Trigger Warning: Language and Unfortunate Implications. Thanks, Marvolo.


They were directed off the main road in Great Hangleton and told to follow the nearby river into the valley.

"You can't miss it," the man at the petrol station said. A few of the other workers milling around found Alec, tall, dashing and wearing his air service uniform, a source of speculation.

"Thank you, and," Alec tipped the man a wink, "you wouldn't know if there's a family Riddle living there?"

The petrol station worker gave a very sage nod.

"They own the mills. Where do you think all the khaki you wear comes from?" he said.

Alec thanked the man and they continued.

Gentle rolling hills cradled the village of Little Hangleton. Unlike Greater Hangleton, which reeked of its factories and mills, the village had the storybook look of a place untouched by the war.

As they rolled down the high street, Tommy noticed the war memorial and the patriotic banners hanging from the shops. They pulled up outside the village pub and dismounted to frank staring from the two old men smoking out front.

"I'm nipping in for something, old man. You know where you're going?" Alec murmured.

Tommy looked into Alec's face, finding more than a cheeky grin, finding the same darkness that had left papa's eyes so empty.

"I'll be alright," Tommy replied, blinking because it hurt too much to think about papa.

Alec ruffled his hair the way mum used to. Tommy kept his eyes closed and forced out a smile.

"You'll be fine. You'll come fetch me. I won't leave without you," Alec said.

"I will," Tommy said.

Alec finally smiled one of his usual bright shining smiles and strolled into the pub, doffing his cap to the two staring men. Tommy avoided looking at them, instead slipping his arms through his pack and marching to the war memorial. There were no Riddles or Gaunts on it, but that meant very little. Tommy didn't expect wizards to fight in muggle wars, not if they felt the same then as now. There were wreaths and little flags scattered below the memorial. Tommy wanted to leave something here, for his mum and papa, for Alec's father, for Maisie. As he rubbed his eyes dry on the wool sleeves of papa's Brackenwood uniform, someone shouted,

"You there! You boy!"

Tommy flinched. He turned around and found a woman standing just outside the tea shop. She actually gasped when Tommy faced her, and then crossed herself.

"Were you calling me?" Tommy said, ignoring the way the woman flinched. He stepped down from the memorial and approached the tea shop. The woman tried to back away and bumped the sign outside that said "For British Citizens Only".

"I, no, I just," she looked around him and over his head but never at him, "I thought you were someone I knew," she said, now looking at the ground rather than Tommy.

"Who?" Tommy said, shivers creeping around his neck like throttling fingers.

The woman drew herself up and pulled her cardigan tight around her.

"Never you mind. This time of day you ought to be in school, or else with your host family."

Tommy steadied himself, shaking off the last of his tears, and looked at her. She gasped. Tommy saw the man in her mind, his face and suit and manner.

"You thought I was Thomas Riddle."

The woman shrank away from him and spoke as though Tommy's gaze drew the secrets out of her.

"You look terribly like him…but then that was years ago, unless," she gasped again and stared at Tommy, white as a sheet, "no! You're not…I heard she died!"

"My mother did die, she died having me," Tommy said. The words flooded his mouth with bitterness. He wanted to spit the bitter taste out, but he couldn't. Not here, not in this place. The woman crossed herself again.

"That poor child. She didn't have no one looking after her, them family was always a bit unnatural. You poor lad. You'd be, what, thirteen?"

"Fourteen, ma'am," Tommy said. Politeness might go some small way to softening the look of horrified pity and fascination in the woman's eyes.

"Just about the right age…" she whispered, again with the glassy look of someone drunk on secrets.

"Ma'am, if you please," Tommy said, willing her to at least trust him with that. "Could you tell me how to find Mr. Riddle? I need to speak with him. It's important. It's about my family."

The woman put her hands up and turned away.

"No. I don't want to be mixed up with the Riddles. No. You're on your own, boy," she said, before returning to her shop and changing the sign from "open" to "closed".

Tommy backed away before looking up and down the high street. Alec was still in the pub, and the two old men were gone. The high street ran right through the village and back up into the gentle hills. A great manor house, like Crossfields or the DeLacy home, stood on the lowest of the hills, its skirt of lawns emerald green in the afternoon sun. The Riddles owned mills, according to the man at the petrol station. They'd surely also own a great house.

