AN:
Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition Season 8
This fic is AU taking place in the HP universe
Round: Round 2
Team: Puddlemere United
Position: Beater 2
Task: Asteroids, write about a character making a large impact on society or the world
Optional Prompts:
5- [Quote] 'The stars will never be won by little minds; we must be big as space itself.' — Robert A. Heinlein
10- [Family] Ancient House of Black
Word count: 1991
Written in the Stars
Elladora Black stared at the somber-looking building in front of her. She couldn't imagine how children lived in a place like this, it was too dark, too lifeless. Under normal circumstances, she would never step foot in a muggle run establishment, but she had a reason to do so today. After years of searching, she had finally found him, found the son of her best friend Merope Gaunt.
Merope and herself grew up together, the Black's and Gaunt's had always been tied together. Around a century ago, Merope's grandfather Marvolo saw himself losing all his money to gambling. On the verge of having his house taken and all his properties seized, he came groveling to his old friend Lord Cygnus Black.
Cygnus, like any good Slytherin, saw the opportunity that the situation presented. He agreed to help Lord Gaunt if and only if Marvolo swore the allegiance of the Gaunt family to the Black's. Desperate and having nothing else to offer, Lord Marvolo tied his family to the most ancient house of Black making the Gaunt's vassals to the family. After performing the binding ceremony, Lord Black made his way with Marvolo to the ministry. They filled the appropriate paperwork that reflected on the new association and Lord Black took care of removing the seizing order placed on the Gaunt businesses and properties. To do that, Cygnus had had to force the hand of a couple of Lords, but that was nothing new, no one got to be head of the Wizingmot without knowing how to manage and navigate the different families and members that held the power in the wizarding world. Besides, the benefit of gaining the Gaunt family as vassals far outweigh the trouble such dealing would have caused.
A vassal is a person or in this case, a family regarded as having a mutual obligation to a Lord and his family for generations. So, the vassals had to support the families they served with any means they had at their disposal, in exchange for certain services agreed upon before the ceremony that ceiled them together was performed. Lord Black knew that even if the Gaunt's had lost all of their money, they still held power in the Wizingmot; they held a lot of seats since the family was a direct descendant of Salazar Slytherin, one of the founders of both Hogwarts and the ministry. The Gaunt's also had a seat on the Hogwarts board and owned part of the school as well as a couple of different businesses that would boost and help grow the Black's business if Cygnus played his cards well.
From that day on, the most ancient house of Black led by Lord Cygnus Black flourished. Its influence grew, making them the most influential family in Britain, their fortune doubled after Orion, Cygnus's brother, started running the Gaunt businesses creating an association between the two families that was rarely seen in the wizarding world. Marvolo's son, not also named Marvolo, not wanting to be like his father, started learning from Orion after coming of age and soon, took back the reins of the business and started to build back his family fortune with the help of the Black's. He knew that he and his descendants would be tied to the Blacks but after having worked with them he didn't see a problem in it. They were hard workers that valued power more than anything, he realized soon after he started working with them that contrary to popular beliefs, they did not care for blood status. They saw the capability and the magical capacity of the individual above their social cast. If a witch or wizard showed that they were smart and that their magical abilities surpassed that of others, they were elevated into positions of power, whether they were muggleborn, Half-blood or pureblood.
That is how Elladora and Merope came to know each other, they had been inseparable for the longest time. Merope was Marvolo's only daughter, and as such, was the sole heir to the Gaunt family's fortune and business. From a young age, Marvolo had groomed his daughter to become the next Head of the family. Elladora on the other hand, was the youngest of Sirus's children, granddaughter to Lord Cygnus Black. She was taught the family ways and work ethics but had the opportunity to decide what she would do with her life. Since they were the same age, both girls had connected and became a unit. After Hogwarts, Elladora decided to start a transfiguration apprenticeship while Merope saw herself being denied the same privilege. Her father was growing older and was starting to lose his memories more and more. So, Merope had to step in and take the reins of the business from him. But she did not want to do it, she was too young to be tied down and take on so many responsibilities, so she did the only thing that she could at the time and ran off.
Years had passed and Elladora hadn't heard anything from her friend, she had tried contacting her, sending her multiple owls but nothing came of it, all the owls came back with the mail untouched. During that time, Elladora had obtained her Transfiguration mastery and was slowing becoming one of the best in the field. Witches and wizards from all over the world came to her with various jobs and requests, she was thriving and elevating the Black name in the field of transfiguration.
