Chapter 13 - Tom Riddle, Sr.
"Will you stop fidgeting, Lizzie!" Petunia hissed from the driver's seat. Lizzie tried her best to freeze but still felt like there was a jumping rabbit in her skin. "Stop it! I'm not letting you drink that stuff anymore if you're going to bounce off the walls," she hissed again.
Lizzie stopped looking out of the back seat window and sunk her head in mock-shame, but she was grinning ear-to-ear and didn't want Petunia to see. She wiggled her toes furiously in her shoes that were almost too tight to do so. Music erupted in her ears that drowned out the Christian gospel on the radio.
'You always won
every time you placed a bet
You're still damn good
Nobody's gotten to you yet...
Every time that they were sure they had you' caught
You were quicker than they thought...
You just turned your back and walked... Lizzie mouthed silently to a song only she could hear.
Petunia pulled into the driveway at Number 7 after their trip home from the store, and bucked her head at Lizzie to get out, but the Lizzie was already on the steps to the front door rocking backwards and forwards on her feet in anticipation. Petunia knocked and waited, watching her niece from the corner of her eye practically jump in her skin. She looked down at her and caught a smile on Lizzie's face that she hastily tried to correct to a blank expression, but her efforts didn't last long.
"Lizzie!" She heard as soon as Claire opened the door. Lizzie wanted to lunge for a hug, like a Labrador might if it's been left alone and restless for too long while owners are away, but she refrained by her better judgment. Her heart hammered like a hummingbird when Petunia told her they were leaving on holiday for a week and if Lizzie could stay.
"You let us know if she gives you any trouble," Petunia warned.
"Sure, Petunia. But she's never an ounce of trouble," Claire said with a tone laced in very subtle defiance.
"Right, ok... Vernon or I will pick her up when we get back," she said and handed her some bank notes and a small bag of clothes she'd packed.
Petunia always chose Claire unless Vernon insisted on Mrs. Figg. Lizzie tried to mask her excitement as much as possible so that he would stop using the old woman as a punishment, but it was clear to Petunia who Lizzie preferred. She left with a sigh of relief that they could enjoy their holiday without Lizzie, but also, and she wouldn't admit it out loud, that her niece would be safe with someone she liked.
Claire shut the door behind her when she walked in, and Lizzie hugged her tight around the hips. She was eighteen, Lizzie at about seven, only came up to her waist.
"Hey, Lizard," she said, and knelt down to give her a better hug. She never let go before Lizzie did, even if Lizzie held on for several minutes.
Claire made her way to the kitchen and pulled out snacks from the cupboard, turned on the tape player on the counter to Still the Same, by Bob Seger, and sat next to her at the bar with a bowl of blueberries and chocolate chips. The music in the air finally matched what she forced herself to hear in her head. Lizzie got good at absorbing little things like song lyrics and rhythms, and subsequently imagining them until she could actually hear it. It seemed to reset her system, calm her nerves, and if she closed her eyes, it would take her anywhere.
"What's new, Scooby-Doo?" Claire asked Lizzie. Striking up a conversation and food were always next in line after a hug. She leaned forward with her elbows on the kitchen counter to look Lizzie in the face and take in the pretty green eyes. Her heart ached around this little girl because nobody should be excited about the little things like this that most take for granted.
She let Lizzie talk for however long she wanted to. The words poured out in rapid English usually, sometimes sentences were incoherent as her thought process detoured abruptly. Considering the years Lizzie wouldn't breathe a word, Claire refused to ever stop or interrupt her until Lizzie was so out of breath from talking, she needed water.
"You want water, or water run through the coffee machine?" She offered, pointing to the coffee maker.
Lizzie giggled. "You seem a bit punchy already though, I'm filling half the cup with milk... or you might be up for days," Claire said with a smirk. Lizzie smiled back but squirmed on the stool a little.
Later that night, Claire rummaged through Lizzie's bag for a night gown and sat down on the bed next to Lizzie who was on her stomach, reading a book.
"These words are too big," she said. Claire laughed when she saw she had pulled Jane Eyre from the shelf.
"Come on, get up, get ready for bed and I'll read it to you. Some of those words are too big for me to be honest," Claire said.
Lizzie sat up and Claire pulled off her shirt to replace it with the night gown. She stopped at the sight of a large hand-like bruise on her rib cage.
"Liz, honey, what's this?" She asked.