Tommy began walking, aiming for the manor and never deviating. There were a few people out today, most of them women or old people. Many of them also stared at him, some openly and some out of the corner of their eyes. Tommy ignored them.

The gates before the manor stood open, but here at last Tommy paused. There were no guards, nor indeed anyone about on the lawns. Unlike Crossfields, which had become an evacuation home, and DeLacy House, where the army had pushed a baron out of his own office, the war left no marks here. Tommy couldn't even tell if the windows had been blacked out. He marched up the gravel drive before anyone had a chance to stop him, and banged on the knocker.

A butler answered, clearly prepared to sneer and turn Tommy away.

"Good afternoon," Tommy said, before the man had a chance to close the door. The butler stopped and blinked at Tommy. Then he took a step back.

"Young sir, the family isn't expecting guests at this time," he said.

Tommy raised his chin, as Alec had at the general, or mum used to when about to address someone she disliked.

"My name is Tommy Davies-Maldonado, and I think you'll find I have to speak to Mr. Riddle."

The butler sniffed and frowned. Tommy saw Mr. Riddle's face again behind the butler's eyes. He didn't bother hiding it, as the woman had done.

"Mr. Riddle is not at home to guests this day," the butler said.

Tommy glared back.

"Mr. Riddle is at home to Thomas Marvolo Riddle."

The butler flinched noticeably, but covered it by making to shut the door. Tommy jammed his foot inside.

"You know why I'm here, don't you?" Tommy said, glowering and keeping a lid on his boiling anger. "I can tell. You recognise who I am. I have a right to see that man. Or I shall tell everyone what he did to my mother."

Tommy wanted to be sick when the butler bowed deeply and opened the door, refusing to rise to meet Tommy's eyes as he crossed the threshold.

The entrance hall was bright with afternoon sunshine. Tommy heard a wireless playing "We'll Meet Again". The song carried with it a hint of perfume, mum's laughter while she played piano, papa nodding along but too shy to sing. Tommy closed his eyes. He wouldn't cry in this place.

"Wait here," the butler said, without so much as turning his face to Tommy.

He went through to the room where the music originated. Tommy heard two men speaking, then one voice rose over the other —

"-No! Damn it! Throw the boy out!"

Fear squirmed in Tommy's belly, but he buried that under anger and steadiness. Let the man rage. Tommy'd weathered far worse.

The butler returned. Tommy hadn't moved from where he'd been left, standing beneath a crystal chandelier.

"Mr. Riddle will not see you," the butler said, the barest tremble in his voice.

"Mr. Riddle is a dog who left me and my mother to die. You know what?" Tommy took half a step backward, "I've changed my mind. I don't want to see him!"

The doors nearest them were ripped open as Tommy raised his voice.

"I thought I told you to throw the boy out!"

Tommy swallowed hard, but nothing could stop the anger seething in his belly. The man glaring at him looked livid, but there was no denying that he had Tommy's face. They were almost identical, from their height to the way the man's hair parted the same way Tommy's did.

"Don't! Don't just throw me away!" Tommy said.

The man closed the doors behind him, but seemed unable to come closer than that. They stared into the boiling air between the other, Tommy panting, the man biting his lip hard.

"Get out of here, boy," the man said at last. He remained pale, until blood welled in the corner of his mouth.

"You can't tell me to leave," Tommy said.

As the man wiped the blood off, Tommy choked on nausea, as though he'd drawn that blood.

"If you don't leave I shall ring for the police," the man said, wiping his bloody chin with a handkerchief.

"You can't throw me out until you tell me why you left!"

The man snapped his fingers at the butler and then pointed at Tommy.

"Get him out of here, before Cecilia sees!" he said.

Tommy shoved the butler away when he tried to steer Tommy to the door.

"She's dead, you know! She's dead, my mother, your first wife," he said. The butler grabbed him by his collar but Tommy pulled himself free, hearing the fabric tear.

"Get out of here, damn you!" the man said, his face screwed up in rage.

"And my parents are dead! They died in the Blitz! They're dead, she's dead, but the only one I want dead is you!" Tommy shouted the last loud enough for the new Mrs. Riddle, wherever she was, to hear.

The butler grabbed Tommy round the middle and hurled him out the door. It slammed shut before Tommy could shout anything more.

"Damn you!" Tommy yelled at the unfeeling stone facade, "Damn you to hell, Thomas Riddle!"

Then he turned and ran down the drive. Let them call the police on him! He'd show them, he'd get Alec to help him!

