"On that great plain, where frigid blasts abound. Where through the nights, so long, the vane whirls round. My soul, more free than in the springtime soft. Will stretch her raven wings and soar aloft."
Mists and Rains. The Flowers of Evil. Charles Baudelaire.
Chapter 19
It was a cold autumn morning when Tom Riddle awoke to the sound of children running through the halls. At first he thought he was at Hogwarts, but something was wrong. When he looked into the window, which served as a kind of makeshift mirror, a familiar but unexpected figure was reflected in it. To be exact, himself at the age of seven or eight. Not understanding what had just happened, he decided to leave the small room in the attic to better investigate the situation. After all, what was he doing back at Wool's?
Descending to the lower floors of the orphanage, Tom noticed some familiar figures. Billy Stubs was in the garden playing football with other boys. In the meantime, Dennis Bishop smoked a cigarette hidden in the backyard. All the same, it was Amy Benson, sitting next to Hermione in the refectory, who caught his attention. Thus Riddle ran to the little girl with wild hair and hugged her with an unusual smile on his lips. "It's so good to see you again, you don't know how much I've missed you," he said with tears in his eyes. To his surprise, the little girl remained frozen in his arms. "But who are you?" she asked in a whisper.
At that moment Tom realized what had happened. By drinking from the water of the Styx river, he traveled back in time, which until then had been impossible even for magicians. The most advanced of all inventions in the field of time travel were the time-turners. These magical devices resembled an hourglass on a necklace and allowed the wearer to travel into the past, but one could only stay in the past for five hours at a time. Even when he found that Hermione did not remember him, Tom decided that they would continue to be friends. It was clear that the price of finding her again was giving up all their shared memories.
Over the next few weeks, the two were always to be found together. During the time he spent with the new orphan, Riddle's behavior changed and Madam Umbridge decided to move the girl to the room next to his in the attic. The Matron was afraid the boy would attack the other orphans again otherwise. "So that means we're magicians. My parents and my old neighbors told me I'm possessed by Satan," Granger said one afternoon when Tom introduced her to Nagine, his pet snake. "You shouldn't listen to them, they're jealous of you. Because you can do magic and they can't," Tom replied. In such a way their friendship continued to blossom. Hermione taught Tom how to invoke the bluebell flames, and he tried to explain to her how to speak in Parseltongue.
The past seemed to repeat itself until the two orphans received an unexpected visit from an elegant couple accompanied by a younger woman dressed as a witch. They were Lord and Lady Riddle, followed by Cecilia Dagworth-Granger. In this version of the timeline, Riddle Jr. met Cecilia years earlier and failed to kill his own father, resulting in the family joined efforts into finding Tom and Hermione in the orphanage as eight-year-olds. From that day on, the two lived in the small town of Little Hangleton, in the Riddles' mansion. Knowing of Cecilia's connection to the Order of the Phoenix, the young Heir of Slytherin decided to confide in her with his knowledge about Grindelwald and what would happen in the future if he wasn't stopped now.
An odd number of weeks later, Albus Dumbledore, in a brilliant plan, decided that the best way to stop the Dark Lord was through someone he trusted. So Sir Hector Dagworth-Granger was chosen to enable the Order to infiltrate the Death Eaters. Contrary to expectations, the Potions Master was looking forward to reuniting with his daughter and was very happy to meet his great-grandchild. "You must be Hermione, Albus told me you have a lot of potential. I would love to welcome you as my own daughter, if you can forgive me for what I have done to our family," Hector said deeply moved.
By this time Tom had already revealed to Hermione everything that had happened in his other life. The two had also decided together to talk to Cecilia and his grandparents. It was the young witch who convinced Alastor Moody to take his family to a safe house to prevent them from being killed. Regardless the urging of their Pater Familias, Hermione and Cecilia chose to continue living with the Riddles. Meanwhile, Dumbledore and fifty other members of the Order of the Phoenix prepared to face Grindelwald in the forests of Albania.
Unaware of the impending attack, Gellert had spent the last five years searching for a way to obtain the elixir of long life. To this end, he murdered five sorcerers in China and sought refuge in Albania, where the legendary sorceress Circe is said to have hidden a scroll containing instructions for obtaining the Philosopher's Stone. This witcht was always renowed throughout the centuries for her great knowledge of magic potions and herbs. The most famous of her legends is told in Homer's Odyssey, where it is said that she could transform her enemies or those who offended her into animals. Less well known is that she was the first to extract the elixir of long life from the Philosopher's Stone, which also turns any metal into pure gold.
Unfortunately, like Nicholas Flamel and many alchemists before him, Grindelwald soon realized that the price of eternal life was the renunciation of magical powers. So it was not difficult to capture and bring him to Nurmengard Castle, the wizarding prison deep in the Austrian Alps. By the next few years, his remaining followers, the Death Eaters, were captured and many of them were sentenced to death. This was the end of the Dark Lord's reign of terror. In spite of the progress, there were still many prejudices against magical beings and Muggle-borns. This fact prompted sir Hector Dagworth-Granger, the newly appointed High Chancellor for Magic in Europe, to draft a series of laws against blood purism. It was the tentative beginning of a new era of peace and tolerance.
Time travel now takes on a new meaning. In order to fulfill the prophecy, Tom and Hermione had to rewrite history.