One day, a message from her father caused her world to come crashing down. Merope was dead, apparently, she had died during childbirth a year ago. Elladora was furious, why had it taken so long for the ministry to inform them of her death, where was the child, was he alive?
From that day, Elladora Black made It her mission to find the child of her long-lost friend, her sister in all but blood. Marvolo, after finding out of his daughters' death, had gone into depression and soon after died. Ella stepped in to run the Gaunt business while still searching for Merope's child. Since the Gaunt's were vassals to the Black's, the Black could run their business in their place if something happened and the Gaunt's couldn't assume their role.
After five years of long research, Ella had finally found him, she had found Tom Marvolo Riddle, son of Merope Riddle nee Gaunt, soul heir to the most ancient house of Gaunt.
He had been moved from orphanage to orphanage after unexplainable events started happening around him. Ella could only assume that he had bursts of accidental magic following certain events. And so here she stood, in front of this dark building, only steps away from Tom. She had decided a while back that she would raise the boy as her own and give him everything that he had been denied so far in his life.
"Hello, how can I help you madam?" a young woman asked while making her way to the strange woman standing in front of her orphanage.
"Hello, I'm here to take Tom Riddle from this place." Ella responded in a low voice.
"Are you a blood relative, or have the appropriate paperwork?"
"I'm his aunt. I have been looking for him for years." She answered not really looking at the woman in front of her but still staring at the building.
"I need proof of that or a release order from the court." The woman said, a little wary of the weird visitor.
"Imperio, you will lead me to Tom and fill in the paperwork needed to release him in my care now." Ella had grown bored of the interaction and pulled her wand casting the Imperius curse on the woman. It may be an unforgivable, but she was a Black so no one could prove anything.
And that's how Tom Marvolo Riddle had ended up in the care of Elladora Black. When she had first laid her eyes on him, she had been enraged by the state he was in and it took all the control she had not to burn the orphanage down. Little Tom was very thin, he was wearing clothes that were too large for him, he looked haggard and had bruises all over his body.
He had been scared when he saw her, she was an adult that he didn't know and, in his experience, meeting strangers could only lead to two things, beatings or being sent away to another orphanage worse than the last.
"Hello Tom, I'm here to take you home, we're leaving this place and never coming back." She told him softly.
He had run and hid underneath his bed; he was terrified of this stranger that wanted to take him away from the only place he had ever known. This group home was so far the best he had been in and he didn't want to leave. With his emotions running high, he's magic started manifesting and soon the whole room was enveloped in flames.
Alarmed and scared for the little boy, Ella started putting the fire out startling even more the little child.
"You're like me, how…" he started muttering awestruck and choked at the same time.
"Yes, I'm like you Tom, I can do magic too. I was a friend of your mom's; she could do magic as well." She addressed him with a soft tone trying not to scare him. He had finally stepped out from under the bed, so she wanted to calm him down enough so that he would let her take him away.
"My m…mom, but I don't have a mom. They told me she left me because I was a bad boy." He said just above a whisper, tears were starting to well up in his eyes. Seeing this Ella prayed that she was doing the right thing and enveloped the young child in her arms. He froze at the contact before relaxing and started sobbing into her shoulder, he's little body convulsing with the force of his sobs.
"Tom, baby, your mom loved you, she didn't abandon you, she's dead that's why she couldn't keep you, you hear me, you've done nothing wrong. Do you understand?" when she didn't get an answer, she repeated her question and got a small timid nod from the little boy.
"Now you and me we are going to leave this place and you are going to live with me, okay?"
"okay" he wasn't sure what had come over him, why he had trusted this woman instantly or why he had relaxed into her arms. But she extruded this aura of love and warmth and he couldn't feel any malevolence in the aura directed at him. He wasn't sure how he knew these things, but he just did, he had always just known these things.
That's how Tom Marvolo Riddle became Tom Marvolo Black Gaunt, son to Elladora Black. He would have never imagined that his life would turn out the way it has. He was loved and cherished, he had everything he had ever wanted and more. His mother had changed his life in a way no one else could have. She had loved him when the only thing he had known was hate, she had forgiven his fits of anger and responded to them with hugs and kisses.
On the day of his graduation from Hogwarts she had given him the biggest gift anyone could give him. She had given him the power to choose what his future would hold. One day while they were sitting in the library of Black Manor, he shared his dreams of shaping a new wizarding society, one that didn't discriminate, one that valued power and intelligence above all else. she had smiled that mysterious smile of hers and told him:
"Tom, the stars will never be won by little minds; we must be big as space itself."