Book Two ― A School Divided
Chapter Thirty-Five ― A New Riddle
Story Summary: Following the events of Third Year, Harry Potter explores the Chamber of Secrets and finds a portrait of Salazar Slytherin. Following Slytherin's advice, Harry will attempt to break out of the games set upon him and finally be free. But how? And is freedom even possible for the Boy-Who-Lived?
Book Summary: Returning to Hogwarts after spending the summer scheming politics with Daphne and furthering Muggle-born education with Hermione, Harry is forced to act prematurely to ensure the safety of the First-Years he promised to help. With Sirius in forced exile, a Tom Riddle with a different plan, a suspicious Dumbledore, and a dangerous tournament, is Harry's desired freedom even possible? Can his ambitions coexist with his desires?
Note: This chapter has been beta-ed by user Outliner.
Note: I have on my profile the links to other Discord servers you may find interesting. Please consider joining them.
Important Note: I have a Discord server! There, you will be able to talk to me, ask questions, and read chapters before they come out. There should always be at least one chapter on Discord that is yet to be published on FFnet. The next chapter of Serpentine Advice, A Madeleine Moment, is already available. I expect you there! Link in my profile.
Similarly, I have a P*R*T*N account, where you can gain access to even earlier access chapters, among other rewards. There, you can also see the long-term plans I have regarding the Harry Potter universe to create a world-building effort for other authors. No chapter I ever write will be found behind a paywall, and you are under no obligation to support me, but I will appreciate those who do. Link in my profile.
Lunar Calendar: If you enjoy this story, please considering reading my newest story, Lunar Calendar, which covers a year of travels between Luna and Harry following the end of the war, as they struggle with their recovery and yearn to find out more about themselves and the world around them.
Thomas Marvolo Riddle eagerly held a cup of steaming tea, closing his eyes and cherishing in the heat of the liquid against his palms. With every passing day, more and more hours were his, and not his vessel's, and now he could reliably control himself for basically the entire day. All the exhausted and confused Albanian boy could do when Riddle's control began to waver at night was to pray, cry, and sleep.
The lack of tactile sensations for so many years had left him in quiet wonder of the small things in life. Every time he took his morning tea, every time he opened a letter with a metal knife, every time he grabbed the newspaper, every time he ate something, he made a point of mentally recording every single step on the way. He vowed to never be deprived of his senses again, for the rest of time. He had missed them terribly.
His foresight proved him brilliant once more. The influence of the Horcrux molded wearer and his spirit into one, slowly consuming the Albanian from the inside. Shortly, nothing would remain except the appearance, which was irrelevant. Riddle saw it as an advantage. He would be able to reestablish himself without drawing suspicion from those who remembered the beautiful Slytherin Head Boy from oh so long ago. It might be costing him one of his safeguards, but they were created partly for this purpose, after all. Not using them now would be foolish.
He took a sip of the tea, savoring the way the hot liquid traveled down his throat and into his stomach. For they were his now, regardless of the still feeble resistance of his vessel. They both knew it.
It was a nifty arrangement, the one that the two of them had made. Insurance that Riddle would not attack and kill his parents and baby brother, who he was previously planning on using to create a homunculus in exchange for his life. Throughout the entire journey, Pettigrew and Jorkins had tensely watched over the boy, taking shifts in their sleeping schedules, but he did not protest or try to flee. He stood steadfastly by his word.
Riddle recognized the enormity of the value of the boy's valor. For that, he chose not to inform his vessel that he had sent Pettigrew to kill his family as soon as his possessions became more frequent and firmer. The Albanian boy would die thinking himself the savior of his brother, and that was a good recompense for his faithfulness in keeping his promise.
Tom also kept his promise. He did not kill the family himself, after all. Pettigrew had. Loose ends would never be acceptable, and this one had the potential to uncover his entire plan. All it took was one overzealous DMLE official or Unspeakable making his way to Albania to try to cross-reference the report given by Bertha and some good luck on their part, and Riddle's new face would be printed on the first page of the Daily Prophet. That was unacceptable.
The usual four or five letters came, as they did every day, first thing in the morning. Also, as usual, Jorkins wrote everything she had found out about everyone, no matter how insignificant, into her letter. Riddle had to grant that no matter how easily manipulated and mentally weak that witch was, she was a brilliant informant. Something about an incorrigible gossip made you want to speak with them, and Jorkins had acquired a fair bit of fame between the Albanian disappearance and the subsequent attack by Bartemius. The little nuggets of information were often useless, but not always. And, you never knew what could emerge as potentially vital in some months' time.
The other letters were from other informants, spread out around the country, who did not know who they were reporting to, and neither did they care. These sources of information were less reliable, often contradictory, and faithful only to the payment he had assured using Jorkins' bonus, which was all but a bribe to not sell her two attacks to the press into a scandal that threatened to besmirch the reputation of the Minister and his immediate subordinates. However, they were a good way to keep an eye on the pulse of the nation and public opinion, if a terrible source of sensitive information.
Riddle opened the first letter and read it languidly, frowning midway through.
"Lucius, what are you doing?" Riddle muttered, analyzing the contents of the letters.
Three subjects interested him most of all. The first was the situation with Lucius and the imbroglio he was thoroughly losing against Cygnus Greengrass. During his next ascendancy, Riddle wanted to keep a powerful contact to use at the Ministry.
"If Lucius doesn't improve his standing soon, who would be the best following alternative?" Riddle asked himself, mentally reviewing through the various followers he could conceivably mold into a proper political tool. "Tiberius?" He muttered before grimacing distastefully. The Nott Lord was far too inflexible and blunt to be anything other than an enforcer. For the delicate balancing act required in these following months, he would be inappropriate.
He wondered about the availability of Cygnus Greengrass more as an exercise in completeness than anything else. He remembered the war when the man had been mostly a non-factor beyond some minor voting in the Wizengamot. Now, Riddle doubted Cygnus, a much more powerful figure, would be favorable to his cause or ambitions. At the very best, they would be neutral to one another, but even that sounded doubtful.
"Neutral men are not bold," Riddle drawled quietly, reviewing the excerpt of Cygnus's Speech he kept nearby.
This habit of talking to himself had to die, he decided, but it held no real resolve. It was one of the few instances in which he could hear his real voice. No matter how many times he had previously ordered himself to stop, he would always be drawn back into it.
He drew his eyes languidly across the letters, fishing for new information. His mind did not consciously read the words written in them, limiting itself to glimpsing at their form and immediately discarding them as useless. On the rare occasion where an informant had some valuable intel, he could trust his subconscious to alarm him.
Riddle marveled at the transformation of Cygnus into a politically relevant figure. He had reinvented himself rather successfully and grown into his potential admirably. In the interceding years since the war, Cygnus Greengrass had shifted into a noteworthy adversary.
He needed some more information about both men. At this, his secondary sources were remarkably productive. Gossip in the street was a wonderful way of assessing the political capital that could be expended by the politicians in the Wizengamot, and their assessment was consistent.
"Unless something changes, Lucius will lose," Riddle breathed in deeply. "Still, Malfoys are nothing if not slippery. I'm sure that Lucius will find a fight back," he looked at a lost point in the distance, supporting his body weight on the back legs of his chair. "Should I do something about that for now?"
He shook his head reflexively. A nudge in the right direction if necessary, yes, but for the moment, he was unwilling to interfere. Riddle had too little power, magically and politically, to be playing that particular game. He needed more information and more men to be able to ascertain himself over Malfoy, but that would come when his magical power returned to its usual level, which it had been gradually doing. There was no way of estimating how much further he had to go, but for now, he was confident of using his magic to get him out of just about any pinch. Malfoy was a powerful wizard in his own right and needed to be once more in awe of Riddle's breadth of knowledge and ability to make the seemingly impossible happen with ease. For now, that was not something Riddle was confident of being capable of. That would come, with time.
He let his eyes be drawn to the wall nearest him, while his mind scoured through the scores of letters he had received outlining the goings-on since that Halloween. He grimaced slightly as he waved around the memories of Malfoy's political actions.
