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An Old and New World
by Lens of Sanity
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Chapter Nine: The Riddle of Riddle
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That tears it, I quit!
The redhead came to this resolution as she looked on with disgust at Peter Pettegrew and the unfolding scene before her. Walking through the antechamber of what was their current primary fortification, the rat animagus and two of his colleagues came hefting what was clearly the corpse of Voldemort. It was bad enough that the Master had decided to make the Manor House of their muggle father a central hub of his organisation, but from the obvious deadness of his latest body it did not take a genius to figure out what had probably happened.
This was something which had been eating at her ever since the vernal equinox and the Master's first two rebirths. Voldemort was clearly in command of immensely powerful magic, and had equally formidable skill when using it. So how in the name of Circe herself could the man keep getting himself killed?
It made no sense at all.
The Master had used possession a woman by the name of Bertha Jorkins when she was travelling through the Grey Lady's Forest in Albania, braved the perilous journey back to Britain, and had liberated a loyal Death Eater who was being held captive by his father. The redhead had been aiding her Master since about six months before his first rebirth, and so missed most of that action, eventually managing to track him back to Little Hangleton.
Then she'd set about helping.
The Master's initial plan was to kidnap his most dangerous foe and use him in the optimal rebirth ritual, and as a show of his grandiose power had decided to do so slap bang in the middle on an international event. This made sense in a way, however the redhead had convinced her Master that gaining a new powerful body should be the primary priority, and that making his enemies once more cower in fear should be secondary to this goal.
The Master had seen reason at the time and they finally settled upon a more straightforward capture, resulting in the boy, Harry Potter, killing him mere minutes after the first rebirth. A feat which seemed to have been accomplished without any apparent effort on the boy's part.
She knew a fair number of things about this Boy‑Who‑Lived from the waif she had, for want of a better word, eaten. Taking in the facts alone was troubling enough; the boy had dispatched Slytherin's Basilisk, survived Azkaban with little if any lasting harm, killed a dragon, and on numerous occasions slain Lord Voldemort.
Once could be chance, twice happenstance, but thrice was a pattern... or the result of enemy action... or destiny, if she wanted to play up the melodrama.
Also, and this was the one which felt like a splinter through her brain, the Ollivander wand which had chosen him contained the exact same wand core as the one she remembered obtaining from the old man back in another lifetime.
More than all other considerations combined, it was the possible implications of this last which had most perked the redhead's interest.
Yet the enchantments on her Diary were still in effect for the most part and she had been aiding the Master as best as she'd been able. Voldemort's initial plan to obtain the prophecy had been less than inspired, and for the time being the redhead even managed to convince the Master to give up his large bottle of Bahl's Stupefaction. Once discovered this may have gone a ways toward explaining some of her future self's decisions over the past few decades. Successfully removing such a dangerous narcotic had caused the Master to begin a reorganisation of his priorities, and of Voldemort's ultimately deciding upon today's course of action. The Department of Mysteries, an ambush, and Neville Longbottom. It had been as much of a turnaround as the time two months ago when she convinced the Master against using a living creature as a Horcrux.
Besides, she and the snake got along quite well.
The scion of Malfoy must have agreed to yet another fast track to the Inner Circle as his body was now walking around with malevolent red eyes and the clear indication of willing possession. The redhead concluded that the Master must have decided on patience once more, waiting on Litha, and a far more appropriate ritual date for regaining a body. Taking the child Death Eater as a surrogate for the next ten weeks or so would allow Lord Voldemort to craft his next form to be robust, more conducive to channelling magic. And if he was strong enough the Malfoy boy may even survive his time playing host to the Master...
Not that the redhead was particularly concerned either way now that she'd come to a decision.
She took the yew and phoenix feather wand from the deceased form of Voldemort's latest body, and in trade returned the large green bottle of Bahl's Stupefaction before heading directly out the front door of Riddle Manor. Her lithe feminine form was followed unmistakably by a beautiful twelve foot viper named Nagini. Twenty minutes later she was in custody of the one and only Horcrux whose location she knew, the Gaunt Ring which proved direct decent from the Slytherin line now taking pride of place on her slender hand.
