Chapter Nineteen: Help from Both Sides

Chloe and Aldous were talking quietly in a corner as Julie and Malfoy pretended to argue about certain Quidditch plays. Dumbledore and Severus were watching them very closely, one with a mischievous twinkly-eyed smile and one with a black scowl as he realized Julie fancied her teacher too. Draco noticed the way his old Professor was looking at him and returned an exasperated shrug to his angry frown, as if to say 'isn't this Gryffindor annoying, Sev?' Julie understood what he had been doing and maneuvered the argument around so that she was facing her father and Dumbledore, then acted as if she were perfectly ready to rip Draco's head clean off. Severus was perfectly unconvinced. She was worse at concealing what she thought of the Slytherin than her mother had been when he was seeing her in school. Finally Malfoy made a sufficiently insulting crack about the Gryffindor Beaters to make Julie stomp off in abject disgust. Dumbledore bit his lip to keep from giggling.

"And what is so funny, Albus?" Severus asked. It wasn't often that he used Dumbledore's first name, but at that moment he was somewhat beyond angry. Dumbledore smiled enigmatically.

"Watching your daughter and Draco make you squirm, Severus. I wonder which of the Weasleys put them up to it."

That idea was something Severus had not considered. A charade just to bother him? Julie was definitely not above doing that. Draco, on the other hand, was one of his closest friends, and why he would get involved in such a childish prank-

Unless Julie was doing it all herself, using Malfoy as Hermione might borrow Ron sometimes. That little Slytherin! Severus brightened considerably at what he thought was a very admirable joke, and returned to his goblet of pumpkin juice. Dumbledore began to talk shop with him a few moments afterward, and soon the two were engrossed in a heavy discussion of Disgorgement Charms. Hermione crept up behind her Severus and stroked his neck. Dumbledore smiled as the professor straightened and looked around startledly.

"Pardon me, Minister Dumbledore, but I believe I need to borrow this," the Potions professor announced, giving Severus a decidedly sly little grin.

"Of course, dear, I was just thinking of that myself."

The Minister of Magic got up with Severus and went over to another of the faculty tables to ask the Headmistress for a dance. She accepted, and soon students and teachers alike had stopped what they were doing to watch the dance floor with expressions of surprise and wonderment. Professor Snape dancing with his wife was one thing incredible, but Minister Dumbledore and Headmistress McGonagall were almost outdoing the younger pair. It was really uncanny the way neither of them seemed to have aged physically. It was also evident that the Heads of Slytherin and Gryffindor spent a little more of their time dancing in unattended corridors than anyone had really suspected. It was at this moment when the whole room was distracted that the unthinkable happened –Wormtail walked calmly in and kidnapped Chloe.

The first-year put up a valiant struggle, but was silenced with a sharp knock on the head, and Aldous was thrown to the floor similarly. The doors of the Great Hall flapped a moment, and the Dark wizard was gone with the little girl. Aldous got up and ran for the only person he knew would be ready.

Donaghan.

The Scot was up from the table in the corner and out the door before anyone but the Weasley boys knew what was going on, and Julie followed her Captain with wand drawn and fury making her brown eyes look like stones. She caught up with him as they neared the Forbidden Forest, only to be lectured harshly as she ran along beside:

"What're y' doin' 'ere, Starcatcher?"

"Saving my friend, how 'bout you, Donaghan?"

"Why didn' y' just get y're dad or a teacher?"

"Tom and Tim did that. Accio!" Julie caught her broom and leapt onto it midstride. She easily outdistanced Donaghan on the obvious trail of the kidnapper's footprints, ducking branches and scratching her arms a bit. For only the end of October, is was suddenly colder than wintertime. The footsteps came to an abrupt end in a small clearing. Julie landed her broom and jumped off of it, only to gaze in shock at a boy who looked a great deal like Aldous.

"Hi," he greeted. "This first-year must be a friend of yours."

Donaghan burst into the clearing and looked around. Chloe was tied to a tree and unconscious still. Julie had her knife out and the ropes cut in a second's space. Surely the boy was not the kidnapper, but then, who was?

"Take Chloe back, Donaghan, I'll deal with this." Julie had her wand pointed dangerously at the figure, who very calmly held his hands up in surrender. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"

"Julie, I don' think-" Donaghan protested, but Chloe groaned. There was a dangerous cut bleeding down her forehead. "Alrigh', but you be careful, na', Julie-girl!"