The whole situation with the Black Family was alarming. Malfoy was obsessed with it and had been since his marriage to Narcissa. From what Riddle managed to gather from those old archives and letters he had received for the past months, it had been the primary source of his efforts for years now. To salvage that pet project of his, who knows how many resources Lucius would spend; resources that would otherwise eventually flow right into Riddle's pockets. As far as recompenses went, he thought the Black Family to be an insufficient one, given what it could offer. The most tantalizing prize would be prestige — which would not matter when his plans came fully into fruition — and the library. And though yes, while full of forbidden knowledge it would surely be, Riddle did not expect to find much in it that he did not already know, and the fewer people had access to knowledge that would make them a more difficult obstacle for him to deal with in the future, the better.
Riddle couldn't stop a small, malicious grin from appearing on his face when he thought about who stood in Malfoy's way.
It was also likely that the Black Heir was Harry Potter, according to what Pettigrew had reported of the events surrounding Sirius Black and his escape from Azkaban, and then Hogwarts. Clearly, Sirius had not received a trial and was currently Lord Black, in the eyes of the law. An alternative way of dealing with the Malfoy situation was gifting him this information and letting the man verify it. When it came back positive, it would be far easier to ensure Malfoy of where his loyalties ought to be.
This possibility barely managed to stand on his mind before it was swiftly shot down. Sirius Black was, by far, Riddle's greatest potential asset at the moment, and he was not worth the loyalty of the Malfoy family, regardless of their deep pockets. Plus, such loyalty was tied to Lucius's ego, which was so large that merely brushing near it from a position of strength somehow gave the man the impression that you were respecting him.
As for Sirius Black, every misdeed, attack, recruitment drive, theft, and rebellion that he would potentially organize had to have a scapegoat attached to it. True, Bartemius Crouch Jr. was a possibility, but because of his presumed death, he was far too great a tool to waste as publicity fodder. No one suspected a dead man of doing things, so his usefulness was far too great to sacrifice. Now Sirius Black had the benefit of having a reputation that only was better than Voldemort's and Bellatrix's. It would be easy to tack on any of his attacks onto the man, giving him a far greater berth of possibilities.
Riddle nodded, pleased with this conclusion. Then his mood soured slightly as the subject of the Black Heir appeared somewhere in the outskirts of his conscience.
Harry Potter stood as one of the two other points that caught his attention lately, and those two points were the same ones that had raised alarms in his mind for a decade and a half now. The first was Albus Dumbledore, and the second was Harry Potter.
Both of his more significant opponents would be dealt with personally, in their own time. He would ensure it, but their demise would come about in different ways. They were both dangerous for very different reasons.
Albus was a magical threat, albeit a vacillating and aging one. Until Riddle was fully recovered, he was not going to put himself anywhere near the possibility of confrontation with the old Headmaster. He had ambitions about how to deal with Dumbledore, but he had yet to create a plan worthy of them.
The thought still made him giddy. The downfall of Dumbledore would be revenge for Tom Riddle. There were more practical considerations for Dumbledore's demise, of course. The man was arguably the most powerful politician in Britain, and he was seen as the most powerful wizard alive. Even if that wasn't true, which it may very well be while Riddle was not fully recovered, he recognized the potential for martyrdom and symbolism that the old man represented. His name was literally Albus. Hope would always exist while Albus Dumbledore lived.
But Riddle was also keenly aware of his own bias when it came to his former Deputy Headmaster. Tom Riddle hated Albus Dumbledore. That was a fact of life as indisputably true as the sky being blue and the Earth being round. Tom Riddle had many personal reasons for that hatred — while he had heavily occluded out the memories of the bombings of the Blitz that he was forced to endure because of Dumbledore's insistence that Riddle not spend the summer in the safety of Luftwaffe-free Scotland, but instead in the very dangerous London orphanage in which he was detested and ostracized beyond being in constant danger of sudden death, Riddle could still remember the fear he felt — but atop all of them was the fact that no one but him noticed Dumbledore's façade, and no one but him noticed the man's ardent ambitions behind the impassionate defense of the downtrodden. In Hogwarts, Dumbledore was the only one to never allow himself to be eventually won over by Riddle, and the young Slytherin had been sure — still was — that the only reason why that was the case was that Dumbledore saw a mirror of himself in Riddle's ambitions.
For Tom Riddle, Albus Dumbledore was an overly ambitious man who was never told off on his ambitions because he was seen as a hero following his defeat of Grindelwald. By the time that political criticisms of Dumbledore had begun emerging in murmurs at the Wizengamot, decades later, he had attained such a mythical status among the population for his seemingly heroic and self-effacing nature — nevermind the fact he had basically ascended into the position of Britain's most prominent political figure overnight without even token protest — that those murmurs became a social faux pas in the world at large.
And that meant he would be, even in the absence of personal dislike, forever an enemy to Riddle.
Tom made sure to calm himself down by breathing deeply. Every time his mind wandered to the matter of Dumbledore, to urge to kill him was overwhelming. But that was suboptimal. He didn't want Dumbledore to die a hero or a martyr. He wanted Dumbledore's death to mark the end of hope and not its brave last stand. For that to happen, Dumbledore would need to remain alive for a while longer.
But death was not the only way to deal with the man. Despite himself, Riddle couldn't avoid a morbid smile from appearing on his face. He was tittering with excitement for an opportunity to seek his ambitions. He had insufficient information for now, but that would change soon.
Very likely, today.
Riddle gulped down the last of his tea, which had already cooled significantly, letting a bitter aftertaste in his throat instead of a cozy feeling. Even that bitterness he cherished as he walked breezily through the house towards his office, to outline a trip to the Ministry that day.
As he did so, his mind reminded him of Harry Potter once more.
If Albus Dumbledore's demise would be revenge for Tom Riddle, Harry Potter's would be revenge for Lord Voldemort. In some senses, the young boy presented a symbolic threat, both as a living symbol of Voldemort fallibility and as the child of Prophecy. However, without full knowledge of the Prophecy, the proper way to deal with Harry Potter would be forever obscured.
Either way, the Boy-Who-Lived would die, both literally and as an institution. The alternative was not viable for his long-term plans. But the best way to go about doing that required more information.
He needed the Prophecy. And, if possible, eyes on Hogwarts, as both of his principal adversaries were living there. The advent of the Tri-Wizard Tournament and the selection of Harry Potter as champion allowed not only for some diversion while he regained his power; it also guaranteed that the press would keep an eye out for the young boy. While their observations would be forever tainted by the lenses of guaranteeing more sales, Riddle had always been good at glimpsing the objective from the subjective from newspapers. For now, it would have to suffice.
But he knew what happened to those who tried retrieving prophecies without being mentioned on them. He had Rookwood to thank for that, as well as some information on the security layout of the Department of Mysteries during the daytime. As much as a nighttime trip would be significantly easier to do, he did not know how long still the possession would take to fully grant him the power of the vessel's body all night without any risk, and every passing day was a day of planning lost.
He would have to go today, and he felt confident he would manage to get an opportunity to go to the Hall of Prophecies. He knew the place was not frequented often by the Unspeakables, so he could take his time to find and hear the Prophecy undisturbed as long as he got there. The problem was that the Unspeakables traversed through the corridors and rooms leading to the Hall of Prophecies far more often.
For that, he had a plan. He was, after all, simply an Albanian boy, victim of a mysterious assailant who used mysterious magical attacks that he made sure the Unspeakables would be dying to know more about by making Bertha spin tales of her esoteric it all seemed.
He sat down on his office chair and was about to begin the preparations for the day when another owl arrived, carrying the Daily Prophet. He felt some pride in knowing his informants got their information to him faster than the newspaper could. Still, he liked to use the newspaper to cross-reference information, and it was the only way to keep an eye out for Potter at the moment. Yesterday had been the First Task, as well. He was eager to see what had happened to the boy, though he was sure he had survived. Dumbledore would not have let him die.
