Chapter Thirteen: Winning the Game
"Good morning Janet." Riddle sang mockingly on Saturday morning as he opened our blinds.
"Ow! Tom, my eyes!" I groaned.
"Rise and shine!" Riddle smiled as I got out of bed, forced by the magic. "We're having breakfast together today."
I walked out to the main room, where the table was already sat. Riddle sat down on the far side of the table and gestured to my side.
I sat down suspiciously, taking a drink of the pumpkin juice. "What is this about?"
"I'm just being a nice husband." Riddle protested. "Eat up."
I was forced to, much to my annoyance. The food was nice, obviously elf-prepared, but I didn't relish eating it, my fear of Riddle putting potions in my food outweighing my appreciation of good food.
Once I'd finished my food the plates disappeared and Riddle smiled.
"I forbid you to leave this room and I forbid you to make yourself throw up."
I froze. "What have you done?"
He smirked. "The pumpkin juice you just ate contained inactive conception potion."
"So I wouldn't taste it." I frowned. "But why would that be a problem?"
"And the pancake contained the activating agent." Riddle finished, placing a pregnancy test on the table. "Activate this in an hour. No sooner. If it is negative, there is some more conception potion – active, this time – under my bed. You will drink it. If it is positive, you are forbidden to tell anyone however you may leave the quarters."
I nodded jerkily, the magic forcing me.
"Good." Riddle stood. "I have to go and talk to my first years."
I waited until he left before I curled up on the sofa, staring at the clock.
An hour passed slower than ever before and I grabbed the pregnancy test, pushing a little magic into it to activate it.
It gave off a green bubble before disappearing.
Positive. Baby Riddle now resided within my womb.
I threw the nearest book - Hogwarts: A History - against the wall before I raced out of the quarters and down to the girl's bathroom. I could throw up now, and there was nothing I felt more like doing.
Myrtle watched me from the ceiling.
"Not haunting Olive?" I asked between retches.
"She's in the Hospital ward under dreamless sleep potion." Myrtle sulked before brightening up. "She had another mental breakdown. I'm getting good at driving her to them."
I rested my head on the toilet seat. "Good for you, Myrtle."
Myrtle laughed and hovered through the toilet in front of me. "What are you doing in here, Jane?"
"It's Janet now. I was disowned."
"I heard." Myrtle said, not moving away.
I sighed. "How did you die, Myrtle?"
"How did I...?" Mytle had never sounded so flattered in her life. "Why, I was in the bathroom crying again because Olive was being quite the little cow when I heard someone walk into the room. There was this voice – a boy's voice. He said some nonsense and I of course opened the doors to tell him to get out when I locked eyes with these big, yellow and black eyes and then... nothing. I was dead. Then I returned, of course."
I frowned. "Why do you stay in this bathroom?"
"It's easier to exist here." She shrugged. "I get tired out there, but here's okay."
"I imagine that you hear lots of things you're not supposed to."
"Oh, yes." Myrtle smiled. "Why?"
"Anything interesting?" I enquired, trying to distract me from the nausea.
"Natasha Adler is pregnant. She blacked out before she was released by Grindelwald and she is pregnant from then." Myrtle said after a moment.
I raised my eyebrows. "Oh Merlin, Natasha is..."
"Oh, she's your sister! I forgot." Myrtle said thoughtfully, before pausing as I pulled out my wand. "What are you going to do?"
I paused. Actually, I had no idea what I was planning to do. The conception potion has an agent which stops miscarriages and terminations. But if I kept it then Tom would be immortal. Immortal and in control of me.
It was suddenly horrifyingly clear.
"Suicide." I told her. Everything seemed to be slowing down and speeding up at the same time, moments going impossibly fast yet in such detail that it was excruciating.
Myrtle nodded slowly. "I'm going to go get a teacher." She said uncertainly.
"Okay." I smiled. "Thanks, Myrtle." I pointed my wand at my wrist. "Diffindo."
Blood began to soak my sleeves as I staggered to the sinks, tripping down to my knees.
Myrtle flew out and a moment later Riddle ran into the bathroom. The wedding charm must have told him that I was injured.
He gasped as he saw the blood on the floor – my wrist was badly hurt and I'd lost a lot already. "Jane!"
I laughed. "Hello, Tom."
