I know that a lot of people have been waiting for a chapter like this for a long time...well, you asked for it. ;)
They landed hard on a smooth, cool surface. Danielle's first sight was of a cobblestone path inches from her face before she was pulled to her feet by Tom, who had predictably recovered his balance first. He pulled her into a shadowy corner of the alleyway they'd appeared in and she felt a sudden chill course through her body. He'd cast a Disillusionment Charm on them—of course, he would want to be as careful as possible.
Danielle reached into her pocket and pulled out the Time-Turner, looping the chain around their necks. She was standing so close to Tom she could feel his breath against her skin. With her heart suddenly kicking up its pace, she turned the dial so it read 31/07/2050. Taking a deep breath, she glanced shyly up at Tom. "Ready?" she asked, trying to sound more confident than she really was.
"Are you?" he countered lazily. "Perhaps Dumbledore put a Calming Draught somewhere in that bag."
Danielle glared at him, though it didn't come out as strongly as she'd intended. Clasping the dial between her thumb and forefinger, she yanked it back until she heard a sharp click. When the world began to spin, she quickly shut her eyes so she wouldn't feel nauseous at the thousands of colours and shapes whirling around her. The only thing that she could feel was Tom pressed against her, which set her very nerves on fire and helped her forget that she was currently traveling a hundred and six years into the future. How long were they spending in each year? Half a second? A quarter of a second? It certainly gave new meaning to the phrase "time flies".
Even though she'd been expecting it, the spinning stopped so abruptly that Danielle lost her balance. She staggered into Tom, feeling as if she'd taken one too many rides on a Muggle carousel.
"Did we make it?" she gasped, keeping a tight grip on his shoulders.
But she didn't need to wait for Tom's answer—she could see for herself already.
Diagon Alley was deserted. The shops were boarded up, with huge slabs of wood bolted across the doors. Shards of glass from the broken windows littered the ground. It held the eerie aura of a ghost town, abandoned for decades.
Tom took a step forward, meticulously assessing the situation. "Did Miss Taylor mention anything about Diagon Alley in her time?" he said to Danielle, his tone clipped.
"No. Nothing," she replied, trying not to betray her fear. They set off down the once-bustling street, wands aloft and their footsteps crunching on glass and debris.
Something was terribly wrong.
When they were forced to conclude there was absolutely no one in Diagon Alley, they ventured out into Muggle London. At first, Danielle wondered if someone was playing a cruel trick on them.
There were no glass skyscrapers so high they brushed the clouds; there were no sleek, expensive cars zooming by at breakneck speeds; and there weren't thousands of talking, laughing people in the streets. The buildings were hardly taller than they were in the forties, and there were no cars to be seen. In fact, there were no people to be seen either.
Whatever Danielle had expected the future to be, it was not this.
She could feel Tom tense beside her, suspicion etched into every line of his face. "Let's try going to the Leaky Cauldron," she suggested, barely refraining from adding 'If it's still around.'
"There are Anti-Apparition wards placed around here," he muttered, and his eyes darkened. "We will have to walk."
Danielle's trepidation grew with every step as she took in the sights of an abandoned London. When they reached the pub twenty minutes later, dread was clawing at her stomach and tying it up into knots. "Tom, I'm scared," she confessed, the words tumbling out in a rush.
He glanced down at her, looking exasperated. "Are you going to wait outside, then?"
Merlin, he was in a bad mood. Embarrassed, but not wanting to be left alone, Danielle followed him inside without another word.
The Leaky Cauldron was a mess. It looked as it had been ransacked the night before, with random items scattered everywhere—littering the floor and stacked up in piles against the walls. At first, Danielle thought that it would be empty as well, but Tom cleared his throat and a very old, stooped woman hobbled up to them from around the bar. "Why are you here?" she croaked.
"We have come to request a room to stay in," Tom said politely, instantly reverting into his charming façade.
The woman glared at both of them in turn, as if appraising their worth. "Where have you come from? What are your names?"
"We are from Liverpool, but we traveled here to escape my family's anger—we are recently married, and they did not approve of us," Tom explained. "I am Henry Davies, and this is Ruth, my wife."
Danielle wasn't sure if she should be more surprised that he was using the same pseudonym they had the first time they were in Albania—how long ago that seemed!—or that he was pretending they were married. She remembered using the same story at a wizarding hotel in southern Scotland, and how irate he had been when she'd said it.
The old witch, seemingly believing their story, nodded and held out her hand. Tom produced several Galleons out of nowhere and she gave him a key in return. Stunned, Danielle followed him upstairs into one of the bedrooms.
An old, dusty bed that looked as if it hadn't been used in years sat in the middle of the room. Cobwebs wound around the bedposts and Danielle swore she could see a large black spider scuttle into the wood at their approach. A dented silver mirror stood next to the bed and a small desk was placed in front of a grimy window.