When he picked up the newspaper to read it, his mind briefly halted all thoughts, conscious or otherwise, for a good few seconds.
DRAGONSLAYER!
Below the rather shocking and sensationalistic headline, there was a picture of a Hungarian Horntail lying on its back, fire weakly pouring out of his mouth, with Harry Potter slowly walking out of the arena with a golden egg in hand.
Riddle felt his eyebrows rise against his will but quickly remedied that reaction by keeping his face completely neutral. His next reaction was open disgust; not at Potter, but the newspaper. The dragon had been distinctively unslain. How can they give the epithet of Dragonslayer to a teenager who had not slain a dragon? The Boy-Who-Lived moniker may be repulsively annoying, but at least it had the decency of being somewhat accurate.
"Honestly, what on Earth happened?" Riddle murmured, going over the paper as it went over the action of the three other champions, all of whom performed admirably for their age and experience by what he could gather from what was written. When he got to the Potter section of the main story, several things caught his eye.
The seemingly manic laughter before the fight, described as sinister but also defiant, painting a portrait of a teenager unwilling to bend against the enormous pressure of being held hostage within a deadly tournament.
The strange way in which his spells manifested, when even regular spells seemed to shine without unbridled power, but also lacking the control or finesse of his older counterparts, portraying him as a young man full of potential, being led to a great future.
The wide selection of destructive spells, something explicitly speculated to have to do with DADA Professor Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody, who had been seen teaching both Potter and Neville Longbottom — and wasn't it surprising for Riddle to see both of those names so closely together, to the point where he briefly feared that Moody may have caught wind of the Prophecy, but he doubted that Dumbledore would reveal that tidbit to even the old Auror — from 'sources close to the school'.
The pervasiveness of the attack, which did not stop until the dragon was flat on its back, using spells far above his age ability and perceived level of skill, signifying a young man with great capability to do great things, who will not stop until the task is done, even though the dragon was already subdued and the egg could have been safely retrieved from Potter's broom.
Several things bothered Riddle severely when he finished the article.
The first was the fact that the writer, Rita Skeeter, had made some arrangement with Potter to not paint him in too bad a light, or was otherwise interested in not doing that. He knew the articles that the woman specialized in, and Potter's actions were a gold mine for her characteristic bashing and drama-spinning. That she had held her hand, admonishing Potter in some section but heaping praise in others, was very out of character. That the Potter boy had grown some cognitive ability to deal with the press was concerning.
The second thing was far, far more concerning. The description of normal spells looking overpowered and crackling with odd colors, and different speeds than usual, the fact that no one heard him say anything out loud the entire time except for a couple of Summoning Charms, paired up with the fact people had seen him move his mouth to subvocalize his spells, those all led to one suggestion.
Harry Potter had figured out how to use Parseltongue in his magic repertoire.
That, in and of itself, was not too bad. Riddle was far more powerful than those around him regardless of using the language or not. Potter managing to cast in Parseltongue would not mean much in a confrontation. The potentially awful news was the implication of who had taught Potter how to do so.
Riddle had seen the newspaper clippings about the Heir of Slytherin from a couple of years ago. He also knew that Potter had received a Trophy for Special Services to the School soon after the incident had been deemed resolved, which made it as clear as day that he had something to do with whatever resolution had been found to the Chamber of Secrets opening once more.
"Has Potter found Slytherin?" Riddle asked, narrowing his eyes. It seemed a distinct possibility. How much would the Founder tell the boy? If Potter had chosen to use Parseltongue right off the bat, he hadn't discarded everything to do with Slytherin from his life.
Did Potter know about the book?
"Unlikely," Riddle murmured, after pondering the question for a minute. "But then again, maybe Salazar is up to his old tricks again, if the boy even found him."
The article also made it clear that Potter had yet to wake up, a victim of the extreme level of magical finesse he had dispensed just the day prior, but that he was expected to recover fully within the day of publication, and that Dumbledore had not given any justification for giving his second champion a '9' grade, which seemed to scandalize Skeeter, who believed that Potter deserved a 10.
Riddle chuckled bitterly. He almost felt bad for the boy. He knew exactly what Dumbledore would think about the spell selection, but knowing the Headmaster, it would pale in comparison to the man's concern about the ruthless aggression shown against the dragon. The magic would be bad enough, but he would rationalize it, blaming Mad-Eye. But the aggressiveness? That would fall on Potter.
"He does have that fixation with 'bad magic', though," he frowned, thinking his conviction over. "Will he blame some magical seduction from too powerful spells or other nonsense like that for the boy's behavior?"
That too, made him grimace distastefully. It had been exactly what happened with him, all those years ago, for the crime of denied ambition.
"Bad magic," Riddle scoffed, before murmuring. "Honestly, only Dumbledore. A boy is forced to fight a dragon, doesn't know who to trust, is under enormous stress, is learning something that requires a lot of concentration to not mess up, and surely believes that Voldemort is after him. He's going to lose it. Everyone would."
Well, not everyone. But the boy evidently had no talent for Occlumency, which only rose more questions. Dumbledore supposedly would do a lot to ensure the Child of Prophecy would remain pliable, so why had he not used Legilimency to learn what Potter was doing, learning magic the Headmaster disavowed intensely? If he had known, he would have stopped it.
"Questions, questions," Riddle breathed out frustratedly. "Trying to figure out Dumbledore's reasoning is like playing chess with a child. A more consistently intellectually dishonest man is yet to be born."
He looked through the rest of the Daily Prophet. Potter had been given the first position, with the French Veela only a point behind, and the other two boys a couple of points behind respectively, with the Durmstrang lad leading the Hufflepuff. Some student reactions to the fight, some comments on the magic used by each champion by scholars, some statements of outrage against the choice of beast for the champions to best. Nothing very interesting.
The politics session had some reports of cases already been offered to the courts involving Greengrass's challenge to Malfoy, but nothing too major so far. He expected, as did the correspondent, for the numbers to pile up pretty quickly in the next few weeks.
Otherwise, there was no news.
Riddle was tempted to take one last look into the letters to see if he should be worried about any additional Ministry security implement, but he decided against it. He had planned extensively for this, and the more he waited, the shorter he would have to work with. If he went early on, the Department of Mysteries would be less crowded, and far easier to deal with.
He grabbed the Albanian boy's wand, frowning distastefully at the unfamiliar feeling. That had been one vexing aspect of the possession, as his affinity with his wand grew as it progressed. However, that meant that whenever Riddle needed to maintain his identity as the Albanian boy intact, he had to use an increasingly unfamiliar wand. It burdened him slightly, not enough to be an obstacle, but enough to be very, very annoying. It did not help that his original wand had been so familiar, and the fact it had never been found made it even more famous than it already had been.
"Bartemius," Riddle sounded off, casting a silent Sonorus on himself. The man quickly appeared on the doorframe and immediately began bowing and genuflecting, which normally would be more than welcomed, but Riddle had little time to deal with aesthetic things, even if satisfied his sense of self-importance. He cut the man off from his thorough deference. "I have a task for you."
"Of course, my Lord!" The man exclaimed, the same fanaticism of always shining in his eyes, and an anticipatory smile blossoming in his face. Bartemius was nothing if not loyal. He would make a good Hufflepuff, Riddle mused, if the Houses had not drifted from their original purposes. "How may I serve you?"
"Have you mastered the spell I gave you?"
"I have, my Lord," Bartemius claimed immediately. Then he frowned slightly. "But I do not understand why you can't cast the spell yourself, my Lord."
"Do you think I can't?" Riddle said, as imperiously and authoritatively as possible. To his exasperation, Bartemius immediately began making impassionate pleas for forgiveness, begging to prove himself worthy of trust again. "Enough," Riddle snapped, making Crouch stopped midway through his sentence and look down with incredible deference. Resisting the urge to sigh, Riddle counted to ten, both to impart the awaiting Bartemius with some suspense and to calm himself down. "Cast the spell, Bartemius."
