Disclaimer: Once again, I do not own Harry Potter, or any of these characters
except for Fiona and Celeste. Note: This is one of the many upcoming chapters of this
tale where the drama *really* kicks in. Just thought I'd warn you. Plus, you'll find out
what Celeste meant when she said, "See you on Christmas Eve."
Chapter Seven- The Boy Who Was Lost
The next morning, at breakfast in the Great Hall, Neville sat next to Harry, Ron,
Hermione, and Ginny with a sad look on his face. Harry thought this was a big step for
Neville; for the past two months, he hadn't sat next to anyone he knew during meals.
"Hi, Neville," said Hermione softly. Neville mumbled a reply.
As dementors entered the Great Hall and swooped past the Gryffindor table,
Neville slumped in his chair miserably. Hermione shot the other three a look that plainly
said, "Give him time."
Finally, Ron couldn't take it anymore. "Neville," he said. "Don't pay any
attention to Malfoy. He's a jerk! You're still our friend, and we're worried about you!"
"The dementors will leave soon," Hermione said, trying to assure him.
"Dumbledore doesn't allow them in the school for long... remember our third year. And
just ignore the Slytherins and they'll forget about it."
Neville's lips twitched into a small smile.
"And Christmas is coming soon!" said Ginny, trying to change the subject. "Are
you going to stay with your grandmother?"
"I was going to," said Neville slowly. "But someone changed my mind."
"Who?" asked Harry.
"A friend," Neville said simply. "A very close friend."
He wouldn't say anything more than that.
"Have you noticed that Professor Clark and Snape have been avoiding each other
lately?" asked Hermione.
"Not really," said Harry. "Why?"
"I just find it curious. Anyway, it's none of our business..."
***
December came very quickly. Harry was surprised at how fast the months seemed
to pass. It was probably due to the fact that nothing eventful happened often this year,
other than what Malfoy did to Neville, Fudge staying at Hogwarts with the dementors...
Professor Clark's lessons were very interesting. She taught everyone that you
could avoid the dementors' horrible draining powers by a powerful positive thought, like
how you preformed a very powerful Patronus. And as Harry often walked through the
corridors and saw Professor Clark and Snape through the same halls, they walked past
each other without saying a word. It was very strange...
The other strange thing involving Professor Clark that everyone seemed to talk
about was that thing she wore around her neck that chased off the dementors. Nobody
was sure what it was, but there were plenty rumors of what it might be; some strange
guesses were garlic (though Harry knew that garlic only worked on vampires), a powerful
amulet, or a tiny orb of positive thoughts, because of the fact that one of the strategies
that Professor Clark taught was positive thinking. Whatever Professor Clark was wearing
around her neck, she certainly wasn't telling what it was.
As the holidays began and the Christmas decorations were getting put up in the
Great Hall, the Christmas spirit that lingered toward all the students staying at Hogwarts
during the holidays was broken often by the dementors that kept gliding by. They
seemed to show up wherever people were happy, so that they could make everyone
miserable in no time. Dumbledore was getting very angry about this.
"I don't know how the school can put up with those things lurking around all the
time," Harry, Ron, and Hermione heard Dumbledore saying to Professor Clark in the
Great Hall on the morning of Christmas Eve. "Every time I argue with Fudge to remove
the dementors, he keeps threatening to fire me."
"There has to be some way to convince him that the dementors are dangerous and
that Voldemort has returned," Professor Clark said. In an angry tone, she added,
"There's no telling if those beasts will try to attempt their horrid Kiss on an innocent
student."
Harry and the others glanced at each other curiously. It was impossible to tell who
hated the dementors more: Dumbledore or Professor Clark.
***
As the sun set on that day, Fiona looked out the window of her office feeling a
mixture of excitement and sadness each passing minute. As soon as it was ten o' clock,
she would do the tradition that all the guardian angels of the students of Hogwarts did
every Christmas Eve. It was a very Holy and sacred event. The angels would gather in
the Great Hall for a two hour meditation period, and when the clock struck midnight,
they'd go to the houses of the child they were supposed to protect and silently wish them
peace.
