Major CW for miscarriages/stillbirths/pregnancy, and general Gaunt shit.
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Riding on a train is as normal to him as hiding from warplanes and casting spells. Riding on a Muggle train to the countryside alongside Ximena is not.
He is… Unsure of how the invitation snuck out of his mouth. One moment he was prepared to weave a tale of surprises and scouting for gifts somewhere up north in Jalisco, and the next he was asking Ximena how comfortable she was with side-along apparition ("I'm okay").
She's sitting across from him, so he has no other choice but to look at her for the majority of the train ride (are Muggle trains just slower than magical ones?). She, naturally, has no other choice than to stare out the window at the passing scenery. Only opening her mouth to comment on cattle and horses the train was gliding by. It's almost like she's back to how she was before the reunion. Even her magic is more subdued. Is it because she's outside Mexico?
He wants to fill the silence with something. A topic that will adequately distract him from the tangled anxiety currently whirlpooling in his stomach. His joints feel all rusted and stiff like he were his old toy knight in need of some oil.
His knights. He had divulged the name only to Evan, by way of a letter. What would they think when he revealed to them the proof of his heritage? Disgust? Admiration? Envy? Would they reject it and demand further proof or accept it: citing it as the sole reason Tom was able to best them all at nearly everything? He runs through every scenario in his head, good, bad, neutral.
It keeps him from thinking about the scenarios regarding the Gaunts.
Ximena, blessfully[1], asked no questions of him. Past her minute accusations of him acting strangely, she's been rather tight-lipped about this whole ordeal. For once, he is not at all hungry for her curiosity about him. Has no desire for her to pick at his objective or figuratively bite at his cast bait. She need only to be there and…
"You said you misplaced me." His voice speaks without permission from his brain, "In second year, my second year, when we met again. You said you misplaced me. What did you mean?"
Perhaps it's unfair to bring it up again, after so many years (how long has it been! Was he ever that small?), but it's the first thing he's spoken since sitting down on the worn seat. For whatever reason, his mind thought it important enough to bring it up.
Ximena blinks at the sudden, unbroken silence, not like she's surprised to see him there, but like she's surprised he has the ability to speak. Tom gives her a moment to collect herself (her memory), to perhaps even to ask him to elaborate. But she doesn't. There's recognition in her eyes: a sight rarely seen and always relished.
"It was the bracelet."
Silence. One. Two–
"What."
"When you stole it," –he did not steal it, he found it, there's a difference– "it…changed me." Her hands gather in her lap, fingers cupping against each other, "...Dad was using it to keep my memories in one place. Before I was lost.
"I'd always have problems with my memory, even as a baby. I'd cry whenever he or Nana held me… I could never remember their voices or scent or magic. They were always strangers to me. He tried enchanting my bracelet to…tether my memories to me."
She presses her lips together. Tom stares. She continues, "But it… It didn't work right…" Her thumb is rubbing circles against her other finger pads, trying to ground her in the physical. Away from the mist her head often gets lost in, "...Curses are contracts at heart, you know? And this was cheating[2]."
Ximena's voice drifts off, but her hands stay in motion. She's still there. Mentally. Just thinking. Searching for the right words, or looking for what parts of her story to skip. "I became too…familiar with it. I needed it. To remember what time to wake up and how to fall asleep."
"Reliant." Tom breaks his quietude, startling himself at the sound of his own voice, "Dependant."
"Yes. Dependent." Ximena doesn't smile, but it's the first word that comes to mind. "It was holding me back. Impeding me."
She's showing off her growing vocabulary. This time, there is a hint of a grin before it flickers away as she continues. As she remembers the story she is telling. "But it was keeping me from remembering the important things."
Does that make him something important? Unimportant?
"When Hedwig disarmed me, she took off my bracelet. Not my wand. It was the thing protecting me. Not my magic." Yes. Yes it was, wasn't it?
'Expelliarmus.'
The wrist holding up her wand appears to snap to her right like a rubber band before rippling out through her body: Ximena is visibly shaken and she stumbles to find her balance with her eyes on the ground before looking wide-eyed up at Hedwig and the bare wrist still holding up her unusual wand.
"...When you lost it, it lost its hold on you?"
She exhales, amused for lack of a better word, "Something like that."
The magic that was so different from hers. That pulsed and grew heavier the longer he had it in his possession. That plagued him with the strangest of dreams. That called out to Ximena at the oddest of times…
"I could never find it," She breathes deeply, "because whomever had it had no ill will towards me, the majority of the time."
He blinks, "Ill will?"
Ximena laughs with mirth, sounding like the ringing of bells. It's the first time he's heard her laugh with joy. With amusement. Albeit coated with resignation. "Maybe that's… Not the right phrase. I don't think you ever wanted to hurt me but…"
Tom tries to remember back to that moment. Where the bracelet revealed his secret and she looked at him with such betrayal.