"You are ever merciful, my Lord!" The younger man cried out, before finally rising to his full height and drawing his wand. Before he pointed it at Riddle, he hesitated slightly and asked. "Can I?"
"I hope that you can, for your sake, Bartemius," Riddle smiled grimly, allowing his irritation for the delay to show in his eyes and posture. That Crouch would read it as a warning to not mess up the spell was only an added benefit. He wouldn't garble up the spell, Riddle was confident of that. Bartemius was a very competent wizard and had always been a quick study.
"Of course, my Lord!" The man claimed proudly, even though a flash of terror shone in his expression at the sight of Riddle's smile. As for the older man, he didn't know how Bartemius didn't tire of calling him his Lord all the time, but it created the requisite mystique, so he couldn't complain. Riddle then nodded sharply and allowed the man to begin a lengthy vocalization of an Austrian spell. As soon as he ended, Riddle found it difficult to think or talk in English, as had been his intention. His mind was somewhat wired to Albanian, and he spent a second finding his bearings.
The region may have been caustic and unstable to the point of borderline anarchy for decades, but you could not fault the ingenuity of their spellmaking. Translation spells had always been fascinatingly intricate, and Riddle had spent many days traveling around the world, finding ways to replicate them for Parseltongue, though he ultimately failed, as had Salazar before him. Still, being able to cast a spell that gives the target a functional, if slightly archaic, fluency in a previously unknown language? There was a reason why the region had boasted a semi-unified multi-ethnic magical government before it followed the instability of its Muggle counterparts and collapsed into itself.
Riddle took a while to find the spell from Albanian to English in his mind and then he quickly cast it on himself, immediately clearing the slight fog in his mind that had settled in with the spell that forcefully made him thinking in the other language. When he spoke, as he anticipated, his speech was broken and harder to understand, a result of translating a translation spell instead of a clean slate.
"It has worked," Riddle stated, each syllable sounding awkward and stilted as if he were speaking with a hot object stuck to the bottom of his tongue. Bartemius's expression immediately closed up in terror.
"I have failed you, my Lord!" He wailed. "Please punish me accordingly," he stated firmly, already on his knees, a new form of light bursting into his eyes. Riddle did not disguise the disgust from his face. What had a decade of constant Imperius exposure had done to the man?
"Rise, you fool," Riddle responded harshly. "It has worked exactly as I intended. If you want to be punished for a job done adequately, go serve somewhere else," he stated adamantly, his mouth aching from the slow and deliberate way in which he had to speak, and his ears bothering him with how different and ill-announced his voice sounded. It was incredibly frustrating to deal with this combination of translation spells, but they would be handy to deal with the Ministry. "Or are you implying that any punishment I give you is so weak as to be pleasant?"
"Never, my Lord!" Bartemius cried out indignantly, never taking his eyes away from the ground.
"Then rise and go about your business!" Riddle ordered steely, watching as the man left the room, still bowed respectfully and full of reverence. Though the show of respect normally pleased him, whenever he had things to do, his impatience shone brighter than his ego. "Time has turned him into a mindless sycophant," he then murmured moodily, before breathing out deeply. "Let's hope Bellatrix and Antonin haven't gone through the same thing," then he frowned. "I also need to find out why Severus has left the country so abruptly after attacking the Potter boy, and he attacked the boy in the first place. So many questions," he whispered, looking at the door. "I need some answers, for a change."
Riddle's arrival at the Ministry did not go unnoticed. A burly man, wearing a dusty blue suit and a bowler hat, evidently trying to emulate the large picture of Minister Fudge displayed on the entrance hall. If the idea was to impress, the man had failed miserably. His ratty clothes indicated he was not particularly fortunate in life, and he held none of the gravitas that people born into money and power easily exuded, and which Riddle had to learn to exhale himself. He also seemed amiable, with shining, large black eyes and an easy-going expression. He walked slowly, with a relaxed gait, and greeted Riddle with a nod and a small grin.
"Hello there, young man," he said jovially, waving Riddle closer to a heavy-looking instrument. Riddle nodded slightly and walked towards the object, doing his best to look out of place and uncomfortable. The Ministry had changed very little since his last detour through the place, but the influence of Fudge was clear, beyond the portrait of the man. Even before the war, such lax security would not be accepted by people like Minister Bagnold. The hall was also more lavish, shinier, with more décor. It was not hard to grasp where the Minister's priorities lay.
The prestige of competence shines opaque in comparison to the prestige of lavishness, after all.
"Hello," Riddle said tersely, allowing his difficulty in pronouncing the syllables to sound clear.
"Are you a foreigner?" The man asked, more on guard, already putting his hand near his wand, straightening out his spine. That made his belly push forwards, somehow making him seem even fatter. Despite the suspicion, there was a clear lack of will to escalate the situation in his face, and Riddle pounced on that.
He fidgeted slightly before nodding tersely again. "I am from Albania."
"Albania?" The man frowned slightly, not relaxing, but more curious than apprehensive. "We don't get many Albanians around here. Normally you get here through the Greek Ministry," Riddle made a show of grimacing at the suggestion, feeding into the stereotype held by many wizards that everyone in that region hating everyone else there. That seemed to feed into his authenticity, as the guard relaxed even further. "How have you arrived in Britain?"
"Boat," Riddle said simply. "I know Muggle travel well. Mother was Muggle-born."
"Ah, that would explain why you didn't pop up in the Ministry registry," the man said good-naturedly. "Sometimes we don't catch one or two through the ward system in the border. I guess you're here to settle down your documents?"
"Yes," Riddle said with a slight, embarrassed smile, before his expression grew grim and dark, something that startled the man. "I also have a report."
"A report?" The man asked confused, turning on the machine to which he had guided Riddle. When the machine started sputtering and blowing out some grey smoke, he coughed slightly and kicked it for good measure, which made it stop malfunctioning. He nodded satisfied and turned back to Riddle, who watch the proceedings with external amusement and internal pity. What a sad life, the one lived by this man, with literal magical powers. "Can you give me your wand, please, just for safety reasons?" The man asked, apologetically, with an abashed smile.
"Of course," Riddle said agreeably, giving the man his vessel's wand. He knew it was registered somewhere in Eastern Europe, so it should pop up from Gregorovitch. His wand wouldn't be recognized in any magical system due to his alterations on it, but it was so famous that it would have been recognized anyway. And this was just more proof of authenticity for the Albanian identity, anyway.
"So, what is this report about?" The man asked casually, grabbing the wand and putting it through a scanner. While the scan did its work languidly, seemingly copying its operator, Riddle responded.
"Attack on British employee in Albania," he said roughly, forcing his voice through a barrier in his throat. He forcefully cleared it, but the voice remained altered. "Bertha, I think?"
"Bertha Jorkins?" The man asked wide-eyed. The data about the wand appeared, but the man had been so distraught by the revelation that he barely even glimpsed at it before handing back the wand. "You were there?"
"Yes," Riddle nodded tersely again.
"You've come all this way to make a report?" The man asked skeptically, the first glimpse of actual suspicion showing up in his eyes. Riddle was surprised the man had begun suspecting something at all, but it had not been a real impediment.
"No," Riddle shook his head. "I come because my family is dead. I need a new place to build a home."
"My condolences," the man said bashfully, averting Riddle's gaze and trying to make himself look busy. Just as suspected, he did not know how to take in that bit of news, and the bit of flattery towards his country was just the sprinkle on top. "Well, you're clear to go. If you want to report on the attack, you may want to go to the Department of Mysteries. I heard they wanted to know more about it."
Riddle was about to thank the man with a sense of great appreciation for his own foresight in ensuring Bertha would intrigue the Unspeakables when suddenly he perked up and waved at someone passing behind them both.
"Actually, even better!" The plump man said joyfully. "Dawlish, come over here!" Another man, tall and lean, with a rough look about him and a steely-looking demeanor, approached them. He walked with a slight limp, and there was a well-hidden grimace of pain appearing in his face at times. Riddle remembered Dawlish from the war but did not know much about the man other than the standard vague notions he ascribed to each sufficiently powerful Auror. The job of finding out more information was too labor-intensive to be his.