Tom immediately shut the door behind her and began muttering spells under his breath, presumably setting up security measures. "Where did you get the money from?" Danielle demanded. "Forgive me if my memory is faulty, but I don't remember a wedding."
"Dumbledore gave us plenty of it," Tom explained when he was finished, stowing his wand back in his pocket. "It is dangerous for a young woman to travel on her own now. Marriage laws have been implemented."
"Marriage laws?" Danielle gasped. She assumed he must have used Legilimency on the woman's mind to garner this new information. "What happened?"
"I do not know," Tom said as he began to pace restlessly across the floor. "This is not the time your friend left. Something occurred to drastically alter the future."
Danielle racked her brains for a possible explanation. "The only thing Georgina changed was saving me—us—from dying. How could that possibly turn things into some sort of dystopia?"
Tom looked unnaturally frustrated, letting his emotions cross his face for once. He spun on his heel and went over to the window, yanking the curtains open and staring outside. Before Danielle could even ask him what he was doing, he whirled back around, this time with a determined expression. "Come with me," he ordered, and threw open the door again. She had no choice but to trot after him, following him back downstairs where the landlady was wiping up the table, though it appeared so filthy Danielle doubted her effort would produce visible results.
"Ma'am, I was just wondering if you could tell us how all this this happened," Tom began quietly, staring up at the old woman through his eyelashes. As usual, his ability to shift chameleon-like into different guises was disconcerting. "I was doing some reading before we left, and I was not aware that the city had fallen into such disrepair."
"Why, the war, o'course," the woman grumped, reminding Danielle inexplicably of Rubeus Hagrid. "After he took over, he destroyed everything. This was years ago, see…even before my time." Out of the corner of her eye, Danielle saw Tom's long fingers slip around the handle of his wand, and before she could intervene, the woman's eyes unfocused.
"Now, how did this all happen?" Tom asked in a low, persuasive voice.
"He conquered Britain," the witch said in a monotone. "He has ruled over Europe for the last century…"
"Who?"
"G—Grindelwald."
A small gasp escaped Danielle's mouth. Tom ignored her and continued, "What has he done?"
"He's taken over the world. Every single country on the planet is like this…he killed billions of Muggles and now only magical folk remain. The Muggles left are servants for pure-blood wizarding families."
"How did he do that?" Danielle choked.
"Why, everyone knows that. After he killed Albus Dumbledore in 1945, Britain fell and his reign eventually spread to the rest of the world. Nearly every Muggle, Muggle-born, and half-blood was slaughtered. Things have never been the same since then," she droned.
With another wave of his wand, Tom lifted the Confundus Charm and dragged Danielle back upstairs to their room.
Once they were safely inside she stood awkwardly next to the bed, unable to speak at first. So this was what would have happened if Grindelwald had defeated Dumbledore.
This was what it would have been like if Voldemort had won.
"I don't suppose you have any ideas about what we should do now?" Danielle asked, hesitantly glancing up at Tom.
"How about you suggest something, Clara? After all, you are the one who got us into this whole bloody mess," he snarled. It was so rare he raised his voice that Danielle quieted, staring up at him in shock. He raked a hand through his hair in agitation and she realized with a start that he was worried.
Tom Riddle was worried, and that was never a good thing.
"I—I don't see how us staying alive could have made this happen," she said, voice shaking. "Let's just find Georgina and go back to 1944, okay?"
Tom didn't answer. He turned away from her, gripping the sides of the desk and bowing his head, while Danielle sank down onto the bed, ignoring the dust that puffed up. What if he was right and the note she'd found had been a trap? What if Georgina had been killed already?
A loud cough interrupted her thoughts, and she looked up to see that he was struggling to stay upright. Danielle jumped up and went over to him, placing a cautious hand on his arm. Of course…he hadn't taken his potion that day, and traveling through time must have been stressful on his body. "Tom?" she whispered, standing on her tiptoes to gently press her lips against his neck, where his pulse thrummed too quickly to be normal.
The curse seemed to be affecting him physically rather than mentally this time: his eyes weren't red, but he was coughing up blood and Danielle had to support him over to the bed. When she made sure he was still alive, she wrung out a cloth with cold water and placed it on his forehead. After he had coughed up what looked like a pint of blood and was visibly shaking (this terrified Danielle more than anything she'd seen yet) he went unconscious.
With nothing else to do except check periodically to make sure he was still breathing, she opened up the bag Dumbledore had given her and rifled through it. Of course, it was equipped with an Undetectable Extension Charm. She found Tom's potions, extra healing potions, Calming Draughts—Danielle wondered how Dumbledore had managed to sneak that many out of the hospital wing without Madam Cutteridge noticing—her Time-Turner, a pouch full of Galleons, and the piece of parchment that they'd used as a Portkey. Danielle frowned. The quill she'd used the last time—when she'd been sent back to 2011—had disappeared after its job was done. Surely it would be the same for this Portkey?