"I...got in a fight at school," Lizzie lied. It was obvious to Claire that Lizzie was trying to keep her bottom half from view.
"With who?" She asked cautiously.
"Heather, she called me a trash orphan," Lizzie admitted, it wasn't a lie and she had kicked her for saying it. But Lizzie did her best to make sure Claire didn't see the cane marks from the incident that were made several degrees angrier when Lizzie handed her uncle the note home to sign and his belt came off before she had time to react.
"That was really mean of her... I would have kicked her too," Claire said apologetically.
"I got in trouble though," Lizzie said timidly.
"She should have too, authority should earn respect, and letting her call you that is disrespectful. I know they're unforgiving... and sweetie you need to tread carefully, but..." she responded but saw Lizzie's face fall and stopped.
"I know I just need to be more grateful," Lizzie said in a small voice. Claire got down to look at her in the face and ground her shoulders. Lizzie's eyes were the shade of green she only sported when she couldn't find anything bright to think about.
"No, no, no, sweetie, you don't owe them anything," Claire said. "Look at me, you don't owe anyone who treats you like that anything..." she insisted. Lizzie nodded and hugged her, then fell asleep in her lap listening to Claire read. When she woke up, Claire was still there, but when Lizzie opened her eyes, she couldn't see anything in the dark and felt grass on her face. Her body was so cold, impossibly cold, the goose pimples that had broken out on every square inch of her skin felt permanent. Lizzie dug her nails into the dirt to grip at the grass and howled in pain.
Hermione turned her over and Lizzie flung fists full of grass at her in protest. All she wanted to do was burrow her way back into the ground. Suffocating in that grave wasn't even half of what she felt she deserved. She was the reason they were dead, everyone in her life was better without her, this convinced her of that. Lizzie clutched at where the locket had been for days on her chest and didn't feel it. Instead, it swung like a pendulum around Hermione's as she tried to calm Lizzie down. Lizzie swung a fist at Hermione, but Ron caught it and her arm buckled in his grip. He propped her up into a sitting position and held her like a human straight jacket while Hermione tried to get through to her in the thick weight of deafening shock and grief. In the moonlight, Lizzie's eyes were a sad shade of gray, and Hermione knew it wasn't on purpose. Lizzie's hair even looked dull, her skin was clammy and void of color. Something in the back of her head was wondering why the two of them were talking so loudly, because the wails of grief were lost in her own ears.
"We're safe, Liz, it's ok," Ron repeated over and over close to her ear until her heaving breaths were effectively swallowed.
"She can't wear this," Hermione said, clutching the locket. "Ron, she cannot wear this. I don't know how she ended up in a buried casket, but I'm willing to bet anything it was the Riddle in this locket," Hermione said feverishly. "Her wearing it gives him direct access."
"Lizzie, what happened? Why did you leave that house?" Ron asked. She was shaking rather hard but got out fragmented words in sputtering motions.
"I woke up, in that cupboard... I- I don't know how - he was there. He - found me - and I apparated, but - then - everything - went dark and I couldn't breathe..." she panted.
"I thought maybe she was the giveaway... she's dead. I saw her crumble when I killed Dolohov. I should have left her alone. It's my fault... she didn't deserve that... she... sh-she...she was innocent. They killed her... just to hurt me... like Cedric... she only ever cared. She was the only one who did," Lizzie sobbed. "It's my fault..."
Ron and Hermione didn't have words but his grip around her tightened in a comforting way and Hermione kissed her forehead.
"You both - need - to - leave. Go home. Hide. From them - from m-me..." Lizzie sobbed harder still. They didn't say anything, but stared back at one another.
"I'll get the tent set up," Hermione said finally. Ron held Lizzie tighter, and she closed her eyes around a violently intruding vision of Voldemort holding Ollivander by the throat.
"I thought... another wand... would work..." Olivander panted. He hit the ground with a loud crack and then shrieked in pain under a cruciatus.
Lizzie inhaled a sharp breath. She racked her brain for what had happened just before she apparated out of her aunt and uncle's old kitchen, but only remembered lifting her wand through the pain and gold flames bursting from the end of it, flames she didn't summon.
Lizzie touched her stomach and felt blood. Ron called Hermione and she laid Lizzie on her back to tend to the wounds. They'd gone, Lizzie imagined ophidians shrinking and sliding their way back into the linings and folds of her inner body and shuddered around the thought, but the damage they'd done in that short time was tumultuous. She wondered if even after all the horcruxes were destroyed, should they manage it, if she would even be able to face him without being eaten alive.
