a letter from Draco informing me that there was not one, but two Parselmouths within Slytherin house this year?"

Severus hummed, dearly wishing he could just send the man on his way so he could go to bed and collapse, to pretend that his many problems, noticeably three specific children, didn't exist. He was almost to the point where he was considering bodily throwing Lucius through the floo, but restrained himself. He'd regret it later. Probably. He assumed so anyway.

"It's not exactly like they went around wearing a sign proclaiming their talents my dear friend," Severus sneered at the end of his sentence, taking another sip before he continued, "the boy claims to have preformed a blood test with the goblins, revealing he is a descendant of one Marvolo Gaunt, a Parselmouth that got locked up in the 1920's. Dumbledore however, insists that the name Riddle once belonged to the Dark Lord."

Lucius scowled across from him, but what it was from, Severus couldn't even begin to guess. Maybe the Dark Lord being associated to such a muggle name, or perhaps because of the odd reaction that his father's portrait had suffered when the name was spoken. Clearly there was something deeper going on here, but for the life of him, Severus had no idea what is was.

"And the girl?"

"Neither of her parents showed that particular skill, I am as clueless as the rest of the world as to how she obtained it."

Lucius hummed, but it was evident he was as satisfied by that answer as what Severus himself was. And yet, there was nothing they could possibly do about it. They couldn't even corner the girl, because wouldn't that look damn suspicious, especially when the rest of the school now scattered at the sight of the trio. Grindelwald's name terrified them, and now with two Parselmouths? He honestly wasn't sure if he were pleased they'd waited till near the end of the year to let this slip out, or annoyed that it'd slipped out at all. It was nice to know some of their capabilities, but if he had to deal with one more terrified third year-

"I suppose all we can do is wait now, Lucius my friend, and see what comes about. Now if you'd be kind enough to show yourself out, I am off to bed."

And with that, Severus Snape fled his own sitting room, tumbling into his darkened chambers and dropping gracelessly onto the bed.

If he had any luck at all, he'd wake up to find this all a bad dream.

Albus Dumbledore was not in a happy mood. In fact, he was down right depressed.

His good mood was gone, Quirrell was gone, the stone was gone. A lot of things had gone, either missing or just generally gone wrong. He'd been so sure; whilst the other professors defences hadn't been as strong as they could have been, his own idea had been nothing short of pure genius. He hadn't had this kind of brain wave since back in back in '72 when he founded the Order and set about fighting off a second Dark Lord. There was no possible way for the stone to be stolen, because if you knew where it was and went after it, it was obvious that you wanted to use and abuse it. That should have meant no one could get at the stone, that should have meant that the little red gem should be heading back to his good friend with a thank you note and that he should have a captured Dark Lord in his possession.

He shouldn't have been stood before an empty mirror the previous night, completely at a loss as to why the little crimson stone wasn't appearing in his hand. The gem was gone, and instead, all he saw was Ariana holding out a pair of her knitted socks, just like she used to. He just couldn't accept that Voldemort had been able to outmanoeuvre him.

Regardless though, it'd happened.

He'd already dropped a note to Sirius to expect the worst and that he'd be stopping by to see if the wards where capable of seeing to dear Harriet's protection, but he trusted the oldest Black sibling, now more than ever after that painful truth about the boy had come to light. Right now though, the only thing he could do was accept what had happened. If anything, the spell-work around the mirror showed that it'd caused Voldemort a good deal of problems before he'd finally gotten the stone; several pillars had been blown apart and the stone floor of that particular room had a rather large crater of spider-web like cracks. Evidently, the man wasn't at full power, and if there was any justice in the world, he never would be.

Alas, he would prepare for the worst that could happen.