"Yes?" The man asked impatiently, looking at the watchwizard with professional patience but clear personal annoyance.
"This young chap right here," the man said, slapping a hand on Riddle's shoulder amicably, an act that seemed rather odd considering the height differential between the smaller man and the Albanian boy whose body he had been inhabiting. "Says he has information on the attack on Bertha in Albania."
"Oh?" The Auror blinked surprised, which made him look rather like a fish. He looked incredibly foolish for a brief second, clearly have been taken by surprise by the watchwizard actually providing useful information for once, before his steely demeanor returned and he said with some authority. "Very well, then. Come with me, Mr...?"
"Hysa," Riddle said, offering his hand to be shaken. Dawlish looked at it for a second before remembering he was a Senior Auror and he was dealing with a boy who didn't look of age yet, and then shook it firmly.
"Good luck, lad," the watchwizard said cheerily.
The travel to the Auror Office was silent. Dawlish looked forward without moving an inch of his body, and even the limp with which he walked had disappeared. Riddle was impressed that the other man had taken care to mask even that which only an observant eye would notice to disguise his weakness.
"Follow me, Mr. Hysa," Dawlish instructed, tilting his head towards a room just to the left of the main entrance. Riddle suppressed a frown and followed dutifully. He had been hoping to at least take a look at the Auror Office if he had to go through this detour at all, but Bones had been smart enough to not have her suspects walk straight into their office, likely for that exact purpose.
Riddle greatly respected Bones. She was one of the very few truly independent witches of her generation, someone who had not fallen for either his or Dumbledore's ambitions and tried to set off in her path. While not as grand as he, she was impressive on her own right.
"Sit down, make yourself comfortable," Dawlish said, not looking at Riddle but instead taking a note in a magical notepad of sorts, before sending it scouring away with a dismissive wave of the hand. The paper folded itself into an airplane and went off on its way, flying through a window that Dawlish similarly opened with a slight twitch of the fingers.
Riddle recognized the idea of using wandless magic to intimidate your interviewee, but he also knew that playing the role of innocent, meek Albanian would not fly with the Auror. He was unlikely to believe that someone would trek through an entire continent just to talk to someone in the British Ministry of Magic, and the prospect of death would not faze the man.
So, Riddle exaggeratedly waved his hand, sending his seat smoothly back, allowing him to sit down, where he again waved his fingers, letting the chair take him to the most comfortable distance from the chair. Dawlish watched the entire procession with a dollop of respect for the magic at play, and then nodded, acknowledging the idea behind the act. Instantly, he looked far more interested in the story.
"Mr. Hysa, before we begin, I'd like to establish some facts about you," he said, taking out another notepad, and a magical quill.
"Of course," Riddle noted down.
"Very well, then," Dawlish responded, while the quill wrote down all the requisite formalities about the interrogation. When it was done, he asked the first question. "What is your full name?"
"Flamur Hysa," Riddle said mechanically.
"You speak very good English for someone who recently entered the country," Dawlish stated casually. "I know for a fact there are no records of any Hysa family members in our archives. How come?"
"Translation spell," Riddle responded with some vague pride bleeding into the voice. He wasn't expecting that Dawlish would know the archives to that extent, but he was not completely surprised. Aurors spent so much time there that he likely remembered scouring through something in that alphabetical range and had not seen such a name.
"That explains the difficulty of your speech," Dawlish hummed quietly to himself. "Still, very impressive. I'm assuming that's what you've been doing since arriving in the country? Learning the spell?"
"Yes," Riddle nodded. Dawlish hummed agreeably once more.
"What is your age?"
"17."
"Have you been through any internationally recognized education in the Continent, or taken any standardized tests administered by the ICW?"
"No," Riddle responded. That caught the man's eye, which stopped looking at the notepad and turned to Hysa.
"You have shown great magical prowess for your age," he drawled. "I hope you don't expect me to believe it comes naturally to you."
"It doesn't," Riddle shook his head. "My father taught me."
"Why not send you to school?"
"We were near a Durmstrang recruitment center," Riddle shrugged. It was true. Albanian students generally attended the Scandinavian school. "My father studied there, but he married a Muggle-born. So I couldn't go."
"I see," Dawlish agreed slowly. "Presumably, if I go to Igor Karkaroff and ask for the records of a Mr. Hysa a couple of decades ago, he'd be able to find me them, then?"
"Yes," Riddle answered easily, even though he was already berating himself for not sending a letter to Karkaroff before. It wouldn't be hard to do so, and he could rely on Winky for it, but it was still annoying that he hadn't anticipated a rather obvious line of inquiry.
"Great," Dawlish made sure that the quill had taken notes of that. "Will you be taking the NEWTs, then?"
Riddle stopped to think about it. Would he? There was value in it, not only for documentation. It would be a great way to separate himself as Hysa for the general public, and to some people specifically. Then again, should he be calling attention to himself so early?
"I think so," Riddle stated slowly, doing his best to grimace slightly as if the prospect frightened him slightly. "I am not sure."
"That's fine," Dawlish waved him off. "Just be sure to write a letter to Griselda Marchbanks in the next couple of months if you intend to take the examinations, and she'll sort you out. I recommend you do take them if you intend to stay in Britain for long."
"I will think about it," Riddle said, sounding thankful.
"Your father sounds like an impressive wizard if he taught you for years outside any school to the level where you can use some wandless magic," Dawlish mused pensively. Riddle almost wanted to smile. Nothing like flattery to let the person sing like a canary. Instead, he made his face darken and close off with such grief that it caught Dawlish's keen eye.
"He was," Riddle murmured moodily. The Auror's expression immediately shone with understanding, and he gently turned off the quill for a second and looked at the boy.
"I'm sorry for your loss. He sounds like a great man," he said honestly. Riddle wondered how trained these men were in giving this lecture to people who had lost parents or friends during the war. It was said very smoothly and sounded frank and open, but there was no way to evaluate someone's greatness from such limited inputs.
"Thank you," Riddle responded quietly. Dawlish nodded sadly and turned the quill on again, returning to his usual professional expression.
"You said that you had more information on the attack that injured Ms. Jorkins in Albania. Are the two incidents connected?" The Auror asked.
"Yes, they are," Riddle said bitterly. "It was the same attacker."
"Can you give me a timeline of events?" Dawlish questioned. When Hysa made a confused expression back, he asked more gently. "What do you believe to be the first relevant event of that day?"
"A British man knocked on the door while I was in my room," Riddle narrated the events, doing his best to sound empty and traumatized. His voice sounded flat and disconnected from reality, an effect he afforded with some Occlumency. "My mother opened it, and the next thing I heard was a great thud as her body hit the floor. When I ran towards the noise, there was a great gashing wound in her belly, but she was still alive. I did not have time to focus on the attacking wizard, because my father was already expelling him from home. I focused on helping my mother."
"How did you know he was British? And do you have a physical description of the man?" Dawlish asked, with a serious expression.
"You have accents," Riddle snarled hatefully, before looking at the table in a mixture of shame and anger. "I did not see him in the first attack, but I saw the other ones."
"There were more than one?" Dawlish asked.
"Yes," Riddle confirmed. "They were after my little brother."
"They?" The Auror questioned, raising an eyebrow.
"There was another thing behind the man," Riddle hesitated, both as Hysa and as himself. He could sell the Voldemort idea, but without the information of the Prophecy, he could ruin his ruse and raise Dumbledore's suspicions. That was unacceptable at the moment. Best to keep quiet about that. "I do not know what it is. It was not a man, but not a ghost either. Just... a thing."
"Can you identify or specify this thing?" Dawlish asked.
"Sorry," Riddle responded mournfully, with some frustration clear in his face. "I have tried to discover what it was but with no success."
"I see," Dawlish hummed. Then his expression firmed up again. "Once we're done here, I'm going to take you to the Department of Mysteries. They might help you to identify this second entity."