The black-haired boy raised an eyebrow and a large, wolflike creature appeared, chasing Donaghan out of the Forest and away from the pentacle. Julie shot curses at the beast, finally stunning it after it gave Donaghan a fairly nasty bite on the leg as he ran quickly.

"Damn! You stay there!" she commanded, turning on her heel to aim at the black-haired boy. Why hadn't Donaghan used her broom? At least Chloe was out of the Forest now. "What the hell are you doing in the Forest at this time of night?"

"I like it here, Starcatcher," the boy said.

"How did you know my name?"

"I'm in Slytherin."

Julie didn't recognize him, but he certainly looked the part, black school robes with a serpent on the crest at his breast pocket. "My name's Tom Riddle, you must be Julie Snape."

"Obviously," Julie growled by way of assent. "Why are you out here instead of at the dance, then?"

"I can't leave this pentacle. Halloween prank, you might say."

For the first time Julie noticed the star within a circle near her feet drawn in almost phosphorescent white powder.

"Your friends did this?"

"A friend, you might maybe say." The boy sat cross-legged in the center of the pentacle and Julie returned her knife to its pocket but not her wand. "What kind of a witch wears a knife to dance?"

"A careful one. How do I need to break this curse and free you?"

"See, Julia, you can't. I have to stay here in the pentacle, or I'll turn into dust when the moon hits me."

"What kind of a horrible person would do that, though?"

"My friend, obviously. Don't worry, I told him to years ago."

For a moment Julie wasn't sure whether he'd said 'to' or 'two,' as he was obviously not much older than she was.

"How old are you?"

"Eighty-five or so."

"What?"

"I was born in 1931, what year is it now?"

"Two-thousand-eighteen. How are you-?"

"My age? This is just how I looked when I was sixteen. Really, I could be your brother, even our eyes match." Riddle blinked and for a second Julie was sure she saw a little bit of glowing red. "Tell me, are the Broughton matrons still as awful as they were back then?"

"You were a Broughton kid?"

"And so were you. I was a lot of things."

"How do you know all of this?"

"I know many things. Your friend –Cory, was it, dead of something he never risked himself. Your teacher refusing to let you go near him then. I could read your face as clearly as if it were your mind."

Riddle grinned oddly at her and held out his hand. "Come a little closer and touch my hand. You can read my mind, too, if you'd really like."

Something made Julie reach out her left hand and not her right. It was as if she suddenly 9ould not control her arm. Riddle took her left hand against his and held it tight. Her scar burned as if he'd put a match to it.

And images began to rush through her mind. The orphanage, hallways she knew well, but the boy was there. He had been just as lonely as she'd been there. And he, too, had started to do magic. The boy in the images grew up into a powerful wizard then, like her father but more of the orphan type. Julie felt such a strong bond with this wizard, as if they had the same past, the same story-

But different Houses!

She remembered what Dumbledore had said a half-hour ago, that Voldemort, too, was a Broughton kid. She tried to pull her hand away, but it was much too late. Tom Riddle changed before her eyes into the Dark Lord.

"Ah, Julie, you're surely realizing by now that you're my heir? The pain in your scar, wandless spells and such, even your parents suspected it from the first. It wasn't a loophole in the spell that caused you to be born, it was circumvented by my servant for my own purpose."

Julie couldn't, wouldn't, didn't want to believe what he was telling her. But images of Wormtail removing the spell on the whole dungeons convinced her that Voldemort was telling her the horrible truth of things. Tears burned her eyes but she did not let them fall.

"Sad, are you? Well, it's hard when any child finds out their parent never wanted them in the first place."

Julie saw how Tom Riddle was told at the orphanage that his father had abandoned him even before his birth. Voldemort then showed her a bruised, cut-up eighteen-year-old, barely able to stay awake as she was led into the hospital wing at Hogwarts. Julie recognized her father and Dumbledore with the girl.

And with more pain than she had ever felt, realized it was her own mother refusing to take a simple memory test, one she had done herself without a second thought. Taken from this point of view, even though she had understood before why her mother had refused, Julie was now able to take it as the condemnation to an orphan's life for sixteen years. A sibilant voice whispered inside her head:

"Yes, Julie, you weren't wanted. Just like me. Wouldn't you like the rest of what goes with that? The wandless spells, the immortality? After I return to the other side, you could have everything that I gained my entire life. My powers, my servants, all of it's yours if you say the word."

Another image: Julie saw herself turning thirty the next day just by willing it. She was taller and slimmer, and her hair was very long. Malfoy and Donaghan looked startled to see her grown suddenly. Adult Julie passed a mirror, and her eyes glowed a little red. It was very tempting, and Julie considered it.