Tommy ran away from the town, following a riding path that wound around the valley instead. He ran until his lungs were bursting for want of air and a stitch split his side in half.

He'd come to a fork in the path. The downward path sloped back into the village. The upward one clearly returned to Thomas Riddle's house. Tommy turned on the spot, gasping in air while his anger returned to a smolder.

After he'd spun around twice, he caught flickering in the corner of his eye.

There was a third path to this fork, pointing into a dell overgrown with rhododendron. Tommy took a step towards this third path, the pit of his stomach writhing. Like the sea cave, the air here had a charge to it quite apart from the green hedgerows on either side of him.

"Magic, in the air, all around me," Tommy said aloud.

An adder came to his call. Mum hated snakes, adders especially. She hated their glassy eyes and that they were poisonous.

"Magic," the adder said, "magic in the boy."

"My name's Tommy," he said, bending over and holding out his hand. The adder slithered up his arm, warm and almost pulsing with magic.

"The boy is Tommy. Tommy can speak," the adder said. Tommy smiled at it, hoping snakes weren't like dogs and didn't shy from smiles.

"Is there magic there, in those trees?" he pointed the snake in the direction of the small track.

"A dark place, a bad place."

Even as the snake stopped, a breeze blew out of the dell, carrying with it a terrible stench. Tommy retched and covered his face.

"Right. I'll need my wand. And…and Alec," he said. He wanted to call for papa. The snake couldn't know this, so he tucked it into the pocket of papa's uniform jacket and hurried into the village.

He met Alec leaving the pub, still steady on his feet but red in the face and singing,

"…It's a long way to Tipperary, to the sweetest girl I know!"

"Liz isn't from Tipperary," Tommy said, seizing Alec by the arm and away from the motorbike.

Alec pushed his hat down his forehead and pretended to scowl.

"Just having a laugh with those old codgers there," Alec said, thumbing at the pub but falling in step with Tommy. "All of them remember the Great War. Said half the village never came back."

Tommy had no thought for the Great War now. There was only one war that mattered. He seized his pack and fished out his wand. Alec took the bike and pushed it after him.

"You worried I'd be too drunk to bring you back to your grandmother?" Alec said, his words sloshing a bit on the way out. Tommy shook his head.

"I need you to help me with something. I think I found…something important."

Alec, even pushing his motorcycle, was much stronger and faster than Tommy. He passed him and blew a raspberry.

"Alright, where are you shanghaiing me?" he called.

Tommy felt the snake shifting.

"Strong feet, strong boots," it said.

"Er, Alec," Tommy said. Surely Alec heard the snake. It made no effort to disguise its unease.

"What is it, old man? Didn't you find this Mr. Riddle?"

Anger soured in his belly, but he wouldn't tell Alec. The less Tommy lived in his anger, the less it would take root.

"I did. He doesn't want me."

Alec stopped and let the motorcycle fall against a hedgerow. He turned round and took Tommy by the shoulders.

"He doesn't deserve you," Alec said. The words sank beneath hate and despair. Tommy's eyes swam, the world turned silver, and then the smell of Alec's aftershave and beer engulfed him.

The adder squirmed against his chest, hissing,

"Attack! Attack!"

"No, it's alright," Tommy said, pulling away and releasing the adder into his palm. Alec chuckled.

"I'm not frightened of snakes," he said.

"No, this one thought you were attacking me."

"Oh, did it?" Alec said, laughing off the last of his tears and ruffling Tommy's hair. They both took up the motorcycle.

"It did. Didn't you hear it?"

Could someone who wasn't a Parselmouth hear the snakes making noise?

"What, it told you, did it?" Alec said. When he smirked, his dimples winked out just like Alfie's.

Tommy held the snake until it quieted under his touch. He held it up to his eye. The adder met his eye with its brilliant green ones.

"Say something to Alec," he said.

"The big boots is deaf," the snake said.

Alec laughed.

"Aren't you a bit old to be pretending animals can talk?" he said.

So, you had to be able to speak Parseltongue. Still, it rubbed Tommy the wrong way all the same. He let the adder slip up his sleeve to drape around his neck.

"Alec…there's something I ought to tell you. I don't know if I should, but I want to."

Alec's smile threatened to draw more tears up. Tommy looked away.

"Is it about you and Alfie? Don't bother, I went to a boys' school as well. You grow out of it afterwards."