With a muted crack of disapparation she vanished, shrouded in well crafted Illusion.
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From his bound position Harry looked as best as he could around the darkened room, noticing a huge venomous snake which seemed to be refraining from talking, bare walls, and of course the crimson haired teen with all the right kinds of curves pointing his holly wand at him. And having been lost in thought for a moment, he eventually threw out a simple...
"Sorry Gin. For a moment there I had a little déjà vu."
"Not at all Harry," she responded, pretending with no small amount of tact not to notice as the teenager's eyes flicked around the room. "If it is okay with you I was hoping we could talk for a time."
"Talk. Yeah, I love talk. Talk is definitely better than torture any day of the week." he said while attempting to wandlessly free himself from the ropes and hopefully attack the girl.
Sighing, said girl summoned a handful of dust and effortlessly transfigured it into a comfortable chair. "Truly, I am not here to harm you Harry."
"Of course you're not Ginny," he smiled winningly. "You are here to return my wand aren't you?" All the while forcing as much magic as possible into the air and hoping to spear the girl with some more wandless transfiguration.
"Yes, I am here to give you back your wand. Now please stop trying to kill me, I really only wish to talk."
"I'm not trying to kill you Gin." he said plastering an earnest smile on his face, while unsuccessfully forcing through his magic the intent: Die! Die! Die! ... Why won't you just die damn it!
The girl just rolled her pretty brown eyes.
"You know, you really are very talented at wandless magic. It is taking me tremendous effort to prevent whatever you are trying to achieve, and that is with a well suited wand pointed at you."
"Fine, what do you want to talk about?" Harry grudgingly asked, deciding to give up for a while once a brutal changeover headache threatened to cut short their conversation.
The girl, Ginny Riddle he supposed, let out a long breath and seemed to become a little uncomfortable. "I want to switch sides. I think you are going to win Harry, and if what I heard about Bellatrix is true I may actually have a solid way out of that damned fool's ranks."
"What?"
"Voldemort. He is insane. I do not wish to serve him anymore."
"What?" Harry said again before pausing to think. Eventually he asked, "Are you not his Horcrux though? I would have thought you'd naturally be on his side."
She looked up at the dusty ceiling for a moment before replying. "He is nothing like I thought I would be when I was seventeen. He cruciates his servants for no real reason, he was addicted to a powerful narcotic, and his plans made absolutely no sense to me. The only reason he has been as successful as he has is because I've been helping him."
"So you are on his side then. If you were helping him you must agree with his goals." Harry pointed out the inconsistency in the girl's story.
"My Diary was the second Horcrux I created." she began slowly. "Or I suppose he created, it is strange because I remember doing it. As well as remembering everything that happened to me up until the Diary was completed, just before graduation in nineteen forty‑five."
"Wait. According to what Albus told me, the Diary was the Horcrux you created first. It was after murdering Myrtle in your fifth year, and you created the second after you killed your grandparents."
"Arg!" the girl growled. "No. Just be quiet and listen. The poor Ravenclaw girl was an accident, and despite what the Maste‑ Gah, Voldemort. Despite what Voldemort told you in the Hangleton graveyard, I did not murder my father or my grandparents."
"I believe you." Harry carefully nodded. "Now you can let me go and we can all be one big happy family."
The redhead scowled. "I am telling you the truth."
"Oh, I know." Harry said soothingly. "I just want us all to be the best of friends."
"Damn it! Stop being so patronising. Bah, if the girl knew you were this infuriating she would not have been anywhere near as infatuated with you!"
Harry couldn't help exploding out a laugh. "So you remember what it was like growing up as an orphan muggle boy, and growing up as a sweet little pureblood girl. Oh, that's just got to be so awkward."
She scowled prettily again before replying. "You are of course partially correct. I remember a number of the emotions and thoughts the waif expressed as though they were my own," the redhead admitted. "However I am not even really a female despite this body. Furthermore I still think of myself as Tom Riddle."
Harry scanned his mind back and came to a conclusion. "Tamsyn is the feminine of Thomas I think. So you're Tam Riddle now." At the redheads look of horror Harry burst out laughing again despite still being tied to a chair and at the man's mercy.
