She'd insisted on coming.

"I want to know where my father came from," she confessed. "I want to at least, know my grandfather on the Riddle side."

Draco had written a letter to Harry Potter of all people, and he'd offered to personally escort her into the Riddle house. It had been sectioned off for years, a house no one wanted to buy-but the Ministry was all too willing to help her claim the house if she wanted it. So, naturally, she was claiming it.

She stepped into the abandoned house, seeing vines and leaves growing around everything. Books, furniture, and clothes still remained in the house, untouched since the murder of the Riddles.

In the closet of the spare bedroom that had to have belonged to her grandfather, Tom Riddle Sr., she saw a box labeled Writings. She opened the box, in front of Mr. Potter, and began to read the documents. On neat, floral stationary, with a fine pen, details of Riddle's life were spelled out on the pages. Not all of it was pretty.

They say that men-real men, strong men-cannot be invaded like I was. That it only ever happens to women, the fairer, weaker sex. The others, my old friends, said I was weak for letting it happen to me, that I wasn't a real man. I am stronger than either of them could ever know. I survived the war, survived things that should've driven me to madness-but I am still here, mentally and physically. It amazes me how little touches me after her and the war.

My parents, they still dote on me, like I am still a child. I appreciate them for it, even if it is inconveniencing to them. I love them, and I can only admire how they side with me in the situation of the Gaunt woman.

Fortunately, my dear Cecilia is still willing to talk to me. We might soon both be too old to have any children, but I do not think it will matter, for either of us. Too much has come between us. The Gaunt woman, the war-I am grateful she still wants me after what happened to me.

It was dark, it was grim-but Delphi found hope in these papers, some form of hope in the broken man that had supposedly abandoned her father because her grandmother was a witch. Reading these papers, she couldn't blame her grandfather for wanting nothing to do with a son conceived from a non-consensual love.

She took the box with her, and that night, she dreamed she was in the Riddle house in its glory days. She walked through the front door, and saw three people smiling. The man who resembled her the most, handsome in the contrast of his pale face and dark eyes and hair, smiled the widest upon seeing her enter.

"My darling granddaughter," he said warmly, and he embraced her.

"You mean, you would've wanted to know me? Had you lived long enough to see me?" Delphi asked, unable to believe her ears.

"Perhaps," Tom Riddle Sr. answered. "Perhaps not. No one can ever tell what would've happened. However, I can say that I am proud of you. I don't understand your world-and I don't think I really want to. But I am proud that despite everything, despite where you came from, you will be a better person than your father, than your grandmother."

"You're just saying this because it's a dream," Delphi said, crestfallen.

Her grandfather placed his hands on her shoulders gently. "Perhaps. But tell me, granddaughter-when have your dreams ever steered you wrong? Your ancestors are watching you. Always."

It was at that point that Delphi had awakened, but it was on her mind. She owed it to her grandfather, to the muggle side of the family, to do better than her parents. She owed it, to carry their name with her.

She would return to Ilvermorny, leaving the baggage of her heritage behind. She would become something new.