Danielle unrolled the parchment, her eyebrows shooting up when she saw that writing—more specifically, her handwriting—had suddenly appeared on the once-blank paper:
There is a reason you are going into the future to find Georgina instead of stopping her before she left. P.S. Don't let Tom see this. You'll thank me later!
"What's going on?" Danielle asked aloud, feeling unsettled. Was this Dumbledore's doing? The parchment had most certainly been blank before.
Tom began to stir an hour later. Danielle was glaring at herself in the mirror (unfortunately, they appeared to have done away with the talking ones) and quickly looked over at him. His face was now so pale he could be mistaken for a vampire.
"Why are you looking at that?" he asked, nodding toward the parchment that she still clasped in both hands.
"Nothing," Danielle lied, quickly Vanishing the writing. It would surely take him no time to undo the spell, but if he hadn't seen the writing yet…
She could tell Tom was about to press the issue, but while she scrambled for an excuse he began coughing again. With a jolt of anxiety, Danielle noticed his hands were stained red when he took them away from his mouth.
"D'you think it's getting worse?" she asked quietly when the room was silent again.
He didn't look at her as he replied, "I am becoming immune to the potions. They are not as effective as they used to be."
"Are you sure there's nothing we can do?"
"Short of finding the diadem, no," Tom said sharply. "Do you think I have not researched this?"
Normally Danielle would snap back a retort, but instead she continued to stare at him, her eyes lighting up. "Research…" she began thoughtfully.
After much persuading from Tom, the landlady finally relented and gave them directions to a library of sorts that was near the pub.
They had just gone outside when Danielle spotted a middle-aged couple walking down the street, both dressed in tattered robes and looking gloomy. They avoided Danielle's gaze as she and Tom walked past. Trailing behind them was an even older, stooped old man, carrying a pile of food. He was wearing a thin, ragged piece of cloth that reminded Danielle of the pillowcases house-elves wore. There was a crudely-drawn red X slashed across his chest. Danielle couldn't stop herself from staring at him in shock.
"He is a Muggle," Tom murmured in her ear. "They wear that to show their status."
Danielle felt a resounding sadness for the old man, turning around and watching him disappear from sight.
They saw nobody else on the streets or in the library. Of course, all documents that spoke ill of Grindelwald had been destroyed; there were only one-sided biographies and books praising him. But even with the extreme bias, they were still able to find crucial information about this new timeline. Tom cast another Disillusionment Charm over them, and they sat at a table in the very back of the library, absorbing as much information as they could.
Danielle's research unveiled many things, most of it disturbing. There was an estimated one million people left on the planet now, with one hundred thousand Muggles serving as servants, slaves, or playthings. After Grindelwald defeated Dumbledore, he had taken over the entire world and systematically slaughtered Muggles, Muggle-borns, and half-bloods. Of course, since there were still a small number of Muggles left, it was expected that there were some half-bloods who, as Tom pointed out, could never completely be eradicated. Grindelwald himself had died fifty years beforehand, but the world was still ruled under his iron fist. It was estimated that most wizards were half-bloods as a result of several generations of Muggles and pure-bloods mating, but from what Danielle could figure out no one had ever acknowledged that fact aloud. Hogwarts was now a school for practising the Dark Arts. Any Muggle in Europe attempting to flee, or any witch or wizard committing treason, was sent to a prison in Germany called Nurmengard. Muggles were allowed to breed, but it was rigidly controlled and only with permission from the government and their "owners", as the textbook called wizards and witches. There were also marriage restrictions in effect—every witch was expected to be married by the age of sixteen so they could produce as many children as possible. Their babies were tested at birth and were taken away if they didn't show any signs of magic.
It painted a horribly grim future. Danielle felt increasingly queasy as she continued to skim through the history books, reading the headlines of printed articles:
After Grindelwald killed Dumbledore in 1945, he threw the body to a flock of dragons…
An estimated five million Muggles across the planet were disposed of every day for decades on end…they tried to put up a fight, but of course they were no match for Grindelwald's army…
Every wizard kept alive had to prove they were pure-blood…all half-bloods and Mudbloods were exterminated…
What struck Danielle the most, however, were not the facts themselves, but Tom's reaction to them. She expected him to smirk, or look pleased—after all, this was the embodiment of what Voldemort stood for! This was the world that Voldemort would have created had Harry Potter not defeated him. But of course, neither Voldemort nor Harry existed in this timeline. This was a world in which Grindelwald had gained absolute power.
Danielle watched him furtively, but his expression only showed concentration as he read through the books, attempting to glean as much information as possible.
She finally had to put the paper she was reading down, feeling sick at heart. "I wish Dumbledore was here," she moaned. "He would be able to help."