It brought back so many memories of her first child. She used to do this every
Christmas Eve he spent at Hogwarts, and every time, every single time she wished him
peace, she also wished that every thing would turn out okay for him...
But that was not to be. Why? she asked herself for the thousandth time. Why did
this happen to him? It wasn't fair. Why do such things have to happen? It could have
turned out differently if you had made the right choice....
Tom...
That was his name. Tom Marvolo Riddle. The orphan who grew up to be a
complete stranger... a stranger to Fiona anyway. Voldemort couldn't have been more
different from the boy she was supposed to protect. Well, he was different when it
started out, anyway. Her first child had grown up to ruin so many lives, including
Harry's...
Maybe this was why she chose Harry to protect after Tom. She felt responsible
for the untimely deaths of Harry's parents because she blamed herself for the way Tom
turned out, even though she knew, somewhere in her mind, that it was Tom's choice.
Fiona glanced at the clock. Five minutes til ten. Time sure flies by when you
relive so many memories...
"It's time," Fiona whispered to herself. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath,
and released her self conscious self, morphing into her angel form. She stretched out her
wings. It felt like such a long time since she had last used them. After that, she passed
through her office door and headed towards the Great Hall.
She could see a huge group of angels heading to the Great Hall also. There was a
calm feeling inside of her. She had always looked forward to this event in the past. She
still did, but it was different this time. She knew why... it was because of Tom.
Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom... Everything always went back to Tom. It was as though
he would keep on haunting her for all eternity, which was a very long time for angels, for
they are immortal, being pure spirit.
The worst part of remembering Tom constantly was the fact that he and Harry had
an eerie resemblance; they had the same color of hair (although Tom's was much neater),
the same pale skin, and they could both talk to snakes. Except Tom was a few inches
taller than Harry. Not to mention that he much thinner than Harry, he didn't have a scar
or wore glasses, and the eyes...
The eyes were the main difference when it came to appearance between Tom and
Harry. Harry's eyes were emerald green. Tom's eyes were a shade of royal blue. When
had been younger, those eyes seemed to be pleading endlessly, "Take me. Love me."
Poor Tom. That was the one thing he wanted that he never had. Love. Later in
life, those eyes seemed to show no emotion at all. Just like Tom.
When Fiona reached the Great Hall, the others sat on the floor and began to
meditate, Celeste being on of them. Fiona sat next to Celeste and tried to meditate alone
with everybody else. But she couldn't stop thinking about Tom. It seemed that the only
way to clear him from her mind right now was to think about what had happened, even
though it was so unbearable.
Every day, Fiona asked herself the eternal question: "Why did I pick Tom to begin
with?" There were a million possible answers to the question, but one stood out from all
the rest: "He was alone in the world."
Tom's mother, Belle, had been a blood relative of one of the Hogwarts Four,
Salazar Slytherin. But she couldn't have been more different from her family; she was a
good one, Belle was. The only flaw to her personality was that she had bad taste in men.
She fell in love with a Muggle man named Tom Riddle. Her family, being made up of
"pure bloods", had strongly disapproved of this relationship, and when Belle decided to
marry this man, her family had cut her off completely, disowned her...
Belle became pregnant with Tom's son, and she confessed to Tom that she was a
witch. Was Tom understanding? No. Tom Riddle was bigoted against magic, very much
like Harry's Uncle Vernon. He abandoned her. Not too long after that, a very ill Belle
gave birth to her son. She only had enough time to name her son after his father and her
father: Tom Marvolo Riddle. She died after that and her son was sent to an orphanage far
away.
Fiona pitied this motherless child and decided to choose him to protect. By the
time Tom was five, he had been beaten by the head of the orphanage countless times. He
had no friends whatsoever. That's when Fiona decided to visit him in his dreams. Fiona
recalled their first conversation vividly...