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Now, he was sat in his throne like chair, watching the final meal before the children would depart for their homes for the summer. He was blatantly ignoring the fact young Miss Granger was sat up to the Slytherin table, tactfully ignoring the glares the elder snakes had set upon her. It was obvious the only reason something hadn't been said was because it was well known that Harriet Potter favoured the girl, and that girl held a great deal of power in House of Snakes. The only other person that could rival her for control of the house was one of her closest associates, the Riddle boy. And didn't that make his oh so very nervous.

The boy was lying about his connection to Marvolo Gaunt, or rather, not being entirely truthful. Albus knew for fact that the elderly Gaunt had never had any children other than Merope and Morfin, he'd done his research. He also knew that Morfin would never have laid with a muggle, nor allowed a child of his to do so. Which left only Merope, the poor girl of a brutal upbringing and a life cut so woefully short. There were times when he sat within his office and wondered if he could have possibly helped the girl, if he could have impacted on the young woman and her son's life. But it was useless to consider such things now. There was no way the boy before him was not related to Voldemort.

There was only two good things that he could currently think of; one, the boy was without a doubt not Voldemort. The Dark Lord had made off with the Philosopher's stone after all, whilst the Riddle boy had been serving detention with his two fellow 'Marauders' every night since the end of April. After all, they'd snuck off with a dragon in the middle of the night, the three had been lucky not to be expelled. Though it did make an excellent adventure story.

The second good point was that the boy knew of his heritage, at least to an extent, and was making efforts to distance himself. Though they looked similar, this Tom didn't act like the other before him had. This one got detentions, had two friends -even if he put up the pretence he wasn't too fond of them- and he got into fights. Quite a few, and all of them with either Harriet, the Grindelwald boy or the young Malfoy heir. And for that, he wouldn't look too deeply, for now.

He wasn't surprised to see the boy had landed the top of his year though, with Harriet Potter nipping at his heels in second place. The boy he greatly suspected to be Gellert's grandson had come in third, the three of them leading by a margin so large it'd never before been seen within their school. And then, the muggle-born Gryffindor girl that would spend time with the Slytherin trio had come in fourth, ahead of her classmates, but rather far behind her friends. The girl was smart, Albus knew for sure, but the young lady didn't have the natural genius level talent that the three top students had showcased. He'd never seen such promising students, and he was sure that Harriet Potter would lead the other two to greatness.

Hopefully not following in the footsteps of Hogwart's last most promising student.

"I can't believe I came second. Twelve lifetimes I've lived, and yet you still beat me academically. How?" It still wasn't computing, still wasn't registering within her brain that Tom had managed to not only keep up with her, but shove her off the top spot she'd guarded zealously for the past nine lifetimes.

The dark haired boy was sat across from her in the compartment, already perusing a book that Sirius had sent him as a 'congratulations for topping my god-daughters scores'. Harry herself had gotten a letter with a tiger cub hanging from a tree-branch, a crude 'hang in their kitten' scrawled across it in Sirius' messy script. The man had obviously found a twisted sense of humour in it, but for the life of her, Harry couldn't see it. Or rather, most of it.
Gellert himself had gotten a present too, a book titled 'getting along with dragon tamers'.

Sometimes, Harry wonder if perhaps her godfather had broken his funny bone at some point and it'd not healed up quite right.

Her letter however, aside from the irritating drawing, had been filled to the edges with summer plans. Sirius had set aside three weeks and a good portion of gold for them to go gallivanting across the world to search for Atlantis. He proclaimed it was a goal worth putting his name too. He'd informed them that Dumbledore would be dropping by once they'd gotten back from the Platform to check the ward strength and that Regulus had muttered under his breath about setting Venenifer upon the old wizard in an attempt to get him to keep his nosy beak out of their life.

For the rest of the holidays, Sirius had them pretty much booked up. According to his time table, they had one day to themselves, that being tomorrow, before they'd be swept up in tornado Sirius.

"What's he got planned then?" Gellert jabbed her in the side, peering over her shoulder to get a look at the letter himself as the both of them ignored Tom's smug face.