"I will not‑" the newly christened Tamsyn began, before being interrupted.
"Finish your story Tam," the bound man commanded. "I'm in a much better mood now. You were saying how you are a nice well rounded orphan who totally didn't murder his only remaining family..."
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"I was on the trail of the Chamber of Secrets ever since the Sorting Hat whispered of its existence to me during my first day at Hogwarts." At Harry's look Tam replied to the unasked question. "I think it whispers in Parseltongue to every student sorted into Slytherin. Regardless, I found the legendary chamber in the first term of my fifth year, and decided to smuggle out the Basilisk so that I could share my find with the world without the authorities killing her."
"The Basilisk was a female?" Harry asked surprised.
"Yes, but that does not matter now because you killed her." The girl smothered the scowl she wanted to direct at him. "Regardless, I waited until the end of the year and for some unlucky reason the Ravenclaw girl was in the bathroom at three o'clock in the morning and ended up getting hit full in the face with the Basilisk's stare."
The dark haired boy injected. "And you blamed Hagrid, getting him expelled from Hogwarts the same year his dad died."
"Fine, that is also true." agreed Tam.
"That's kind of a douchey thing to do though. I mean, his dad had just died!" Harry pressed unnecessarily. The redhead looked at him for a while, and Harry realised he was getting in the way of her story, so nodded for her to continue.
"I visited my mother's family that summer and was..." Tam searched for the right word, "unimpressed by what I discovered."
Harry found himself lost in thought, thinking on what he knew about Voldemort's past, of all the discussion with Albus and memories shared. Catching up with the girl's explanation Harry finished the sentiment. "So you murdered your father and grandparents, and memory charmed your Uncle Morfin into thinking he was the one did it."
"No I did not!" protested Tam.
"Yes you did, I've seen the Pensieve memory. You stole the guy's only possession and had him shipped off to Azkaban."
"I did not! Well, I did steal his ring I suppose. But it was Morfin who went berserk and murdered my muggle relatives. Let me ask you this, would the Trace not have caught me performing a memory charm?"
Harry considered this for a while. The wand would have the tracker on it and he would not have been able to use Morfin's because the Ministry had checked with 'Prior Incantato' and they found only Killing Curses.
"You were in a wizard's house and could have been using a spare wand. They would not have been able to catch you."
Tam just moved on without bothering to argue.
"This was in nineteen forty‑three by the way and the war with Grindelwald's forces was dragging on, getting large numbers of good people killed. I had been studying the Horcrux ritual extensively during my fifth year and went to Horace Slughorn for his opinion as to what might happen if a wizard were to create one using a lesser fraction than half of their soul."
"So you were okay with killing people to do a disgusting ritual even at the age of fifteen?" Harry slowly confirmed.
Frowning the redhead answered, "I'd already killed someone remember; Myrtle. I wanted to actually get something useful out of her tragic death."
"Stop!" shouted Harry.
"What?"
"Impossible! I've read the Horcrux ritual. Humans are born with an innate flinching response when it comes to intentionally murdering another person. As far as I can tell it is a natural part of being human, something which has evolved over thousands of years. In order to harm your soul enough to create an anchor, whoever your victim is must both count as a real person in your mind, at the same time it requires you to deliberately, wilfully go against that flinching emotion." Harry took a deep breath. "Claiming you used an accidental death for the ritual makes no sense, the magic simply would not work. Therefore, you... are lying!"
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"You are lying!" Harry forcefully intoned, once more forgetting he was a captive.
"I really need a drink," Tam said rubbing her palms against her eyes. "I am not lying to you Harry. As far as I know I am the only one who has ever thought to use smaller fractions, and furthermore I believe I know more about the process than anyone who has ever lived." She looked directly into the eyes of her bound companion then finished, "I did in fact use the girl's accidental death. It took a fair degree of mediation and so forth, thinking on what it meant that I had caused a death. And by the winter of my sixth year I had succeeded in turning my mother's family ring into my first Horcrux."
"Say I believe you. Why did you even need one? The risks involved in making a Horcrux are huge." asked Harry.
She snorted. "I wanted to kill Grindelwald."
"At sixteen? That was pretty fucking ambitious of you."