But just then, another image, but not one of Voldemort's illusions, a memory, returned to her as sharp as a photograph. She was learning to ride a broom for the first time with her father and Draco there. Julie felt the soaring, the giddy height, her hair blown back as if it were happening over again. And then the terrible fear as she looked down and fell off into Draco's arms. The momentary warmth of her new- was it boyfriend or lover? -and then to be passed back to her father's arms. Her father's grateful smile to his friend for catching his daughter. Julie knew her answer, and Voldemort knew it, too.

"Never," she whispered, and withdrew her hand.

Voldemort looked profoundly, deeply hurt for a second, just long enough to distract her as he kicked and knocked her feet out from under her. Her scarred palm touched the Dark Mark and burned red-hot. She struggled to escape and Voldemort laughed at her.

"Poor, pathetic Mudblood!" he taunted her evilly.

And the world went black.

*****************************

Donaghan was lost, and his hurt leg was bleeding still. The wolf-thing had bitten him hard and then been knocked out, so he slowed his pace. Chloe was very light, compared to the Quidditch gear, and breathed softly on his neck as she stayed out cold. The Scottish boy was very brave for his age, but he still felt scared, especially as a ghost of some sort rose in front of him.

Chloe stirred, so Donaghan held his ground. The ghost would probably just walk right through him and then disappear as the school ghosts did. A little coldness, but nothing to shake about. But was this a ghost?

It had the form and shape of a grown-up man, ordinary and yet still very brave. There was a stubborn set to his features that reminded Donaghan of himself but with more of a nobility that nothing could strip away. He had seen that face somewhere in school, he knew. One of the paintings?

"Donaghan, the Forest ends right this way."

The ghost –or was it? –led him down a slight, winding path. Every so often, who or whatever it was moved a bit closer to him, checked on Chloe, and then pointed the way on. The Scot decided to ask the ghost who he was.

"Oh, me? I'm a friend of your teacher's, and a Guardian here."

Donaghan knew about Guardians, spirits of heroic dead returned to aid the living in times of greatest need. This was deep magic, older than time itself, allowing him a safe way home. How would he thank whoever the Guardian was?

Something else occurred to him.

"Uh, sir? There's after bein' another girl in the Forest 'ere, name o' Julie, she was talkin' to a black-'aired guy."

"I know, Donaghan. There are Guardians with her just as I'm with you." The strange man smiled, and Donaghan was again struck by his familiarity.

"Should I know y' from somewhere, sir?"

"I don't know. Here's the beginning of the grounds past this aspen tree."

Donaghan patted Chloe's shoulder as they stepped out of the Forest and onto the grounds. Professors Granger and Potter ran to meet them there.

"Where's Julie?" Harry asked, and the Guardian answered:

"She is safe, Harry. You know who's watching her."

"A Guardian," Hermione breathed, recognizing the ghostly man instantly. "But you're-"

"All grown up? We're allowed to grow up, you know." The Guardian moved to her side and patted her arm. "She's fine. And Harry, I hear you've a family."

Harry suddenly sprouted a half-smile.

"Yeah, Cedric, I do."

"Cedric Diggory?" Donaghan was shocked that he hadn't known. "But y're-"

"Who better to help out the Dark Lord's 'spares'?" Cedric tapped him on the shoulder. "You did alright, friend. I've got to be going, though. 'Bye Harry."

"'Bye, Cedric," Harry whispered thankfully, before suddenly going white and looking at Hermione.

"The Dark Lord?" she asked, unwilling to believe.

Harry nodded, and it was clear what was happening.

***********************

"Julie?" Severus called, searching the Forest with Draco beside. "Julie, where are you?"

"Severus, I saw something."

"Where?"

"Hold on a tick."

Draco suddenly went racing through the underbrush, then stopped as if to scuffle with an enemy. Severus followed as quickly as he could, only to find Malfoy and a werewolf in a death struggle. He cursed it with the full Body-Bind, just in time to keep it from biting his friend in the neck. Malfoy flung the stinking beast off of him and stood up to look at the scared creature.

"Sev, his back's burned."

"I can see that. Somebody cursed him not too long ago- it's the Conscion Zyanai, unconsciousness."

"Julie knows that!"

"Who taught her?"

"I did, Severus!"

"Why were you-"

"Never mind, we've got to find her still. Julie?" Draco called, fear beginning to show under the beard he wore. Severus didn't know whether to be pleased or heartsick about this new development, but right now he had to find his daughter. "Julie?"