You've heard the stories about the Boy Who Lived. The Boy Who Came to Die. The one who slayed a Basilisk of Slytherin, the one who stared down the Dementors of Azkaban. You've heard of this legend, but sometimes a story is diluted. Sometimes, myths, as they fade, they lose their very substance, their very purpose and theme being lost to time. This is one of those cases. For every savior born, for every light, there is a darkness. For every Potter, there is a Gaunt. My master was one such Gaunt.
My name is Toriphee. I'm a house-elf, much like the fabled Dobby the Free Elf. My master's story is long, as long as Potter's and just as filled with heartbreak, horror, and heroism. But the difference is that Potter loved the limelight. He enjoyed his fame in the end. My master thrived in the darkness, and as soon as Voldemort was banished, returned to it, in the hopes that history would forget him. And forget him, it did. His story was lost to time, and even as Potter and his family enjoy their new celebrity status, my master raises an inquisition against the Dark Lord's hopefuls. Potter has become complacent, and in the vain hope to wake the Wizarding World from it's slumber, and to honor my master, I will tell you how Potter managed to overcome the lichly Thomas Riddle. The feared Dark Lord, Voldemort. He had help from the darkness. Help, from my master.
Darkness lies in every corner. The perspiration of fear lingers in the air as an acrid smell. Crying, sobbing, a small, bone-shriveled teenage woman grunts in the crawling hours of the morning. Frost permeates along the deadened bricks of Britain. Long has the clocks struck midnight, but dawn refuses to rescue the young Tee Gaunt from her blindness. The only thought, though, running through her young brain is the plea of death. The only accompaniment she is given is her family's house-elf, an elderly old grump of a man named Tawk.
Tawk is perturbed by her suffering, as it only pounds in his gray old head with frizzled old hair that he was stuck with the runt of the litter. What happened to the fabled Gaunt legends? Why was he stuck with a brat when he could have had a warrior? He was stuck here underneath this stanky old bridge in some deserted town while his mistress cries and heaves in suffering, to give to this world nothing but a pestilence, a weak runt meant to die.
Meanwhile, Tee tries her best to bear the pain. Though too busy to think of it, she could remember, in the back of her young mind, plainly when her cousin Tibrin came to visit. He spoke of the horrors he had witnessed in London. The Purge was going to come to them soon. At the time, her blood and veins froze in terror when the thought of the Aurors coming for her flashed through her mind. But Tibrin was a warrior, a wizard of little equal. She was comfortable when he was around, and when Tibrin got frisky and made clear his intentions, she thought bearing his child might insure her safety.
"Go on, then." Tibrin said cheerily. He had handed the lovely little Tee his finest backup wand. He was itching to see a main branch use magic. He had tales of the famous mainstay Gaunts and their illustrious, fabulous ferocity.
Tee waved her wand, perhaps with a little too much flair for his taste, and chanted the ever-familiar words.
"Ignacio!"
And his excitement bellowed over, he was quite literally sitting on the front of his seat. How remarkable it would be..if anything had happened at all.
"I don't understand," Tibrin said, standing, he walked to Tee, and lightly grabbed the wand. A look of befuddlement streaked his otherwise perfect face.
He raised the oak, plain wand and aimed at a chair.
With a simple flair, the chair twisted and malformed into a tiny, wooden and cloth rat, and began to scribble away with it's tiny wooden paws. A flash of a grimace appeared on the elder Gaunt.
The room turned a darker shade when Tibrin Gaunt raised the wand and chanted with an anger which Tee visibly was shook by.
"Ignacio!"
Flame burst from his backup, orange flicked across the room like a whip, and engulfed the woodrat, which shrieked in pain and terror.
Tee was shaking now, in fear and empathy for the animated creature. It lasted seconds, and the creature was burnt to the point that no sound emanated from it's ashy corpse.
"There's nothing wrong with my wand, Tevrony." he said calmly.
His voice peaked little, and the calmness unnerved the younger Gaunt. He turned to face her, and his tanned, scarred face was smiling its welcoming smile.
Tee composed herself.
"I suppose it's because I never learned...I never went to Hogwarts or- or anything, really, so I gu-"
Tibrin strode to her in one or two long steps. Tee raised her face in a smile until Tibrin wrapped his hand around her pale throat.
"There would have been a warmth, dear cousin."
"A wormf?" Tee choked out in effort.
"A warmth...that indicates at the very least that you exerted some magical energy."
His once smooth smile remained, but took on a much more sinister meaning.
Her heart pounded in her chest.
"I-I-I-" She stuttered in response.
"Which means..." He began, tightening his grip ever, ever so lightly, "That no witch has touched my wand. You're a filthy-"
He tightened his grip again, and Tee could feel her windpipe contorting to accompany his merciless grip.
"Wandless"
And with this, he raised his other hand to brush her hair lightly from her face. The elder Gaunt stared in his younger cousin's eyes, and saw the look of a traitor being found out.