***
In the first dream, the boy was walking in the dark when he met her. "Hello,
Tom," Fiona greeted him with a smile.
"Who are you?" the little boy asked her.
"My name is Fiona. I'm your guardian angel."
The boy stared at her. "You certainly look like an angel, with the wings and
everything."
"You don't believe me? Well, let me prove it to you. Could a human do this?"
She raised both of her hands, and the darkness became a sunny little field in the
countryside. The boy looked at sight with wide eyes. "What's your name again?"
"Fiona."
The boy looked her over up and down. Then he gave her a sad little smile. "Do
you mind if I call you Fi?"
***
From that day on, Fiona became known as Fi to Tom. Tom said it sounded
prettier to him. Fiona usually didn't like nicknames, but Fi was a nice name to go by, so
it sort of grew on her. Every night after that, "Fi" would visit Tom in his dreams, in the
illusion of a field she created him. When he was sad, Fiona would comfort him. When
Tom was happy, so was Fiona. Those were the good days...
Then, at the age of eleven, Tom got his acceptance letter from the Hogwarts
School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and discovered that he was a wizard and that his
mother was a witch. Tom didn't know about his father... not yet...
Tom was so excited to start his training in magic. He was nervous, but very
confident all the same. Fiona assured him that he'd be a great wizard.
Everything seemed to go okay at Hogwarts, for a while, with the small exception
of Tom being sorted into Slytherin, where most Dark wizards were born...
"It doesn't matter what House you're in, you don't have to end up like the other
Slytherins if you don't want to," Fiona told him constantly. The other students,
especially the Gryffindors, never liked the Slytherins. Tom didn't exactly fit in with the
Slytherins either; they kept calling him a "Mudblood" even though Tom was part Muggle.
However, Tom was a quick learner. By the end of his first year, he on top of all
his classes and aced all his exams. Fiona was so proud of him.
Things seemed to turn out fine. Fiona really believed that Tom's troubles were
over. But they were just beginning.
When Tom turned thirteen, he'd overheard a conversation between Dumbledore,
the Transfiguration teacher back then, and the headmaster, Professor Dippet about Tom's
mother. They both knew her very well, and unfortunately, they were talking about when
Tom's father had abandoned his wife. Tom could hardly believe his ears.
That night, Tom was sobbing in Fiona's arms. It's horrible enough to know that
your parents are dead... but to find out that your mother is dead, and that your father
abandoned you and your mother because you were different... that was even more
painful.
After Tom had stopped crying, he asked Fiona if she could give him a memory of
his mother. Angels can project memories or fantasies to other people; it's one of their
many powers. Fiona wasn't sure, but Tom looked so sad that she had given in. She
showed him the night that he was born. It was one of those memories that was very sad,
but heartwarming at the same time. When the memory ended, Tom was very quiet.
Fiona had expected Tom to start crying again (and she wouldn't have blamed him), but he
didn't. The expression on his face was... she didn't know what it was.
From that day on, all the energy Tom had was put into his schoolwork. He
continued to ace all of his classes, but something about him changed. He seemed to show
less emotions. The real friends that he did have... he began pushing them out of his life.
But that wasn't the worst of it: every time he fell asleep, he didn't even bother to see
Fiona anymore.
And he started doing bad things... he snuck into the Restricted Section of the
library to study Dark magic. That was where he learned about the Chamber of Secrets.
In his fifth year, he released that horrible serpent from the chamber, and it- it murdered a
Muggle-born student. That was Tom's intentions; ever since he found out his father, he
began a grudge against Muggles, Muggle-borns, and Squibs alike. After the murder of
the student, Tom framed a third year for the crime, and he was expelled. If that wasn't
bad enough, Tom even made up a new name for himself: Lord Voldemort. He was
starting to behave like a true Slytherin.
