Chapter 18

THE FIRST NOEL

When I woke up on Christmas Day, I was greeted with a rare silence. All the other sixth-year Slytherin boys had left for the holiday and the dormitory was mine alone. Holidays had always been my favourite times at Hogwarts. No one to bother me, no classes to attend to, I had complete freedom to explore the castle and delve into obscure pieces of magic. More than once I had entertained myself with the idea of hiding and staying at Hogwarts over the summer. The thought made me suddenly remember Dumbledore rejecting my desperate pleas, and my mind filled with thoughts quite inappropriate for Christmas.

There was a huge pile of presents next to my four-poster. It was expected. Most people wanted to curry favour with the intelligent, powerful, and ruthlessly vengeful Tom Valedro. Most of the packages were, as was usual in my previous life, full of Chocolate Frogs and other sweets instead of something that required thought. I would share them with the ones who had given them to me. That would make them respect me even more, and that respect would fashion their loyalty.

I had spent nearly a thousand Galleons on Christmas presents and distributed them to almost every student I was in friendly contact with. I considered it a good use for the fortunes I had swindled with my lottery manipulations. (I had also given socks to Dumbledore just in case he was more easily manipulated as a senile old man than he had been as a younger man.) Some of the presents I had not needed to purchase at all. Dobby had found hundreds of interesting items in the Room of Requirement, and he had continued searching the Room even after he had found the Diadem. Among the items was a signet ring with the Malfoy coat of arms in it, and according to my diagnostic charms it cursed every letter sealed with it. I had given it to Draco. Theodore Nott had also received something that had belonged to his family: an old book of curses outlawed in the 18th century. I had, of course, made myself a copy of it first.

My Gryffindor friends had also received many presents from me. I had given Harry many kinds of accessories he would need when hunting Dark wizards, Hermione all the NEWT level textbooks, and Ginny and Ron new Cleansweep Eleven broomsticks. To Fred and George, who had approached me after the Performance and declared me Honorary Marauder (before Harry had shown me the Map I had not understood what they had meant), I had given a huge assortment of rare and expensive ingredients for their joke shop products. Even though I disliked Percy's pompous nature, I had not forgotten him. To him I had given a university textbook, Introduction to Public Management. It was just as dull as he was, and I was sure he would find it fascinating. (I had mused that if Percy went to work at the Ministry, reading that one book would probably make him one of the most competent officials.)

As every Christmas, the normal tables had been removed from the Great Hall and replaced with just one at which all students and members of the staff sat together. Apart from the usually sour Snape the atmosphere was warm and Christmassy, and I found myself being much fonder of other people than ever in my previous life. As I sat with Harry, Hermione, and the five Weasleys, they all thanked me for their presents, and I wondered if I was the only person that both Percy and the twins held in high regard. Percy babbled about the book almost without pause, and I endured through it only due to the entertainment provided by the twins when they added some strange spices to Percy's food without him noticing.

The lunch lasted for two hours, and luckily Percy was not the only one I managed to speak to. I initiated a conversation with Professors McGonagall and Flitwick about their areas of magical expertise, and they both mentioned my superb talents to the others. I was slightly worried at Dumbledore's curiosity; any association between me and the Tom Riddle he had known might have had disastrous consequences. In an attempt to distract the Headmaster's possible thoughts I told them about my violin lessons and how much they had helped me to concentrate on spellwork.

Then it turned out that Professor McGonagall was an adept violinist for the same reason as I was. At Dumbledore's suggestion we Summoned our violins and played The First Noel as a violin duet. As Dumbledore watched us, he was smiling serenely and, perhaps, a bit wistfully. I was convinced that he did not suspect me of being the cold and cruel orphan who had not cared about Christmas and who had never had the chance to play the violin.

I turned to look at my friends at the end of the table. Ginny was smiling gently, and I smiled back at her, not with my usual mischievous smirk, but with a genuine smile that expressed the positive feelings I had lacked in my previous life. Ginny had taught me to feel them, and I was grateful to her. For a brief while I was sorry for my other self who had fled his apathy to a totally wrong direction. As I played the merry tune with my violin, I felt apathy would never haunt me again.

I was playing The First Noel, and in many ways it was the first Christmas of my life.

Later, in the early evening, I left Hogwarts castle in order to attend the prestigious Malfoy Yule Ball. Since I was officially leaving the school, I walked across the grounds towards the gate; had I called Dobby to Side-Along-Apparate me away, Dumbledore might have realized there was some way of coming and going through the wards. However, I was not going to go through the gates, or my good mood would have become the meal of the Dementors' endless appetite. I went behind some trees near the road, and then summoned Dobby to take me home.