"Of course," Riddle answered neutrally, but he was internally smirking. The faster he left, the better.
"So, there were multiple attacks, and in one of them, you saw the attacker, correct?" Dawlish questioned. When Hysa nodded quickly, he continued. "Can you give me a description of the man?"
"He was short," Riddle frowned as if he was working from memory. He needed to give a description that would rouse Dumbledore's interest, but not a good enough one that Pettigrew might be remembered. Very few people knew he was alive still, but it was a risk best left diminished. "He had a bald head, with some tufts of reddish hair still on the sides. He looked fat as well and walked slowly because of it, though he moved quickly to cast spells. Something was weird in his physique like he had gained or lost a lot of weight suddenly and wasn't comfortable in his skin. Hm, he also looked a lot like a rat," Riddle added, seemingly like an afterthought. That would instantly catch Dumbledore's eye if he ever read the report.
"How does any man look like a rat?" Dawlish questioned skeptically.
"He had small, shiny eyes, and a very pointed nose," Riddle claimed. He grimaced slightly when he continued. "He also walked like a scheming rat, his back curved and bent."
"I see," Dawlish noted quietly. Then he turned the notepad in Riddle's direction and there was a fairly accurate depiction of the man which he had just described, with the quill eagerly floating above it, as if awaiting new instructions. Riddle did not know that the Ministry had been using quills in this capacity. It was rather ingenious, actually. An impressive bit of magic from whoever had crafted it. He would have to look into it. To quell his curiosity, he commented.
"The man's head was a bit smaller than that, and he had very bad teeth," and lo and behold, the quill instantly erased its previous drawings of those areas and redrew them to fit the description given by Riddle. The image still resembled Pettigrew enough for those in the know to assume it was him. "That looks like him."
"Very well, I'll look around and see if we can identify him," Dawlish stated, pocketing the note with the drawing in it. The quill bobbed happily when the drawing was archived, like a crup being told it had done a good job. "This man also attacked Ms. Jorkins, correct?"
"Yes, he did," Riddle nodded. "There was a Muggle inn next to our house, in the village. We heard that an Englishwoman had booked a night there, right after the man attacked us. My father thought there may have been a connection, and asked me to keep an eye out."
"The place where you lived was a mixed community, then?" The Auror inquired.
"No, there was only us there," Riddle shook his head. "The rest of the village was all Muggle. Father wanted to live far away from other magicals."
"Why would he do that?" Dawlish asked curiously.
"He never told me," Riddle shrugged slightly. "It was nice. Good people."
"What happened then?"
"The second night after the woman's arrival, there was a large commotion in the inn, and I went to investigate. When I arrived, there were a bunch of unconscious people in the entrance hall, and the place was damaged from a fire," Riddle's eyes grew dim and lifeless, as he recounted the story. "I heard a tortured yell from upstairs and took off to see what had happened. When I arrived there, the British woman's mind was being attacked by that thing."
"That entity that you spoke about was capable of Legilimency?" Dawlish asked warily.
"I think so," Riddle answered tonelessly. "Her throat was raw from screaming, and her eyes were bleeding. She was being held captive by some magical ropes that seemed to have burned her skin, and they were bruising her sides. I have never seen someone in more pain in my entire life," he shivered dramatically, and his voice shook slightly. "When I arrived, I just stood there for a second because I was so shocked. Luckily, my father had heard the scream and thought to arrive as well. The attacker blasted me to the wall and I broke a rib, but my father managed to drive them away."
"Can you describe the injuries to Ms. Jorkins?" Dawlish asked professionally, though he seemed slightly nauseated from the thought of it.
"I don't think I can," Riddle spoke, looking at some point in the distance. "There was so much blood. Her face was covered in it. But it was the eyes that were the worst. The expression in them. She looked dead. Breathing, but dead."
"Very well," Dawlish said weakly. He cleared his throat and continued more firmly. "What else can you tell me?"
"We took Jorkins to the hospital—"
"Why did you not call the Aurors?" The other man interrupted sternly.
"We live in Albania, you know perfectly well there are no Aurors," Riddle spat out. After the two of them glared at each other for a while, Riddle looked down slightly bashfully, which filled the other man with some sense of conquest. This conversation would be wildly amusing for Riddle when he returned home. You'd think that Senior Aurors would be harder to manipulate. "We took her to the hospital, where she eventually healed enough to go to England. A few days later, the man returned."
"Do you know why he kept returning?"
"Yes," Hysa whispered, his voice cracking. "My baby brother."
"He wanted something with your little brother?" Dawlish asked with undisguised disgust. Riddle couldn't blame him. He was likely imagining it was something sexual.
"He needed a small magical baby," Riddle said, tearing up. "For a ritual."
Dawlish's disgust shifted to horror and even the quill seemed to straighten up in a horrified fashion. The room's atmosphere shifted and seemed to thicken as the Auror's mind went through all the knowledge he had on rituals involving babies. None of them would be any good news for the baby.
"Did he?" The Auror asked after a long moment of allowing Hysa to calm down from his silent sobbing.
"I think so," the Albanian boy whispered. "I'm not sure. He wasn't there when I got back. Just my parents."
"Why haven't you gone to a more local Ministry with this?" Dawlish asked gently. "Wouldn't they be able to help faster?"
"Everyone involved was British," Hysa shrugged, drying out his eyes. "I thought here would be best. The man who attacked my family might return," at this statement, a fury shone in the young boy's eyes, one that both alarmed and softened the Auror at once. Righteous fury at the world's injustices was something that had sent many a young Hogwarts graduates directly into the arms of the DMLE, and Dawlish could certainly sympathize.
"Kid, don't do anything you might come to regret," Dawlish said softly. When Hysa did nothing beyond averting his eyes, he sighed. "Look, I understand the feeling better than you think, but we have laws and order in Magical Britain for a reason. Rest assured, we won't skimp on punishment if we catch the bastard, but there's a procedure to things. Otherwise, we fall into chaos, and that will just lead us further into crime."
Riddle nodded tersely, and the Auror could tell he was unconvinced, but he didn't expect him to be. He could tell the kid was tortured by not managing to save his family, but what could he have done? It was a miracle he was not there the day of the attack anyway. Dawlish breathed out. What a shit situation.
"I'll take you to the Unspeakables now. They know more on the subject of rituals than I do, and they may help you identify whatever that second entity was in your home," he said softly. The boy nodded wordlessly and got up. Dawlish archived the notes with a small wave of the hand and guided the young man out.
Dawlish swore he would find the man who killed Hysa's family.
The trip to the Department of Mysteries was again silent, but this time Dawlish seemed less dismissive and more solemn. No doubt, the details about the likely ritual sacrifice of a baby and the killing of a magical family had troubled him greatly, and knowing that an Englishman was involved in it would bring some blowback to the Ministry at a time where it didn't need the attention, following intense criticism for choosing dragons in the First Task.
Riddle quietly followed him, outwardly projecting emptiness and emotional exhaustion. However, his mind was taking the entire path in, analyzing the corridors, the hallways, the rooms, and the people, seeing what had changed and what hadn't, what he knew and didn't, what he managed to visualize from blueprints and reports over the years and what he missed. The closer they came to the Department of Mysteries, the larger the number of discrepancies between reports and the reality he saw. He already expected the Unspeakables to change their layout as much as possible as soon as Rookwood was exposed as a spy, but the Hall of Prophecy was a fixed fixture. The magic within it couldn't be moved without herculean effort.
They arrived at the Department doors, and Dawlish turned to him.
"Wait here, please."
Riddle nodded, and stood there, patiently, as he went in. A few minutes later, he emerged, followed by a pair of Unspeakables, both wearing their cloaks, but one of which was visible.
"Hello," the man with the visible face spoke. His voice was unsettlingly neutral and flat, and Riddle could tell it was not because of Occlumency. Presumably, it was just the way the man chose to speak, which was so fitting for an Unspeakable as to be funny. "My name is Broderick Bode. This is my assistant. He has chosen to keep his identity private for this exercise, but you may address him as Goldpurpur."