He could help here. He could whip out his wand and send a protego maxima to help and it wouldn't incriminate him. He doesn't. He can't interrupt their duel. By standard rules or otherwise. Would that stupid ancient law apply to this? It wasn't official, they didn't bow, Ian attacked him, not her so did she interrupt their own duel…? He can't think he can't think, what does he do? What should he do? He should run. Away. Far away. Save his skin. Curl up and hide. The train, he needs to get on the train-
"...I wanted to run." He supplies, the memories of that evening pooling in his mind.
Ximena does not talk. She tilts her head and listens.
His mouth suddenly finds itself dry. He swallows. "That night, when you…When you protected me," Don't touch him don't touch him don't touch him "I was…It was like waking up on the first of September all over again. My instincts were to run. To leave you. To save myself."
He's imitating Ximena's circular thumb motions, and when he realizes it, he forces his hands to stop.
"And the other times?"
He has no explanation for those. He didn't even know the bracelet was giving off any sort of call before she told him. Before the event where she realized he had it all along. "...I think, it was before I trusted you."
She snorts. He understands the hypocrisy. Does not acknowledge it. To her or himself.
"...Did you know? About how your bracelet worked and all, back when I asked you why you forgot me?"
He doesn't break eye contact when she narrows her eyes at him for changing the subject. It's pleasing, save for the absence of her frigid magic. It lasts for about five delightful seconds before she decides to answer him, "No. I wouldn't have known how to explain it to you back then."
"So then… As far as you knew, you did forget me?"
"It's more like… The memory of you was moved from where it should have been. That's as far as I understood it. But I couldn't tell you why."
It doesn't make him feel any better at having the answer take so long, but he knows if he had heard that as a child, he would be wholly unsatisfied with it as a solid explanation. Now, as a near adult, with much more worldly experience under his belt, he still does not know how to feel. Unsatisfied or…
"You taking it helped, you know."
He dry swallows his own surprise.
"It cleared my head, though, not in a way that was…obvious. Not at first." Her fidgeting hands move again, reminding him of the nursery rhymes he'd see young girls singing in the yard at Wools. A song about a spider being drowned by the rain.[3] "It was more like a blockage was taken away. Clarity."
She doesn't look mad at him. But she doesn't look anything else at him either.
"Dad thinks it's what helped him recognise me, when we met again. You keeping it for so long away from me."
He presses his lips together, "Balam knows I had it?" Somehow, he had expected Ximena to take that knowledge to her grave (and that thought makes him want to sneer: the thought of her grave). Somehow, he had expected something like rage or righteousness from Balam at the knowledge that he had wronged Ximena so.
"He's known since the day you reunited us. I told him."
And now there's something terribly gentle about the way Ximena is looking at him. Like she's grateful, yes, but also like she knows something he doesn't. Like she's trying her best to ease him into some horrifying, terrible news. Like he is very small and delicate, and cannot possibly handle the weight of what she wishes to divulge. What was it Balam had told him?
'It's nearly like your magic's been contaminated, actually. The black is a fog. Have you been in close proximity to any powerful magical objects?'
'Perhaps. An evil eye bracelet?'
'No no… An evil eye bracelet wouldn't… Couldn't… Hm… An evil eye bracelet is protection, yes, but it wouldn't mix with your magic so readily like this...It is the difference between a nursery rhyme and a concierto...It's familiar.'
He breaks eye contact and stares out the window for the rest of the train ride.
.
Little Hangleton is undeserving of a proper train station. It's too small to be a real town and too unimportant to have any chief exports to major cities. The air is clear of any smog or signs of the war, and the people around them look to be stuck about ten years in the past: in their fashions and in their technology. He doubts any of them even own an automobile.
Tom dreads opening his mouth to ask about the Gaunts. He already knows where they are: that house up on the hill. Overlooking the entire village. Majestic and as opulent as every other pureblood manse he's laid his eyes on. Its details are fuzzy with distance, but even from here, he can tell it's the only place worthy of a respectable old pureblood name such as–
A Muggle's talking to him. Babbling about something or other like he knew him. It's all at once insulting and disorienting. That they acknowledge him. That they seem to recognise him, mistaking him for some other Muggle.
It's not until the Muggle's eyes shift to Ximena, standing next to him (close enough for any one to see that they're traveling together), that he stops. There's confusion. A click. Realization. The man begins to apologise, both sheepish and somehow relieved at his mistake. No, there's no way that you young man are the one I'm looking for.
