A/N: For those of you who are curious about this author; a podcast, hosted by Lee McCusker AKA TheBlackResurgence and featuring Kit Willow will be coming up on his patre/on tomorrow ! The link to his server is on my profile!
Also my sincerest gratitude to the brilliant authors and beta who helped me with this chapter. Shoutout to Darkened Void, Darkness Enthroned, LTCMDR Michal Drapálik, x102reddragon. They have all been invaluable with their help and support and I really appreciate.
Lastly my vote of thanks to the veteran author Lee McCusker for giving me an opportunity to feature on his podcast.
The pains in his legs were a result of old age, he knew that. Once upon a time he could have meticulously tilled the garden in almost half the time it took to do so now.
He had soon come to understand that stiff legs, a weakened body and a deteriorated sense of hearing were unfortunate souvenirs of old age and had had more than enough time to get acquainted with them at his present age of seventy-seven.
His acceptance of his own frailty, however, didn't offer any comfort against the fact that the weeds were starting to creep up on him, try as he might to suppress them.
Rubbery, misshapen shrubs growing around the herbaceous beauty that was the Riddle's garden, or used to be as no other Riddle has ever lived in the manor since the mysterious death of three of their kin.
Frank Bryce continued to tend to the garden nevertheless, even though it was becoming progressively more difficult to do so year after year. Weeds were not the only thing he had to contend with either. Boys from the village made a habit of throwing stones through the windows of the Riddles' house and were usually seen making a mess of the lawn Frank worked so hard to maintain.
Frank believed the boys enjoyed tormenting him, testing his patience to see when he'd snap. Perhaps they, like their parents before them, believed him a murderer. The very thought of that incident always made his blood boil and heart pound with rage.
It was the young boys' antics that once again brought Frank to the Riddles' house at the dead of the night.
Ignoring the pain that throbbed through his legs, he limped downstairs into the kitchen. The idea of refilling his hot-water bottle to ease the stiffness in his knees was interrupted by the sight of a faint, glimmering light in the upper windows of the Riddles' house.
Heat crawled up Frank's body, settling at the nape of his neck. His eyes fixated on the flickering light. His jaw clenched. He knew without a doubt it was a fire started by that group of delinquents.
His mistrust of the police, caused by their mishandling of the Riddles' deaths, kept him from calling them. Frank picked up his walking stick, snatched a rusty key from its hook by the door and set off into the night.
In his rage, Frank failed to notice the unlocked state of the front door.
Frank hobbled over the worn, thin carpet. Plumes of dust rose from the crumbling covering, tickling his nostrils. Shadows clung to his skin like oil. Only his familiarity with the house allowed him to navigate it with ease..
He pushed the door open with his right hand, the other clutching his walking stick. The reek of decay flooded his nostrils; Frank wrinkled his nose and strained his ears into the gloom.
Faint light broke through the gloom of the antiquated hallway. Frank climbed up the stairs, thankful for the dust muting the sounds of his awkward ascent. Darkness fled from the light and enveloped him.
It felt wrong, perverse.
He pushed against the foreboding presence. He had found them.
Edging closer, Frank looked through the cracked door at the end of the hall. He saw not a soul in the old study.
Eyes widened at the voice that escaped through the opening. It was timid, fearful and not one he was familiar with..
"There is little more in the bottle, My Lord, if you are still hungry".
"Later, Wormtail," a high, cold voice hissed.
A cold shiver rippled down Frank's spine..
"Move me closer to the fire, Wormtail."
Frank strained his ears with all his might. His heart hammered against his ribs.. A clink of glass against wood met his ears and a rodent-like man came into view. Wrinkled palms turned slick with sweat..
"Where is Nagini?" The rasping voice was harsh, disembodied.
"I-I don't know, My lord," the squat man stuttered, his robes pooling about his feet.
Whoever this...Nagini was, caused the man's trembling.
"She set out to explore the house, I think," muttered Wormtail.