Tommy's cheeks reddened.

"No! I mean, well there is Alf, but that's not what I meant. I am," Tommy then paused. Alec's helmet would do nicely. Tommy took it and placed it on the ground between them. He drew out his wand. "I'm a wizard," he said.

Then he pointed at the helmet.

"Turturmefors," he said. Alec opened his mouth, probably to correct his conjugations, when he stopped.

The helmet scuttled up to Alec. Tommy giggled as Alec picked it up. He'd transfigured it into a turtle.

"It…you…it turned into a…a…" Eventually all sound died in Alec's throat. He stared at his turtle, which stared back. Tommy bit his lip and rocked on the balls of his feet.

"It's a turtle," Tommy said, when Alec made no sign of acknowledgment.

"A tortoise…" he breathed. Then he looked at Tommy, and the wand Tommy held at his side. "It's an optical trick. You swapped it when I wasn't looking," he said, grinning.

"Reparifarge," Tommy said, pointing at the struggling turtle.

It returned to a helmet. Alec dropped it and stepped back.

"How did you do that?" he said, staring at the helmet.

"With magic," Tommy said. When Alec turned his stare on him, Tommy shrugged and waved his wand. "Avis."

Three linnets flew gracefully from his wand tip, singing sweetly. They took to the wing while Alec's jaw dangled.

"You…made birds appear," he whispered.

"Yes. You see, I have a magical nature. I'm a wizard. I can do loads more, but I think I'll be in trouble if I continue."

"You mean, magic is real? Witches and fairies and magic, that's all real?" Alec said, flushing in anger. It was Tommy's turn to step back.

"Yes," he said.

Alec laughed once, more of a disbelieving croak.

"Alright, either you're mad, or I'm seeing things or—"

"—Or magic is real. Which would you prefer?" Tommy shrugged and returned his wand to his pocket.

Alec wiped his forehead, trying to ease the wrinkles. Then he wiped his mouth, though it was another moment before he spoke.

"Aright. I don't want to be mad, and I don't think you are either. So," he seemed to find his inner resolve, "so. Did your parents know? Doctor and Lady Davies?"

Tommy nodded. Saying their names would rip his throat open. Alec, gingerly, but smiling shyly all the while, placed a hand on Tommy's shoulder again.

"That is grand. They were good people. If magic is real, then I know there'll be a way for you to see them again."

Tommy nodded, his throat still aching with unspoken need. Alec patted him until the aching eased.

"Did you tell that Riddle fellow? Is that why he—"

"—I don't care about that. We need to go look at what I have found. There's a place in the woods full of dark magic. I think," Tommy took a steadying breath, "I think I'm supposed to clear it out. It shouldn't be allowed, at any rate. I imagine people could be hurt if any dark magic lost control."

Alec nodded.

"Aye, but what do you need me for? I doubt my gun would be much use against magic," he said.

"I want you here," Tommy said.

Alec nodded and saluted him, clicking his heels and everything.

"Right then. You lead on, and tell me what I can do. I won't let anything harm you, old man."

"Tommyknocker," Tommy said, hoarse.

"Tommyknocker it is."

The track led them down into the dell, the trees closing in around them. The air here smelled bad, not simply stale or musty. The unmistakeable stench of rot and death tainted everything.

Tommy took Alec's hand and held him tight. He wanted to run away, every nerve in his body was numb with fright. Alec's warm hand was the only thing properly real to him.

"Something terrible happened here. That smell, that's something dead. Something died here, Tommy. I don't know that I want you to see," Alec said.

Tommy drew his wand.

"If there is dark magic here, you'll need me."

Alec drew a gun from a concealed shoulder holster.

"And if there's anything else, you'll need me," he replied.

They crept into the gloaming, the air around them alive with magic and deadly cold. Tommy's breath made a white fug around him, clouding his vision.

"It shouldn't be this cold," he said at last.

Alec shook his head.

"No. Tommyknocker, if there is anything wrong here, you go and save yourself. Don't argue," he added, when Tommy squeezed him and opened his mouth. "Don't. You go, save yourself. I'm a soldier, I'm prepared to die defending you."

Tommy stared at him. He might mean it, but Tommy didn't want any more blood shed for him. He started to say this, when he noticed the shape in the woods behind Alec, right in the heart of the grove.

"Alec!" he said, pointing.