It would have been forgotten easily, had it not happened five more times after. Each occurrence much unchanged from the last: a common Muggle coming up to him or greeting him with a courteous good afternoon. Moving out of the way for him. Asking him if he's feeling alright today. If he's feeling better. They call him sir. Each time, it is either the inclusion of Ximena as his traveling companion or the Muggle in question having a closer look at Tom (looking at him in the eyes) that snaps the illusion away. They all change their tune into something more natural. Relaxed. They slouch their backs or lean back in their chairs, return to laughing as they work, or cease working at all. As if they believed to be caught by their employer. Someone of importance.
The thing is: the more it happens, the more he likes it. The more he realizes just how much he could get used to this. It's only barely enough to offset how bizarre the entire situation is.
"Do you have relatives here?" Ximena asks, perhaps intending for it to come off as a joke, but all it does it grip his anxiety with a tight fist. "Or a doppelgänger?"
"We shall see." He murmurs uncomittedly, keeping his eyes on that manor on the hill. It wouldn't do for them to walk up there, like common Muggles. They couldn't very well fly up there either… He'd arrange for a buggy ride and–
When he tries, when he says the name Gaunt, what happens is… Not expected. The look on the coachman's face is one of incredulity. As if Tom had just asked the man to slap him and Ximena with manure. That he'd pay him to do it. And thank him with a smile on his face. In fact, once the man realizes that Tom isn't joking, he seizes up. Crosses himself and kisses the string rosary around his neck. "There isn't enough money in all the world that would have me take anyone to that place."
To where? The mansion up the hill? So deeply do these people live in fear? So profound is their reverence for the wizards that oversee them?
"I'll give ye directions, but that's as far as I'll get involved."
Tom blinks, stupified. "Directions?"
"Aye, it's just down that road there." He gestures with his head over to … Tom sees the road sign Asp right above the text Roman Road 722[4]. "Cursed place. Don't stick around there too long."
When he asks about the manor atop the hill, there's only a subtle change in expression. Suspicion. "Depends, do you work for 'em?" They shake their head no, "Posh bastards. Own the land here, they do." He spits in the dirt, "Far as 'ey know, they're our benefactors."
.
He had…been expecting another road, another outcome. Obviously. Is it curiosity that keeps him silent now? Or embarrassment? The way he was acting, even Ximena should have caught on that he expected to be going up that hill.
She's mute too. Her presence barely perceivable, even to him. Hardly a leaf or stick cracking under her steps. Even the crunch of snow seems muffled. If he turned to look, he half-expects to not see any of her footsteps in the snow. He suspects Hedwig's idea of magic being stronger in one's homeland being true, because hers is reticent. Because his own feels… Invigorated, the closer he gets to the end of this dusty, jagged road. It's more than nerves. Than anticipation. It's surely his magic finding something similar. Matching. Powerful.
CAW. Are those Ximena's crows? Still following after all this time? So far away? Or are they unrelated to them? The ones that serve her so diligently? Can she tame whatever corvid came her way, or is it just certain kinds? Do they recognise him and the gravity of what he's about to do?
His mouth is dry, "...Do you remember? What you said about me being better off as a half-blood?" He tries to say it as casually as possible. Like he wasn't hoping for a certain answer.
"...A little." Her voice is tranquil, but not small. He feels almost transported back to the days where they would share a library table. "Why?"
"Do you still believe it?" He doesn't stop or turn to look at her (if he stops walking, he thinks he'll never start up again). "That I wouldn't be as skilled if I came from a highblooded family?"
A long pause. He would be afraid of it if he wasn't only meters away from his heritage. Finally, she clears her throat, "It was a very…eugenic thing to say, wasn't it?"
If his situation wasn't grave, he'd have released his bark of laughter. Bitter and amused.
She continues, "Our skills and genetics are still random, I said that right?" Tom nods confirmation. "So it's not…complete eugenics…But." Ximena searches for the right words, "Well, someone could take my words out of context, couldn't they?"
Tom hums at her reply. Silent afterwards. Thinking about it. His health has always been inconsistent. Staying at the peak of health while the rest of the orphanage got mumps, polio, and chickenpox. Not being able to run very fast or very far with the other children when they played their games: his lungs burning and his legs weak. His body always too skinny, even after filling up at Hogwarts for the school year. Knees too knobby, skin too pale, skin too gaunt.
"Is that it?" Her voice breaks him from his thoughts.
He stops.
The home before them is two stories tall. Or rather, it was two stories tall. Maybe a decade ago. Maybe a century ago. The roof is caved in, partly due to a fallen tree (recent?), and partly due to what looks like weather damage. Spell damage. Like a small battle had been fought on the property some time ago and just never repaired. Like no one cared to.