Ron and Hermione traded off wearing the locket every six hours. Lizzie noticed quickly that the air shifted between them and the influence of the locket.
Hermione grew quiet and flustered by everything. Sometimes Lizzie would see her staring out of the corner of eye. It was a scathing sort of look. The air felt thick with fear and uncertainty. Hermione hated uncertainty most of any of them. Her brain clouded with doubt and her body responded by keeping her stiffly reserved.
Ron didn't mask his boiling resentment over every bit of adversity they faced, be it food or the dementors Lizzie couldn't conjure a patronus around in the depths of her grief. This one had hit her by far the hardest, worlds harder than Dumbledore or Moody, harder even than Sirius, Cedric, and Melody. Claire hadn't any idea what Lizzie was, who she was, there was no known danger to willingly put herself in like Sirius had. She was blindsided like Cedric, but had no defense, no choice... Lizzie felt responsible to a degree she hadn't before.
The memories of her role in the events that led up to the deaths of the girls she'd grown up with rolled back in waves so crystal in clarity it seemed impossible to have ever even blocked them from her mind. The recollection of pressing an arm down on Bethany's throat and digging fingers around her remaining eye into the socket and then running home to stuff it in the pantry, had made her wet herself in her sleep and wake up trembling in a bone chilling cold. Drowning Lisa in the pool and the bloody bathroom she shared for two minutes a day with Katie made her vomit until nothing but bile and blood surfaced. Lizzie held her own hand over a stove burner as she recalled reaching for Nadine's hand on the cliffs followed by the muffled screams when it had landed her in her death bed underground, she held it until the skin seared just to punish herself. In each recollection her eyes were not green, nor scarlet, but milky white and she could not shake the feeling that something was standing behind her everywhere she went.
Lizzie felt certain this is how her relatives felt in the same home with her as all these horrible events unfolded. She now realized why her uncle jumped to the immediate conclusion that she'd killed Father Matthew. Lizzie even dreamt she'd beaten that version of younger self to a bloody pulp with his belt and woke up feeling oddly cathartic about it. She lied in the bunk thinking about what she would give to strangle, stab, drown, cut, bury, lynch, or send that version of herself off a bridge, and toss the pair of those horrible, dismembered, milky white eyes off a cliff... but she did not know. She just wanted her gone, wanted her to suffer. They deserved justice, even the assholes like Lisa, Heather, and Katie, but especially Melody and Claire. They saw past that, they saw Lizzie like Hermione, Ron, his family, and Remus did, and she'd betrayed them.
They traveled constantly, unsure where to look next or where best to remain concealed. Hermione sunk into herself, and Ron seethed with anger Lizzie couldn't place a tangible source of. To Lizzie it felt like watching her own inner conflicts on display through the others. The more she wanted to wither and die, the more troubled Hermione became, the combination of seeing the girl he loved affected like this, and Lizzie's own frustration and anger climbing over the situation, made Ron volatile and absolutely unpleasant. They both whispered about her and from what Lizzie could gather were frightened. They closed themselves off as best as possible when she was around, avoiding eye contact at all costs.
She didn't talk much, didn't sleep, when they had food she ate a couple bites and handed the rest to Ron, who became ten folds worse when hungry. Somehow still this made him angrier. It was the most tense she had ever been around the people who knew her best. When Hermione wasn't wearing the locket, she offered consolation to Lizzie, encouragement even, seemed to understand her in a way she never had before. When Ron wasn't wearing the locket, he seemed apologetic yet apprehensive, like he was losing hope quickly that this mission was even remotely feasible.
"Where else do we think one might be?" Ron asked one evening as Lizzie set out plates of food from an animal she'd caught in the forest outside of a small market town.
"The Manor, maybe Gringotts, something grand, probably, I still think Hogwarts," Lizzie said in a tired voice. "Maybe the Albanian church."
"He doesn't have a Gringotts vault," Ron reminded her.
"No, but his death eaters all do. High security vaults. I don't think he would hide two at the manor though after entrusting the diary to Lucius. Its likely where he's staying with Nagini anyway," Hermione added. They all kept the locket off during dinner to be able to converse some without the weight of it.
"What do you reckon about the Riddle House or the Little Hangleton Graveyard?" Ron asked. Lizzie stopped chewing abruptly and looked at him.
"...the graveyard," she said in a raspy voice. It was one of the last places she ever wanted to return to.
