Disclaimer: I do not own HP or SM.
Note: Remember that the horcruxes don't exist in this story. Slughorn has not come to replace Snape and Snape's not the DADA teacher. The DADA teacher isn't really important because you'll never see him/her. Let's just say it's a relative of one of the people whose memories Lockhart played with. However, I think I'll keep Dumbledore showing bits of Tom's past to Harry. They'll be a little different though. Dumbledore doesn't come to get him. Tom got his Hogwarts letter. Remember in the first chapter Tom states in his diary that he hopes this isn't some joke? He got a letter just like the other kids.
Mere Memory 11
Tom's Plan
Harry returned to the common room after a lesson with Dumbledore. Mina greeted him by rubbing against his legs.
"Hi, Vee," Harry murmured, bending down to pick her up. He sat down in a comfy chair and she settled in his lap. Harry stroked her yellow-orange fur and sighed. "Dumbledore showed me another memory about Riddle when he was at Hogwarts. It was his head of house, Slughorn. I wished we had him in potions instead of Snape."
Mina purred. She heard plenty of the homework and grief Snape had given Harry. Harry stroked her behind the ears.
"Slughorn's talking to Riddle about careers," Harry explained, "Slughorn said Riddle would be great in the Ministry but Riddle wasn't interested in that. He wanted to come back to Hogwarts and teach instead….Voldemort as a teacher…I can't imagine that."
Harry sighed again. "I don't know why Dumbledore is showing me these memories of Riddle. The lessons are interesting but…how is this supposed to help me stop him?"
Mina meowed and licked his hand. She didn't know either but she wanted to be there with Harry the next time Harry had to face Voldemort.
Tom told Serena he had a plan and asked her to schedule a scout meeting. Again, the scouts were surprised that Serena called one a second time, to Tom's suggestion.
"Thanks for coming guys," Serena said once everyone had made it. She was sitting close by the campfire next to Darien. They were holding hands.
Because Darien was sitting next to Serena and it made him insanely jealous, Tom was standing as far as he could, leaning against the wall. If Darien hadn't come…Tom and Serena would still be close…they'd be holding hands right now.
Serena nodded to Tom. "Tom asked me to call this meeting. He said he had a plan."
"You do?" Darien asked.
"Yes, I do," Tom said, narrowing his eyes. "I say we go to England before Voldemort and his followers come here looking for me."
"What?" Trista asked.
"If I wait here," said Tom, "someone else might get hurt. I don't know what Voldemort is up too. Will he send someone to come and find me? I don't want to wait and find out. But I'm certain he doesn't expect us to come to him. We can find out where he is and stop him together."
"I think Tom's right," Lita said, punching her fist into her open palm. "Offense is the best defense!"
"When do we go?" Ami asked.
"Winter break," said Serena, "it's the perfect time."
"Can we really find Voldemort in two weeks?" Raye asked.
"We can if we look hard enough," Tom stated. "You all don't have to come if you don't want to…" he looked over in Darien's direction.
"If Serena's going," said Amara, "we're coming too."
"All right," said Tom, nodding. "Thank you."
After the meeting, Serena and Tom convinced Serena's parents into going with Tom to England. It wasn't too hard for Tom as manipulating people was one of his strong points. The group wondered where they were going to stay. Tom had that problem worked out. They were going to stay in The Riddle House.
Little Hangleton was quiet as Tom and the others walked through the small village up to the great hill.
"How did you know of this place, Tom?" Serena asked.
"Sometimes I snuck away from the orphanage to visit Little Hangleton," Tom lied, "we tried to break into the big house up at that hill."
Tom stopped and pointed at the Riddle House.
"Looks like it's haunted," muttered Raye.
"That's because the whole village thinks it is," Tom said with a grin. "A family was murdered in this house fifty years ago. No one knows who did it. My friends and I liked to dare each other who could get the closest to it. I was the only one brave enough to go inside."
"You went inside?" Serena asked in shock.
"Yeah," said Tom. "I wanted to see what it looked like inside. I wonder if it's still the same."
"Why are we staying in a house that's possibly haunted?" Amara inquired as they started walking toward it.
"So no one will know where we are," Tom answered. "Nobody comes over here. We'll be able to work without interruption."
Hotaru clanked over at the graveyard. "These people lived near a graveyard?"