It's hard to imagine the house in its prime. If it even had a prime. Ornate carvings on the posts, the corners of the house, show serpents and runes smoothed over by time: a strange sigil of a circle within a triangle. An ouroboros within a prism. The house used to be painted a dark color, but now only shows white. Bleached white from time. Coated white from the snow. It blankets the ruins of his ancestors' home like a shroud. Purifying the dirt beneath it.
When he turns back to see Ximena, it's her back he sees: she's raising her wand and building Muggle repelling charms; it's doubtful that one of them would stumble upon the area, but it's better to be safe. Always thinking ahead. Protecting herself. Protecting him, by extension. Classic Slytherin. She should have stayed. She belongs in that house with him.
"..."
"Do you want to go in alone?"
It seems silly to do so, after having come this far with her. He knows her origins, more or less. Shouldn't she know his? More or less?
The house is surely abandoned anyways. No one would live in here, in this squalor. Not willingly. They could be in and out quick, and she none the wiser about why.
Tom gazes upon the front door (scowling at the poor snake nailed to the door, half-decayed), and perhaps laments the lost remnants of his ancestry. Triumphs in knowing he will be able to rewrite his family's history as he wishes. This is as good as handing him a blank slate. Why, no one but him and Ximena knows…
Tom steps through the door and a nasty curse hits him. Almost. Tom parries easily, despite the surprise: his opponent's technique is poor and his magic inferior. The shock of his spell being rebounded gives the man in the shack hesitation.
He is young, perhaps. It's difficult to tell due to his disheveled appearance. The dirt on him, years of struggle and hardship. When he makes eye contact with Tom, he seethes with recognition. Confusion.
The Parsel that leaves his mouth chills Tom's blood. «You look just like–» He cracks his knuckles by closing his fist, trembling with extreme rage. Tom points his wand at him, adrenaline pumping, stepping closer and and baits him:
«Whose face do I wear?»
The fact that he responds in parsel seems to make this man's state worse. As if he were having a fit.
«Filth!» He sneers. At him. At Ximena, who is watching all of this with quiet caution. Her wand hand held at her side, in a tight fist. Empty. «You wear the face of the soiled grime that bewitched the noble blood of Gaunt!»
Tom swallows. He can taste blood in his mouth. «My face is my own. I am noble of blood and house. I am a natural speaker.»
«Lies!» The man's magic is dangerous. Reactive as a landmine and poised to burst. Out of the corner of Tom's eyes, he can see Ximena's wand hand moving: rapidly posing as if she were speaking sign language with a single hand, down at her side. He feels a blanket of her magic coat the room. Protected. Safe. It empowers him. Emboldens him.
«I am the heir of your house. Son of Merope Gaunt.»
An explosive push is felt against the wall of defense put up by Ximena. The wizard down on the floor is ravenous. Growling and hissing: a mad beast. A man possessed. It sickens Tom to think he's related to him. That in another world, he might call him father.
«Son of a mudraker!» He spits, «Couldn't wait to leave, could she? Sunk her teeth into that foul grot the moment she could get away with it, didn't she?»
He continues to monologue, seemingly forgetting that he wasn't alone. As if this sort of thing happened often: his need to recount his victimization. How the world dealt him a grave injustice. That the heir to his great family was nothing but a half-breed. «It should have been her…It should have been her. Mine. My only.»
Morfin Gaunt weeps. Thrashing his fists against the rotted wood in the house. It comes as such a shock to Tom, that he steps back, uncomfortable with the open, physical display. Disgusted at the state of his only family.
Ximena speaks. «Where is his father?»
Morfin seizes. Tom does too. He's never heard her speak, it sounds…exquisite. He swallows, flexing his free hand. His uncle looks up at the two of them from under his uncut, dirty hair. He laughs. A sneer. A display of cruel joy. «Dead. I killed him. I showed him what happens when you taint the bloodline of my family. When you steal away the mo–»
Tom casts a full-body bind curse on him, patience thin. Temper flared. Behind him, as he walks up to his uncle, he can hear Ximena sigh. Just before he places his wand at his uncle's temple.
"Legilimens."
Morfin's head is as scattered as his ramblings. Tom flashes past bright, passionate memories of anger. Violence. Before finding loss. Peeking in, out of curiosity…
He sees through Morfin's eyes. He's small! He's just turned five and his mother is dead. His sibling is dead, sillbirthed and without organs. Too small to survive. Too weak. It would have gotten his old crib. The family crib. It's held the fruit of the purest of blood for generations. It held him. His sister. His mother and father.
The entire house is still. Grey. He can't stop shaking.
«It killed mother.» Merope hisses, glaring at the corpse. Her eyes are ice, half hidden by her straw blonde wisps of hair. «It killed her and you two weep for it.»
He flinches at her gaze: her stony, watery gaze that threatens to drown him. Freeze him. Merope is bigger than him, still. She can hit him. Hurt him. Has done it in the past when they fought. When they spat over whom mother loved best.
