Edited 9/11/22


Four

Mary Margaret Riddle

Although it was now September the sun was still high and hot at noon. Harry crouched in the shadow of the boathouse with his wand in one hand and a mallet in the other, a frown stiff on his face. He wasn't sure if it was stiff from the heat, or his confusion on how best to mend the rowboats, or from Arabella's warning—"I wouldn't go telling my sister any of this, Mr. Potter—just keep to our story."

Harry fingered the little brass key at his neck. The woman had allowed him to keep it, should he need to retreat to somewhere safe, and had looked at him with such sorrow when he departed that Harry was convinced that he might use it sometime if only to cheer her up a touch.

He had found that Arabella Dumbledore was strikingly dissimilar from Aberforth Dumbledore, and yet… the same. She was as unkind with her neatness as Aberforth was unapologetically grungy, and she had a fondness for people where Aberforth could have happily been the last man alive on earth. But just like the goat-loving fellow, Arabella did not like to show her affection. Harry could tell that she cared for her family by the way she spoke and how her eyes crinkled. By the end of his tale, that gruff affection had transferred, somewhat, to him. He figured that was why he could not convince the woman that Aurelia Dumbledore might have any good left in her simply because Harry's Professor Dumbledore had turned out to be a decent man.

"They're all taken in by it, but don't you be," Arabella had said. "They love how magnificent and talented she is, how noble her countenance—as though that's enough to ignore that if not for little Albus she'd be right out there with Grindelwald trying to subjugate the world. Burning it all down to rebuild it in their image." Her blue eyes had become dagger-sharp by the end. "Courage and daring are well and good, Mr. Potter—when they're aimed properly—but my sister doesn't know a thing about honor. Or shame."

Harry couldn't imagine it, really, a Professor Dumbledore who he could not confide in, who wouldn't have the right answers for his problems. It was unsettling to picture her as Arabella described. Harry had known Albus Dumbledore towards the end of his long life, after he'd become Headmaster of Hogwarts School, defeated the dark wizard Grindelwald, and fought the Dark Lord Voldemort—after he'd helped Harry to avoid all of the mistakes that he himself had made.

What could he hope for if this new Professor Dumbledore stood in his way? Or if she refused to help him and sent him away from Hogwarts upon finding out that Harry had accepted his new position under false pretenses? He couldn't fathom having to fight against any sort of Dumbledore, man or woman.

Harry gripped his mallet and conjured a bit more of the fiber stuffing that Headmaster Dippet had said was good for mending seams in the rowboats. His frown deepened.

Harry had hung his robes on a peg inside the boathouse and the sun was crisping the hair on his arms. It was nothing that he wasn't used to; his skin was already dark and tanned from being out in the wild these past years. And he didn't much mind having work to do. Chores were often an opportunity to disconnect his mind from all the problems he had swirling about in his head. But there were more problems than normal now, and the warm sun was just making the soup pot under his skull boil over.

"And he's a bloody girl, too," Harry muttered harshly, banging the fiber caulk into a gap in one of the boat's hulls. "Everyone's a bloody woman here. I just don't under—" He stuck his wand in his teeth and hauled the boat over to the water. He spat his wand into his hand again. "—don't understand it. Why couldn't he have sent me to a place where everyone was kittens or garden gnomes?"

If meeting Arabella and learning that Professor Dumbledore was a woman wasn't enough of a shock, when the barmaid had told him that Tom Riddle wasn't Tom Riddle here, either, Harry had felt like he was seven years old again and Dudley had dared him to stick the carving fork into the wall socket—electrified and burnt black.

Arabella had not lied when she'd announced that she had seen most of the Hogwarts crowd at one time or another; they all came through the village exploring, she explained, when they reached their third year and were turned loose upon Hogsmeade village.

Granted, Arabella didn't know names very well, but she remembered a pale girl called Riddle visiting her tavern a few times. She did not remember any boys called Riddle. It was much too much for Harry to hope that she was wrong and the would-be Dark Lord wasn't an adolescent girl.

He grunted and levitated another boat over from the dry dock, then set to inspecting it. This one, too, had dried out, and there were small gaps in the hull where lake water could leak in. The varnish was crackled and runny. He stumped over to the tools bin set against the wall and dug out a tub of Eckelby's Finest Magical Boat Varnish—guaranteed to last a century. Apparently old Ogg had taken Eckelby at his word.

Harry prised the lid off the tub and grabbed up a brush from the bin.

Lord Voldemort was a girl.