"But the home, wasn't it a fancy home? Wasn't his father one of the wealthiest in that area?" Ron asked. "He killed his sister there," he added.
"But he made the ring with Renee and hid it at the Gaunt house, the relatives directly related to Slytherin," Hermione pointed out.
"Doesn't mean he didn't go back there with another later..." Ron retorted. "I don't think he'd reckon Lizzie would go there, not after what happened..."
"I still think Godric's Hollow and Hogwarts are the two best bets, but I think we should check that church too," Lizzie said.
"We don't know where that church is, and Godric's Hollow probably has an arsenal of death eaters waiting, Hogwarts... forget it..." Ron said a little abrasively.
"You want to go to the Riddle house?" Lizzie asked to confirm.
"Well, you've been to Borgins, you've been to the Orphanage, the cave, we've been to Little Whinging... what else are we missing? He wouldn't hide something else at the ministry, would he?" Ron asked.
"I don't see how he would have, they hadn't infiltrated the ministry when he lost power before. There's Hepzibah's home... don't know where that is, reckon London somewhere, but... I don't think it's safe to stroll around London right now," Hermione said.
"Well, we know where the Riddle house is though, worth a shot," Ron said with his mouth full of food. Lizzie pushed her plate toward him, and he rolled his eyes at her.
"Why won't you eat?" He asked hotly.
"I'm just not... hungry..." Lizzie said quietly. He stared at her for a long moment, got up and put on the locket. Lizzie knew to stop talking to him now. Hermione's shoulders fell in defeat and she reminded Lizzie of the expression Petunia would get when Vernon was wound tight about something. Scared. Lizzie cleaned up the plates on autopilot and sunk into bed.
She rapped on a wooden door somewhere in the far north because it was impossibly cold. A woman answered and her eyes widened in fear. "Where is Grigorovich?" Voldemort asked in a high, cold voice.
"He's not here, I swear, he does not live here, please" a woman answered in piecemeal English with a thick northern accent.
There was a struggle as she attempted to barricade a room full of children on the other side but bright flashes of green erupted around her until the ground was coated in their bodies and Voldemort glided over them reproachfully whilst looking for signs of who intended to meet.
Lizzie woke with a loud gasp. Hermione jumped from her bunk to ask what happened, but Ron gave them both a scathing look from near the mouth of tent where he was keeping watch.
"Lizzie, what happened?" Hermione asked.
"You know what happened," Ron shot back. "Bad dreams. In You-Know-Who's head again. Tell me, did he at least give you any news?" He asked in the volatile tone she associated with the bulge of the locket under his shirt.
"Hermione, brew something to knock her out, would do us all some good to get some real sleep, wouldn't it? Instead of waking up to this every few hours," he grumbled.
"Ron! What is wrong with you?" Hermione hissed, but she already knew.
"He's looking for Grigorovich the wand maker. He used someone else's wand and the spell I cast splintered it in half. He's probably looking for a new one," Lizzie said, ignoring Ron's indignant smirk of disdain.
"He killed an entire family in pursuit," Lizzie added scornfully.
"Anyone we know?" Ron asked. Lizzie shook her head and he shook his in response. His demeanor gave her chills.
"You want tea or anything?" Hermione asked. Lizzie shook her head and rolled over to face away from them. She could sense their stares between each other and had an intense urge to hit them both.
They set out the next morning for the Riddle House, Lizzie apparated them to graveyard and it looked significantly different in daylight. She'd disguised herself and the others had as well. The cloak was tucked in her jean jacket just in case.
"Do you hear that?" Lizzie asked. Something faint grew louder in her ears until it was deafening. Her own screams resounded across the yard. Lizzie looked this way and that, the statues on the grave stones seemed to be doing the actual shrieking. It took her back to that night, they were screams from that night and the others heard it too. Hermione had hands clasped over her ears and tears poured from her face. Ron had hands on his knees with his eyes sealed shut in agony.
"Run!" Lizzie yelled and they sprinted up the hill toward the old house. Lizzie cast a disillusionment on Ron and Hermione and tossed the cloak over herself. From the top of the hill they could see figures swooping in on the graveyard, and slipped into the old house seemingly undetected.
"I don't think he's here yet," Lizzie said, noticing an absence of physical pain as she gathered her thoughts back into the present.