Lonely and distraught, Fiona was determined not to give up on Tom. Even though
what he was doing was wrong, she still loved him. She believed there was good in every
single person, and she hoped that her love for Tom would get through to him...
And then, Tom did the most terrible thing of all. Just thinking of it made Fiona
shudder. The summer after his fifth year, he found out where his father lived. He went
there, confronted his father and grandparents, and... and...
He killed them. He killed them. Fiona couldn't believe it. Tom's father was a
bigot, and his parents weren't better off... but no one ever deserved to be murdered! A
murder at the age of sixteen. That was when Fiona decided that if there was any way to
save Tom from the person he was becoming, it had to be done now....
***
She appeared in his dream a few nights later. The two of them were standing in
the usual field, but it wasn't sunny this time. It was covered in mist, the sky cloudy.
Tom was just staring at her as though she was a complete stranger.
"Tom," she said to him. "what you're doing... it's not right. Why are you acting
like this, Tom? The path your leading will lead to self destruction! For God's sake,
Tom, please change your ways! It's not too late!"
There was no response. "Tom, please say something!" she pleaded.
Finally, Tom spoke. "Tom Riddle is dead. I am Lord Voldemort. You mean
nothing to me now."
It was as though Tom had reached in and ripped out Fiona's soul.
He turned away from her, left her to plead with him in vain. He vanished, never to
visit Fiona in his dreams again...
***
"Fiona!" Celeste's voice disrupted her memory. "Fiona, it's time to go to the
Gryffindor common room!"
"Oh," Fiona looked around her. The other angels were heading out of the Great
Hall. Fiona stood up and followed Celeste and the other guardian angels of the
Gryffindors to the common room.
"Do me a favor," Fiona whispered to Celeste on the way. "Please don't mention
Tom." Tears were filling in her eyes. The memories of Tom speaking those horrible
words to her was more than she could bear, but she managed to pull herself together
enough to still go through with the procession.
When they arrived to the Gryffindor common room, they headed straight to the
dormitories of the ones they were protecting. Fiona went to the boy's dormitory with
Celeste and a few others. She knelt beside Harry's bed, and began the ritual.
"Dear God," she prayed silently. "Give this boy peace. He deserves it. And
whatever you do, don't let him end up like Tom."
As soon as the others were finished, Fiona smiled at Harry and left with Celeste
and the others. The angels were preparing to return to Heaven. Fiona waved goodbye to
them, and, still in her angel form, walked around the castle. There was something she
had to do...
She entered the trophy room and found the gold shield with Tom's initials on it.
She stared at it for a very long time. It could have ended differently. Why did it end the
way it did?
Maybe it was because she had never really known Tom. Oh sure, she knew little
details about him: his favorite food, his favorite color, his dream to travel around the
world. But other than that, Tom had always been on the mysterious side. The dreams
that Tom had about having a loving family, a huge number of friends, and having a happy
life could have just been the fantasies of a lonely orphan.
As Tom Marvolo Riddle, the boy had been an enigma. Now as Lord Voldemort,
he was a complete stranger to Fiona and the others that knew him. Fiona hated Lord
Voldemort and all the sorrows he brought on others, but she could never bring herself to
hate the little boy she once protected...
"Tom," she whispered in a voice filled with pain. Then she covered her face in
her hands and wept.
To be continued...
Okay, I am really sorry if this part of the story seemed the least bit corny. I just
thought that the guardian angel of Harry once being the angel of Tom Riddle would be a
good ring to the story. Plus, I liked the fanfic "I am Lord Voldemort", by Nemesis. I
admit it, I'm kind of a softie when it comes to stories that makes you feel sorry for
Voldie. Anyway, the drama continues in the next part as the reason why Snape stopped
supporting Voldemort is revealed. And rest assured, IT DOES NOT HAVE ANYTHING
TO DO WITH LILY POTTER. Hint: If you recall what Fiona said to Snape in chapter 6,
it has something to do with that. Stay tuned!
