This is something different for me, something I have never tried and had to write because this story nagged at me when I should have been sleeping.
Have fun with this, if you can…
o.O.o
Riddle Me This
o.O.o
It had passed, the marriage law targeting Hermione Granger.
She insisted all would be well, even as she warded abandoned classrooms, drew a black veil over her head, and used the next few minutes alone to pray.
She still insisted all would be well even as she was escorted away to Malfoy Manor to meet her groom-to-be.
Mrs. Malfoy had taken unneeded pity on her and offered the young witch at least three ways to escape before the wedding ceremony, all which Hermione ignored, even as Mrs. Malfoy prepared her bath for the ceremony Hermione wasn't expected to survive, but Hermione kept faith as she continued pushing forward.
"This may be your last chance," Mrs. Malfoy heavily hinted to Hermione as she placed her own wand on the vanity within reach if Hermione slightly extended her right arm to take it.
Hermione ignored it as Mrs. Malfoy finished with her makeup and started on her hair.
"Why?" Mrs. Malfoy asked.
"Would you like to hear about my grandmother and her mother?" Hermione asked instead.
"Alright," Mrs. Malfoy agreed as she started brushing Hermione's hair.
o.O.o
Miriam Belfast had fallen in with a progressive crowd when she was fifteen, beautiful, and matured earlier than her childhood playmates. Mary, has she liked to call herself to her new friends, was instantly enamoured with the scandalous lifestyle her new friends believed in, mainly, why should a woman marry at all?
Of course Mary, being a selfish girl who loved to twist things to her own favour, took this salaciously. The young girl, seeing and hearing these women speak of men in intimate terms, wondered at it all until her closest friend disappeared, having been with child and needing to get away because she refused to marry for the benefit of her family.
Mary was stunned for a moment before the implications of her friend's ruined reputation, and that of her family's. Conveniently, she turned to her neighbour's son, who was seven years her senior. The young gentleman was a milksop and easily swayed by Mary's strong personality. Mary sated her curiosities on that young gentlemen before it was discovered by Mary's governess and mother what had been happening between the young couple.
Chaos broke out between families of their ruined reputations.
Mary ignored any and all chastising from her mother and governess, for she had gotten what she wanted, as her former friend had, and she cared not for the marriage her parents were pressing on her. Unfortunately for the girl, or perhaps fortunately when she later thought of all she had gained, she was signed over to marriage by her father to the young gentleman.
After the lavish wedding both mothers insisted on to disguise what had truly brought about the wedding, Mary minded not that she could now command her new, easily malleable husband, to throw her ten more lavish parites.
She passionately hated the child within her womb, the babe prevented her from wearing the extravagant jewels her husband bought her just to see the delighted smile on her face for the moment the new piece had her attention. The child was soon born, and like the jewels often gifted to Mary, this new trinket held her mother's attention for all of five minutes before being cast off to the nursery where her father doted upon her, along with the new nursemaid.
The parties continued, the babe was only remembered when Mary needed something to brag of with other new mothers in her circle, and little Maisie was soon forgotten again when company departed.
Maisie turned into a sweet young girl under her paternal grandmother's attention, and her father's when he could find time for her, which became less and less as she grew older. Her life became lonely once her grandmother passed and her father's attention waned to the new addition to their family, a son.
Mary doted upon her son as she had never done with her daughter.
Little eight-year-old Maisie soon found herself conveniently forgotten after Mary's demand that her husband forget the girl and mind their son.
All attention and gifts were lavished upon the small boy child. Following his christening, a party was thrown to celebrate the day. Maisie's love for her brother crumbled to dust on that day, as did her love for her father.
Pictures were taken of the small family of four for the family album Mary insisted they now keep, Maisie held her brother with a quiet awe while guests danced around them and others smiled at their family, and then he cried, startling his sister.
"What have you done?" Mary shouted at her frightened daughter as she carelessly wrenched her son into her arms, only causing the small child to scream louder. "Send the girl back to her nursery!" She demanded of her husband.
Maisie was quite surprised when her father's tight grip on her arm ripped her out of her seat as he marched her back to her room without a soothing word.
She cried, alone in her nursery, before sneaking away to see the guests had continued in their dancing, her parents and brother taking more pictures now that he was calm, and she, again, all but forgotten. Her silent sobs as her small heart broke over her lost father and admired brother went unheard over the orchestra her mother had insisted upon.
In the morning, a trunk was packed with all her things, and little Maisie was sent off to her great aunt's estate in Derby.
