3 RAYNE GAMESIER
July 26, 1995
"Miss Rayne Gamesier?" A voice echoed from the dark alley she had passed. "Or should I say, Miss Fairchild?"
It had just been yesterday when she told Issac and Remus she would join the Order. Lyra thought Dumbledore may have paid her a visit during the day at the cafe, but alas, that was not the case. The day passed uneventful, taking orders and serving customers. It was a dull day, but with the impromptu ambush by a certain wizard, it will certainly get interesting.
Let the interrogation begin, she thought.
"Lyra's better. I'm only Gamesier when I run in unsavoury circles, keeps them away from Issac and I's lives," Lyra replied, stepping into the alley and casting lumos. She had never thought Dumbledore to be a creep but the way he was lurking in the unlit alley by a dumpster, dressed in light-blue wizarding robes, peering down at her over his glasses, made her rethink her opinion. How long had he been waiting?
"I would have never suspected you, of all my students, to be Lady Voldemort," he confessed, approaching her, his wand held in front of him by two hands.
Her nose was assaulted with the scent of urine, whether human or not, and of rotting trash. Lyra quirked a brow, swishing her wand and the foul smells melted away and a minty aroma permeated through the air. "Issac did tell you I didn't claim the title, right?"
"Yes. He shed light on the mystery that you are, Lyra." His blue eyes grazed over her, studying her like she was a newly discovered vicious animal. "You've kept yourself very well hidden in the shadows, that even, I never noticed you."
Her eyes gleamed with a dimpled grin as she noticed the slight downward slant of his lips. "Afraid you're going senile, sir?"
Dumbledore's retort was quick. "Not at all, but it speaks to your scheming."
Immediately, a fire kindled inside her. Lyra had never approached the Professor with her problems due to his tiptoeing, the cautiousness, the cold shoulder he always showed Slytherins. Sure, she schemed. Sure, she didn't care. But she didn't want to hurt anyone.
"Why would I be scheming? Because I'm a Slytherin, sir?" She spat the word distastefully, stomping a foot into the ground. If he was trying to get a rise out of her, he had done his job. "Is it that hard to believe that a Slytherin has no bigger plans than to be left alone?"
"Your circumstances. Your life. Your name. Your cleverness," Dumbledore listed. "You remind me of a student that walked a dark path."
Lyra rolled her eyes. "You speak of Tom Marvolo Riddle."
"You know," he murmured, a wrinkled appeared on his brow, and she rolled her eyes as she commented, "Of course, I do. I'm not an idiot."
"How is it that you came about his real name if you have no affiliation with him?"
Lyra took a deep breath, preparing to recount the tale that inspired the intricate web she spun. She had to tell him the truth, no way about it. It was her initiation into the Order.
It started in seventh year. Lyra had been milling around the castle, and she had run into Filch, who had been adding Lily Evans and James Potter's name to the plaque of all the Head Boys and Girls of Hogwarts. She had stayed long enough to skim the names, and one had caught her eye: Tom Marvolo Riddle. It had stayed in her head the rest of the night until she had gone back to the Slytherin Common Room and had heard Severus Snape say 'Lord Voldemort'.
Dark Lord. He-Who-Should-Not-Be-Named. You-Know-Who. His name had always been spoken, but it had never been Lord Voldemort. She had thought about the name before, but she had never heard it spoken. She had never visualised it, but it was then —when she had heard Snape say it—she realised why Riddle's name had become an irritating itch. His name had every letter of Lord Voldemort, save for I, A, and M.
It hadn't been a giant leap to conclude 'Tom Marvolo Riddle' was an anagram for 'I am Lord Voldemort'. It had made her realise he was—is—clever. Very clever. Riddle was a muse to all Slytherin with his cunning. He never lied about who he was.
Dumbledore aptly listened to her with his jaw clenched as she finished her tale. Something frazzled him. "It seems I have underestimated your intelligence once again. Do you admire him?"
"Of course, I do. He's a brilliant wizard. I know he's bad, but he has done what no other wizard has done before—he made the world fear his name." She let a small tight-lipped smile grow, "Not to worry, sir, I admire you as well. You, too, are clever."
"I'm not clever enough if I have remained blind to your mystery," the wizard replied, tipping his chin up. She let her lumos float in the air and leaned unto a wall, crossing her arms.
"I hope my mystery remains a mystery."
He asked quietly, almost as if he was worried it would set her off, "Is that not lonely? For no one to ever know who you truly are?"
"It's not. I found Issac, and he helped me move on from what I rather forget."
"The things that happened before the muggle police found you?"
In just a day, he had done a thorough background check. It must annoy him to know there is a blank period that no one knew but her.
Lyra retorted, "Does it matter?"
His tone turned stern. "It does if you are Tom's daughter."
Was that what he was worried about? Lyra thought, annoyed, of all things to fret over.