Father always liked him best. He knows this. Merope knows this. But Mother gave her the locket. Not him. Her son. Her only son…
Tom moves from the memory. Flashes past the grey, bleak childhood of his uncle into a wretched adolescence—
«—You killed it!» A horrible scream. A woman's wail. Painful and earth shattering. Tom stops. Morfin's in the nursery. He can't stop shaking. The birthing chair holds his sister, trembling and shouting. At him. At the world. Merope, who cradles the bloody remains of their firstborn daughter. «You killed it just like you killed Mother!» She's delirious. Mad with fever and exhaustion. Sweat on her brow and hair tangled. Only her rage is keeping her alive, the flare of her magic pulsating like a stormy sea pushing against a ship. «It was mine! Mine! Don't touch it!»
The labour almost killed her along with it. Magical births are already so dangerous, so high risk. One more and she might just…
Tom flees from the memory. Continues. Confused. Determined. Angry.
He finds a memory that matches his emotion: Morfin is home from Azkaban. Home to an empty house. A wreck. Before, it wasn't in complete shambles, but now it lies truly abandoned. His father dead. His mother buried. Merope… Where has she ran to now? Always running off, hiding in the woods, speaking to the snakes. Spying. Spying on those dirty Muggles that live just up the hill…
Tom Riddle's face is in his mind's eye. His disgusting, dirty, mired look of contempt rings in Morfin's head. Blares in his mind like war bells until he sees him face to face on that forsaken path his sister frequented all too often. Coiffed hair, mud brown eyes, white teeth. Disgusting. No longer will the dirty muggle look at him with contempt but with fear.
He has him now! His dirt-brown eyes filled with horror. Confusion. Thrown from his horse like the common scum he is! He will kill him by raising his wand and stealing the breath from him–
He is stopped by a Ministry official, assigned to watch him. Keep him on a leash. The Riddle heir lives.
Tom emerges from the memory. Points his wand at Morfin again, knocking him out before collecting the man's discarded wand: the old, dark magic accepting him instantly-He shivers in satisfaction. He almost doesn't hear Ximena's second sigh and her low mutterings as he swiftly turns and strides out the door: the manor up on the hill in his crosshairs.
Morfin lied. Tom's father (his own face! Well fed and filled out!) is alive. His father is alive and up that hill.
He shivers again when Ximena's hand catches his shoulder and pulls him back to face her, "Wait." It's not often it's her chasing after him. He could get used to it. "You're supposed to be…controlled." She's exasperated, it's almost comical, "So control yourself."
He can. He just doesn't want to. "Ximena." The word comes out, half commanding, half begging. As if she could understand everything he wanted to say with just the mention of her name.
She can, of course, why wouldn't she? "They are more useful to you alive than dead."
And that makes him pause.
His gaze wanders over to the house his mother grew up in. The snow piled high on the rotting rooftop, the cold loneliness enveloping the murky windows, the collapsing porch that houses a family of rats and a colony of termites, the dead snake nailed to the front door…
He thinks of the manor on the hilltop where his father grew up. Grand and commanding. The only visible landmark for miles. Imposing and pompous without even really trying. A multitude of windows (of rooms) staring out into the valley where Little Hangleton is situated.
Little Hangleton. None of those Muggles had anything good to say about either side of his family. Filth and fear tumbled out of their mouths for the Gaunts, but reverence and fear came out of their mouths for the Riddles. When they thought he was his father–
His father. His father is alive. His scum of the earth, stupid, pathetic, cowardly, egotistical, piece of shit Muggle father is alive. Did he know? Did he know about him? Does he know he's alive? That he spent the first years of his life festering in a cesspool of poverty and famine?
Tight is the grip on his wand, so much that he suspects all the blood in his body will pool to his hand. There's a mountain troll sitting on his chest. Jumping on it, actually. He's trembling. So full of anger and disillusionment and bitterness and powerlessness-
Ximena holds his gaze. He can almost see himself in her black eyes, staring back at his mixed expression. Pathetic. This blatant display of emotion. If he were Ximena, he'd be disgusted with him.
Her magic blankets the air around him, still giving him space. She wants to force him to calm down, as if she were a mummy pacifying a baby. An extremely dangerous baby that could kill at any moment, but still a baby nonetheless. Swaddled.
"Do you really want to kill them?" She asks, and when he hears it, he knows she's not trying to reach into him for some goodness. Not trying to find some long buried piece of humanity. She's asking honestly. With concern. As a friend. She would have a hand in the murder of his father, if he so asked for it. He knows it.
Oh God. That thought. It pleases him.
He answers.
.