It would have been something spectacular if Voldemort wasn't an evil girl. She might be a pleasant, studious, normal child. If so, Harry could spend his time tending the gardens and mending broken unicorn hooves instead of killing Basilisks and nannying a tyrant for the rest of his life. He felt guilty for hoping it, but he hoped it nonetheless.

It was nearing dusk by the time Harry had his armada shipshape and floating in the Black Lake. With a wave of his wand, he set them wafting away for the cove near Hogsmeade Station. He dusted his hands, fastened his keyring to his trousers, and scoured his face with a quick charm.

There was still work to be done before the first years arrived, but he figured he should at least make himself presentable. For many of them, Harry would be the first member of the Hogwarts staff they met. There was a curious sort of joy in that. Yes, he—Harry Potter—was a member of the Hogwarts staff.

The castle grounds waited empty under the orange glow of the castle windows as he walked from the boathouse through the gardens and into the Forbidden Forest where his makeshift Thestral paddock waited at the fringe.

He'd collected the skeletal horses the previous evening in preparation. Having been used to how well-trained Hagrid had kept the herd, Harry was surprised at how difficult they had been to track down and wrangle. But here they were, fifty-two huge, black-winged horses, pawing the loam and tossing him baleful milky-white looks.

"It won't be so bad I reckon," he told them. "I know it's not like gamboling about through the forest, but you've got to do it. Look, I've got something for you—" Harry raised his wand and summoned a few buckets of entrails and offal from near his cabin. They came zooming through the branches and skittered to a halt near his ramshackle paddock gate.

"Now," he said, "everyone who wants a treat, follow after me."

The offal seemed to be a worthy enough prize, for when Harry levitated the buckets and opened the gate, the Thestrals lined up in a neat procession. He paused to level a serious look at the lead horse. It was as if they had known all along what they were required to do. Harry snorted, then clapped a hand against the flank of the bony horse.

"I've been fooled, haven't I?" he said.

The Thestral echoed his snort with its own and lowered its dragonish head to regard him through clouded eyes. Its lips curled back to reveal sharp, angled teeth. Harry shook his head, patted it again, and conducted the buckets forward, out of the forest and down the drive, where the Hogwarts carriages waited.

Harry lit the lamps on the black carriages and let the Thestrals snack on their treat as he connected their harnesses.

The evening had fallen completely by this point, and he could hear the low grumbly echo of the Hogwarts Express on the distant track. He hooked the Thestrals to their carriages, two each, and directed them towards the station. They lowered their long, bumpy black necks and trotted away. Harry watched them for a moment, grinning with no small amount of pride at their good work, then he swatted at his hair in a vain attempt to get it in order and strode off for Hogsmeade Station.

The night sky was a clear purple above Scotland, so Harry could easily see the gray clouds trailing away under the breeze as the red steam engine approached its destination.

Then a surge of nervousness came shooting through his gut and stiffened his neck. How would he gather the first years? Hagrid had been so large that he could peer over the crowd to snatch them all up, and when Professor Grubbly-Plank had covered his duties she'd brought along a huge lantern to call attention to herself. Harry was just standing on the platform at normal human height without a tool of any kind.

He scrambled for his wand, just as the train docked, and touched the tip to his throat. "Sonorus!"

The engine let off a whistle and blew a bit of steam off through its valves. After a moment, the doors on the train cars slid open and students started to pour from within. From his place at the top of the platform, Harry could see that the prefects were around, at least, and were guiding the students as they swarmed towards the carriages. He caught sight of a few tiny children, wrapped oddly in their new robes, wands out and gripped tightly their in hands, scurrying after a group of older children.

Hurriedly, Harry called, "First years!" His loudened voice boomed across the platform. The swarm froze, the students turning their attention to him. "First years! This way!" he called again.

The older students quickly seemed to realize what he was up to and took up their conversations again, making for the carriages and the Thestrals. A handful of them were definitely gesturing back at him as they went, though. Not to be deterred, Harry jabbed his wand into the air and let off a shower of red and gold sparks. "First years! Over here, you lot!"

"Wow!" came a voice near his midsection. "I can do sparks as well, but not nearly as many, or so bright!"

Harry glanced down.

A skinny girl wearing her mousy brown hair in a much too tight bun was staring up at him with wide eyes. She clutched a cage containing a large white vulture to her chest.

"Oh! Er, hello there—" Still magically amplified, his voice shot out over the platform, and a riot of giggles rippled through the crowd. Harry resisted the temptation to groan. With one last cry of, "First years! First years, over here!" he dispelled his charm and peered down at the girl. She was bouncing from toe to heel, watching him closely.