She shook her head at him and divulged solemnly, "I'm an orphan, sir. Aside from Riddle, all orphans value family because we have no one. Friends are the closest thing we have to one. And even then, we struggle with it cause we don't know love. If I knew I had a father out there, I would be at his side; if it were Riddle, I would prove to him and the world how powerful I am so I could be worthy of being Salazar Slytherin's progeny. I wouldn't affiliate myself with Issac. I wouldn't pretend to be an idiot. I wouldn't own a cafe in muggle London. I wouldn't say that muggles and wizards are both dirt under my shoe and that they could all fuck off."
They fell into silence, disturbed only by the occasional whirring of cars. "Your heart is heavy with hatred," Dumbledore said, making her roll her eyes. Then Lyra's eyes turned to slits, and she pushed off the wall, stalking up to the wizard.
"Brilliant. Should we skip to the part of this interrogation where you threaten me? Or should I go straight ahead and threaten you? Because if you put Issac in a vulnerable position with his work in the Order, Voldemort is not your biggest worry. I am."
Dumbledore stood his ground at her lethal tone. "You're quick to jump to threats for Savage. You care for him."
"Of course I do. He's my brother in all but blood."
"And yet, you hide your past from him."
Lyra nearly groaned before she spat out, "Are you that desperate to know? Fine. I had a grieving mother and a dead father, then I had two dead parents, and I was lost in a city that I knew nothing about."
"What do you hide so desperately, then?" He inquired hastily. "Why not tell me and let this matter go?"
"I don't hide anything, sir," Lyra snarled. "You know everything about me — everyone does."
"With all due respect, I find that hard to believe," he said, stepping back from her agitated form, tipping his chin up with narrowed eyes. Dumbledore paced circles around Lyra, and she kept her eyes on him. "Those that know you as Lyra Fairchild believe you to be Slytherin's Dunce and, yet, you are a powerful witch—a clever one that fooled professors, students, muggles, for decades. And those that call you Lady Voldemort think you are a witch by the name Rayne Gamesier. They have no idea who you are. Your dear brother remains clueless about you. Who are you?"
She huffed, smirking. "I am who I say I am. I'm Lyra Fairchild. And Rayne Gamesier, I am too. I've never lied. No one bothers to figure it out 'cause it doesn't matter."
"But you lie to Savage," the wizard noted.
"I don't, do I?" Lyra retorted, quirking her brow. "He knows who I was before I was found, just like you. I gave him a riddle to guide him to the truth, and he hasn't been able to solve it for seventeen years."
His eyes turned sagely and said the most Gryffindor line she had ever heard, "A lie by omission is still a lie."
The words splurged out before she could control them. "I don't try to hide who I am. I never have. I say it all the time, and I have it on display. Sure, I made it into a riddle, but it's because it doesn't matter. Who I was before is irrelevant because I am Lyra now. It's who I'll always be. That's why I love Issac. It doesn't matter to him, even if he never solves it. He knows foremost that I'm Lyra, his sister. And you, sir, are a petulant bigot that can't handle when someone is out of your control."
Dumbledore hissed threateningly, "You are not out of my control, are you, though? Remus has informed me in what your brother failed: you are an unregistered Animagus."
Lyra rolled her eyes and pursed her lips in a smirk.
"I'm sure the Minister will love to hear how often your students become Animagi, sir. You two are stepping on hot stones right now, right?" she shot back at the wizard with a cocky grin. "In just my year, there were what? Four of us? Black, Potter, Pettigrew, me? I wonder how many more since then have attempted the transformation right under your nose."
She saw him narrow his eyes, and she mocked, "Assume I know everything, sir."
"What else do you know?" He crossed his arms behind his back, and she returned to her place in front of him.
"Voldemort will destroy your Order from the inside out with a rat, just like Sirius Black did 15 years ago. If Issac gets hurt because of your foolishness, so help me, Merlin."
"Sirius Black?" He murmured, confusing her. "What? What about him?"
"What do you know?" Dumbledore implored, eyes filled with gaiety.
If she was to help the Order, she might as well reveal her deductions of the events that have been unfolding.
"Other than surprising me by betraying his dearest friends? He broke out of Azkaban by turning into a black dog and helped Voldemort return from the dead by abducting people and preparing for a ritual. Though I don't think Voldemort died, I suspect he made a Horcrux before whatever Harry Potter did. I also suspect that they are hiding in one of the Black estates, seeing as he is the only member of the House of Black that is prancing about free."
"Curious," he murmured.
"What?"
"You're clever," he remarked. No longer was he acting threatened. The wizard's tense posture had relaxed, and he was studying her in a new light. Lyra looked at him baffled, muttering loud enough for him to hear, "I know I am."
"How well do you know the people in the underground?" Dumbledore asked.
"I know them well enough that they know they can take loans from me after I steal their money."
"Good. We'll need that." He didn't even say goodbye. He just disapparated with a pop, leaving her alone in the alley.
He has no manners, leaving a girl all alone in a street, she thought. A small smirk tipped her lips. Of course, it's not like I have any either, now, do I?