Harry rushed up the winding stairs to Dumbledore's office, taking the steps two at a time sometimes in his hurry. He had been anxiously awaiting his meeting with the headmaster all day, hoping that the man might be able to tell him something about Tomas's sudden disappearance.
When he entered the office, however, he saw something that made him stop dead in his tracks.
A man was standing before Dumbledore's desk and he wasn't like any person Harry had ever seen before.
The hair that had been drawn up into a loose bun seemed like it had been spun out of gold and sparkled whenever the light hit it. He held his tall, slender form with an air of almost regal elegance, and the long fingers, that reached up to brush a stray lock back from his perfect oval of a face, were covered in the same creamy white skin as the rest of his body.
Then the man locked eyes with him and Harry received the true shock of the night.
He knew those eyes! He had looked into those same bright blue eyes only three nights ago!
Dumbledore cleared his throat, breaking Harry from his trance. "Good evening, Harry," He said. "You arrived a little bit earlier than I expected."
Harry tore his eyes from the alluring stranger to look at Dumbledore. "Professor, what's going on?" He asked.
"That question," Dumbledore said, "has a very complex answer. But I think it would be best if you heard it sitting rather than standing."
Harry complied with this request and sunk down into one of the chairs before the desk, trying not to notice how close that put him to the strange man.
"I am sorry to say," Dumbledore said, "that most of what I have to tell you is bad news." He sighed and looked up at Harry, his blue eyes lacking the twinkle they normally possessed. "Three days ago, Tomas was kidnapped and brought to Voldemort's lair."
It was like someone had dumped a bucket of ice cold water over Harry and he clutched the arms of the chair tightly.
"But all is not lost," Dumbledore continued. "We have a plan that, if done properly, could save Tomas. Before I tell you what that plan is though there are other things I must explain to you first. Things pertaining to the nature of Tomas's birth and exactly why Voldemort has sought him out so desperately."
Harry frowned, his confusion overriding his panic for a moment. "What do you mean?" He asked.
The man standing besides Harry cleared his throat and moved in front of the boy, looking down at him with those unnervingly familiar eyes.
"I think I can answer that question," He said. "You see Mr. Potter, I am Gabriel Clark—Tomas's mother."
Harry was quite certain that he could hear a loud thud as his jaw hit the ground.
"W—What?!" He stammered. "But I thought that Tomas's mum was Gabrielle Clark!"
Gabriel sighed, turning away from Harry and biting down on his lower lip in a way that instantly reminded Harry of Tomas.
"Gabrielle was my twin sister," He said. "When we came here to Hogwarts I was sorted into Gryffindor but she was placed in Slytherin where she befriended Tom Riddle, or Voldemort as you know him." He shook his head sadly and plopped down onto the chair next to Harry's. "Tom took a liking to me from the start and would constantly pursue me even though I rejected him every time. But then in our sixth year I realized how I really felt about him and finally accepted his proposal.
"The years I spent with him where some of the happiest of my life and soon I decided that I wanted to have a child with him. I'm sure you've heard of the spells that allow males to reproduce." Harry nodded. "Well, we used those spells and before long I was pregnant. But then I discovered the secret that Tom had been keeping from me. He was really Lord Voldemort, a powerful, evil wizard who wanted to lead the wizards in a revolt to rule over Muggles and Muggle-borns.
"Tom tried to convince me that what he was doing was right and that he was going to reshape the world into something wonderful, an amazing place for our child to live in, but I only saw horror.
"I tried to flee but Tom had been expecting it and imprisoned me so that I could not leave me again. He forced me to take a potion that bonded my unborn child to him much in the same way that he is bound to you. And as if that wasn't enough, I learnt that Gabrielle was..."
He trailed off, sighing as he rubbed at his eyes, which had begun to mist over.
"She was dying," He continued. "She had some sort of illness that the healers couldn't fix. She wasn't expected to live past ten months—maybe even less than that.
"The news left me completely devastated of course. I felt like my whole world was falling apart. I had already lost the love of my life and now my closest friend was to be taken from me too.
"Little did I know that Gabrielle had figured out a way to use her disease to her advantage in a plan to free my future child and me from Tom's grasp."
Gabriel turned to Dumbledore as he leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. "I think you can explain the next part better than me, Albus," He said.
Dumbledore nodded. "When Gabrielle learned what had happened to her brother," He said, "she was horrified and immediately began to try to figure out some way to save him. I had expected the diagnosis of her sickness to deter her from her plan but I was wrong.
"She arrived in my office only a few days later, filled with breathless excitement. She told me that she had finally discovered a way to rescue her brother.
"She was going to take Gabriel's place."
Dumbledore paused, letting these words sink in for Harry, who frowned, his brow furrowing in confusion.