"Yes," said Tom, "unusual place for a big house like this, isn't it?"
They walked up to the front door and Tom pulled out a paper clip from his pocket. He stretched it out and stuck it into the lock. Alahomora! Tom shouted in his mind and just like he had a wand, the lock slid back into the door. Tom opened the door and stepped inside, the others right behind him.
"Needs a little work," said Lita, sniffing the air.
"I'm sure if we all tackle it together," Serena said, "we'd get it straightened up."
"We need to get some supplies," said Tom, "I'll go and get them. Serena, would you like to come with me?"
"Sure," said Serena and she looked at Darien. "Coming Darien?"
"Of course," Darien said. Tom frowned. He was hoping to get to be alone with Serena and instead Darien was going to tag along with him.
"You don't mind do you, Tom?" Darien questioned.
"Of course not," Tom forced out. "I guess I could use the extra set of hands."
"I'll go too," Amara volunteered.
"All right," said Tom, "let's go."
When Tom and the others left to buy supplies, everyone else spread out to clean the house. There was at least two inches of dust on everything in the house. As Raye and Lita dusted, Michelle and Ami cleaned the sheets of all the beds. The cleaning agents were too old and expired to do a deep clean. They had to wait until Tom, Serena, Darien and Amara returned with more supplies to do a more thorough clean.
"Hey, look at this," said Lita as she picked up a framed picture off the wall. "This young man looks a lot like Tom, doesn't he?"
Raye walked over to Lita. The man in the picture was riding on a horse. He had features that looked identical to Tom's.
"Wow, it does!" Raye said. "I bet that's his father."
"But why would Tom bring us to his father's house?" Lita wondered. "Doesn't make a lot of sense. Did he stay with his father for a while? He told us he was an orphan."
"Yeah, it was kind of strange," Raye said, "but he said he was the only one brave enough to get in here. Maybe it's because he knew this was his father's house. Perhaps he was looking for something that belonged to him."
"You mean, he might have stolen something?" Lita asked.
Raye shrugged. "I don't know. We'll ask him when he gets back."
Tom and the others decided to split on the groceries. Serena and Darien got food, Amara got cleaning supplies and dishes and Tom got extra bedding, toiletries and towels. A few people looked at Tom closely. Though it had been fifty years, everyone knew the story of the Riddles and what they all looked like. Tom was a splitting image of the late Tom Riddle Sr. and ever time they saw him, they thought he was a ghost.
Tom was feeling anxious. How he was going to find the Death Eaters without letting Serena and the others think he knew too much? He was trying to make it look like he was going to stop Voldemort while he was trying to find his older self. This was more complicated than he thought. Darien was to blame. If he had just remained in America, Tom and Serena would be seeing each other by now.
"Got everything?" Amara asked Tom as she found him staring at the towels.
"What?" Tom turned and looked at her. "Oh, yes, just about."
Tom grabbed a couple of towels and put them into his cart. He and Amara joined Darien and Serena at the check out. Tom's insides churned. It bothered the hell out of him to see them together. He had to do whatever it took to end their relationship.
"Ready?" Serena said, "let's go home and eat. I'm starved."
"Yes," Tom replied, smiling warmly, "let's."
When they returned back to the Riddle House, Lita took the cleaning supplies they had bought and gave the kitchen and bathrooms a good hard scrub. Lita was in her element. She always wanted to clean a large house like this. Her old apartment wasn't a challenge anymore. Though Raye and the others were helping her, they couldn't seem to keep up with Lita's speed. Darien and Serena were cleaning the living room together, looking far too happy for Tom to stand.
"I think I'll go and clean the gardens," said Tom.
"But it's the middle of winter," Ami said after him.
Tom did not reply as he stepped back into the cold. He walked over the graveyard and was surprised to see Hotaru there.
"Hello," said Hotaru, "how is the house cleaning going?"
"Pretty well," Tom said.
"I thought I'd take a walk," Hotaru said softly, "the grounds are really pretty, even with the graveyard."
"Yes, they are," Tom agreed.
They passed the grave of Tom Riddle Sr. Tom felt a strange sensation in his gut. He never visited his father's grave before. After killing his father and grandparents, he never set foot in Little Hangleton again. Tom wasn't sure how to feel. Hotaru noticed his line of vision and looked at the tombstone.