Not a trace of little Maisie was left in her home of eight years.
Time passed and Mary pressed her son upon his great aunt every Easter, conveniently forgetting her daughter even lived at that estate. Every year, as the boy grew more spoiled and arrogant, his great aunt pursed her lips and silently encouraged Maisie to endure yet another visit that left her feeling empty and envious of her brother who soon only knew of her as his great aunt's companion and not his elder sister.
Maisie's grandfather soon moved onto the estate and loved her as much as his sister. Together, the three endured more visits from the arrogant family of three who's small village grew to hate them as much as their own family, yet Maisie simply chose to pity her parents and brother as their lavish parties became less and their expenses more.
Maisie's grandfather found a suitable young gentleman to court her when she turned eighteen, they married when she turned nineteen, and then she lost her grandfather and great aunt. She greatly relied on her caring husband as their wills were read and learned she had inherited her paternal family's main estate, along with her great aunt's.
Mary, of course, was not close to pleased her son and husband had been looked over for Maisie.
Hubert Dagworth gnashed his teeth at the woman and her husband as he chased them off his wife's estate and ordered the servants to keep them away, indefinitely. He returned to soothe his wife in her grief as her great aunt had always done with her grandfather. He never chose to share with her that her parents were languishing in debt and had to stop having most of their parties after selling off most of Mary's precious jewels, jewels she had loved more than she had ever loved her daughter.
Maisie and Hubert continued on with their lives until word came that her parents and brother had been murdered.
It hardly surprised her that her parents and brother had finally angered someone enough to do this to them. Hubert prepared the minimum expenses for the family and nearly had them buried in simply a shroud and board, but he did respect his wife and her loss, and simply buried the three in a corner of the family graveyard that he knew would be forgotten in a few years, along with a thin, shallowly engraved headstone with the bare minimum engraved to honour them until it was mostly weathered away by time.
Maisie expected her father's estate to come into her possession, yet planned on liquidating what she could and donating it to charity, which she knew would have her parents clawing and screaming from the pits of Hell. She was thoroughly surprised when, instead, the estate went to her brother's illegitimate son whom she later learned he had rejected the boy's mother and left the woman to waste away and die, leaving the boy in a ghastly orphanage.
The matron had spoken to her about the Riddle's rejecting the boy upon learning of his birth and leaving him, abandoned, at the orphanage without knowledge of Maisie's family.
Mrs. Cole was too pleased to admit that the boy had been forced to leave the orphanage when he reached fourteen and she had no way of contacting him to inform him that he did, in fact, have family who wanted him.
Maisie and Hubert searched for their nephew, saving the months after their daughter's birth, and worried for him every day.
o.O.o
"Did Maisie ever find her nephew?" Narcissa asked after it was clear Hermione was through with her story.
"On her good days, Grandmother looks out the windows of her rest home, hoping my mother has news of him," Hermione said quietly. "It is my mother who searches for our cousin now. They suspect he cast off the family name and took up a new one."
"What was his family name?" Narcissa asked with no little curiosity as she pinned Hermione's plaited hair.
"They were the Riddles of Little Hangleton," Hermione answered and winced as Narcissa accidently poked Hermione's scalp with a pin before hastily turning her away from the mirror to look into her eyes.
"What is your cousin's name?" Narcissa asked.
Hermione was quiet for a moment as she looked up at Narcissa.
"Mrs. Cole told my grandmother that he had been named Tom Marvolo Riddle," she answered.
Narcissa paled as she leaned into the vanity for support.
"Why are you doing this?" She asked of the younger witch.
"Because Grandmother never got to make Mary and Thomas scream in their graves," Hermione insouciantly replied. "Tom inheriting their estate made them roll over a few times and shit dust, but bringing him back into the family with open arms," she said with a growing smirk, "that will make them scream and burn in the lowest pits."
A deep chuckle interrupted them when her cousin entered the room as he looked Hermione over with some gleam of satisfaction in his eye.
He had clearly been eavesdropping.
"You will have to take me to see my aunt, Miss Granger," Voldemort drawled as he slowly approached her.
"She will love you, sir," Hermione said with no little doubt. "Especially since she will live to personally sign the main Riddle estate over to you, that is what will torment her parents for eternity."
Voldemort chuckled as he pulled Hermione up from the vanity bench and escorted her from the room.
"Shall we tell her of our marriage?" He asked.