"We need to hurry," she said. They descended into the house on the prowl for anything that might be of value. Lizzie pocketed some jewelry and a music box. Hermione swiped a crystal wedding headband and a pocket watch that presumably belonged to Riddle Sr. Lizzie lifted a red headed doll from the shelf of the little girl's room and a drawer full of letters and notes from the man's study along with a parcel wrapped Bible with a note slipped into the front. They might not be horcruxes, but they might be useful, Lizzie thought.
Lizzie closed her eyes hoping to feel something of the nature, but it was interrupted when Ron came running through the house without a care for the racket he was making. He seized Lizzie's hand and apparated immediately, leaving her alone in another forest when she sat up to look around in confusion. After a few moments he apparated again, this time with Hermione who gasped in horror.
"Sorry!" He yelled. "Sorry! They spotted me somehow, nearly took a stunner to the chest. I didn't want us to get trapped," he panted.
"We weren't done looking, now we can't go back!" Hermione yelled.
"Nothing there, he despised them. Man, who in his mind, abandoned him and his mother and remarried to have a daughter? They were killed out of spite; he would not have hidden one there. Plus, they're affiliated with a known name of his," Lizzie ranted.
"Right, stupid idea, then, that what you're saying?" Ron hissed indignantly.
"I didn't say that!" Lizzie shot back, now tired of his demeanor. She stood up and snapped the locket off his neck to fasten around her own.
"Lizzie, DONT!" Hermione warned. "Give it to me!"
"No!" She shouted back and trudged off through a clearing of trees. "Where the bloody fucking hell did you take us?" She asked.
"Forest surrounding where they had the world cup," Ron said.
"Great, I think there's an abandoned cabin by a lake out here, come on," she demanded and they followed for about a mile before the clicking noise around Lizzie's neck filled her ears to the brim and she fell to her knees suddenly.
"Lizzie?" Hermione asked, running to her side. Lizzie pulled off the locket with a trembling hand, violent urges surfaced, and the familiar laughing commenced.
"Shut up, shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!" She screamed as she hit it repeatedly against a rock. Hermione took it from her and tucked it away.
"I think I see the cabin you were talking about," she said, craning her neck through a cluster of trees. "I'll get enchantments up," she added and jogged forward. Ron made his way toward Lizzie but didn't help her up. He stared down and she felt nothing but reproach. The motion of his hand when he'd finally reached out to help her up startled her. For a moment she thought she'd be hit.
"Jesus, Lizzie. Come on," he said softly with a weak sort of apologetic smile. Her heart was pounding obnoxiously hard and it's all she heard while Hermione lit a fire and they settled in. The space the cabin gave was a nice break from the tent, Lizzie started to think they might be able to make it a base should they manage a fidelius.
They emptied the contents of their search onto a long table outside the kitchen area and rummaged through for clues on anything related to Voldemort.
Ron examined each piece of swiped jewelry but seemed to think each was unremarkable in magical properties.
Hermione rummaged through Renee's things with a sad, dark look in her eyes. "Why do you think he flayed and burned her like that?" Hermione sniffed. Lizzie closed her eyes in her hands and could see the desecrated corpse in the beads of light that spotted her inner eyelids. She opened her eyes and gazed intently at a family photograph. They seemed happy. His father, dark haired and youthful looking like James had been, the mother very beautiful with soft, dainty features, Renee with a large smile plastered from ear-to-ear.
"He was robbed of a family, but also thought them vermin as muggles. He was upset to be related to the very type of people he was prejudiced toward. She had what he didn't..." Lizzie explained.
"I remember feeling that way about Dudley. I hated them, all of them, the entire congregation, but there were the family units that weren't toxic, even for the girls. Take Heather, for example, or Lisa. I hated them but envied them because I knew I'd opt for their lot in a heartbeat," she continued.
"You don't reckon one of them was related to Renee do you?" Hermione asked.
"I think they all tie back. He's fascinated with blood lines. I just don't think there's really anyway to know. I mean... it could be distant and we can't family archive these trees. I guess only if we really had no leads to go on we could try," Lizzie thought out loud. She picked up a family Bible and flipped through, but the pages that usually listed family members or held important documents was empty, so she closed it with a loud sigh and sat back.
"Take a look at this," Hermione said after about an hour, and handed Lizzie a rolled up paper. "Will and testament of Mr. and Mrs. Tom Riddle," she said.
Lizzie skimmed through legalese language about assets with her eyebrows raised curiously. "Well, he was wealthy. Inherited an alcohol dispensary from the looks of it," Lizzie said.