"You will milk her before we retire Wormtail," commanded the second voice. "I will need feeding during the night. Our journey has tired me greatly."
Frank's ears began to ring from his focus. Neither man spoke for a time. The old groundskeeper's mouth was dry as sand though he paid it no mind.
"My Lord, may I ask how long we're going to stay here?"
"A week," it replied, the words hanging in the stagnant air. "Perhaps longer. This place suits our needs for the moment. It would be foolish to act before the Quidditch World Cup is over."
Frank blinked, hardly able to believe the words that had been spoken. He was sure he heard the word "Quidditch". What were these men planning?
"The-the Quidditch World Cup, My Lord?" stammered Wormtail .
Frowning at the foreign word, Frank dug his fingers in his ears to clear them.
"Forgive me, My Lord, but — I don't understand w-why we should wait until the World Cup is over?"
"Because, you spineless rodent" A new voice made itself known, raspy and mocking. "At this very moment, wizards and witches are pouring into the country from all over the world. Every peddler from the Ministry of Magic will be on the watch for signs of unusual activity, checking and double-checking identities."
Wormtail's face turned a mottled red and his brow scrunched.
"I did not ask your opinion, Crouch," Wormtail spat. "I was merely inquiring…"
"Enough." The owner of the sibilant voice cut through the argument with ringing finality. "I have decided to wait until after the World Cup. My word is final, Barty, Wormtail."
Wormtail, the only one visible to Frank, tensed.
"It is rumored, according to Barty's spy, that Minister Delacour of France will attend the World Cup finals. It would be foolhardy to try anything at the moment, especially with the heightened security."
"Y-You're correct, My Lord," said Wormtail, his tone reserved once again.
"Of course I am," the cold voice replied in a snide, condescending tone.
Another pause. Sweat trickled down Frank's wrinkled brow. The liquid stung his eyes but he dared not to move. The voice, the two men's leader, began anew.
"Has our spy contacted you, Barty?"
"Not yet, My Lord," Barty replied. His tone was smooth, but Frank could hear the man's zeal. "Our plan worked perfectly. It is only a matter of time until he arrives."
"Spy?" muttered Wormtail, his eyes furrowing.
"It is of no concern to you Wormtail," came Barty's snide reply. "You should concern yourself with not botching our plans to acquire John Potter."
Wormtail flushed but did not respond to Crouch, instead turning to the source of the cold voice.
"My Lord, isn't it possible for it to be done without the boy?"
Silence followed those words. The crackling and spitting of the fire the only sound in the room, ominous and insidious.
"Without John Potter?" The cold voice drawled, "I see".
A chill spread through the room, the voice inexplicably being the source.
Frank resisted the urge to wrap his arms around himself. Comfort was fleeting and his desire to regain it was overwhelming.
"M-My L-Lord." Wormtail wilted under the heavy voice. "I did not say this out of concern for the boy. I just felt that you'd be better served with a body sooner rather than later. You have many enemies, any of which would be suitable."
"I could use another wizard." The cold voice was mocking but Wormtail seemed to not notice. "That is true."
"It makes sense, My Lord," Wormtail said, his shoulders squaring. "Laying hands on John Potter will be difficult. He is so well protected—"
"And you volunteer to find me a substitute?" The voice was bland, luring the balding man into a trap. "Are you so eager to escape the sight of me? Perhaps the task of nursing me has become wearisome for you Wormtail?"
"My Lord, I – I do not wish to leave you, b–but if a necessity arises then Crouch will still be here to assist you."
"Do not lie to me!" hissed the cold voice. "I know all, Wormtail! You would not be here if you had a hole to scurry into, but your fears are misplaced. Barty and I have come up with a plan to acquire John Potter, one which would not involve you leaving here anytime soon."
"Your path to John Potter is clear, My Lord," Barty preened. "One more death and then Wormtail here will have the honour of performing his task"
"Task?" Wormtail asked. His wish of being useful overrode his senses. Frank knew this task held no such honour..
