Mary had lain on her bed for hours now. The books she had borrowed on the library were strewn on her bed, all of them open towards the Gaunt Family entry. It took her only a few moments to find Marvolo Gaunt and his children, Morfin and Merope. Marvolo was gone, followed by his only daughter's death, whose date of death coincided with a certain pair of twins' birth. Anyone could put two and two together and if told to a certain young boy, would end his search for his missing birth family.

After yesterday's incident, some part of her wanted to make amends and she hoped her 'findings' would sooth him. Tom was still angry at her suicidal ideation – she couldn't help it, depression was not something she could cope without the help of modern medicine – but she still felt guilty of making him feel…unwanted.

She would like to think that if she were someone else, someone less attached to their original family, they could have bonded better with Tom. If one could discount his penchant for cruelty and manipulation, he's a rather sweet boy; one who looked at her with affection and familial love.

A love that she's having an extremely difficult time of showing.

It wasn't that she does not love him but she often felt like she doesn't exactly know him. Yes, it's true she knew of his life as Voldemort and tidbits of him as a child from the books but him, as a person with all their complexity?

Guilt knots in her belly.

She could try to guess. Tom might have felt life at the orphanage had been too bleak for her for her to truly blossom. There had always been a sort of despair at Wool's that blanketed both of you. When Dumbledore came and showed them another path, an extraordinary window of opportunity, he probably thought his sister could be roused from melancholy and blossom in this amazing new world.

Instead, on her second day she unwittingly shown that nothing much has changed.

She felt like slapping herself.

What was she doing? If she had been reborn alone, her attachment to her old family could be understood. She would harm no one, but she was reborn attached to another, a twin of someone who poised to ruin a country and its people.

God damn it, why was she being so selfish? She does want to go back, she wanted her family but not at the expense of the one she'd bound to.

"But you could," cried a nasty little voice, "Who cares of this world? It's not even real, words in a book."

But was it? Was it not real enough of Wools and its children, Diagon Alley with its magic, Hogwarts with its soul?

"One step at a time dear. One step turns into a thousand in no time." She remembered her grandmother's sayings. Would her grandmother be happy if she knew her granddaughter was ignoring another for her own demons?

If she returned would they even welcome her with open arms?

For the first time, she realized that she does not know.

But what she does know was of a boy who would.

A breath escaped her and the tears threatened to fall again. Everything was muddled and she could not think. She wants but she also feared. After tossing and turning, she gave up on sleeping for the night. Her bed felt hard and unwelcoming. So, she grabbed one of the books and quietly made her way to the common room, where she hoped the change of scenery could calm her mind.

Fire burned quietly in the dark as Mary made her way to the centre of the room. Everyone had gone to bed, not a single student was awake. The only signs of life were the fish swimming under the Great Lake outside the room's thick windows. For a moment she felt like a child trapped in an underwater city, except there were no splicers or Big Daddies lumbering around.

She sat there, brooding when she felt it; a slight change in the air, a chilling drop followed by a deep, familiar chuckle.

Mary turns as the Bloody Baron glides into the room, his face donning an uncharacteristic smile.

The young girl had not seen the Baron since the Great Hall. While she did see his companions around – who studiously avoided her – the Baron kept himself apart. She knew that the whole 'laughing' incident had raised a few curious stares at her way, but she fought to forget it. What does she know of how ghosts works?

"My lord," she said, recalling some etiquette lessons long ago. While she knew nobility does not exist among European ghosts, it does not mean rank meant little among them.

The spectre grinned. "I have not been called 'My Lord' for ages, young Miss Riddle."

"If you wish, I shan't call you that." She replied but the ghost inclined his head.

"Ah, but I wouldn't mind but, if you must know, I am not an actual Baron, simply a wizard with the name." he said. "It was simply a coincidence that the Muggle nobility took it up as an actual title."

"Oh, I see…" Mary replied as they both stared at each other. The man kept smirking at her, like he thought she's some sort of joke before finally he spoke up again.

"Forgive me. I had acted quite rudely the other day. It was not my intention to laugh at you." He added, referring to Welcoming Feast.