"Goldpurpur?" Hysa asked confused. Then his face brightened in recognition, and he inquired. "You mean Purple of Cassius?"
"You are familiar with Alchemy, young man?" Broderick asked. The only sign of surprise was a very small lifting of the eyebrows.
"My mother was fascinated by it," the Albanian boy claimed, then his face fell. Bode nodded understandingly but did not offer his condolences. However, something in his expression gave away the fact that he understood exactly what Hysa was going through.
Riddle wondered if he had killed the man's parents. He didn't think so.
He watched warily as Dawlish looked to the doors of the Department of Mysteries with some hesitation. He was hoping that the man did not enter. While the Unspeakables were researchers and did not pose much of a threat to a powerful wizard such as he, even in his weakened state, the Senior Auror would be, and enough time had been wasted in his interrogation. Soon, entering undetected into the Hall of Prophecy would be much harder.
"I'll leave you to it, Broderick," he finally said, looking as if he wanted to get as much physical distance between himself and the Department of Mysteries as possible. The place had earned itself a mystique as being dangerous, which was humorous for Riddle. It was a place of research under a Ministry obsessed with countering 'Dark Magic'. It wouldn't be nearly as dangerous as Knockturn Alley if you weren't an idiot. "Please leave me the report with relevant information as soon as possible."
"Of course, John," Broderick said unblinkingly. Dawlish then turned to Hysa and inclined his head in silent support, which earned him a strained smile. Then the Senior Auror left, leaving only the three of them.
"Follow me, please," the cloaked figure said, opening the door slightly more so that Riddle could enter. When his eyes automatically scoured the corridor, his voice sounded harsher. "And don't spy around."
"I won't," Riddle claimed, affronted.
"We'll see about that," the other man grumbled.
"Goldpurpur," Bode warned him, though his voice was so flat that it seemed more like a statement. The other man fell silent, and then Riddle and Broderick began walking in tandem, following the cloaked figure. "We just want to ask a few questions. Some details about what you're reported to Auror Dawlish entail some disturbing possibilities that we want to avoid."
"I thought so," Hysa whispered brokenly. Bode looked at him searchingly before he turned and faced the corridor ahead of him.
"I am often told I am indelicate in certain situations, but I must tell you this in the most direct way possible so that you understand its gravity," the Unspeakable said flatly. "It is almost assured that your baby brother is either dead or possessed."
"You didn't have to tell me that," Riddle hissed sharply.
"Yes, I did," Bode denied categorically. "Because you've come to Britain with the hopes of saving your little brother, not seek revenge, and you won't succeed in either pursuit."
"How can you possibly know that?" Riddle said weakly, looking to the floor.
"I read people well," Bode spoke, staring at the boy until he faced him. Internally, Riddle was cackling at the idea, but outwardly he simply looked away. The Unspeakable didn't comment on anything.
"Come in," the cloaked Unspeakable pointed out, and Riddle walked through the door to a room without any windows on it. It was a simple room, clearly used for these interrogations that the DMLE pushed to the DoM whenever something went over their heads. He took a seat and waited until the two other wizards sat down.
As they did so, the cloaked figure took out his wand and declared.
"I am going to cast some security spells, to ensure that you are who you claim you are."
Before he had finished the sentence, Riddle had begun chuckling darkly. With one smooth motion, he wandlessly summoned the man's wand away from his grip with such strength that his shoulder almost popped out of its socket. By the time that Bode had overcome his surprise and was drawing his wand, Riddle had already grabbed the other man's wand, twisted it around, and slashed it.
"Somnus," he saw Bode's eyes grow horrified at recognizing the Parseltongue, but it was too late. Both their bodies fell to the floor like puppets losing their strings. Riddle languidly stretch out his body and walked around the table. He ensured that they were both alive and unharmed, and grabbed Bode's wand, waving it around. He felt little connection to it, so Goldpurpur's wand would have to suffice.
He knew that using his own wand might get him detected if the Unspeakables ever scoured the area with their detectors, but there was nothing wrong or uncanny about an Unspeakable using a Somnus to calm down a frantic Albanian kid who had to talk about the likely ritualistic fate of his baby brother. There was also nothing suspicious with the Notice-Me-Not Charm he was casting on the door or the Disillusionment Charm he used on himself.
He would be back for the two of them. But for now, he had a Prophecy to listen to. He would figure out what to do with them later.
He stuck close to the walls, barely ever having to stay still to avoid knocking into someone. People were just beginning to arrive for their workdays, which would afford him some much-needed time to think about the Prophecy. Still, he was careful, not allowing his anticipation to mess with his judgment.
But finally, he was there. The Hall of Prophecy. So tall that you had to crane your neck to see it, so wide that its walls seem to stretch to infinity. Tiny pieces of destiny glowing an eery blue, their contents swirling in some mystic fashion, impossible to behold but for those who were contained in it, kept safe and mysterious by safe and mysterious magics woven by people who had not deigned to write their findings down. Riddle had spent months trying to figure out the magic of prophetic divination, but he did not have the gift of Sight. He could not understand it, for it was beyond the Arithmancy he mastered beyond all others. It required a certain type of connection to magic that he never had, a fact that had infuriated him for years. He tried to find loyal people with some marginal understanding of it, but all those who did had proved too flighty to be trusted with such vital information.
But now, he felt no fury. He only felt triumph. He breathed in the frigid air in the room, allowing the cold air to enter his lungs, making his chest shiver. Once again, he reveled in the feelings he had lost as a spirit, and the cold reminded him he was alive and would so remain, forever.
Thanks to Rookwood, he knew exactly where to look. He was tempted to see the markings on other prophecies, to study and learn more about them, but the thrum of idle curiosity was nothing compared to the massive impetus to know his fate. He needed to know if the arcane would block his path, regardless of his choice. He needed to know if he still had the agency to figure himself out.
For if he hadn't, he would rather burn the world to the ground than being enslaved by it.
He took long strides until he reached the appropriate row. 96. He again let himself take in the cold and relish on the fact he had managed to reach his objective. These could be the last moments of his life in which he was confident he had control over his future and the world's fate, and he refused to allow his anticipation to deny him the opportunity to celebrate this small triumph, possibly his last.
Using his Occlumency to keep himself from feeling nervous, he walked until he found it. A glowing, shining orb, with much less dust than those who had been kept here for centuries. Its contents whirled and waved teasingly at him like sirens chanting their song, and he couldn't help but exhale excitedly.
S.P.T to A.P.W.B.D
Dark Lord
and (?) Harry Potter
Riddle chuckled, which turned into manic laughter. This was it. He extended his hand, and when the orb did not knock him out, he grinned sharply. This was his destiny.
He waited with bated breath as Sybill Trewalney spoke out, with the characteristically deep and haunted voice of those who are being channeled to give out a prophecy.
The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies...
Riddle watched as the orb cleared out, and its contents slowly devolved into mysterious blue mist once more. He watched it for long minutes, in complete silence, even his breathing seemingly frozen as his mind raced through each line, each word, trying to spin the many ways in which the Prophecy could affect him.
In the end, he did not know what to think. Not much of it changed his plans, frankly. Marking a boy as his equal could be seen as making him an orphan, or by any other multiple metrics. He very much doubted that the boy was as magically powerful as himself, from what he had seen during the First Year and had been told more recently. He did not doubt that Potter would grow into someone fiercely strong, perhaps around Bellatrix's level, but his own? No, he did not think so. The part about Potter needing to die by his hand, and that only he could kill him was disconcerting, but also open to interpretation. What would killing someone by their hand constitute? Had Pettigrew killed the vessel's family by his hand, or had Riddle, who ordered the murder?
"Prophecies are so vague as to be meaningless at times," Riddle muttered to himself. Then he breathed out in relief. "But it seems that my fate is my own."
Why had Dumbledore protected the Prophecy so zealously during the first war, if those were its contents?