"A task most would give their hands to perform, Wormtail." Cruel amusement dripped from the voice.
"R–really, My Lord? W–w–what t–task?" Wormtail began to tremble in a manner akin to a reed in a gale.
"Wormtail, you wouldn't want me to spoil the surprise would you?" The voice's malicious glee caused Frank's hair to stand on end. "Your part will come. Soon you will have the honour of being as useful as Bertha Jorkins."
"Y–you're going to k–k–kill me too?!" Wormtail's shrill voice punctured the dread, though it did little to make it diminish.
"That would be a terrible waste of magic," Barty chipped in dryly, his thoughts on the matter obvious.
"I killed Bertha because she was no longer useful," the cold voice said, devoid of remorse.
Frank's heart thrashed within its bony cage. Surely they could hear it, for he could hear little else. Blood roared through his ears with the strength and grace of a waterfall. Death followed these men's footsteps..
Knuckles whitened around his worn stick. His breathing became ragged and hitched, his face pale as the dead.
These men were of a particular kind of danger, glorying in murder as they did..
He had to leave. He had to warn them, anybody. The phone booth in the village square floated through his mind's eye.. He turned on his heel, his mind and body decisive. He froze at the sight that greeted him.
Green scales stretched over a wide body. Hissing and spitting met his aged ears. It moved past him to the door.
Sweat poured down his back, the snake ignoring his presence. Frank prayed to a god, all the gods, that he could escape this hellish place with his life..
Hissing and spitting drifted out through the door. Frank knew the man with the cold voice was making the noises, but he hadn't the faintest of how he knew so.
After a minute, the noises stopped.
"Barty," the cold voice began. "Nagini has interesting news."
"Indeed, My Lord?" How was it that a man did not seem perturbed at receiving news from a snake?.
"Indeed, yes," said the voice. Its silky quality bespoke death. "According to Nagini, there is an old muggle standing just outside this room. He has been listening to every word we say."
The realization of being discovered hung over his neck like weighted shackles.
The rustling of clothing met Frank's ears. The door was yanked open before Frank could so much as move. Cold, blue eyes stared down at him, his revulsion apparent.
Time stretched into infinity in that moment. Frank was yanked into the room, his captor forcing him on his knees.
"Y–You can't do anything to me or my wife will call the Police," Frank ground out with more confidence than he felt.
His eyes scanned the room. His desperation to find an escape was denied. Doom settled over him in a perverse shroud.
"You lie," the voice hissed.
Frank's eyes fell upon a chair. Crimson, blood-shot eyes stared back at him. Thin lips were drawn together in a cruel smirk. A bald, scaly baby assessed him as if he were little more than a roach. The creature, for Frank could call it nothing else, was reminiscent of a daemon from the darkest depths of Tartarus.
He did not hear the scream that escaped his lips.
"Where are my manners?" The unholy abomination sounded thoroughly amused by the muggle's terror. "I am Lord Voldemort, who are you, muggle?"
"What's that you're calling me?" Frank asked, his fleeting courage hanging by the barest of threads. The daemon's blood red eyes shimmered in amusement.
"I am calling you a muggle," it said as if it was teaching a small child. "It means that you're not a wizard."
"I don't know what you mean by wizard," said Frank, his voice firm once more.. "All I know is I've heard enough to interest the police tonight. You've done murder and you're planning more. If my wife doesn't see me in the next thirty minutes…"
"You have no wife," said the wretched creature with assured finality. "Nobody knows you're here. You wouldn't have come if you hadn't noticed the fire. Do not lie to Lord Voldemort for he knows, he always knows."
Frank stared at the creature, unknowing of the true danger it presented him..
Tiny, ugly lips smirked devilishly "You are right, Muggle. Lord Voldemort is no ordinary mortal."
Frank flinched. Something insidious bit at the edges of his mind.
