~To Kill You With A Kiss~
Chapter 24
...
Night had fallen, and only the golden light from the fireplace illuminated the study. Ginny was leaning her head on Alphard's shoulder now; her hair were tendrils of flame against his dark robes. Harry marveled at how effortlessly they seemed to fuse together, the boy from the past and the girl from the future. He played absently with Alphard's golden time turner.
"Are you sure you are ready to go to the Riddle House, Harry?" Tom took the small glittering vial containing Regulus' memory from Alphard. The flickering light from the fireplace cast a warm glow over his face. Tom regarded the little silver swirl of memory in the stoppered bottle thoughtfully. "What a terribly strange thought, Harry, that you will go to the Riddle House to commit murder... just like I once did." He swallowed. "I murdered my father, and you will kill his murderer."
"Harry needs to explore the memory first." Voldemort spoke softly from the shadows. "He needs to become familiar with the Riddle House and with the Dark Lord of that time first. Tom and I will come with you, Harry, and we will guide you through the memory. Then we can come back here and enchant the memory so you can use it to travel back to that moment in the past."
Harry nodded. "I'm ready." He felt his heart pounding in his chest.
"You... you want me to come with you and Harry into the memory... back to the Riddle House?" Tom whispered.
"Yes, I do." Voldemort stirred in the shadows. "What better guides could he have? We know that house well, don't we? I spent quite a bit of time there, and even though you only came there once, something tells me that you remember it well. I imagine that the Riddle House used to haunt your dreams... What's the matter, Tom? You are not frightened, are you? Afraid of your father's ghost, perhaps?"
Tom grew pale for a moment, but then he lifted his head and stared defiantly at Voldemort. "Perhaps I am. I am still human enough to feel fear. Are you?"
"Oh, I still have human emotions, Tom. Did you doubt that?" A white hand reached out from the shadows and brushed Harry's cheek gently.
"Will you stop that!" Tom hissed.
"I do, however, have more control over my emotions than you do," said Voldemort lightly.
"Oh, stop it." Harry took the vial from Tom's hand. "How will I assassinate the Dark Lord if you two keep distracting me?" He got up from his chair. "Let's go find the headmaster's Pensieve... No, wait, Professor Dippet doesn't have a Pensieve, does he? I was expecting to see it in the headmaster's office when I first arrived in this time, but it wasn't there. Where will we find a Pensieve?"
"Albus Dumbledore has one in his office." Tom got up as well. "He told me that he often uses it to re-live his favorite Quidditch matches."
Harry laughed. "That sounds like Dumbledore. Let's go find him, shall we?"
...
"Come in!" Dumbledore glanced up from his work and greeted the three visitors cheerfully. "Hello, Harry. Good evening Tom and..."
"This is my guardian," put in Harry, with a quick glance at Voldemort.
Dumbledore peered at them over his half-moon spectacles and beamed. "Oh, a time paradox? How interesting!" Over in the corner, a scarlet bird fluted softly in its cage.
"Good evening, Professor Dumbledore. I am Mr. Gaunt, Elias' guardian," said Voldemort, eying Dumbledore warily.
Dumbledore chuckled. "Are you, Tom?"
Voldemort stared at him. "What? What makes you call me that? I'm not Tom, Professor."
"Aren't you? I wouldn't be so certain of that." Dumbledore calmly put down the quill he had been writing with and blotted the parchment before him carefully. "What can I do for you two - oh, I'm sorry, three - gentlemen this evening?"
"We were wondering if we could borrow your Pensieve, sir," said Harry weakly.
"My Pensieve? Yes, of course." If Dumbledore thought this was an odd request, he certainly didn't show it. Dumbledore got up from his desk and opened an old cupboard on the far wall to reveal the familiar rune-edged stone basin. "Did you bring your own memory, or do you wish to borrow one of mine? I have an excellent collection, if you are interested, including my recollection of the spectacular match between Puddlemere United and the Wigtown Wanderers in 1937. There is a reason why they tightened up on ball regulations in the years that followed; the poor Bagman kid was never quite right after that gyrating bludger hit him."
"We brought our own memory." Harry pulled the vial from his pocket.
"Then go right ahead, Harry. Don't mind me; I'll be here working when you come back from the past."
"We are going to the future, Professor." Harry unstoppered the vial and poured its glittering contents into the waters of the Pensieve.
"Ah. Visiting someone's memories of things that haven't happened yet? Good luck, Harry." Dumbledore scratched his nose with his quill and bent down over his work again. "And you too, Tom," he added, seemingly as an afterthought.
"Thank you." Tom and Voldemort spoke together, and Harry saw a slight smile hover behind Dumbledore's beard.
...
It was night in Little Hangleton. A boy of about eighteen stood in front of a tall wrought iron gate and looked up at the manor house that lay half-hidden behind the darkened trees. The boy was dressed in dark robes, and the moonlight cast a silver sheen over his long, black curls. The boy turned anxiously and looked behind him for a moment, as if he had been startled by some slight sound from the bushes.