"The end about their directives, Lizzie," Hermione instructed, pointing toward the bottom of the page she was now on.
"In re Renee Penelope Riddle, if underaged at the time of both parents' deaths should be put in the custody of Eric Bernal and his wife Mary Bernal, who hath been named godfather and mother respectively. Under no circumstances should custody be granted to Harrison and Olivia Heard nee Reed," Lizzie read aloud.
Lizzie read it three times before it fully registered. Lizzie picked up a parcel wrapped Bible she'd hadn't opened yet and lifted the note scrawled on the surface.
"I'm surprised you aren't more receptive considering what happened to Tom when he ran away with that horrible witch of a woman. But you must decide what's best for your family, what God can forgive, and whether or not you can let them get away with their treachery. Sending love and praying for you all, Olivia" it read. Lizzie opened the wrapping and discovered in contrast to the King James Bible which appeared worn, that Renee's mother had been sent a catholic version of the old testament, and it hadn't been touched.
"Well then, there you have it, Lisa Heard must be related to Renee's mother," Lizzie said with a clenched jaw.
"I didn't realize that church had so much traction," Hermione said.
"They're really not unlike the pure blood mania in our world, you know? The girls marry into the known families whether they want to or not, even if it means distant inbreeding on occasion. The young men seek out those who are of proper status and indoctrinate them into the fold. With the Cyprians they seem to target animosity toward Witchcraft and anything they deem satanic or sacrilegious. See how she's trying to use Tom's experience with Riddle's mother to sway her sister? Martin Warren climbing aboard after his sister was murdered at a school for Witchcraft. Petunia, who despised what what my mother was, though likely jealous. Brian Teller, raised and abused by them as an orphan, but haunted by his sister's mysterious murder. They scapegoat heresy just like the death eaters scapegoat muggle borns. People follow blind when it hits home, and then they make it impossible to get out once you're in the fold...its sinister," Lizzie explained.
"Listen to this, 'years of my life are gone from my mind, darling. I hope you know I never intended to leave you...sometimes at night I can still feel them in my skin, but when I wake up next to you, I'm free again...'" Lizzie read from a letter and frowned.
"Riddle's mother abducted his father..." Ron said. Lizzie nodded.
"This sounds more than a love potion, don't you reckon?" Lizzie asked, glancing up at Hermione who bit her nail.
"What you think, ophidians?" Ron asked, snatching the paper. Lizzie nodded.
"That only works on women," Hermione said, shaking her head.
"It's only permanent in women through consummation. She could have still given him the potion, she was a parceltounge," Lizzie corrected. "Would explain why his son has literally turned into a fucking snake over time," she added disdainfully.
"How would she have known how?" Hermione asked.
"I'm sure the Gaunts had their resources. Conceived on a love potion, rape, and torture... there was no hope for the little creep," Ron said bitterly. Lizzie nodded absently staring across the room as her eyes went dark in thought. He was coming into real focus. This family, murdered by him 37 years prior to the day she was born seemed to her the reason her family must have been chosen. The surface resemblance was absolutely uncanny in every regard.
"So what next, Albania?" Hermione asked, and Lizzie snapped back into the airspace.
"I think we're better off trying to figure out what the last one is at least, so yes. But I also think... we should look in Godrics Hollow," Lizzie said.
"I think... we need to figure out how to destroy these before we get our hands on more," Ron interjected a little bitterly.
"They have to be destroyed beyond repair, but the counter enchantments are stronger than anything I've seen," Hermione said. "Nothing I've read indicates it can break through the protections he has put in place."
Lizzie fondled the locket in her hand reproachfully before setting it down harshly on the table. She picked up the porcelain doll, dusted it off, smoothed back the hair and stared into the green eyes.
"He couldn't get rid of her," Lizzie said quietly.
"Who?" Hermione asked.
"Leah," Lizzie said. "But he didn't realize it wasn't her at all, it was himself. Sometimes I think, had he even the slightest ability to love, she would have saved us all. When you're starved of everything, the smallest saving grace can be the key to life," she elaborated.
Days passed while Lizzie mulled over ways to efficiently look in Albania or find the church at the very least. She drew lines and made lists between the connections made.