A tumbledown shack stood among the trees. Its roof had partially caved in. The windows all lay open, no fire came from the ruined chimney.

"Nobody cold possibly live here," Alec muttered. He glanced down at Tommy. "Does magic include ghosts, Tommyknocker?"

Tommy nodded, teeth chattering now with the cold and fright.

"It does. And much worse."

Alec actually crossed himself, the way papa might have.

"Right. This is something exactly out of a ghost story."

Tommy ignited his wand tip while Alec flicked off the safety on his gun. They approached one of the open windows.

"Who do you think lived here?" Tommy whispered.

Nothing stirred within, but the darkness was far too solid.

Before Alec could reply, slivers of the darkness detached themselves and glided out of the window. One of these nightmare shapes reached for Tommy, hands forming from rotted bone and shadowstuff. Another went for Alec.

Alec scrambled backwards while Tommy waved his wand at the things.

"Alec, you run!"

"Don't be an idiot!" Alec replied. He seemed to feel the things, but without a target for his weapon all he could do was blindly back away.

Meanwhile, the shadow creature bearing down on Tommy didn't seem frightened of his wand. It drew a breath, and all the air left Tommy's lungs.

The day they found Fitzgerald murdered on the beach, his body half-eaten by crabs. The day he met Mr. Suttcliffe, the one-armed man papa'd rescued in France. The day he received the telegram.

"Da…da…! Daddy! No!"

Alec's voice broke through the shifting nightmare memories, much higher and younger than Tommy'd ever heard.

"Alec," Tommy whispered, grabbing blindly, trying to ignite his wand again in the middle of this shadow creature's spell.

The day he'd met the ghost. The day he'd learned ghosts were real. The day they told him his abuela had died. The telegram. A telegram with his parents names and the day they'd been killed.

"Papa," Tommy said, whether whispering or screaming.

The worst days of Tommy's life kept unspooling from him, as if this creature could open his mind and draw them out. A creature that fed on his worst memories, that made the air deathly cold…

"Incendio!" Tommy pointed blindly and a jet of fire shot from his wand. The two shadows drew back from the flames, leaving Tommy time to reach for Alec.

Alec clutched a tree, whimpering,

"Da…da…da…daddy…"

He started when Tommy touched him.

"We need to go, we need to run," Tommy said, shooting fire over his shoulder. The creatures drew back again. For a moment, Tommy thought he had a reprieve.

Then a column of darkness rose from the collapsed roof. The creatures drew breath as one horrible, gasping entity. The swarm formed the shape of a giant, without eyes, without a face, only a black hole where the mouth should be, drawing in all light, all air, all hope.

All hope.

"Dementors," Tommy whispered. He thought of Gandalf fighting the necromancer. There must be some spell to defeat these things.

"Alec, come on," Tommy said, heaving Alec away from the tree.

If they could reach the motorcycle, he'd call for help with the two-way mirror.

"Daddy why'd you leave me?" Alec whimpered in that childish voice. He dragged his feet, even when Tommy did his best to pull him along.

"Alec! We need to move!"

"No! No use! My da's gone!"

The dementor swarm dissolved back into many little shadows, too many to count. All of them reaching for them.

"Alec, if you don't move they'll kill you!" Tommy shouted.

The snake in his pocket began shouting,

"Danger! Death! Darkness!"

"Alec," Tommy pleaded, knowing Alec couldn't see him. He was trapped, somewhere in the darkest corner of his mind.

Tommy wished the ghost of Alec's father could do the urging for him. They were still yards away from the bright, sunny track where they'd left the motorbike. Fingers of shadow and cold closed around them, blocking the sunlight and their escape. Alec flung both his arms around Tommy and keened,

"Da!"

Tommy tried drawing breath, but the icy air cut into his lungs. He needed light. He needed hope. He pointed his wand up as the shadows closed in overhead and thought of his home. His parents. Alec and Liz and Grandmother and Alfie.

Hope.

His wand tip ignited again, not with red-gold fire, but with a blinding silver flash. The dementors shied away from this, the edges of their shadow-cloaks disintegrating in that silvery light.

Hope. Tommy closed his eyes and clung to Alec, to something warm and human and hopeful. The silvery light grew brighter than sunlight, brighter than a searchlight. The dementors withered in that light, writhing into grey, then nothing at all. Tommy took a gulp of the free air.