"Hello there," said Harry, "sorry about that. This is my first year—"

"Mine, too," chirped the girl. She fumbled with her cage and stuck a hand out. "I'm Augusta Portlock, Professor."

"Oh, I'm not a professor," said Harry, his ears going warm. "I'm, er... I'm the Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts." He took her small hand. "Harry Potter."

Augusta mouthed 'Keeper of Keys' and shook his hand giddily. "My mum never lets me do any spells or study any books. She says I'm too eager and it isn't proper for a girl to be so forward-thinking, Mr. Potter. Can you do the sparks again?" She grinned up at him. "Those were Gryffindor colors. Are you in Gryffindor house, Mr. Potter? This is Doris by the way, she's an Egyptian Vulture. I got her as a birthday gift. She's nine months old." Augusta held up her cage so that Harry could see the vulture's black beady eyes. "I'm going to be in Gryffindor. My whole family has been, you know."

This time Harry did groan.

Had he been so excitable as a first year?

Harry looked at her again. "All right," he said with a sigh. "Here." He raised his wand again, but this time shot off a stream of blue and bronze sparks, and then some bright yellow and purple-black ones. He wrinkled his face but fired finally fired off a volley of green and silver.

Augusta looked like she might burst from excitement. "Those are all of them!" she said. "Blue for Ravenclaw and yellow for Hufflepuff and green for—"

"Slytherin," came a new voice.

Harry's eyes went as wide as Augusta Portlock's before he managed to gather his composure.

Two girls, in their later years at Hogwarts from the look of them, had gathered the first years up behind them and came to stand before Harry on the platform. Two small prefect badges twinkled in the foggy light of the station lamps. Twin Slytherin patches had been sewn on their robes. The shorter girl had a gently pretty face, and soft black hair, and was blushing slightly. She was holding hands with one of the first year boys. She didn't stand quite straight and was staring, Harry thought, intently at his chin. It was her companion, though, the other girl, that had thrown him.

She was Tom Riddle.

Harry knew it immediately.

The girl wasn't tall, no more than average, but she stood as though she could look down on a giant. Harry did not think it was a pompous stance, however. He'd seen it too many times for that. It was confidence, blind assurance.

The girl Riddle's face was nothing like Lord Voldemort's—yet. It was well enough proportioned, and striking, like an old marble figure—not at all gentle or... pretty, like her companion's. Riddle held her wand in one hand; the other hung freely at her side. She hadn't stuffed it into her robes or hidden her fingers in a fist. They were casual and loose, but somehow bold. And her eyes were locked onto his, not yet red, but raincloud gray, dimly reflecting the orange light from the lamps.

Riddle did not look away as Harry met her gaze. In fact, she seemed stimulated by it, because just as he was about to look away, she stepped in line with little Augusta and extended her hand.

Harry was suddenly terrified and captivated at once.

Her hand was cool and dry, but firm.

"You've replaced Mr. Ogg," said the girl Riddle. "Welcome to Hogwarts, Mr...?"

"Harry Potter," said Harry, loosing her hand.

"Mary Margaret Riddle," she matched. There was some odd display of power in the way she offered Harry her name. Riddle turned her head slightly—a bare motion—towards her companion. "My friend here is Walburga Black."

And Harry's heart stopped. He knew that name... this girl was... she was Sirius's mother? Memories of the hard-faced howling portrait at Grimmauld place came boiling forth. This girl, cowed and standing meekly behind the future Dark Lord was... he couldn't make sense of it. As Harry watched her, Walburga blushed scarlet.

"Hello, Mr. Potter," she said softly. "We're prefects—"

"I'm sure you've noticed that we're prefects, Mr. Potter," Mary Riddle broke in over top. Her eyes gleamed as she noticed Harry's gaze linger on Sirius's mother still mumbling quietly. "We've gathered the first years for you. Though the sparks were a nice touch."

Mary Riddle smiled at him without any teeth, and Harry was certain that smile had stolen the heart of every Professor who had ever encountered this girl. With her head slightly angled, her cheeks barely dimpled, and wavy dark hair falling forward as she leaned closer to him, he was certain there was no child at Hogwarts more charming—or chilling.

"Yes, far more suitable than Mr. Ogg's ratty old drum," continued Riddle, tucking one stray lock of hair behind her ear.

"Drum?" said Harry blankly, following her pale fingers down her neck and around to her throat.

"Oh dear," said Riddle. "My apologies, I've assumed too much." Her smile widened a touch. "I was certain that all of the Hogwarts alumni were familiar with old Mr. Ogg's welcoming drum."