My home in Diagon Alley was not decorated for Christmas; it actually looked quite sad in its uninhabited state. But it was just a waypoint. I took a letter from an envelope. It was the invitation from the Malfoys, and also a Portkey that activated when pressed at the Malfoy coat of arms after the names of Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy.

When it was the time, I activated the Portkey. The magic took me away from my home, and shortly afterwards I materialized in the atrium of Malfoy Manor in Wiltshire. I was immediately welcomed by the striking grandeur of the wealth of the Malfoys: gold and silver shone on every surface of the voluminous baroque-style ornaments, curtains were made of the finest brocade magic could weave, and the chandeliers sparkled with a dozen colours of the crystals and jewels attached to them. It was snowing outside, probably due to a Weather Charm so that the guests could enjoy a perfect evening.

I was greeted by a pair of truly magnificent-looking people. Lucius Malfoy was a personification of aristocratic elegance, and he radiated the dangerous charisma of a prominent Dark wizard. Narcissa Malfoy was as graceful and beautiful as one could imagine a queen would be; she looked at least ten years younger than she was.

"Mr Valedro, welcome," Lucius said with as much enthusiasm as suited his sophistication. "Our son Draco has told us much about you, and we are happy to finally meet you in person. The Slytherin leader of the next generation, am I correct?"

"I certainly hope so, sir," I said. "The House of Slytherin has been receptive to my ideas, and I have every intention to continue that way."

"Our Yule Ball is the perfect opportunity for you to connect yourself with the powerful of the British nation. Everyone is invited."

That was, obviously, an exaggeration. Dumbledore was never allowed to set foot in Malfoy Manor, and prominent members of those pure-blood families who were not political allies of the Malfoys, like Amelia Bones and Augusta Longbottom, were absent as well.

Draco greeted me the moment I stepped into the ballroom. He was hosting his own party for the children, most of them very familiar to me. Pansy Parkinson, Theodore Nott, Blaise Zabini, Daphne Greengrass, and a few Ravenclaws from Draco's year were there, as well as a dozen Hogwarts students more from other years. (Crabbe and Goyle were nowhere to be seen, and I assumed they were helping the house-elves.)

I did not consider my place to be among the children, and so I joined Ethan Jugson and his older brother Robert as they were socializing with the older guests. I shook many hands and exchanged pleasantries with many rich and powerful witches and wizards. One of them was the jovial Cornelius Fudge, who was neither very intelligent nor magically talented; I was not sure if he understood it himself, but he was the Minister only because Lucius and Dumbledore were both able to take advantage of his gullibility.

Among the guests there were some whom I had known in my previous life. Nott's grandfather, also named Theodore, had been my dorm mate, and he had become one of the first Death Eaters. He had been a secretive young man, and I had found him to be less easy to control than my other dorm mates. Perhaps there was some truth in his claims that he had not fully supported Voldemort, just like Lucius and Abraxas had claimed.

Madam Zabini, a beauty equal to Narcissa Malfoy, smiled radiantly at me when we met. Standing behind her was her husband, an older man who looked frail and sickly, as if he might die at any moment. After them I had to exchange pleasantries with a repulsive bureaucrat witch from the Ministry who looked like she had consumed Polyjuice Potion with something of a toad in it and had not had the effect healed. Several other Ministry officials followed her, making me feel increasingly bored, until one very remarkable elder gentleman arrived, glancing around grimly. I recognized him immediately.

Bartemius Crouch had been the Head Boy and the undisputed student leader of Slytherin during my first year at Hogwarts. He was one of the two living people (Grindelwald was the other one) whom I had ever admired and considered my role models; he was a much better personification of Salazar Slytherin's ideals than the haughty aristocrats like Lucius Malfoy. Crouch was an aristocrat too, but he had always had a strong sense of duty to do his part for the community. Instead of living a carefree life of luxury he could have afforded, he had worked for the Ministry and become respected and powerful by his own merits, not just by the family he had been born to.

I had been pleased to learn that Crouch had not joined the Death Eaters. He had understood what kind of abomination Voldemort had become, and dedicated his life to restore the real ideals of Slytherin. But the war had taken toll on the man. He had aged prematurely, he had lost his family, and he had become somewhat paranoid and obsessed. I wondered if the only reason he attended the Malfoy Yule Ball was the opportunity to investigate if Lucius had lied about being Imperiused.

The next guest to arrive was the centre of every British high society: the cheerful, rotund Horace Slughorn, the total antithesis of Crouch's reserved demeanour. He shook many hands and praised his former pupils and especially himself. Eventually he came to me and said,

"You must be the promising Tom Valedro I have been told about. Earning the leadership of the Slytherin students in a month, eh? I was the Head of House Slytherin when I taught at Hogwarts, you know. When I heard about you I almost regretted my decision to retire!"