"He's got tickets to the Tornadoes' match, Regulus is apparently demanding we attend at least one Pure-blood gathering even though Tom and I are halfies, tickets to La Cirque de la Sorcelleri-"

"What? He actually got tickets?"

Harry raised a brow at the blond beside her, who seemed to almost start vibrating with excitement. Even Tom had paused in his reading to look up in an almost questioning manner at the blond, clearly recognising the words about as much as Harry herself had.

"Care to elaborate?" She asked, setting the letter down in her lap to stare questioningly at the former Dark Lord beside her.

Gellert gave an easy smile lounging back in his seat and throwing one leg up onto the seat across from him, much to Tom's obvious displeasure at the boy's comfort.

"La Cirque de la Sorcelleri was the first circus, ever. It came about in the seventeenth century during the reign of the Dark Lord Barnabas Deverill, who held your oh so famous Deathstick for a time. The man was busy terrorizing France, doing away with Muggles and their Magical relations, be they half-bloods or muggle-borns, he didn't really care. Any muggle blood and you were on his list. So a collection of these hunted got together and formed a travelling circus, which they used to move from country to country to avoid his wrath. Even with Deverill's downfall, the descendants still kept the circus going and it's survived to this very day. I had the pleasure of seeing it as a child, Father took us. It was actually a squib of this line of performers that introduced the idea of the circus to muggles. The circus visits all the major European countries during the summer holidays every five years, but it spends most of it's time located in France." That, was a very in depth piece of wizarding culture she'd never heard about.

And Harry hadn't missed the fact Gellert had said 'us'. 'Father took us'. Interesting.

"So they've lowered themselves to a group of plebeian entertainers?" Tom sneered across from her, head already diving back into the book he held. Gellert just laughed though, unwrapping a chocolate frog and snatching it out of the air in mid leap.

"They have a very specific way of using magic, it's where I got a few of my ideas from actually. They were certain a good inspiration to me, I wonder how they've changed over the years..." A wishful look on his face, Gellert leaned back in his chair, popping the last of the frog limbs into his mouth.

Harry returned back to Sirius' letter, going over the rest of what the man had planned for their summer. It sounded very eventful, but it was exceedingly clear that Regulus had had a hand in a good few of the plans. Such as the idea of visiting a dragons reserve, Sirius wouldn't have thought far enough ahead to check how they should be treating a dragon. Even if Tom had that dragon pretty much under thumb by now. She'd never rode a dragon before, at least, where she didn't have to worry about it turning on her. Maybe she could talk Sirius -and Tom for that matter- into letting her try her hand at it over Winter break. Because clearly there wouldn't be time during summer. She was excited to get to the new home that now housed the three of them. With Regulus on board and two former -at least, she hoped they were former- Dark Lord's, this summer with Sirius promised to be as alike the others as a Basilisk was to a Phoenix.

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Arriving at Platform Nine and Three Quarters, Harry all but flew from the train, caught up in her god-father's arms not a second later. Tom and Gellert followed after her, both with trunks shrunken down and stashed away in their pockets, both stood a cautious distance away from the man they were both coming to see as the mad uncle that no other family member would willing speak about.

"Oh no you don't."

Tom was fast enough -or perhaps had enough foresight- to dance out the way of the Black's reaching arms, but Gellert was not. He too was swept up in Sirius' arms as he squeezed the life out of them, while Tom watched with a satisfied, almost hopeful smile. As if a simple Sirius bear hug would do her in. When she was finally released from her god-father's arms, Harry spun, quickly picking out the bushy hair of her, currently, only female friend.

"Hermione!" She waved in an over dramatic manner, to which Gellert happily joined in, if only to irritate Draco Malfoy by 'accidentally-on-purpose' smacking him with his wildly gesturing limb.

The Gryffindor approached cautiously with her muggle parents, Tom not even bothering to hide his sneer at their appearance.

"Sirius, this is Hermione Granger the girl I told you about in my letters. Hermione, my god-father, Sirius Black."