Harry's breath caught in his chest as he gazed at the boy's pale face. He had not realized that Regulus Black had looked so very much like his brother Sirius.
Footsteps sounded in the still night air, and a stooped, dark-clad figure could be seen walking down the dim garden path towards the gate. The figure held up a flickering lantern and regarded Regulus Black through the iron bars for a moment. Then he muttered in an odd creaky sort of voice: "The master is expecting you. Follow me."
The gate swung open with a hollow groaning sound, and Regulus Black stepped hesitantly into the garden.
Harry, Tom, and Voldemort followed the servant and Regulus up the garden path. They moved silently, like ghosts; their footsteps made no sound against the gravel path.
"Who is he?" whispered Tom. "The servant. I don't recognize him."
"I do." Harry regarded the all too familiar form of the squat bandy-legged little wizard with a great deal of dislike. "It's Mundungus Fletcher, isn't it? I thought he worked for the Order of the Phoenix, but it appears that he was Voldemort's man after all."
Voldemort laughed. "Mundungus? Oh, that two-faced little rat was no more loyal to me than he was to Dumbledore and his Order. He was a double agent for me for a while, until the day he disappeared with half the antique silver the Riddle family owned. I let him go; the idea of old Mrs. Riddle's precious silver sold for a few sickles on the black market amused me."
Regulus and Mundungus' footsteps crunched against the gravel path, and an owl hooted somewhere nearby. Tom glanced up at the moon-washed facade of the imposing manor house and swallowed. Harry reached out for Tom's hand and squeezed it softly.
"Feels odd, doesn't it, Tom? To be back here?" Voldemort's voice was surprisingly gentle. Tom nodded wordlessly.
Harry glanced over at the dark-cloaked man by his side. "Why did you choose this place as your headquarters? Your father's ancestral home?"
Voldemort looked at the pale expanse of the Riddle House, his face impassive, as he replied: "Perhaps I felt that I belonged, here, Harry."
The massive front door creaked open before them, and they followed Mundungus and Regulus silently into a great marble entrance hall.
"Wait here." Mundungus disappeared, and Regulus stood silently and gazed around the hall for a moment. He seemed nervous; he kept fiddling with the edge of his cloak. An glittering crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, but it was unlit. Instead, flickering torches mounted along the walls cast the entrance hall in a dim half-light.
Harry walked slowly in front of Regulus Black and studied the almost familiar face curiously. Regulus had Sirius' curls, wild and long and dark, and his eyes were grey like his brother's. But his features were softer than Sirius', and something in the delicate curves of his cheeks made him seem almost like a child. But of course he was no child. How old was he? Seventeen or eighteen, perhaps? And there was something in his eyes that was not childlike at all, something weary and haunted, that reminded Harry of the mad Sirius from the Wanted posters. Harry reached out, hesitantly, trying to touch Regulus' black curls, but there was nothing there to touch. A memory. He is nothing more than a memory.
"The master will see you now." Mundungus reappeared. He led Regulus off to a large room on their right, and the three visitors followed them, unseen and unheard, into a vast, dilapidated sitting room. A dark-clad figure was standing by an unlit fireplace, waiting. His face was half-hidden in shadows.
"You used this room?" Tom's glance flickered over to Voldemort. "Of all the rooms in this house, you chose this one?" His voice was a whisper. "The room where... they died?"
"Yes, Tom. I chose this room." There was no emotion whatsoever in Voldemort's silver voice.
Harry glanced around the immense sitting room; it was tastefully furnished with old mahogany and silk upholstery, and it was easy to tell that the room had once been magnificent. Now, a thin layer of grey dust covered the furnishings, and tarnished silver vases stood empty on the tables. What must once have been delicate white curtains hung like dank shrouds over the tall arched windows.
"Did you ever see them in here?" Tom glanced at Voldemort. "Father, grandmother, and grandfather... Did you ever see their ghosts in here?"
There was a slight pause. "Sometimes." Voldemort's voice was quiet and even, but his face was whiter than snow.
"Ah, Regulus." The dark-clad figure from the memory stepped out from the shadows now. Harry drew his breath sharply. The man in front of him was both Voldemort and Tom, and yet different from them both, a curiously familiar stranger. The Voldemort of Regulus' time still had Tom's dark curls, and a trace of Tom's angelic beauty still lingered over his cold features. But his skin was unnaturally, deathly pale, and his eyes gleamed scarlet.
Harry stared at him. Tom. My Tom, corrupted by evil, my Tom, turned to stone and ice. My angel, turned into an angel of death.
"I can't feel his thoughts." Harry's voice was a whisper.
"Of course you can't," said Voldemort softly. "He isn't real, Harry. He is just a recollection, seen through the eyes of Regulus Black, the young death eater who is about to die."