"Luckily a real, cunning Slytherin doesn't need a formal status to wield power," I said.

"Yes, you're right, m'boy," he boomed, looking at me closely. "You remind me of a most remarkable student I once had." His expression turned melancholic. "Tom… you even share his name."

"There are a lot of Toms," I repeated the words I had once said to Dumbledore.

"But not every Tom is like you and… and the other one," Slughorn said and looked at Theodore Nott the Elder who had been my study partner in Potions classes.

The conversation was beginning to unsettle me, but fortunately there were many people who demanded Slughorn's attention, including the Jugson brothers next to me. As they took advantage of my silence and began to flatter Slughorn, I withdrew from the ballroom, not wanting to socialize for a while.

I entered a gallery hall that served as a kind of a family museum of the House of Malfoy. There was a huge family tree, closely intertwined with the family trees of other pure-blood families, especially the Blacks and the Lestranges. There were portraits of witches and wizards from several past centuries, and their biographies.

I was pleased to learn that the Malfoys of the 17th century had opposed the International Statute of Secrecy; they had proclaimed that wizards had the right and the duty to rule over Muggles. I knew Draco was still somewhat doubtful towards my grand plan of following Grindelwald's example, but since Grindelwald had been following some of Draco's ancestors, the fact might finally convince him.

Many of the Malfoy ancestors were portrayed in clerical attires. Since I had studied the history of wizards and Christianity after Hallowe'en, it did not surprise me. Before the Statute of Secrecy, many wizards had actually been religious leaders to the Muggles. It was easy to fake miracles with magic, and that was why wizards had been very successful in the clerical field. Only after the Statute of Secrecy had wizards slowly abandoned all the other aspects of Christianity except some traditions like holidays.

During those more religious times it had been a part of the blood purist dogma that wizards were descended from angels or the Christ himself, and that magic was a divine power, proof that wizards had the Mandate of Heaven to rule. The Statute of Secrecy had eventually silenced such claims, and an important part of wizarding cultural history had died out. At the end of the 20th century wizards had little interest in philosophical discussion, let alone theological.

Soon a bell rang and the Christmas dinner began. Fortunately, I did not need to sit anywhere near Snape who had arrived while I had been in the gallery. I ate very little, just tasted the finest pieces of magical dishes, because I had eaten so much at lunch.

After dinner was time for the actual ball. I had some basic training in dancing, because Mrs Cole had considered it her duty to make the orphans civilized subjects of His Majesty, and certain upper-class habits had been central in that project. I danced with Daphne Greengrass, Carrie Runcorn, and Sarah Jugson, and did my best to evade the toad-lady who had trouble finding herself a partner.

After some time I decided that I had fulfilled my social obligation to the party, and proceeded to advance the purpose because of which I had accepted the invitation in the first place. I filled my goblet with mulled wine and sat on an armchair in front of a hearth, joining a conversation of a small circle of former Death Eaters: Lucius, Theodore Nott the Elder, and Robert Jugson Senior.

"Ah, Mr Valedro, our inside man at Hogwarts," Nott said, addressing me in a very different tone than fifty years earlier. "We were talking about the Sirius Black debacle at Hogwarts. Do you have some new insight to the matter?"

"I have not entirely ruled out the possibility that it was just a feint by Albus Dumbledore," I said. "The man seems to gain profit from an occasional crisis. The truth is that a large portion of wizarding Britain is worried for their safety, and in times like these people have sought safety in Dumbledore. But Black's supposed actions at Hogwarts make no sense. Surely a killer of his calibre could do more than slash a painting a few times."

"I never thought much of Black," Jugson scoffed. "I remember the first ruckus he caused when he was the first Black ever to be a Gryffindor."

"I cannot believe the Dark Lord trusted him as a double agent," Nott muttered.

"I think it is totally in character for him," I said, getting wary looks from the others. "The Dark Lord probably saw himself in the young Mr Black. He had to force you to serve him, but reckless idiots like Black flocked behind him all by themselves."

The former Death Eaters looked very uneasy.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I know you have to keep up appearances," I said, making it obscure what was it I actually implied. I looked Lucius straight in the eyes. "If the Dark Lord returned and summoned all those who he had commanded before, would you answer his summons?"

Lucius was silent for a long moment, contemplating and staring into the dancing flames in the hearth.

"The Dark Lord," he said finally, "is astonishingly powerful. It was fear that kept the Death Eaters in line. Few of them, after all, were willing to wage war. But disobeying the Dark Lord's orders, or even protesting against his most reckless judgements, was punished with immense pain. Some of the Death Eaters, my sister-in-law among them, began to worship him as a dark god. That may seem quite extreme, but then again… he does command powers beyond our reckoning, and that is why so many believe he did achieve immortality."

"And you don't want to set your family in danger," I said. "I understand."