"I was in Slytherin House remember. Besides you have killed a Dark Lord and you are not even sixteen yet."
"Yeah I have, but I'm Harry Potter. I'm awesome!" She rolled her eyes. "Get on with it. I might as well hear the rest of your fantastical tale even if I don't believe a word of it."
"..."
"If you please..."
"Right, so," Tamsyn continued. "You lose something when you create a Horcrux. A facet of your personality I think. It does not say so in the texts, but that is what I found from going through the process. The Gaunt Ring contained the most complete imprint of Tom Riddle's original personality, and I have concluded creating it stripped Voldemort of any lasting fondness he had for muggles or muggle culture. Up until that point he had no real hatred of them in general terms, and the idea of creating an object which would terrorise Hogwarts using the Basilisk had not even occurred to him. As far as I can tell the Diary was made to ingratiate himself with the purebloods, which would undoubtedly have helped on Voldemort's own rise to power."
"Slow down," injected Harry, this was getting far too confusing. "You say you know everything Voldemort knew up until just before graduation, and yet you don't know his motivations for creating the Diary. What you are claiming is contradictory and does not make any sense."
Tam ignored him. "The Diary seems to have consumed Voldemort's desire for family, which I suppose is fitting as he had decided on making the second Horcrux around the time he found out that his only family were either dead or in Azkaban. After I took over the Weasley girl I did what I was commanded to do, and once you destroyed the Basilisk I had only one more purpose, so I abandoned the book... and in doing so, I sort of killed her."
The teenager trailed off for a span, a somewhat haunted look flickering over her expression, rigidly controlled in the hope that her companion hadn't noticed.
"When I restored Voldemort to a body I was doing so following the orders which were imbedded in the book, but seeing as I no longer had the book, they no longer fully controlled me. I eventually became disillusioned with the man that Voldemort had become and decided I wanted a way out. Last night I stole my Gaunt Ring and did something incredibly dangerous and foolish; I reabsorbed the other shard of soul even though doing so had a good chance of ending my, life? Existence? Whatever it is I have."
Tam blinked a few times in thinking about the pain, no grief she had gone through the previous night. Eventually she looked over at what she had concluded was pretty much her only hope.
"Are you going to untie me now?" asked Harry.
Tamsyn Riddle was silent for the longest time. Finally she flicked her yew wand releasing the ropes, and pitched his holly and phoenix feather toward the freed form of Harry Potter.
"Avada Kedavra!" The spell was shouted without an instant's hesitation, intense green eyes locking together with his opponent.
A sad brown gaze did not even look surprised. "Expelliarmus!"
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A jet of green light issued from Harry's wand just as a jet of red blasted from Tamsyn's. The two powerful forces of magic met in midair and suddenly Harry's wand was vibrating as though powered by Duracell batteries. Harry's hand seized up around it and he couldn't have released it if he'd wanted to, a narrow beam of light connecting the two wands. The linked spellfire was neither red nor green, but a deep, bright gold. Harry, following the beam with his astonished gaze, saw that Tam's long supple fingers too were gripping a wand that was shaking and vibrating.
She did not look taken aback, not in the least.
The moment Harry's feet felt as though they were about to be lifted from the ground, the connection was broken, and rolling to the side he fired off a powerful 'Confringo' which was met by yet another 'Expelliarmus' to much the same effect.
"Expulso!" ... "Expelliarmus!"
"Zbax!" ... "Expelliarmus!"
"Pupugi!" ... "Expelliarmus!"
"Gods fucking damn it!" Harry shouted from the floor. "You've cursed my wand you bastard!"
Tam actually had the balls to chuckle at his language, as he was forced to stop overpowering his hexes or risk another of those damn changeovers.
"I have not cursed your wand Harry."
"Yes you have. Look..."
"Stupefy!" ... "Expelliarmus!"
"See," accused Harry. "Cursed!"
"It's not cursed," explained Tam with a sigh, "This is the reason I am so set on helping you rather than just vanishing into obscurity for a few years."
"Uh‑huh, sure. If it is not cursed, what is going on? ... Crucio!"