"It was just, I had made a wager some time past and I'm afraid I had won most spectacularly." Mary's head snapped to him at those words.

What does that mean? Does he know? What?

"What?"

"Oh, it was just some wager made some time ago. You bear great resemblance of a witch who used to go here. Well, until she declared that filth had entered the school and she swore no child of hers or her descendants would ever return to Hogwarts until all the Muggleborns are scrubbed away."

That…was not the answer she had in mind.

"Oh yes. Miss Gaunt was ever hard-headed but she kept her word. It had been hundreds of years since one of your family ever set foot here. However, I recognise that Gaunt look anywhere."

He smirked as though he had just dropped a juicy fact onto her lap. And it was, just not in the way he had imagined.

"Oho, I can only imagine her face. She had an awful temper and immense pride…and you…well…" the ghost laughed again, as though remembering a funny joke.

"But…I'm a Riddle, we're both orphans…how did…"

The Baron stopped, his eyes shining with understanding. He spotted the book in your hands and waved at it.

"Look for the Gaunt family, I'm certain you'll find what you're looking for. Now, if you'll excuse me," the man began to glide away when Mary called him out.

"Wait!"

"Yes?"

"If this is true, my brother…I mean, can my brother and I talk to you about it?"

The man cocked his head to the side, curious and then he graced her with a thoughtful smile.

"Of course. You know how to find me." But before Mary could counter that 'no she doesn't' the ghost faded into the wall.

Mary had only a few hours' of sleep after that but she still felt refreshed. Ignoring Dorothy's hovering, she quickly bathed and dressed up, grabbing the library books and dashed to the common room.

She paced outside the boy's dorms, waiting for Tom when he appeared with a couple of his dorm-mates. He sees you and walks away from them, telling them that he'd catch up with them later.

"Mary?" he asked.

"Tom, I have something to tell you."

It takes her only a few minutes to tell him about the Gaunt family, why the Baron laughed and that a certain death matched with a certain birth.

Tom was quiet all that while, lips hardening with every word she said.

Eventually, she propped the Gaunt family tree and point out to the last two members of that particular lineage, when he puts his hand up.

"We can't be certain."

"Tom, Marvolo is an unusual name. And didn't Mrs. Cole told us that you were named after our grandfather? Look here and this date, it lines up…" Mary pointed to the Marvolo's name and birth.

Tom, her twin shuts his eyes and Mary was baffled by his reaction. Considering just how much Voldemort crowed about being the last descendant of Slytherin, she'd thought he'd be delighted or at least amenable to her findings. Instead he's…upset?

"Tom?" she asked gently and the boy opened his eyes and she's startled to see them glisten with unshed tears.

"If it's true, then our mother had a family…a living family…and none of them came for us?" he stated, his voice breaking.

She had forgotten about that. The antipathy he had for their mother, him hoping that it was their father who abandoned them or gave them their magical lineage. Now he found out that their mother was a witch and they had an uncle and a grandfather who lived while they were at Wools. And they didn't once bothered to find out what happened to Merope or her children. Although only Mary knew that it was better for them to be at an orphanage than with the Gaunts, Tom does not. As far as he was concerned, these two could have saved them from Wools, they were wizards and had the means…and they didn't.

"Tom…maybe they didn't know." Mary offered as an excuse – which was true because as far as Marvolo and Morfin was concerned Merope eloped with a filthy muggle and was dead to them.

Tom shook his head, eyes furrowed with anger.

"This school knew we're magical since birth and found us without making a phone call! I doubt that the great Gaunt family, one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, did not have the means to find out what happened to their daughter and her children!" he replied vehemently, his hand slammed the book. Then wiping his eyes, Tom stood up, grabbing his bag.

"No," he uttered quietly then turning towards Mary, "Mary, keep looking."

"Tom!" she reached out for him but he stormed off, not once looking behind.

Author's Note: Why does a Riddle resemble a Gaunt? I'd like to think that some of the Gaunt squibs settled among Little Hangleton and that bloodline merged with the Riddle in the past. I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed, I appreciate every single one of them.