"Squib."
He squeezed tighter, and this was the last thing Tee saw before she passed out, and the last she saw wholly of her cousin.
She awoke with Tawk at her side. Tawk said that Tibrin had taken the family wand and had left, calmly. Tee cried for the next few nights, and things went on normally for a few months, until the Aurors came to town in search of hopefuls.
She was no wizard, she had nothing to defend herself, and so Tee Gaunt packed what little she could and left, with her grumpy old elf at her side.
Months went by, Tee at first worked as a housekeeper, but once she could not walk anymore with her baby-filled gut and her legs started to refuse standing for long periods of time, she started selling her heirlooms one by one, in the hopes of surviving long enough to give birth to her offspring, so that she could use them to get enough sympathy from some family to board with.
But this pain! It was so unlike the quick moment of terror Tibrin had embued her with. For hours now she struggled to push her offspring to birth, and Tawk simply awaited between her legs, with a blanket awaiting the newborn, as was his duty.
When would this end? Would be the last thought before the pain became too much, and young Tee gaunt was overcome by the excruciating suffering, and passed out.
What you must know, dear reader, is that Tee Gaunt was no Dark Lord. Tee Gaunt was a teenaged girl who feared the wrath of those in power. I'm certain any muggleborn who suffered underneath the brief but horrible rule of Voldemort's Ministry of Magic would understand this sentiment. These descriptions were scried from the mind of Tawk himself, who was on the brink of death when my master found him in his old age. Tawk was surprised when my master called him, and even more so to learn that my master was a legendary warrior now. Tawk, like all Gaunt house-elves, was proud to serve such an eminent master, and was forthcoming with my master's scriers. The next parts I'm afraid, were post-humously scried from Tee Gaunt's corpse found in a secret Aurory that even Potter himself did not know existed.
Fluttering her eyelids, it took many moments for the young Tee Gaunt to realize she was damp, in pain, and for her to realize how blinding the sunlight was, and how deafening the sounds of the city she was hiding in was. But beyond all that, she heard a noise that made her heart race, and made her strong. The sound of a small child crying and bleating.
Tee looked around, looking for the one thing that would bring her refuge, least of all physical. She stood, shakily, and followed the sounds of her newborn, and the viscera of the placenta that Tawk had no doubt devoured in hunger. She found herself walking towards the nearby trash bin, and terrified, sprinted. But the young girl had no strength left in her weak body. She fell to the cold, wet cement, slickened by the night's rain. She had the urge to sob, but her newfound motherhood quickly stifled that urge. All effort she had was forcing her to stand on her malnourished and weak legs. It took time, but she stood. She walked, and found herself in extreme pain. But with each cry, it seemed as though her young child was egging her on, reminding her that she was being counted on by someone even more vulnerable then her. She reached the bin, and gazed upon her child, covered in the muck of the city, blood covering most of its newborn body, and the stench of all that, and feces permeated. But at that moment, Tee saw hope. She saw hope for herself and for the future. She gingerly picked the child up, and wiped its face off so she could get a good look on it. She limped back underneath the bridge, and strangely, the child immediately quieted down. It looked with curiosity on the kind giant who had rescued it from most of its discomfort, and did not dare to cry anymore.
Tee shakily kneeled, and leaned against the brick wall of the bridge. She unwrapped her child, and realized it was a boy. It seemed only natural. One day, if she was good enough a mother, she would have a true protector. She ripped at her dirty blouse for a piece of cloth, and did her best to clean him up, and then wrapped him up in the same bloody, shitty cloth. She smiled lazily, and continued to dreamily stare into her child's eyes, and suddenly, as if God himself spoke to her:
"Evrus."
Suddenly, a trash bag opposite her struggled, and a fat, grey ear popped out, wiggling in response to the sound. Tee heard a grumble and the rest of the fat, old and grey body showed itself, Tawk, covered in the viscera of her child's placenta.
A rare scowl covered her face, and a fury she did not know she had left in her raised. The scowl disappeared and instead, she looked back down and smiled at her newborn son.
"Tawk?" Tee said quietly.
"Yes, mistress." Tawk responded in autonomy, but in a grumble, as would befit someone who hated their servitude.
"If you ever harm my child..." She trailed off, and then looked at the elf with a pair of deadened eyes.
"Such as throwing him into a trash bin like he were nothing?"
To this, Tawk chuckled, he was going to respond he is nothing, mistress, until she responded with a tone of seriousness he did not expect.
"I will teach him to love the taste of Elf flesh."
Tawk blinked, and in never before seen respect, looked around, and found the nearest bottle.
"I'll find th' little tyke somethin' to slurp on, ma'am. M' apologies. Forget m'self sometimes."
Tawk walked briskly away from the new mother and her son, and though Tee was no wizard, she could smell the fear on Tawk. She smiled down at her child, droning out in space.
"Evrus. Your name is Evrus, darling."