The manor as seen from the bottom of the hill is nothing compared to being right up beside it in all its glory. If he were to guess, it's the oldest building for miles, and will remain so for the next few centuries. It's a testimony to decadence. All of it. The balusters, friezes, dormer windows, quoins, the goddamn eclecticism...The legacy of his Muggle blood.
And yet, it feels just as haunted as the Gaunt house. Dusty and forgotten. Obsolete.
He and Ximena walked side by side up the road to Riddle Manor, the path underneath their feet slowly turning from dirt to gravel to cobblestone. The border of the lane turning from weeds to flowers to a colonnade of trimmed cypress trees-All as tall as a two story building. It was a lengthy trek, but both of them made it up in silence; their hands barely touching, barely brushing up against the other. Wizards do not walk anywhere, they fly or floo or apparate-Or in the case of Hogwarts, board a magical train. But at the foot of the hill, the two placed one foot in front of the other and tread forward without a word.
From the top of the hill, if they look back on the town and into the horizon, it would feel like Little Hangleton was the whole world, and the manor at the top of the hill was the highest peak. Every road, every rooftop, every light from every window of every house-It's open and displayed to them. In all its bucolic glory.
Now stepping onto the doorstep, he fully realizes the implication of what he's about to do. When he turns his head to ask-She's already looking at him. Waiting.
He sniffs, his allergies acting up, "...Where did you get your wand?" He's been wanting to ask for years.
"In the garden. At the abbey."
"...Tell me about it? When we return?" It feels good to plan out something beyond this. To know that there's going to still be things to do after he faces whatever lies behind this door.
"Okay."
She rings the doorbell.
It echoes uncomfortably throughout the house and throughout his bones, he's sure Ximena can feel the effect ripple in his magical signature.
He grips her hand. One second. Two seconds. Three. Five. Ten…
A young woman opens the door, looking as if she had ran here, wearing a plain black dress and white apron. When she looks upon Ximena, her expression is of surprise, but when her eyes turn to Tom, they hold utter shock. Confusion. A spark of attraction. Typical.
Apparently unaware that she was staring and had yet to address them, Ximena speaks to her, "Good evening,"
A finch, and she blinks back to consciousness-Focuses on Ximena and moves the door a little closer inwards.
"We're here to see Mister Tom Riddle Senior."
The addition of senior confuses the maid, "Mister Riddle is out riding right now," her gaze moves back and forth between the two of them, "might I ask who's inquiring?"
His voice finds strength, "His son."
.
They wait in the parlour.
If the outside was exorbitant and haunted, then the inside is worse. An unfeeling home, hardly more inviting or warm than a funeral home.
And yet…
This is the life he should have had growing up. Food always on the table-so much that most of it is thrown away. Riches and frivolities that he doesn't need but has in spares. Servants to wait on him hand and foot….
There's a commotion. His heightened senses can perceive conversation happening in a room or two away from him. The maid and someone else, someone older. A woman?
He almost jumps from the sudden sound of porcelain breaking. Dishes falling onto hardwood flooring. It's a dramatic sound, one he might expect to hear in the parlor of one of his schoolmate's homes. But in here, it just sounds incriminating, somehow.
Footsteps. Hurried. Determined. His eyes go to the corner of the room upon where doors burst open, and a stout old woman dressed elegantly appears: her eyes looking for him.
There's a shine in the woman's gaze hat instinctively makes Tom think snake. A touch of a smile on her cunning face as she gives him a good long look. The woman is, undoubtedly, a Muggle: there's no magic swirling in the air about her and no magical artifacts within her home. The portraits and photographs do not move, there are servants instead of house elves, and there are no wards. Yet: the woman is also, undoubtedly, a Slytherin.
"You look just like your father."
The fist gripping his ribcage tightens.
"He should be here any minute now."
His ribcage bursts, his heart dripping out like yolk from a broken shell. As if sensing this, Ximena's hand gives a squeeze to his: a reminder. A backup. He could raise his wand right now and slice his grandmother's throat and she wouldn't hesitate to help him finish the job.
Mary Riddle looks down at Tom's left hand with some intrigue, and Tom wonders if there's any filth from the Gaunt shack on it, so when he looks down at it and sees Ximena's hand instead, he's almost startled enough to flinch back. He resists. Holding on tighter by instinct. How long have they been like this?
He opens his mouth to introduce her, but Ximena beats him to it. "My name is Ximena Hidalgo. I'm his classmate." It's not a lie. Not really. "We grew up together." Her admittance to the fact sounds delightfully sweet to his ears, but wrong somehow, when she finishes without continuing on.
Something in her speech must have placated his grandmother, because her shoulders relax and square. There's a few guesses going round in Tom's head as to why, but all of them sound equally correct (or enticing?).