An idea shone through his mind, making him grin maliciously. This would be worthy of his ambitions to tear the old man's legacy crumbling into non-relevance.
After all, Dumbledore didn't know he knew the Prophecy.
He laughed silently and walked back to the room in which the Unspeakables were still sleeping. He put Goldpurpur's wand in Bode's forehead and whispered.
"Legilimens," yet another spell that would not bear suspicion if it was somehow detected. He made a note to implant fake memories to play out each spell in the Unspeakable's minds.
He entered the man's mind easily, as he had been unconscious. However, he was immediately met with formlessness typical of people who had mastered Occlumency. Nothing made sense, as if he were in a Dalí painting, but even his movements didn't obey any logic, seemingly moving and stopping against his will and not following any patterns. He was shown the vague shape of the ocean, with orbs representing memories seemingly translucent, showing useless and unimportant things, such as what the man liked to eat, or his favorite songs. Then, he was shown a forest, or what seemed like a forest, with dark, green shapes dominating his view in all directions, and memories hanging from their branches, forming tantalizing fruit that instead held no substance, again showing no useful information. That cycled many times over, always with the same vagueness, which would confuse a lesser wizard into giving up.
Riddle wasn't a lesser wizard, however. His talents in Legilimency were unmatched, and his mind ran faster than Broderick Bode could ever hope to emulate. Faster than the formlessness could ascertain itself, Riddle formed patterns, making the views less blurry and more analytical, and some useful information began popping up amidst the useless. Some experimentation he had done as an Unspeakable, some conversations he had with Amelia Bones, some security measures. Riddle could see them all. But before he could explore them, the figure would shift, and he was forced to begin all over again.
But that was no problem. He was faster than the Bode's Occlumency could recover the damage, and Riddle was capable of exerting constant pressure on the man's attempts at creating an abstraction incapable of being ordered. Eventually, the man seemed to notice this, and his strategy changed, for the forms took clear shape, but this time Riddle found himself in a boundless room full of identical orbs, without labels or seemingly no logic to their ordering.
Riddle smiled. He could try to find the underlying logic behind the ordering system, and it would be an interesting exercise, but he had no time for it, and Bode was clearly counting on him not having enough power to brute force the conundrum.
It was a mistaken assumption. Riddle sent hundreds of different magical pressures on the orbs at once, gently scouring them for information. When they found something trivial they threw the orbs to a corner, and when they grabbed any relevant ones, they drew them closer. Just to show the futility of resistance, Riddle set off some signs to categorize the memories and started to sort the memories using the signs.
Soon, a third strategy emerged, a classical one. Riddle found himself in a maze. He sent a pulse of magic coursing through the path of the labyrinth and felt where the more precious memories were being kept. As he began to walk that path, the labyrinth shifted, closing his path and seemingly boxing him in.
Riddle laughed, delighted. "How clever! I will have to adopt that, as well," he claimed pleased before he systematically bulldozed the walls of the labyrinth down with little effort.
After a few minutes of increasingly more desperate attempts at stopping Riddle from tearing down his defenses, Broderick finally gave up the ghost and the labyrinth disappeared, and Riddle was bathed in enormous darkness. Bode appeared in front of him, and though his expression was neutral, Riddle could tell by how the image flickered and fizzled out that the man's mind was exhausted almost to the point of passing out.
"Who are you?" Bode whispered, horrified.
"I think we both know that," Riddle answered, smiling like a shark, all teeth.
"How?" The Unspeakable asked, somehow seeming pale despite being just a projection.
"What makes you think I'd tell you?" Riddle asked, bemusedly. "It's not like you're going to remember this conversation."
"What will you do with me?" Bode asked evenly.
"If you're worried about insanity or death, don't worry, Unspeakable," Riddle clucked his tongue. "And I'm afraid I'm too weak and pressed for time to explain it to you?"
"Voldemort, claiming he is too weak?" Bode questioned, skeptically, though his act was betrayed by the wobble in his voice when he said Voldemort's name.
"Oh, don't be mistaken, I'm not weak for you," Riddle chuckled. "I'm weak for me. I'll be coming back to visit more of your mind soon enough, Unspeakable. But for now, you have a job to do."
"What is it?" The man asked warily.
"Why," Riddle smiled darkly. "You just have to remember."
After implanting the fake memories on Bode, Riddle got out of his mind and did the same to the other Unspeakable, ensuring they remembered the same thing and leveling their Occlumency to the point they would never notice the changes unless they tried impossibly hard for absurd amounts of time. That had been, by far, the greatest feat of magic he had performed that day. Riddle had been planning on making himself look groggy as a consequence of the Somnus and the Legilimency attack they had supposedly cast on him, but he didn't need to.
He felt exhausted and was sweating profusely. He dried himself off with his clothes and waited for his heartbeat to calm down, but he was smiling the entire time. This would be his way of dealing with Dumbledore, once and for all.
He woke both Unspeakables up and closed his eyes, feeling the relief of the act intensely in his body.
"Mr. Hysa?" Bode asked concernedly. "Are you alright?"
"Hm?" Hysa answered groggily. "Fine, just tired."
"Understandable," Bode said softly before he side-eyed his partner. "You didn't have to overdo the Somnus that much, Goldpurpur."
"Sorry," the other man muttered moodily. "I don't know what came over me."
"Regardless," Bode sighed softly, before turning to his normal tone of voice. "We'll have someone escort you to somewhere you can floo back home, Mr. Hysa. Thank you for your cooperation."
"Of course," Riddle murmured tiredly. He rubbed his eyes and fought through a yawn to speak. "Please contact me if you find anything". A few minutes later, he was already being taken out by a kindly administrative assistant to the nearest Floo.
"Let's review," Goldpurpur suggested to the other Unspeakable.
"He was born on the 31st of July, 1977, to a wizard graduated from Durmstrang and a Muggle-born he met in Albania, where the couple settled down for a peaceful two decades. After Flamur was born, the father of the family took to teaching him magically from an early age, and he shows a prodigious level of mastery over many fields of magic, by what I've scoured in his mind using Legilimecy. His mother was the teacher of the local Muggle school and taught him notions of the mundane world in case he needed them."
"They had another son six months ago, named Agron. The family was the only wizarding family in the village and was attacked three times before they finally succumbed, while Flamur was out on personal business. The bodies of the parents were burned, but recognizable, but Agron's was never found. The Muggle authorities deemed their deaths as a fire accident, and they were buried in their village city in Albania."
"The human attacker does not ring any bells, but John showed me the drawing, and it matched what you told me," Bode breathed out. "We will have to provide the pensieve memory for his identification later, so you'll have the fill that paperwork up."
"Great," the other man mumbled. Then, he hesitantly asked. "What was that thing?"
"I do not know," Bode admitted. He narrowed his eyes. "It seems like a ghost, a malevolent spirit. But somehow, also more?"
"I don't understand why the ghost wouldn't just possess someone. It certainly seems capable of doing so, if it could perform some limited magic."
"I think he will use the baby to form a homunculus," Bode admitted dully after a beat of silence. The other man breathed in sharply.
"Fucking hell," Goldpurpur replied weakly. "And that thing is coming to Britain?"
"We don't know that," Bode responded.
"Come on, Broderick, don't be naive. This screams Death Eater," the junior partner stated. Bode didn't say anything. He didn't disagree. "What do we do? We need to identify that thing, even if it is going to turn into a homunculus," he asked after they stayed in dark contemplation for a moment.
"We investigate," Bode sighed, getting up from his seat. "I have a feeling this is going to escalate to the wrong people."
"Fudge?"
"Worse," Bode grumbled. "Dumbledore."
Back home, Riddle wrote a hasty note to Igor, with a code that only an inner circle Death Eater would know. The Headmaster may not be fully loyal, but knowing he wouldn't have to keep looking over his shoulder when Voldemort returned was a sufficient price to pay for his cooperation. Riddle fully planned on killing him anyway, but he didn't have to know that.
Then he closed his eyes and laughed until his throat hurt.
"Divide and conquer," he smiled, before falling asleep.