Hermione held out her hand to shake, and Sirius was instantly in charm mode, the typical pure-blood greeting of kissing the back of her knuckles setting the girls cheeks ablaze. It wasn't any wonder why, with a proper potions routine and regular visits from the healers, Sirius looked every inch the handsome Black he'd have grown to be without Azkaban. It was only the slightly haunted look in his eyes that'd give him away. In appearance that was. Hermione introduced her parents, who appeared cautiously excited to meet an adult wizard that wasn't associated with Hogwarts, and they were quick to thank Tom for saving their daughter life.

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Soon enough, the Grangers bid their goodbyes, going to meet the parents of the other Gryffindor girls that Hermione had sat with on the train.

"So, where's Reggie?" Harry asked, cocking her head to a side and scanning the crowds, as if expecting the Black Lord to appear out of thin air.

As soon as his brother had been officially proclaimed 'not dead' by the Minstery, Sirius had all but thrown the title at him, claiming he had no patience for politics and that if he had to deal with Malfoy Sr, he was going to embrace that oldest and noblest Black tradition of curse first, question later. Regulus had been more than happy to take the reigns, ripping through Wizengamot and the Hogwarts Board of Governors for several failed jobs that they'd suppose to have completed in the last decade. It turned out that Lucius had only been able to sit on the Board in the seat for the House of Black, as Regulus had been assumed dead, Sirius in prison, Andromeda disowned and Bellatrix also incarcerated; Lucius had been able to sit on the seat using his wife's connection. So, upon Regulus' return, and to Sirius' everlasting joy, Lucius had been booted from his seat.

So, in all, everything was going well on the political front in regards to the House of Black.

"Reggie?" Sirius repeated, his face twisting in confusion for a second before the answer came tumbling from his mouth. "Oh, he's off rescuing a Norwegian Princess from a dragon or something like that. I think." For the amount of attention Sirius had obviously been paying his brother when informed why he wasn't going to come to the platform, it was just as likely that Regulus was in fact feeding the Princess to the dragon.

"Oh, he managed to complete his transformation by the way and insisted on registering with the Ministry, the idiot. And you'll get a kick out of his animal, I know I did." Sirius held out one hand gesturing for them to all grab hold of the rope he was presenting them with. A Portkey, of course. Side-long with this many people would be asking for a splinching.

"Chop chop, I'm not too great at making these, so it might be a bumpy a ride."

And if Sirius just so happen to smack Lucius Malfoy in the face as they were whisked up and away, well, who was Harry to complain?

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They arrived at the manor just after five, Kreacher and the newly arrived Kooky -whom Sirius had snatched up from an abusive owner for a bargain- had served dinner upon the table. Kooky was a rather free-spirited elf and Harry took an instant liking to her. She was a gumdrop of happiness in contrast to Kreacher's usually sullen moods, which were almost always unless dear Master Regulus was around. Then the elf made a bit of an effort to smile. From the front door to the dining room, the portraits had all been giving Sirius grief, ranging from the demand for him to 'get a real job' or to 'get on with making a proper heir'. Gellert hadn't seen the need to silence them like he had Sirius' mother, simply because he found the whole thing hilarious. Sirius had slumped into the seat at the other end of the table and glared at the boy as he piled up his plate.

It was when they were half-way through the turkey that Regulus arrived home, clothes charred and the tips of his dark hair smoking slightly. Sirius actually choked on whatever form of substance he had been busy chewing through, to which Gellert had happily started slapping the older wizard across the back. Without a doubt revenge for the surprise hug attack he'd suffered through on the Platform.

Harry, in all honesty, was a bit worried that her idea of Regulus actually going off to feed a dragon wasn't far off, but the older teen was too busy glaring down at Tom to pay any attention to her.

"Did you set that dragon to try and fry me?"

Tom paused, halfway through cutting into a carrot before he turned his grey eyes upon the older wizard.