"Jane, what are you doing?" He grabbed my wrist and tried to wrap it in his handkerchief, but I pulled away. I saw tears in his eyes and shook my head to clear my eyes. I was sure my vision wasn't supposed to go wrong yet...
"Jane, please... don't do this!" He whispered.
"Why? You'll have lost your chance at immortality?" I snapped.
"Jane, I didn't lie! I... I love you!"
"You don't love anyone, Riddle!" I hissed, my breaths becoming harsher.
"Jane, let me help you!" He begged, reaching for my wrist.
"I just have one question." I whispered, sinking fully to the floor.
"What is it?" Riddle asked cradling my head.
"Why did I make the Baselisium?" I asked him.
"I wanted to see how far you would go for Natasha." Tom whispered. "It was a game to see if you would outsmart me and find a way to get out of it."
I smiled as my vision went dim before blacking out completely, fuzzy footsteps reaching my hearing. "I win, Tom."
Sixty-four years later:
"Harry!" Hermione burst into Harry's apartment, hair flying. Harry looked up from his book. "What's up, Hermione?"
"You know how I was researching my ancestors?" Hermione asked, wearing her 'just discovered something really interesting' face.
"Yes. I thought you'd finished that project?" Harry frowned, remembering Hermione tracing her family to an offshoot of the Ravenclaw line.
"I have." Hermione began pulling out folders, putting them on Harry's coffee table. "But remember that bet that you made? That I couldn't find anything interesting on your mother's side?" she spread out the files to show the names. "Here is your mother – Lily Evans." She pointed at the file that had a birth certificate, marriage certificate, death certificate, passport, driver's licence and school results.
"Yes. And?" Harry prompted.
"Her father, Nathan Evans, was the illegitimate son of a Nadia Evans. Nadia has no registered parents and no birth certificate, only partial NEWT results and a death certificate. She went to Hogwarts. We can safely assume that her family, probably from a pureblood family, disowned her - a records of a girl called Natasha Adler disappear when Nadia appeared. Anyway, Nathan was a squib and his father is unknown. Nadia died giving birth to him and he was adopted when he was two by muggles."
Harry put down his book and picked up the Nadia Evans file.
"Wow. So I'm not really a half blood?" Harry asked.
"Shush Harry, I'm not done." Hermione said, taking the file back. "Nadia's sister is particularly interesting. She was disowned for marrying without permission, and she was called Janet Evans. She was younger, but disowned first; It's fairly obvious that Nadia was disowned for helping Janet, who was probably Jane Adler. There's not very much information about Janet at all – a note in the Hogwarts records that she was given special quarters with her husband and a death certificate. Oh, and a post mortem notice that her illegally transfigured pet would be put down. Anyways, Janet married Tom Riddle."
Harry gaped. "Seriously?"
"Yes, seriously. She committed suicide though, only a few months after." Hermione said, eyes shining with interest. "The type of marriage contract indicates that she was forced into the marriage, probably by blackmail. Nadia had been kidnapped for the half a year before Janet married Voldemort."
"He blackmailed her into marrying him?" Harry asked, flicking through the folders.
"Yes." Hermione nodded. "But even better; when Nadia was pregnant, she went to the ministry of magic to demand that Riddle take responsibility for her son – the paternity test was positive, but she died before any action could be taken and because of her lack of family the case was disregarded. She also claimed that it was not Grindelwald but Riddle who had kidnapped her and he had forced her sister to marry him."
"Voldemort is my... great grandfather?" Harry said in shock.
"Yes." Hermione laughed. "You're a natural parselmouth, Harry! That is why you've still been able to talk to snakes! You don't have to worry any more about the horcrux not being fully destroyed."
"And now I can stop the unspeakables from doing those stupid tests on me." Harry smiled. "Wow, that's odd. None of my relatives can have lived very long."
"Nope. Nadia had Nathan when she was seventeen, Nathan had Lily and Petunia when he was twenty three and twenty five, Lily had you when she was twenty one." Hermione smiled.
"Voldemort. My Grandfather." Harry whistled, sitting back as he tried to absorb what he'd just discovered.
"Grampa Voldy." Hermione laughed. "I'm related to the woman who invented the patronus charm. You're of a direct descendent of the illegitimate son of a mass murderer. I think you owe me a galleon."
The End
Finally
How did you like it? I know that I'll neglect this chapter forever if I don't put it up now so here you go, everybody.
This chapter. I would love reviews for it.
That's all I'm saying :)