"Expelliarmus! ... Our wands share a common wand core, both taken from Albus Dumbledore's phoenix Fawkes. I spoke to Ollivander and before I obliviated him he told me about this brother wand effect. And through Legilimency I learned that you already knew of the connection."
Thinking back to when he was eleven and the creepy man Tam was talking about, Harry remembered the conversation. "There is a strange effect? ... Reducto!"
"Expelliarmus! ... It is called Priori Incantatem, or the reverse spell effect. If we make the two wands fight it will show each of us the last spells the wands have performed. Essentially they cannot be used against one another effectively."
Hmm, that really is strange.
Harry pondered this, idly shouting the incantation for Hoarfrost and once more being shot down with a disarming spell.
"Please stop trying to curse me Harry, if you will notice I have not attempted to attack you even once since I brought you here."
"You said that this was the reason you wanted to switch sides rather than vanish into obscurity?" Harry eventually asked, cautiously returning to his feet.
Careful not to let her guard down and wary of any wandless attack, Tam explained, "Indeed. Our magic being so well matched that the two of us essentially share a wand is... intriguing. Magic can be funny like that sometimes, and synchronicities such as you and I being unable to fight with our primary wands is the kind of thing which screams: 'Pay Attention: This is Important!'"
"So you are saying that you believe you were sort of destined to help me defeat Voldemort?" Harry asked in a tone which clearly expressed how dubious he found this idea.
Taking the question more seriously than Harry thought it deserved, Tam couldn't help being reminded of last night's unfortunate bout of melodrama. "I would not have put it in those terms," she sort of half lied, "but I do think the two of us are not meant to fight. And furthermore I feel it is partially my responsibility to rid the world of what my other self became."
"Okay. But you know that I don't really care about fighting Voldemort? I even gave a speech yesterday telling the country they could go fuck themselves, and that I'd only help if I got some pretty extensive hazard pay out of the deal."
"I did not in fact know of this."
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Later that evening the two were walking side by side on a trip back to Hogwarts Castle, with Harry and the viper Nagini having gotten into an extended argument. Apparently there were a number of swearwords that could only be spoken in parsel, and while they did not translate well into English, Harry found himself quite outmatched by the smug slithering bitch.
"I don't like your snake Tam." Harry informed her with an air that the fact was never going to change.
Shaking her mane of red hair she just said, "You started it, it is hardly Nagini's fault that she has had thirty years more time to learn swearwords than you have."
"I wish I could talk to my owl. Hedwig is one of the cleverest people in the castle, if I could talk to her that would be awesome. At least my familiar is cooler than yours!"
"You think a common owl is superior to such a majestic animal as my snake?"
"Bah, common my arse. Hedwig is the best." Looking up Harry pointed. "See? Here she comes now, I bet she knew we were talking about her."
As the snowy owl alighted to the raven haired boy's arm she looked imperiously over at her owner's companion. She nodded once which Harry felt was a good sign, and then glared down at the snake, which Harry felt was an even better sign.
"What did I tell you? Hedwig knows the score."
Not four heartbeats later the red envelope she was carrying exploded, and the air for a mile around was given the pleasure of experiencing the bellowed shouts of both Hermione Granger and Sirius Black.
"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE PLAING AT? YOU CANNOT JUST DUMP BELLATRIX LESTRANGE IN THE HOSPITAL WING AND THEN LEAVE THE CASTLE WITHOUT TELLING ANYONE! YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE ALMOST DIED TODAY HARRY POTTER!"
It went on in that vein for a while before vanishing in a puff of smoke. Tamsyn Riddle eventually asked the question, "Lestrange? What did you do Harry?"
Harry slowly ran his hand through his hair before he answered.
"I knew I was supposed to be doing something this morning."
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Author notes and review responses for each update are linked on my profile. "The Riddle Chapter" is one you might want to read. There's around a thousand words of magical theory and speculation regarding the oddities and character of Tamsyn Riddle which couldn't and didn't make its way into the main body of the story.
Acknowledgement: While nonjon's 'A Black Comedy' was clearly an influence, and was totally awesome, a fair bit of this timeline was cribbed from a oneshot by BajaB "Badger Bee" titled 'Fair Trade'
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