"You're so well-spoken." She says, and Tom refrains from rolling his eyes. "Come sit, sit…"
"Ximena was one year ahead of me at our preparatory, actually. She tutored me in many subjects." He sits on the edge of a stiff chair stuffed with too much cushion, "And she grew up just twenty minutes away from me in Croydon." Well-spoken. Old bat. As bad as the witches back at Hogwarts, asking Ximena where she learned English and other such rubbish.
The location interests and shocks Mary Riddle (it doesn't feel right to call her his grandmother), and she presses for his story. His childhood. His upbringing. Where has he been these last sixteen years…
Tom skims over many of the details surrounding Wool's. It was a place where he was born and where he spent the majority of his life, and that's it. He doesn't want Mary Riddle's pity (though, perhaps, she might be inclined to spoil him a little if he makes her feel bad enough for him). He speaks more clearly when Hogwarts enters the picture. His posture even relaxes. He finds his tone pleasant, and easier to manipulate into sounding interested. Happy to be here.
Censoring magic from his life is oddly easy. Making Hogwarts seem like an exclusive preparatory up north that's invitation only is an insult in his eyes, but to Mary Riddle, it seems to be evidence that Tom is worthy of her pride. Her questions are ravenous, hungry for proof. Of his intelligence, class, and fitness. He is top of his year and has been since he was twelve. He's prefect and in line to be head boy. He has the admiration and support of all his teachers and the headmaster. He's taking classes a year in advance. He's in no sports, unless she counts dueling, which Mary Riddle takes to mean fencing.
Mary Riddle tells Tom about his family. That he comes from a long line of respectable blood on both his grandfather's and her side of the family. That the Riddles have been the landowners of Little Hangleton for centuries. That her family has passed down the title of baroness to her from German ancestors. That it is his title to inherit. That his house, this land, this town is his to inherit.
"It's incredible." Mary Riddle murmurs, still staring openly at Tom, "Nothing from that woman…You're all your father…"
Tom tenses.
The maid returns to the room, looking pressed and uneasy. She whispers something into Mary Riddle's ear, and whatever it is, it makes the old woman turn sour. "Why that–" Her fist clenches, "Excuse me, dear." A tight lipped smile, "I'll see what's keeping your father."
Your father. The man with his face. Boy, really. In Morfin's memory he was hardly older than seventeen. Baby fat clinging to his cheeks.
That woman. His mother. Sickly as a Victorian heroine dying of consumption. Feral as a cornered wolverine. He didn't want to think about her. About her glare as a child, so alike his own. About his stillborn half-sibling (disgust! Repulsion!), who would have been the true heir had she survived. About how Merope wasn't half as monstrous as the Wool's workers made her seem. Just…wild. Wronged. Defeated. She was seventeen in the memory. Thin and frail and dying.
He doesn't realize he's shaking until Ximena lays a hand on his wrist. He bites his lip.
"Do you want to leave?"
Desperately. But he wants to see this through as well. "I have to face him." His fist tightens. "I want to know. I want to know if he… If…"
Ximena's grip is strong. Secure. "I understand." Of course. Of course she does.
"...She'll want me to live here." His mouth is dry. "Out of London." He's not too sure how he feels about that. Away from that horrible nightmare… But within the confines of what feels like a mausoleum. Dark and still and hushed. Without magic. Without anyone he knows. Trusts. Will his guardianship with Balam be over with? He's too old to be scouted for adoption. That's what he told Ximena. Will Mary Riddle believe the same?
"What do you want to do?"
His mouth is dry. "I wish…I wish to…have just the empty house. Just the deed and an empty house." No Mary Riddle. No maids. No father who appears to be hiding from him– "I want…I want them gone. Somewhere else. Away." He's trembling. His jaw is stiff. He's Furious. Righteous. "What use are they to me?"
Ximena blinks. Is mum. And then speaks: "Use their titles."
Her suggestion sends a pleasurable little shiver up his spine,
It would be easy. Getting rid of the Riddles. Not…killing them…per say. Not yet. Just putting them aside. A good confundo. Another banishing potion. Something to keep them out of his hair and under his thumb. Quietly rewrite their wills…
He could be like all those purebloods, with manors outside Muggle towns. Hidden in plain sight. Lording over them. Inviting his court to his home in the summer. Holding frivolous little parties and reminding others that he belongs with them. Is better than them. He could do it, he has the resources, the help. Evan and Hedwig and Nemesis, they all know the steps, they wouldn't ask too many questions…
…And Ximena…
He looks at her. She's waiting for him to speak. She'll be involved too, won't she? Didn't she say her father thinks of him as family? That Tom's a part of their circle, their group? It's only right that she be there, often. Helping ward his estate with magic from across the sea. Taking charge
The thought excites him. Ximena hiring staff and having them trained to her liking. Connecting the grand fireplace in the parlor to the one in her father's home in Veracruz. Using his grandmother's room and calling it her private quarters, replacing her entirely as the mistress of the house. Servants following her every command, calling her Baroness Ximena-
He stops himself. Baron titles are hereditary, and therefore would not pass onto her, even if she resided in the building and was superior to those working. She would have to marry him once the title was passed onto him and be a Freifrau. A silly notion. He tosses it out the window immediately.