"My apologies," he mused, not sounding the least bit apologetic as he spoke, returning to slicing up the collection of carrots upon his plate, "I was unaware you weren't able to apperate. My mistake."

A slight tick by his jaw made it clear Regulus wished for nothing more than to bare his teeth at the younger boy but refrained, appearing nothing more than the usual cool pure-blood Lord.

"Not directly into the manor no. The wards I put up yesterday made more than sure of that. My father left quite the list of them, which are more than happy to fry an intruder to the House of Black." And didn't his gaze say he considered Tom an intruder.

Harry watching the two of them with a small smile playing across her lips. She didn't know much about Regulus, had never met him before and only heard the odd story from Sirius. His character was startlingly different from Sirius' at first, but the more time you spent in their company, the quicker the realization that their personalities bounced off one another in a way, forcing the other to think things through thoroughly if they wanted a chance at one upping the other. Evidentially, it was good company for Sirius.

"I want answers," Regulus finally mused, turning to look her directly in the eye and Harry straightened up automatically. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed both Tom and Gellert with one hand in their pocket, clearly resting upon their wands as Harry stared back at the Black Lord. Instead of reacting aggressively though, she allowed her smile to lighten a bit more, sheepishly rubbing at the back of her head.

"Basically the three of us have lived our lives before, a natural disaster wipes out pretty much all of the planet and Death sent us back to save the Wizarding world by finding Atlantis."

From his seat down the table to Regulus, Sirius blinked his wide grey eyes before shrugging.

"Okay."

Shooting his brother a look that clearly read that this was not okay, in any way shape or form, Regulus turned back to Harry before gesturing for her to stand and follow after him. Thankfully, she was very much full, and so followed after the young Lord as Kooky snatched up her plate to go wash. If she played this right, she could just pass Tom and Gellert off as who they were posing as now, only they'd lived out their 'future' lives in the bodies they had now.

Regulus had no need to know that he was housing the two greatest Dark Lords of all time. And that one of which wouldn't mind offing him at the first opportunity that was beneficial to him.

It was a good thing she'd spent more than a few lives as a Slytherin.

After Harry had left with the little Black Lord, Gellert had been quick to excuse himself, proclaiming he was going to his private quarters to go and take a long, relaxing bath and didn't wished to be bothered for the rest of the night. Riddle snorted slightly, clearly not at all bothered about his plans and more interested in whatever his twisted little mind was cooking up. Sirius Black just wished him a good nights sleep and another reminder that tomorrow was the only day he didn't have packed with summer activities.

Gellert was rather grateful to the man, he was clearly making an effort to include both himself and Tom within the family, even if he did treat him ever so slightly like a child. It was barely noticeable though, compared to how the other adults went about dancing around their precious young minds.

Snorting, Gellert rolled his icy blue eyes before walking into his bathroom, locking the door behind him before sampling the wards upon the house around him. It took him a minute as the bathwater ran, but he was quick to find the Portkey wards, along with a very pleasant little bubble that threw off the Ministry trace. They'd be able to use their magic on the manor grounds, how exciting. The Portkey warding though, was a stroke of genius, the kind of thing that could only be birthed by the paranoid brain of a Black. Orion Black, if he remembered correctly. He'd not paid much attention to the Black family tapestry, but he wasn't unobservant. The ward would block all Portkeys into the manor, unless they' been made in the manor. He'd be able to create one to Diagon Alley and one to bring him back using a password, and he'd be able to slip through with ease.

Charming a silken black hair tie, Gellert wrapped up his hair into a small, messy top-knot, muttering his password under his breath and spinning away.

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He landed in the Alley's apperation and Portkey drop off point with little fanfare.

At six o'clock in the evening, especially on Hogwarts return day, there was few people about. Only officials returning home from work, the occasional shop keeper closing down for the night. Gellert ignored them all, stalking down the cobbled street with an air of importance about him. Like oh so many wizards of his once feared army, people all but threw themselves to a side to get out of his way, not even consciously recognising him as a threat. But it was there, lurking beneath that, their basic instincts telling them to move aside or get smushed.