"Magic, in the air, all around me," he said. Alec looked up and gave one whimpering laugh before he collapsed to his knees, sobbing into his hands. "I think they're gone," Tommy said, doing his best to keep his voice steady. Alec took a last shuddering moan and got back to his feet.

"We should get out of here, Tommyknocker," he said, his voice still too high.

Tommy kept his wand raised as he shook his head.

"We can't. They must have killed someone here. This house must have belonged to someone. We have to be sure."

Alec wrapped his arms around himself and shuddered.

"And if those things come back?"

Tommy held up his wand and poured his hope into it. The wand tip flared with silver, which this time resolved into a shape. A small, plump and seemingly-bewildered pig.

"You…made a pig appear?" Alec said. He reached out to touch it, but his hand moved right through it. "Ah, more magic, is it?"

"I…think this is a patronus," Tommy said. They hadn't learned the charm yet. Not officially. Tommy had come across it many times in his researches but hadn't had reason to attempt it in the safety of the castle.

"Your dog latin is embarrassing. I thought wizards were supposed to be clever," Alec said, coming round to Tommy's side. His voice had returned to normal.

Tommy grinned up at him until Alec laughed. The laughter made the pig glow brighter than a full moon, shining like a new silver coin.

"I think I ought to name it," he said. The pig blinked its large, doe-like eyes at him. "You remind me of the old Welsh stories. I think I'll have to call you something Welsh," he added.

The pig blinked again, waiting. Tommy had never realised how near to human a pig's eyes could be. As with the snake, now shuddering in his pocket, a language moved between Tommy and his patronus.

"Come along, Alec, Henwen," he said. Tommy let Alec take his arm as they crept toward the shack.

Even without the dementors infesting it, the shack had the dismal look of a building long deserted. The stench of death hung in the air.

"I wonder why no one ever came for, for whoever," Alec said.

He moved to the door, which hung ajar, gun raised. Tommy wanted to put himself between Alec and whatever might still be inside, but Alec shook his head and put a finger to his lips. Tommy waited, Henwen glowing softly beside him. Alec kicked the door open, leading with his gun, and barked,

"If there's anyone in here, you'd best show yourself!"

The silence this time was complete.

"I think it'll be alright now," Tommy said, but Alec held his hand up again. This time, rather than shushing, he covered his nose and grimaced.

"There's some bodies here, Tommyknocker. You'd best stay outside," he said, nose pinched. Tommy pushed forward, Henwen at his side.

"I want to help."

Alec handed him his handkerchief, eyes clouded with pity.

"Alright. Let's find something to wrap these people up with and then we'll bury them," he said.

Henwen nosed into the shack ahead of them both. Her glow lit the foul room beyond. Tommy made out furniture, and the shapes of two bodies prone across the floor. He followed behind Alec and Henwen. The air inside was close and thick with dust and decay.

"I wonder," Alec paused as they approached the corpses, "they don't look like they were attacked. They look like they died here on the floor."

Tommy had expected a lot more gore. He'd been to the cinema, he'd read enough comics. The two corpses had been exposed to the elements, but what was left of them looked oddly peaceful. They might have simply laid down on the floor and expired. There were remnants of small animals around, snakes and mice mainly. Plates of food had been stacked in the ancient tin sink.

"Maybe they were poisoned?" Tommy whispered, eyeing the food.

"Those creatures didn't do this to them," Alec said. He bent down to study the nearer corpse. Then he nudged it with his foot.

"Muggle! Filth! How dare you touch one of Salazar Slytherin's descendants!"

The voice roared through the shack. Alec readied his weapon and pointed it into the interior of the shack. Tommy jumped, one hand on the adder, the other on his wand. Henwen didn't seem upset by the ruckus. She nosed around Tommy, her light illuminating more of the dirt around them.

"Oi! I said, if anyone is here—" Alec tried. The voice bellowed again,

"Leave this place, muggle filth, or a terrible curse will fall on you!"

Tommy and Alec both stared around. The dust on the corpse Alec had nudged shifted as a shape rose. The dust motes and cobwebs resolved into the form of an old man.

"You're a ghost!" Tommy said.

"Get out of here, muggle boy! You've sniffed around my property once too many!" the ghost said.

Alec, knowing his gun would be useless, holstered it and put himself in front of Tommy.

"Don't you call him names. We came to see if anyone needed help," Alec said.

"That muggle scum helped himself, he did! Merope! He took Merope!"