"Perhaps you should stand in front of his grave and you will have a vision," Tom snapped.
"Someone's cross today," Danielle retorted. "That time of the month, is it?"
"Danielle," he said, cold anger clouding his features, "You are not making things any easier."
She scowled at his deliberate use of her given name and gnashed her teeth together in annoyance. "The government keeps records of every person in the country," she groaned. "If someone asks who we are…"
"They will not," Tom replied. "We are not staying in one place long enough for anyone to become suspicious."
Danielle didn't completely agree with this idea, but seeing as how it was better than any she'd had so far, she couldn't argue with him. Flipped open one of the books he'd just put down, her eyes landed on a picture of a Muggle child being beaten down to the ground by two wizards wearing the beige uniform of Grindelwald's army. The child was screaming in pain as what she assumed was the Cruciatus Curse lashed over his body.
"I'm going back to the Leaky Cauldron," she announced, slamming the book shut and standing up. The legs of her chair squeaked loudly in protest.
Tom, of course, smuggled the books out and followed her. As soon as the fresh air hit her cheeks, she began to feel slightly better. They would get through this somehow. They would find Georgina and bring her back to the past. All of this could be avoided.
The elderly landlady was nowhere to be seen once they reached the pub, and they made it up to their room without seeing another soul. Danielle figured they were the only guests at the inn.
Once the door was closed behind them, Tom kicked off his shoes, shrugged off his robes and hung them up on the rack affixed to the back of the door. He wore a white button-down shirt and a pair of dark slacks—more inconspicuous than Danielle's jeans and short-sleeved shirt.
She sat down on the bed and crossed her legs, half-staring out the rainy window and half-watching him. He undid his tie and slung it over his robes, pulling at his collar. Danielle felt a stab of disappointment when he stopped and blushed when she realized she'd been imagining him continuing.
"Are you going to make the bed wider?" she asked to distract herself, and turned even redder when she imagined trying to sleep with him just inches away from her.
Tom raised an eyebrow at her question. "The room is hardly large enough for that."
Now Danielle was sure the colour of her cheeks had bypassed pink and gone straight to crimson. She'd never shared a bed with him before. "Oh," she said weakly.
"Do you have a problem with that?" Tom asked, a spark of mischievousness alighting in his eyes. He crossed the room in one stride and sat down beside her. She moved to the side to give him more room, but ended up pushing over too far and falling down onto the bed instead.
"N—no," Danielle squeaked; but he merely smirked in response, trapping her wrists underneath his and pinning her down to the bed like he had when she was at St Mungo's. This time, though, he hovered over her, positioning his knees on either side of her hips but not quite touching her.
"I want to see that note you were reading," he murmured, his voice rough and husky against her ear. His mouth brushed against the side of her face, teasing her, before grazing down her neck and past her shoulder, all the way down her arm, where she felt his teeth press against the inside of her wrist. Danielle shivered and she felt the corners of his mouth turn up against her skin.
"Stop trying to…to seduce me!" she cried, but it didn't sound as convincing as she'd intended for it to be.
"I can seduce you all I want," he replied as he took his mouth off her wrist, but kept a tight grip on her hand. His head dipped lower again as he pressed his lips to her temple. "You are, after all, my wife."
Danielle made a half-strangled noise that was almost a whimper. Tom's smirk grew and he drew back from her slightly as she asked, "Why don't you just take it from me by force?"
"Would you not agree this is more enjoyable?" he responded, and laughed quietly. It was one of the only times Danielle had ever heard him truly laugh, and she found herself grinning ear to ear despite the dangerous situation they were in.
She lifted her head up so she could kiss him enthusiastically, and for once he responded, pushing her back down onto the bed and covering her body with his. They had heated kisses before, but not like this. All traces of rational thought disappeared from Danielle's brain as she untwisted her arms from his grip and buried her hands in his hair, bringing him even closer. Now she could feel his tongue brushing across her lips like a snake testing its prey. She was just about to close her eyes when she saw that a familiar piece of parchment had somehow ended up in his left hand.
"Tom," she shrieked, tearing her mouth from his and staring at the incriminating parchment. "How did you get that?"
"You are distracted far too easily, Clara," he admonished her, running his thumb across her lips and chuckling at the indignant look on her face. Without making any move to sit up, he unfolded the parchment and read the note, still with an amused expression. His eyes slowly traveled back down to meet hers when he had finished reading. "Interesting," he said softly, his breath whispering across her skin.
"I don't remember writing it—I swear!" Danielle protested.
"I did not accuse you of anything," he said, the corner of his mouth quirking up. She exhaled in relief and he gave her one more long, lingering kiss before releasing his grip and standing up.
"Well," Danielle said when she'd recovered, sounding more than a little breathless, "At least the author was right about one thing—I do want to thank them for not showing it to you right away."