Leah Wilson:
Muggleborn Orphan
Wool Orphanage
Mother murdered on Halloween
Only "friend" (loose term)
Hung like Melody
No horcrux possible
Myrtle Warren:
Muggleborn
Hogwarts
Motherless - Died in childbirth like Merope
Obsessed with him, annoyed by her
Died in the bathroom like Katie Teller - Killed by a snake
Aunt to Melody Warren
Diary Horcrux given to Lucius to return to Hogwarts
Destroyed by Basilisk Fang
Renee Riddle:
Muggle (only non-motherless and non-orphan)
Riddle House - perfect life
Tom's sister
Murdered in home after her parents
Flayed and burned
Related in some proxy to Lisa Heard
Ring Horcrux
Hidden at the Gaunt House in floorboards
Destroyed with ?
Nora Zabel:
Muggle Orphan (presumably)
Albanian Church
Poisoned during mass
Buried like Nadine
Related to ?
Unknown Horcrux - possibly Ravenclaw or Gryffindor founders object. Possibly a family heirloom. Possibly in Albania, at Hogwarts, Godrics Hollow, Gringotts?
Amelia Smith:
Squib Orphan (presumably)
Hepzibah Smith's niece
Cut up in floorboards
Hufflepuffs Cup Horcrux
Related to ?
Possibly in Albania, Hogwarts, Godrics Hollow, Gringotts?
Emily Teller:
Muggle Orphan
Same Orphanage
Wool died like Father Matthew
Body mutilated like Bethany
Slytherin's locket horcrux - hidden in cave with lake of inferi.
Related to Katie Teller
Nagini
Adrianna (Surname?)
Circus Orphan (presumably)
Meladictus/serpent
Not alive/inferi
Sold for sex young, killed abusers.
Bound to him
Horcrux in herself, always with him.
Related to ?
Estrella Black:
Squib - Kreacher and Regulus thought they saw her in the cave.
No other information
No known horcrux association
"I think... I think I've got something," Lizzie said when a spark plug went off in her head.
Hermione and Ron sat across from her at the table as she pushed over her furiously scribbled notes. "How they died isn't important only to some soul obliging debt ritual, he's using his methods of killing them as means of hiding them... look..." Lizzie said, pointing her finger to Myrtle first. "He killed Myrtle with a snake... and then he later hid a horcrux in a snake," Lizzie said, moving her finger to Nagini.
"He killed Milly and hid her in the floorboards, meanwhile the Gaunt ring was hidden in the floorboards," Lizzie added, moving her finger to Renee.
"He returned Emily's organs to the Orphanage after he killed her, Christopher told us that. He then had Lucius return the diary to Hogwarts," she said.
"He killed Adrianna in her snake form and turned her into an inferi, he hid the locket in a lake of inferi, follow the pattern," she continued. Hermione's mouth fell open.
"He buried Nora, meaning he probably buried that horcrux somewhere," Hermione said. "Graveyard?" She asked.
"Considering what happened at the Little Hangleton Graveyard I think perhaps. But there was the graveyard in Surrey, though I doubt there, a graveyard in Albania, and a graveyard in Godrics Hollow," Lizzie said.
"But buried could mean a multitude of things, underwater, in a pile or heap, not necessarily in a graveyard," Ron added. Lizzie nodded in agreement.
"But it's a direction," she said.
"Renee was burned, how could he hide something to ensure the seeker is burned?" Lizzie asked.
"Fiend fire, volcano, dragons?" Ron asked.
"Dragons!" Hermione exclaimed, clapping a hand to forehead.
"Where would he get a dragon?" Lizzie asked.
"If not in a colony, they would be underground... buried... in Gringotts," Hermione said.
"Exactly," Lizzie said. "But he wouldn't hide both there I don't think. One is buried somewhere else, I'm feeling certain the other is at Gringotts, but who's vault? His death eaters all have high security..." she contemplated.
"Lizzie, damnit, you're brilliant," Hermione muttered. Ron sunk back in his chair and the excitement faded from his face quickly until he looked rather grim and anxious.
"I say we go Albania, he won't expect that, we can hopefully pin point what it is we're looking for. Then Godrics Hollow. Then Gringotts," Lizzie said.
"Destroying them, Liz, how do we DESTROY them!? Want to work that out before a suicide mission to Gringotts? Unless Hermione has basilisk fangs in the bloody beaded bag..." Ron said rather reproachfully in frustration. Lizzie looked affronted and shook her head. He took his mug and left the room before she could say anything. She noticed the bulge of the locket under his shirt and bit her tongue. He was right. None of them could survive another horcrux in their custody until they could start hacking them off and making real progress.