"Y-You c-call yourself a lord, yet here you are. You're a helpless, wretched thing, relying on others to feed you."
Oh, how he regretted those words the moment they escaped his mouth..
The scaly, red-eyed daemon hissed. Thunder beat against the wooden walls and the house shook to its very foundation. Frank quivered underneath the creature's malevolent eyes.
"Let me show you just how helpless I am." Ice coursed through Frank's veins at the daemon's whispered words..
The pain he had lived with for so long was absent as Frank turned to rush toward the exit. Two meaningless words prevented his escape from this hell.
"Avada Kedavra!"
Sickly, green light filled his vision.
For a moment, there was nothing. Time paused for but a moment before it crashed into him once more.
Laboured breathing. Mind numbing fear. The foul odours of death and decay.
A shrill, mad laugh.
Life fled Frank Bryce's body before he'd even hit the dusty floor.
(BREAK)
Stormy grey eyes flashed open. Sitting up with a start, his right hand came up to rub his lightning bolt scar of its own accord. Sweat poured down his body in rivulets, soiling the patchwork quilt tangled around his body.
The dream had felt so real, it had been his reality. He could still smell the must of the old, decrepit manor. His eyes flitted to and fro, his breathing ragged, searching for the daemon he knew was not there.
John Potter groped across unseen surfaces in the dark room, searching for his glasses. The smallest bedroom at Number Four Privet Drive had been his bedroom for the last three years. It was a familiar place, though it brought him no comfort.
The Dursleys, scared witless at the thought of Dumbledore returning, had given the boy a measure of reprieve. Their lack of knowledge of his inability to use magic during the summer months had only reinforced their fear of him. He would not disabuse them of their hesitancy.
His scar stung with intense ferocity. It had never burned with such vigour in his life. Clamoring out of his bed, John made his way toward a cracked mirror. He found nothing physically wrong with his scar. His grey eyes confirmed that it looked as it always had, yet the pain persisted.
The dream was fleeting, siphoning from his mind akin to water held in hands.. He jammed his eyes shut, his face screwed in concentration.
Images flashed before his mind's eye, broken and shrouded in indiscernible gloom.
Wormtail and two other men, their words garbled.
A snake wandering a broken home, its hunt successful.
A voice, silky in its sibilance.
A cold, cruel laugh and a flash of green. The thud of a body against the hard ground, its strings cut.
Voldemort.
The pain in his scar forced John's eyes open. He took in his reflection, the moonlight glinting off of his sweat-covered face.
That laugh had haunted his dreams for more than a decade. . Before Hogwarts, he had found it unusual and unnerving. It had recently taken on a new meaning. It gave him purpose, direction.
He'd learned of the voice's owner when he first met Hagrid three years prior. The voice's owner had been his parents' murderer, the reason for his wretched existence in the Dursley home. How he loathed that voice's owner.
When he encountered Quirrel in front of the mirror, he had easily recognized the voice of Lord Voldemort.
Any lingering doubt of the voice's owner was erased last year when the dementors, searching for Sirius Black, forced him to relive his memories of that night.
It was the first time John heard his parents and, like a moth to the flame, he had been drawn to the screams. It was a perverse sort of pleasure, he supposed. Part of him had wanted to seek out the dementors, if only to hear his parents love for him one last time.
Thanks to the dementors, he knew with absolute certainty the voice belonged to none other than Lord Voldemort.. It had felt strange listening to Voldemort speak. John tried to remember his words, but all he could recollect was the mention of a spy and that Voldemort had killed someone.
Wait. Voldemort was plotting to kill someone else...him!
The logical part of his mind knew it couldn't be right. Voldemort couldn't know where he was, could he? Dumbledore had assured him, hadn't he?
His scar was burning, feeling as though someone had poured molten lead on his forehead. With sudden clarity, John remembered the last time his scar had hurt like this. It was when Lord Voldemort had sought to steal the Philosopher's Stone during his first year.