"What would you do, Mr Valedro," Lucius asked, "if the Dark Lord returned and demanded that all Slytherins joined his ranks? Many young Slytherins look up to you, and they may be inclined to follow your example. Should you choose to oppose the Dark Lord, he would likely seek you out and make you a demonstration of disloyalty."

"Disloyalty? Hm… I trust Draco has told you about my theory of the Dark Lord's identity?"

"He has indeed, and I will have to say, it inspired many thoughts. However, while it makes sense in a way, I am not convinced. It is true that Dumbledore did never confront the Dark Lord, but that does not prove anything. Dumbledore is a very public figure, and I am absolutely certain there were countless times when I was in the Dark Lord's presence while Dumbledore was confirmed to be either at Hogwarts, the Wizengamot, or the International Confederation of Wizards. Perhaps this could have been arranged using Polyjuice Potion or other means of disguising, but it still seems improbable."

"Well, to answer your question, I'm not sure what I would do. But this is a certainty: I would never pledge my loyalty to him and him alone. Loyalty is a virtue of the Hufflepuffs. As a Slytherin, I understand that sides and alliances are fleeting. I intend to always be on the winning side."

"An admirable plan. We Malfoys have long been using a similar strategy. There has never been a Minister for Magic from the House of Malfoy, but it has never prevented us from using great power. Ministers come and go, but there is always, behind each of them, a Malfoy as an advisor. I believe that is the reason the Dark Lord was so keen to force me and my father to his service using the Imperius Curse."

"The way the Dark Lord created his Death Eater corps has always perplexed me," I said. "I've studied history extensively, and there's certain regularity in how radical revolutionary groups and terrorist organizations are born, both in the wizarding and Muggle worlds. There's always this charismatic leader who is often wealthy and well-educated, and his followers who are primarily bitter and desperate young men, people who lack a stable livelihood, respect from the society, and a spouse. The followers become staunch supporters of the ideology their leader advocates, but it's not actually the ideology that they find appealing. They see this radical movement as a way of escaping the misery of their lives. The leader offers them hope of a better future. The ideology is just a façade for them, a rationalization."

Lucius was regarding me in his dignified way, with just a very slight frown. Nott's expression was inscrutable, while Jugson looked somewhat offended.

"But there's one exception," I continued and gestured at the lavish opulence of Malfoy Manor. "The Dark Lord was one of the charismatic leaders I described, but his followers were different. He became the leader of British aristocracy, people who lacked nothing. How was it possible? Why did the powerful pure-blood wizards resort to rebellion against the very Ministry where they held so much power? I find it ironic that if they had just pursued the most important positions at the Ministry and used their financial assets to bribe other officials, they would've probably achieved everything they wanted, without needing to spill magical blood and endanger their own lives too."

"The Dark Lord's campaign did not stem from the followers," Lucius said. "The Dark Lord forced us to become his followers. Few dared to sneer at his radical methods after he had demonstrated his willingness to use the Cruciatus Curse. He wanted war and conquest; other strategies did not appeal to him, even if they would have been more effective."

"You said he'd judge my opposition to him as disloyalty. He actually considers himself the leader of all Slytherins. But he is wrong. Slytherins are not mindless pawns who gather around a power-hungry megalomaniac. Such behaviour is more typical for Gryffindors, and that's one of the reasons I began to suspect him to be a guise of Dumbledore. To disregard more effective strategies is just… the least Slytherin thing there can possibly be."

Lucius was nodding as if the gesture was involuntary. Nott, on the other hand, stared at me like Slughorn earlier.

"I once knew someone who spoke much like you," he whispered. "Not those words, exactly… but in that style."

"Oh, could that be the same person Mr Slughorn told me about?" I questioned. "Was his name Tom?"

"Yes… yes, it was."

"I wonder what became of him."

"He… he changed. Eventually, he was nothing like before."

Voldemort is just a perverted shadow of me, an insult, a kind of a mirror-image, one that has turned all of my virtues to their opposites. Those were the words I had thought in the second morning of my new life.

"Did he, um, disappear at some point of his life?"

"Shortly after Hogwarts… and he was gone for years," Nott said with a voice very uncharacteristic for him. Lucius and Jugson were looking at him with visible confusion and trepidation.

"That doesn't sound like a difficult mystery to solve," I said dismissively. "Perhaps a similar thing happened to him as happened with the Dark Lord and Dumbledore. He died, allowing someone to steal his identity in order to make use of his reputation. However, the acting was lousy, and the reappeared Tom was nothing like the original."

Nott mumbled something, and I smirked to myself. The seeds of doubt had been planted. Eventually Nott would get his school time friend back, and I would herd all Slytherins into my new conspiracy.

Obviously published on the 25th of December, 2019.