Oh how he'd missed this, the rush that came with the power, the taste of it upon his tongue.

He made quick work of getting to the goblin bank, the British Wizards had certainly allowed them a splendid building from which to conduct their business, much better than the one in Germany. Alas, it was evident that the race of magical creatures running the bank were no different to their German counterparts, just as vicious and blood-thirsty. He knew how to deal with their kind though.

Returning the sneer as the goblin informed him of the upfront fee for the vault he wished to open, Gellert handed over the golden coins he'd been saving up. Sirius had seen the need to give the three of them spending money, 'pocket change' he'd called it. Considering the Black's already considerably sized assists had been left alone to collect nothing but interest and dust for ten years, it wouldn't have surprised Gellert if the two Blacks couldn't have built a house from the gold and still had enough money for their grandchildren to live comfortably. Then again, with a thousand years to collect, 'borrow' and steal money, jewels and whatever else was in that vault, what else could be expected?

Regardless, he didn't like charity and fully intended to visit Germany at the earliest convenience to open his old account back up. His older counterpart was still alive, so it wouldn't have been handed over to the Ministry yet. Not like they could even touch it, he had seen to it that anyone who tried to take his gold without permission would get cursed.

And what a delightful little curse that was.

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Stepping off the little mine cart and sliding in the small vault when the goblin tapped it open, Gellert dug into the moleskin pouch upon his hip, fingers grasping at the cool object inside.

Oh, it'd been so terribly easy to slip past the traps.

He wasn't an idiot, he recognised a possession anywhere, and there was only one Dark spirit wondering about that could possibly have the strength to possess someone, even if it was a willing body. Gellert had to give it to Voldemort, he certainly didn't give up. It'd almost been a shame that he'd had to put the man down in that little room with the mirror; there been bits of Defence Professor all over the walls, which when he'd realized the need for discretion, had been a mess to clean up.

Well, he needed to make it look like Quirrell had actually succeeded, and that'd been a bit hard, what with him been a bloodied smear on the floor.

Regardless, he hadn't terrorized countries for nothing, Gellert had been quick to remove all trances of his presence and that of the Defence teacher's death. Then it'd come to the mirror.

Albus... How he still loved that mind. All those tricky little games. But Gellert knew him well, knew how to follow the warped trails that were Albus' thoughts until he came to the answer.

It wasn't like he was going to throw all of his chips in with Harry; whilst the baby Dark Lord may not have been able to get away from her watchful eye...

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Thinking of the warm bath he'd soon be returning to, Gellert smirked, placing the fist sized red stone upon the floor.

After all, he'd always been a little merry-wild trickster.

Oh how exciting, book one is finished. I'm super duper happy!
I took a break from my deadlines and cracked this out in three hours, so please ignore any mistakes. I apologies. My last deadline is the 16th of May, so expect things to pick up from there on out. Sorry if this seems a bit short.

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On the Philosopher's Stone; If I haven't made it clear enough, yes, Gellert stole the stone. His moral compass is broken, he was able to slip away, and the opportunity was too good to pass up. A weakened Voldemort in Quirrell's body had no chance against an active, approaching his prime Gellert, and he framed the poor professor. Poor Albus.

On Regulus and Sirius; The poll is complete, Regulus will be getting with an OC, and Sirius with a Cannon character, though the latter won't happen until fourth year at least. Sirius is, after all, commonly seen as a bit of a womanizer.

On the mirror; In my head-cannon, Ariana would spend time knitting socks for her brothers with her mother. That's what Albus' sees for me.

It's past 2 o'clock in the morning here, so if I've missed answering anything, review and I'll get back to you, promise. Night

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Thank you for reading you lovely people you, I'm looking forwards to writing book 2,

Tsume
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