Voldemort had planned to use the stone to resurrect himself, but John had foiled his attempt. Was Voldemort planning another attempt as resurrection? The notion froze his insides. Fear rattled his frayed nerves at the thought that the Dark Lord possibly knew John was at Privet Drive.
He tried to recall the dream again, closing his eyes against the pain thundering against his skull., John tried to recall anything, any shred of relevant information, but it was impossible. Putrid green light and the sound of a body flashed before his eyes. The musty smell of mould and dust filled his nostrils.. Nothing else came to mind.
Opening his eyes, he surveyed the street outside his dust-covered window. It was quiet, empty. Devoid of scheming men and dark lords. It was, at least, a small comfort.
His scar continued burning He placed a finger against it, tracing it just as he'd done so many times over the years.
It wasn't the pain that bothered him.
John was no stranger to pain.
He had endured pain in the past. Uncle Vernon's lashings had not stopped till he'd started Hogwarts. John ran a calloused hand through his hair as he recalled Aunt Petunia's occasional whacks in the head with a frying pan or the beatings from Dudley's group of overgrown delinquents.
The pains from his numerous accidents made sting in his scar feel like an annoying toothache.
No, it was the possibility that Lord Voldemort was getting stronger that terrified John.
The urge to shiver was there, deep in the base of his spine. He quashed it with a ruthless abandon.
He was alone, left to the tender mercies of his own mounting paranoia.
He'd never felt so exposed, never so alone.
If only there was someone who could understand, someone he could trust. John had waited for someone that would be able to decipher the riddle of his scar, a person who cared for him irrevocably.
Unfortunately, he was alone in the house, save for his pathetic excuses of relatives. John didn't need any of Trelawney's ridiculous teacups or crystal balls to know that the Dursleys were not sterling examples of "normal, good people".
He supposed he could write to Dumbledore, but he had no clue how to word the letter without coming across as sounding foolish. Dumbledore was a very important man and would undoubtedly have too much to handle to worry over the silly ramblings of a teenage boy.
If only there was someone else who would abandon everything for him, someone like a parent, an adult whose advice he could ask without feeling stupid and had ample experience with Dark Magic.
And then the solution came to him. It was so obvious that John couldn't believe it had taken him so long... Sirius.
He dashed across the room to find a piece of parchment. Soaking his eagle feather quill with ink, he began to write.
Dear Padfoot,
Thanks for the last letter, though in the future I'd advise you'd use a smaller bird. The last one could hardly get through my window! The Dursleys are, unsurprisingly, being the Dursleys and I refuse to waste another second of my thoughts on them. A weird thing happened this morning, though. My scar hurt! Last time it happened Voldemort was at Hogwarts. Do you think he could he be anywhere near me now? I had a strange dream earlier. I saw Wormtail and two others and I heard Voldemort! I can't really remember it all but I heard them talk about me and some international stuff. They mentioned a spy and there was a snake! I think Voldemort killed someone. I know this might seem like stupid rambling, but this is all I could remember. When I woke up my scar hurt like hell. Do you reckon Voldemort's anywhere near me now? Do curse scars hurt years after the fact? Say hello to Buckbeak for me.
With love,
JP
He gave another critical look over the letter, checking for mistakes. He'd really been waiting to see if any last minute recollection would make itself known. It was not to be.
It felt like ages before John finally handed the letter over to Hedwig, muttering his godfather's name to the intelligent owl.
Amber eyes scanned John's face with worry.
Hedwig gave him an affectionate nip before raising snowy wings with pride, the snowy appendages set aglow against the edgings of dawn. She soared through the opened window, beating her majestic wings to pick up speed, unaware of her master watching until her distinctive snowy feathers became nothing more than a distant speck on the horizon.
A/N: Any spelling errors that I might I've missed or any mistake you might wish to point out. Don't hesitate to do so please, you can send a PM or send me a message on Discord !