"Maybe he hasn't gone to Hogwarts?" offered Walburga, stepping forward but still remaining just behind the taller girl. The first year she'd been guiding came along with her. "There are other schools, Mary..."

"Yes, of course," said Riddle gently, turning to her companion. "Why don't you wait by the carriages, Walburga? I'll be along in a moment. Mr. Potter will have to take the first years across soon enough."

"Yeah," said Harry, noting the barest flash of irritation twitch across Riddle's lips. "I will." He smiled at Sirius's mum. "But you don't have to go anywhere, I'll be off in a second." Willfully, he turned away from Mary Riddle and bent to look at the child standing beside Walburga. He looked like he'd been crying, his eyes were puffy and his face was slightly dusty—like he'd been shoved under a bench on the train. His robes were a little too large at the sleeves, and Harry could barely see the tip of his wand held tightly in his fist. "What's your name then, sir?"

"Cornelius," sniffed the boy.

Harry reached out to ruffle the boy's fine blonde hair. "Come along, then, Cornelius. I'll show you to the boats."

"Boats!" crowed Augusta, barreling into the boy. "I want to see the boats, too! Are they enchanted? My mum said—"

"No one cares what your mum said!" shouted Cornelius without warning, breaking away from Walburga and shoving Augusta away. "All bloody day, my mum said this! Don't do that! Sit over here! Don't get those. You don't know everything!"

"You shut up, Corny!" snapped Augusta, rattling her vulture in its cage. "I was just trying to help you!"

"I don't need any help!" said Cornelius. "I'll figure it out for myself!"

"Is that why you're all dirty and you've got two Slytherins helping you?" Augusta shot back. "Is that what you want? To be a Slytherin?" She stamped her foot. "I've told you that I'm going to be in Gryffindor."

Harry was flummoxed. He straightened up as the two first years quarreled. Behind the prefects, the other first years had started to push forward, and he heard a garbled tumult of, "Slytherin? Raven—Hufflepuff—No Gryffin—Claw?"

"Overwhelmed?" asked Riddle.

"Not in the least," grumbled Harry. He stepped away from the Slytherin prefect and raised his wand again; instead of sparks, though, he let off one thunderous BANG! that rattled the hanging lanterns and instantly silenced the children.

"First years!" he said. "Follow me."

Harry lit his wand with a murmur and held it overhead like a beacon. He cast a glance over his shoulder at Mary Riddle and Walburga Black as the first years surged around them. "Unless you two fancy a ride across the lake?"

Walburga flushed, shaking her head, and spun to face the way back to the carriages.

Riddle just stood watching. Then she grinned, this time with teeth, sharply white—Gilderoy Lockhart white. But not perfect. Harry saw that one tooth, just below her front two was slightly out of line.

"We'll see you at the feast then, Mr. Potter," said Mary Riddle. "I think this year will be delightful, don't you?"

Harry didn't answer. He turned away, wand aloft, leading his first years down to the rowboats.

"Come along, Cornelius," hissed Augusta, hurrying to catch up. "We'll want to be in the same boat as him, just in case the squid is about."

"There's no squid!" said Cornelius, dragging his feet behind him. He raised one long-sleeved arm to rub at his face. "Those boys were just trying to frighten us."

Harry snorted. "They were trying to spook you, I reckon," he told the boy. "But—"

"See!"

"Well, everything can't be true," said Augusta begrudgingly. "But I'm right about all of the other things."

Harry stopped as they reached the cove where the fleet of rowboats waited along the quay. The Black Lake sparkled under the starlight. Beyond the far shore, the towers and spires of Hogwarts castle rose on the hill, all of its windows aglow. He smiled at the gasp that went trembling through the assembly of new wizards.

"No more than four to a boat," called Harry, after a moment. "And make sure to keep all of your limbs inside."

At the center of the lake, one giant translucent tentacle broke through the surface.

"The squid!" breathed Augusta, "But Mr. Potter you said—"

"I said I reckon they were trying to frighten you." Harry winked at the two first years as they clambered onto the final rowboat. "The squid is real. But he's not so bad."

"Are there other monsters here?" asked Cornelius, sliding close.

"Of course there are," said Augusta, leaning over the edge of the boat to stare out at the castle.

"Not you," said Cornelius. "I wasn't asking you." He looked up at Harry. "Are there? More monsters?"

Harry cast a glance back the way they had come, then swept his gaze out along the drive that circled the lake and the grounds, watching the Thestrals pull their carriages up to the castle. Mary Margaret Riddle was in one of them, and his luck had gone just the way it always had. She was going to open the Chamber of Secrets; he knew it.

"Yeah," said Harry at last. "There are more monsters."