…
…But–
Is it so ridiculous? To have that separated, platonic, marriage of convenience? It would help integrate her back into British wizarding society. Keep her close. Mary Riddle would certainly put up a fuss, but Tom's certain he can convince her to shut up. It would make her family. Make Balam, Inés, and the rest family. He would have a permanent connection, not easily severed.
He swallows. Presses his lips together. Ximena might… like the appeal of a love-match, but with her only interest having been Adam… It wouldn't do for her to marry someone else. They'd take up all her time. Be indignant when he inevitably showed up to whisk her away for things. Possessive. They wouldn't appreciate her ability as a witch. As a bruja. Not like he does.
The more he thinks about it, the more sense it makes. Of course. Why didn't he think of it before?
"What do you want to do about your uncle?"
Discomfort again. It's not a very difficult conclusion to make, but he's still upset she was able to make it anyways.
"He's of no use to me." A pause, he looks at her, "Unless…?" She's been full of good ideas today.
Ximena shrugs, "You could learn about your heritage… Your ancestors." She doesn't say family. Whatever sort of familial comfort Morfin could have hypothetically offered, she knows he wouldn't want any of it. "He's the only other natural speaker you know of."
True. Though the Gaunt residence was desolate and rotting, it can hold information. Books, records, photos? Though perhaps his mother's side of the family thought photographs to be too Muggle. There were no photos available of the family in all the genealogy tomes he looked through.
He wonders what Salazar Slytherin would make of it. What Cornivus Gaunt would make of it. A noble (godly!) tongue being spoken by gutter scum. Was this truly their intention? To achieve purity by whatever means possible? To a fault? A detriment? Or was Slytherin's goal more akin to the practices of the Blacks? The Notts? The Averys? To simply keep witches and Muggles separated genetically and outcast Muggleborns.
If only there was a record of Slytherin's will. Could the Gaunts have it? Possibly. Who knows? Maybe there's an heirloom or two lying around the residence. Didn't Morfin's memory mention a locket? It was his mother's, so naturally, it belongs to Tom now. All of it does.
When Mary Riddle returns to the room, she is dragging a very reluctant, very sickly looking version of the young man in Morfin's memory. A carbon copy of Tom, almost. Perhaps in fifteen year's time. If he keeps well fed. Goes out in the sun. Wears rich fabrics.
Tom grips his wand.
[1] Blessfully is another word I made up to be a synonym for 'thankfully', but specifically in thanks/gratitude to a higher being/miracle. It's when you're thankful for something impossible or dire.
[2] If you remember from Balam's Interlude: he admits that it's technically his fault that Ximena was lost and his own memory of her erased. It is because of his attempt to offset/lessen the curse's effect on Ximena via having her bracelet hold her memories.
[3] The Itsy Bitsy Spider! Apparently first appeared in publication in 1910 in Camp and Camino in Lower California, as The Spider Song. I'm not sure if it would be possible for it to reach all the way across the pond by the time Tom was around, what, six? So huge historic license. Besides, the lyrics shown in the publication were "Blooming, bloody spider" instead of itsy bitsy, so uh, that's not something for British kids lol.
Those of you who don't know what hand motions you do for Itsy Bitsy Spider: Alternately touch the thumb of one hand to the index finger of the other, I like to pivot them.
[4] Roman Road 722 in Yorkshire is technically not proven to be one, there's no evidence of it being Roman made at all. Yes, I put way too much thought into what road the Gaunts would be living on, so sue me :/ Also: yes I know Asp is a little too on the nose, lol.
Y'all remember the dream Tom had in the hospital wing after Ian attacked him? It was leading up to this. Haha. Check the end of Chapter 13: Righteous/Wicked.
From about Ximena putting up the wards to the end of the chapter, I've had 80% of it written since mid-2019. Weird to think of it now. I knew I eventually wanted them to go together to meet his family, but I never knew how they would get there. Weird.
You can follow my revived writing (non-rp) blog on tumblr if you want! my url is skooffuskaild and i post both fanfic and original works there, including stuff that never makes it to any of my fanfic accounts. check it out and say hi! Maybe submit a request/prompt idea :) I'm currently working on crossposting all serpentine chapters there.
THANK YOU once again to jaq for looking over this, ily