"Thomas Riddle?" she asked, turning her face to Tom's. "Is this…your father's grave?"
Tom sighed. "Yes, I think so. I was told that I was named after my father."
Hotaru approached the grave and touched the tombstone. She gasped. "How…strange…"
"What's the matter?" Tom asked.
"This grave is empty."
"Empty, how?" Tom inquired, slightly unnerved. "It's a marked grave. They couldn't just forget to bury the body."
"Well, it seems like it was inhabited," said Hotaru, "but the grave was disturbed. Perhaps they moved the body."
Tom's stomach turned and he backed up. The grave was empty? How could that happen? Did his father rise from the dead? Tom had to be sure.
Tom didn't say much at dinner. Raye and Lita asked him about the picture of Tom Riddle Sr. Tom glanced at the picture and said it was possible the man in the picture could've been his father. When everyone went to sleep, Tom remained in his bed, pondering. He couldn't sleep. He kept thinking about what Hotaru had said about his father's grave being empty. He knew she was the scout of death so he did not doubt her ability. She should sense where a dead body was. Tom sat up in bed and tossed the covers off him. Still, he had to be sure.
Careful not to wake anyone else, he tiptoed out of the house and trekked to the gardener's house. He removed a shovel from the shed and walked to the cemetery. He stopped at his father's grave.
"You'd better still be buried here," he muttered, "I wanted you to remain cold and dead in the ground so you'd be like mother. You were the one that should have died…not her."
Tom grunted and started digging through the snow and earth. It wasn't an easy task. He hadn't done much manual labor when he was growing up and he spent the last fifty years in a book with nothing to do. He was a wizard and he didn't have to do physical work to get things done. Eventually Tom's muscles grew tired but he could not stop. He had to see for himself if his father was still buried here. He dug for more than an hour. The shovel hit something hard and Tom knew it was the casket. He tossed the shovel back and he bent down onto the casket, brushing the dirt around. He put his fingers under the lid. He gulped and prepared himself for what ever he would find inside. He pulled the lid up slowly. It seemed so heavy. Tom peered inside.
All he could see in the casket were burial clothes and the white soft inside of the casket. Hotaru was right. The body of Tom Riddle Sr. was not here. Tom slammed the lid shut and climbed out of the hole.
"No," Tom muttered, "this can't be…can't be happening!"
How could the body be removed? Who did this? Why? Did his father become a zombie? A vampire? Tom's head was swimming. His stomach was turning. He couldn't get his head around it. It made no sense. His father WAS dead. He had killed them. Everyone in the village knew he was dead and Tom knew that there was no counter curse for the Killing Curse. With all these emotions raging inside him, he got so nervous that he got sick. He cleaned out his stomach behind the gravestone and fell backward into the snow. It was the first time he got sick like that in a long, long time. In a moment his stomach felt better and he pushed the dirt back into the hole. He had to get back before the others realized he was gone. He swaggered back to the house, nearly tripping over his own feet. He felt like he was going to lose his mind. He remembered learning about inferi, corpses used with dark magic to do a dark wizard's bidding. Perhaps his future self turned his father into an inferi? That really made no sense. Why would Voldemort do that? There were plenty of corpses he could've used.
Tom pulled off his shoes at the door and tiptoed back to his room. He removed its wet and muddy clothes, threw them in a heap in the corner and grabbed another set of pajamas to sleep in. Shivering, he crawled into bed. He felt so cold. His stomach still hurt. It was nearly dawn when he finally fell asleep.
Tom wasn't the only person having a rough night. Mina stayed with Harry as he spent the Christmas Holidays at the Burrow with the Weasleys. She slept curled up at the foot of Harry's bed. There were some nights where she did not feel like sleeping and she wanted to roam around. Mina bounded off Harry's bed and walked down the hall. She liked being a cat. She could see just fine in the dark. As Mina passed Ginny's room, she heard her muttering in her sleep.
"No, Tom," Ginny was pleading, "I don't want to do it. Please don't make me do it."
"A nightmare?" Mina wondered out loud, entering Ginny's room and walking next to her bed. Ginny was tossing and turning. Mina could see her red head dampened with sweat. She looked pale and scared.
"Please…no more, Tom…I thought you were my friend."
"Tom," Mina mumbled, "Tom Riddle?"