"Do you want to kill her so soon?" Hermione responded. "Cousins marrying!" She exclaimed. "That will put Grandmother in her grave before she can give you the estate!... at least wait until that happens if you insist on satisfying her vengeful little heart."
"It will be my pleasure." Voldemort smirked as they approached the ballroom and were soon bonded by Lucius Malfoy for eternity, at Voldemort's demand.
Hermione showed Voldemort to Australia, entrusting him with her parents and grandmother's safety, which he chose to add to, and fell in love with his aunt when she cursed her father and brother before realising the gentleman entering her room could not possibly be Thomas or Tom Riddle, but her nephew.
"It is unfortunate that you should inherit those men's countenance, son," Maisie said after looking Voldemort over with watery eyes before tugging him closer and tightly hugging his waist as he awkwardly indulged her. "I hope you have had the chance to be your own person and not live in the shadow of those snobbish Riddles," she said after a few moments as Hermione dabbed at her grandmother's moist cheeks while the older woman took in her nephew. "You look quite young for a man who should be seventy, at least."
"And you look quite alive for a woman who should be close to one hundred," Voldemort replied.
Maisie heartily laughed.
"Ninety-eight, boy," she replied, "and I could have held on longer for you alone."
"Grandmother," Hermione said with a growing smile, "Cousin Tom is like me… he has magic."
Maisie's eyes lit up as she looked to her nephew again.
"Marvellous!" She exclaimed as she clapped her hands before placing them on his cheeks. "It means nothing to you, Tom, but you have made this old woman proud of her nephew. Hermione, darling, when has your mother scheduled the signing of the estate?" She asked. "I will not wait another day for this."
"Mister Lewis should arrive in half an hour, grandmama," Hermione said.
Maisie nodded and returned to looking at her nephew as she held his hand and talked of her own family and every corner and clues they found over the years they spent looking for him. Voldemort told her altered bits of his own life and the travels he had taken over the years while Maisie listened and lived vicariously through him for the next few moments before expressing her greatest wish that she had found him a year earlier before Mrs. Cole had turned him out.
She told him, with no little satisfaction, of Hubert using his influence to close down the orphanage and turning out Mrs. Cole, leaving her with no job and having her turned away from any she could find until the day that miserable old hag died.
"I heard stories that she had not treated you well," Maisie said with some tears. "Oh, how I abhor Mary Riddle for allowing this estrangement between us!" She lamented while Hermione worked on soothing her grandmother.
Mister Lewis arrived with Hermione's mother soon after Maisie was calmed.
Charlotte Granger had a wicked mind that Hermione had not witnessed before and she could tell Voldemort was enamoured with his cousin before Mister Lewis interrupted them to complete his business.
Voldemort, or Tom to his newfound muggle family, found it hard to leave Australia after a week. He had finally been accepted by his muggle family in the way he had always wanted to be accepted by his blood, and he wanted to protect them, fiercely.
"Tom," Maisie said to him on their last visit while Hermione and Charlotte were busy discussing where they would have dinner on their last evening together. "They drove you to become him," she said knowingly as his eyes widened before his face became a cold mask. She patted his hands before kissing his cheek. "I will eternally hate them all for leading you down this path. It is not one you can turn back. You will not turn away either," she said to him firmly as she wagged a finger at him. "Find those muggles like the Riddles and Mrs. Cole, son, and do what you will with them. I will never turn you away as they did, not even knowing this."
"Charlotte," Tom began to say…
"Knows as well, and still loves you," Maisie said "That is family. That will always be family. If there is one thing I do not like about you, it is your surname, not the person behind that. It would please me greatly if you were instead Dagworth, as I am, as you would have been if I had just known of you earlier," she said with tears.
"Then I will take up Dagworth for you, Auntie," Tom said.
"You are a person who will go down in history," Maisie said. "Leave the Riddles to fade into nothing and use the Dagworths for your notoriety." She pulled him closer and whispered the last words he would ever hear from her again. "Hail Satan."
That was the day he learned his newfound family were Satanists.
Maisie died with a smile on her lips two days after her daughter, Charlotte Granger, told her that Hermione and Tom were married and expecting.
The old woman could hear her parents' angry cries calling her from Hell and was satisfied with their torture.
o.O.o
I have no idea where this story came from… I just finished reading a short Hermione/Tom for the first time and thought… what if Hermione was related to Voldemort?... and then this wouldn't leave me alone.
I have no idea if this is anyone's cup of tea but I hope someone enjoyed.