The ghost couldn't harm them, but he charged, causing Alec to push Tommy backwards towards the door.

"Who's Merope?" Alec said. Tommy shivered and held his ground. The ghost charged through them both in a wave of sickness and stink. Alec gagged but held fast, as did Tommy.

"Merope was the name of Thomas Riddle's first wife," Tommy said.

Both Alec and the ghost stared at him.

"You mean, she was your real mother?" Alec murmured.

The ghost's eyes popped.

"You! Filthy halfbreed brat! Where is my daughter?"

Tommy had to swallow several times before he found his voice.

"She died. She had me and she died. I was adopted. I didn't know you were here. You're Marvolo Gaunt, aren't you?"

The ghost flickered out of sight for a moment. Henwen snuffled and in her light, he reappeared

"M'daughter! Merope! She left me, she left with that damned muggle filth. Rather be a muggle sow than a witch!"

Tommy choked on those words, but with Henwen beside him he had courage.

"She wasn't a sow! She was my mother. Thomas Riddle left her to die—"

"—Serves her right, the little bitch! Leaving her father, leaving her duty! She took the locket, the slut, Slytherin's locket!"

Alec hooked his arm around Tommy's elbow and pulled gently.

"Come on, Tommyknocker. This old bigot isn't your family, not really."

Tommy shivered and let Alec pull him. As he came to the threshold, he grabbed the crumbling frame.

"Wait! Merope ran away! Well, who did this to you? How'd you die, if she and Thomas Riddle were gone?" he said.

The ghost flickered again. He sighed, lifting dust off his corpse.

"A wizard, foreigner, some well-to-do nob. He had a funny name, German-like. Asked me about our family ring." The ghost held up a transparent grey hand, without any ornament. "Asked if he could buy, said he'd pay any price. Well! I told him that ring came down from the Peverells themselves, and he became excited. Drew his wand. Last thing I remember."

Tommy's stomach writhed with nausea.

"Was this wizard's name Gellert Grindelwald?" he whispered.

"Grindelwald! I says to him, I says, how could I know he was pureblood if he's from abroad? He said his aunt was English."

Tommy turned to Alec. Alec's brow was furrowed with worry and dislike.

"Alec, this Grindelwald, he's like Hitler, he's been attacking other wizards abroad. He's evil."

"You get that ring away from him, boy! He isn't fit to wear it any more than you, but at least you're of our blood!" the ghost said. He faded into dust motes and disappeared.

Alec dragged Tommy out to the road. When they stepped into the sunshine, Henwen disappeared too, into Tommy's heart. He felt her there, a warmth nothing could dispel. The adder left his pocket and slithered to the warm, pebbly road.

"Free! Free!" it called as it disappeared into the hedges.

"Tommy, I know what you're thinking, and I'm putting my foot down. Whatever this wizard Hitler is, he's dangerous. He murdered those men. I promised Liz and your Grandmother that I'd see you home safely for the summer. I'm going to do just that. You have to promise me you won't do anything rash," Alec said, squeezing Tommy until it hurt.

Tommy crossed his fingers in his pocket.

"I promise."


AN: I'm getting a jump on any questions people will have about patroni. Some will say a) Riddle never cast one and b) it would be a snake. I have two rebuttals. A) Rowling did a very helpful thing, and clarified what patroni are on Pottermore [I know, Pottermore is ex cathedra but bear with me] and they are often aspects of the soul that remain hidden or unknowable until times of duress. Giving Tom a snake patronus is as subtle as a mallet to the face. He has no particular bond with snakes, ergo I felt no reason to give him a snake patronus. There is a much bigger snake in store for him later. B) Why did I make the choice I did? Well, again, I have Rowling to thank. She's stated that patroni most often take the form of companion animals, animals that humans have a long and strong history with. Unfortunately for her, she used photogenic, cute, cuddly animals as examples. Cats, dogs, mice, rats, rabbits and horses are very common patroni [presumably because they're just so darn cute/attractive] but Aberforth and his goat are anomalous [as is any magical companion animal, like Albus and his phoenix] And animals like pigs are too magically resistant and mundane to become patroni. Presumably the real reason is Rowling finds pigs too fat, ugly and yucky and this is why pigs are not often patroni either. For similar reasons, she's stated that pink is an inherently mundane, bourgeois colour and not representative of magic. This level of spurious colour and animal bashing spurred me to action.