"What do mean, take his—"
"Gabrielle was my identical twin," Gabriel broke in. "If wasn't for our differing genders no one would have been able to tell us apart. And Gabrielle decided, since she was going to die anyway, to use this likeness to hoodwink Tom."
Still confused, Harry opened his mouth to question the plan again, only to have both adults stare at him pointedly. And then, slowly, understanding dawned on him.
"So, who Voldemort saw die…" Harry trailed off, glancing at Gabriel.
"Was Gabrielle," Gabriel finished for him. He closed his eyes with a sense of tremendous exhaustion. "It was arranged the night that Tom went out to try and destroy what he thought to be the only threat to his power."
"You mean me," Harry said.
"Yes, you," Gabriel nodded. "With the help of Dumbledore and a few members of the Order of the Phoenix, Gabrielle broke through the wards surrounding me, only to find me halfway through labor." His lips quirked up slightly at this memory. "Let's just say that Tomas's delivery was a very interesting one."
The corners of his lips straightened out again and his eyes opened, filled with a terrible sadness.
"Gabrielle and I exchanged clothes," He continued somberly, "and she took my place on the bed, allowing Dumbledore to kill her. Then a few nights later, still disguised as my sister, I pretended to commit suicide."
Harry's mind was reeling now from everything that he had just learned. And to think that he had thought that the original story of Tomas's origins was complex.
"I know this must be a lot to take in all at once," Gabriel said, "but there's still something else that you have to know."
Harry gawked at him. "What?!"
Gabriel chuckled to himself, finding amusement in Harry's shocked reaction. "Sorry, but bear with me here," He said. "This is the most important part of all."
Draco hovered in a state of half consciousness for what seemed like a decade, but then he gradually felt himself becoming fully awake.
Once he had, however, he vehemently wished that he had not.
There wasn't a single inch of him that wasn't throbbing with pain and his head felt like someone had taken a hammer to it.
There were a few things that he was able to draw a small form of comfort from and small as they might be, he was immensely grateful for them. Whatever he was lying on was incredibly soft and there was something delightfully warm wrapped around him, falling in sharp contrast to the cool cloth that lay against his forehead that managed to soothe his headache slightly.
Then there came a feather soft touch on his cheek and he gave a start of surprise that made his body scream out in agony.
It took more effort than he thought it would to lift his eyelids, but he forced them open determined to see who was there with him.
He found that there was a very familiar face hovering above his own with blue eyes that shone with relief and the corners of a full mouth turned up into a tremendous smile.
"You're awake," Tomas said.
"Yeah, and I feel horrible," Draco grumbled. "What the hell happened to me?"
The smile disappeared from Tomas's lips and his expression turned grim. "What do you remember?" He asked.
Draco frowned as he tried to remember what had happened to him before he had wound up in his current predicament.
He had come to visit Tomas after he was through with his lessons at Hogwarts and they had just started a game of chess when Aunt Bellatrix came to inform Tomas that his father wanted to see him. So Tomas had gone with her, reminding Draco not to disturb any of the pieces while he was gone like he had use to do when they were children.
But he hadn't even been gone for a moment when…
Draco knew that his mouth was hanging open but he made no effort to close it. Voldemort had used him to get to Tomas!
His eyes darted anxiously to Tomas, who looked even more solemn than he had before. "What did you tell him? Please tell me you didn't say anything about Severus—"
"Of course I didn't," Tomas said. "I told him that I had been staying at Grimmauld Place."
Draco let out a sigh of relief but Tomas didn't seem able to relax and shifted almost nervously on the bed, his teeth sinking into his lower lip.
"Something else happened," He muttered. "You don't remember it because you were passed out, but Voldemort told me something…"
Draco would have arched a brow at his friend if he had the energy for it. "What did he tell you?"
"It was something that a Seer foresaw about me," Tomas said.
"A Seer?" Draco echoed in confusion.
Tomas dipped his head sharply in assent and Draco was surprised to find that there were tears in his eyes. He summoned up the strength that he still had left and reached out to take the hand of his friend. "Tomas? What happened?"
Tomas tilted his head back and let out a long, drawn out breath. "My destiny caught up with me," He murmured.
Everyone else in the dormitory had already fallen asleep but Harry lay awake in his bed, eyes fixed on the tapestry above him. His mind kept going over everything that he had learned about Tomas, especially the last part of the story for it was that piece that bound their fates together.
The prophecy of the Seer.
"The one will be delivered on the night of All Hallows Eve.
Within his veins will lurk the ancient blood of the snake.
It is this side that can corrupt him.
Be wary of the knight that lurks in the shadows.
If he manages to capture the heart of the heir than the darkness will come to consume the light.
There will come another to claim the love of the heir.
The hero that must come forth to conquer the Dark Lord.
But he can only win if the heir is at his side.
Or else he shall fall and all that is good will fade away with him…"