Mina knew all about Tom. Harry had told her everything as if he knew she was human. Of course, Mina really was a human but Harry didn't know that. Harry told her how Tom manipulated Ginny into opening the chamber of secrets. He told her how he had found Ginny almost dead. It had been more than two years ago but the memory of Tom still haunted Ginny. He was more than just a mere memory…he was a tragic nightmare. Mina hated Tom for that and she had never met him.
Mina jumped onto Ginny's bed and meowed softly, pushing onto her stomach with her paw. "Wake up, Ginny, you're having a nightmare."
Mina gasped. She didn't mean to speak out loud.
Ginny woke up and saw Mina sitting next to her. "Oh, Vee," she whispered, sitting up and stroking her orange fur. "Come to visit me?"
Mina purred.
"I was having a nightmare," said Ginny sadly. "I dreamed about Tom and all the awful things he made me do. I know he's long gone but sometimes I still feel him possessing me time to time. Sometimes I think he's not really gone. I try to forget about it…but it's so hard. I was so stupid to trust him."
Ginny laid back down and Mina placed both her paws on Ginny's arm sympathetically. If only there was something to do to ease the girl's troubled mind.
"Tom! Tom!" Serena called. "We're going to go work on our mission today and we need your help. Tom?"
Serena entered Tom's room and found him still asleep. She put her hand on his shoulder.
"Tom, are you okay?"
Tom groaned and blinked a couple of times. Serena looked so fuzzy. "Serena?"
"You don't look so well," Serena said and she placed her hand on his head. "You're burning up!"
"I'll be all right," said Tom, trying to sit up. He pushed the covers back and got to his feet. His legs gave out and Serena caught him.
"Tom!" Serena exclaimed. "You're far too sick to be out. You stay here. We'll go talk to Mina."
"But you need…my help…"
"It's okay," said Serena, "when Mina joins us you can tell us what we know. We'll search for these Death Eaters together."
Serena set Tom back in bed. "I can't have you getting sick. I'll ask Ami to look after you."
"You don't have to do that," said Tom.
"It's no trouble," Serena said with a smile. "Ami's preparing to become a doctor. She can use the practice."
"All right," Tom mumbled.
Ami was happy to look after Tom while the others went to meet with Mina. Ami took his temperature and revealed that Tom had a fever of a 101. She kept a cold wet cloth on his hot forehead and a bucket next to his bed in case he felt like he was going to be sick. Ami made him chicken soup and gave him medicine to make him feel better.
"How long do you think Serena and the others are going to be gone?" Tom inquired when Ami brought him more soup.
"I can't say for sure," Ami answered, "few hours maybe."
"I'm sorry," said Tom, "I feel like such a burden. I bring you all the way out here and I become too sick to help you."
"It's no trouble," said Ami, "after all, it's us that is helping you. Eat up and get some rest."
"Thank you, Ami," Tom said.
It was a surprise for Mina when her communicator started going off. Even as a cat, she was able to hear it as if it was still on her wrist. Problem was, she was with Harry when her communicator started beeping. He looked at his cat.
"Vee…are you…beeping?"
Mina bounced away from him and through the window. When she was a ways from the Burrow, she changed back into a human and looked at her communicator.
"Mina here," she said, "what's up?"
"Mina, what took you so long to answer?" Serena demanded.
"Sorry!" Mina replied. "I had to find a private spot."
"Well, we're in England we need to talk," said Serena, "where can we meet you?"
"England?" Mina cried. "You're here?"
"Yes, it's a long story," said Serena, "we'll explain everything in person. Where are you?"
"Well, I'm in Devon. Where are you?"
"Um, I'm not too sure," said Serena, "we're staying in a village called Little Hangleton."
"Little Hangleton? That sounds so familiar…"
"I think we're in Sussex," Darien said over Serena's shoulder.
"Right," said Mina, "meet me in London then. At the London Eye. I'll take the earliest train I can get."
"Got it," said Serena, "see you soon."
Click.
Mina closed her communicator watch and turned back around to be face to face with Harry. "H-Harry!" Mina cried.
"Vee—why didn't you tell me you were an animagus?" Harry demanded.
Mina frowned. She had a feeling she was going to be a little late to her meeting with the other scouts. How was she supposed to explain this to Harry?
TO BE CONCLUDED Yes, one chapter left! But I assume it's going to be the longest out of them all.