Harry watched with a beating heart as the young boy with the dark curls approached his Dark Lord and was greeted with a smile. "Is this how you remember it, too?" Harry asked Voldemort hesitantly.
Voldemort stood silently for a moment, gazing around the room. Then he nodded. "Yes. Yes, Harry, this is how it was. I still remember the evening Regulus Black came to see me. I remember the lights from the candles falling over his face just like this-" He reached out and touched the insubstantial recollection of Regulus Black, but Regulus did not appear to notice him. Voldemort glanced towards the arched window on the far wall. The moonlit garden was visible through the remnants of pale curtains that covered the window, and an ancient yew tree loomed dark just beyond the beveled glass. "But I seem to remember that it was raining. Regulus had little rain drops in his hair..." Voldemort's hand hovered near the young boy's hair now. "Odd, that he should not remember that it was raining. That is the part of this evening I remember most clearly myself."
"You wish to see me, Regulus?" The Dark Lord from the memory spoke softly. "Come, sit with me by the fire. Mundungus, bring us some wine."
Mundungus nodded gruffly and disappeared, and Regulus sat down on the edge of one of the armchairs by the fireplace, a hectic blush of nervousness on his face now.
The man who was both Tom and Voldemort flicked his wand, and the flames in the fireplace roared to life. Harry half expected to feel the warmth from the fire from where he was standing by Regulus' side, but he didn't. But Regulus appeared to sense the warmth from the remembered flames, for he stretched his hands hesitantly towards the fire. Harry could see that his pale hands were shaking slightly.
"Ah, here's Mundungus with the wine. You can leave us now, Mundungus. It appears that Regulus wishes to speak to me in private." Did the Dark Lord of the Riddle House sound more like Tom or like Voldemort? Harry couldn't decide.
Mundungus shuffled away sullenly, and the Dark Lord leaned forward a little. "What did you wish to speak to me about, Regulus?"
The boy drank deeply from his wine, as if to give himself courage. Then he whispered: "My lord, I am concerned..."
"Concerned, Regulus? About what?" The Dark Lord's voice was soft.
The wine cup trembled in Regulus' hand. "About the new pureblood society, my lord. It is such a beautiful thought: All the ancient wizarding families of Britain stepping out into the light and claiming our rightful place as rulers of this country. It is absurd that we should have to hide our very existence from the Muggles. Why should we have to hide, when we are the ones who have power? Why should we hide from the people that we are meant to rule? The Ministry regulations mandating that we conceal what we are from the Muggles are meaningless; if I were to use magic in front of a Muggle, I should be able to watch the startled Muggle drop to his knees and worship me, rather than fear arrest at the hands of the Ministry. Why should we have to hide our nature? Why should we hide our gifts?"
A brief smile flickered over the Dark Lord's face. "My thoughts exactly, Regulus."
"However..." Regulus drained his wine cup in one gulp. "We should not have to rule by terror, my lord. Your death eaters have gone too far. Innocent Muggles have been tortured, simply because some of your most brutal followers take pleasure in their suffering. And even wizards have suffered at their hands, and at your hands, my Lord." Regulus swallowed. "My lord, this... this is not what I thought it would be like... All this violence, the meaningless torture. It is unnecessary and barbaric; we are born to rule the world, but not to terrorize it. We are wizards; we are nature's nobility, and yet your death eaters act like animals... I cannot be part of this any longer."
The Dark Lord's glance lingered on the young boy. "You cannot be part of this? What do you intend to do, then, Regulus?"
Regulus was shaking now. But he glanced bravely up at the other man. "I no longer wish to be a death eater, my lord"
A silence followed. Then the Dark Lord of the memory said gently. "You no longer wish to be a death eater? I would urge you to think before making such a rash decision, my dear."
The boy shook his head. "My decision is made, my lord."
"No, Regulus." The Dark Lord rose. "I beg you to think it over for two or three days. Then, if your decision is still the same, come back and see me. But consider, first, what the consequences of your choice would be..."
"I don't understand." Tom spoke by Harry's side. "I would have thought the Dark Lord would have killed the boy on the spot."
Voldemort smiled slightly. "Oh, I would have, had he been one of my other death eaters. But I had a soft spot for Regulus, and I was hoping that he would change his mind. He was a pure-blood wizard, you see, from a noble, ancient house. I think he represented to me what I myself had longed to be. I, who was an impoverished half-blood... I am sure you understand me, Tom."
Tom nodded slowly. "Yes, perhaps I do... Perhaps you wished to spare Regulus for the same reason I became engaged to Walburga Black: To become part of the aristocratic world of old magic..."
"You were engaged to Walburga Black?" Voldemort stared at Tom.
Tom flushed. "Briefly. That was before I got to know Harry, of course."
Harry followed Regulus Black with his glance as the boy got up and walked slowly to the door. "So what happened to Regulus after this?"
"He died two days later," said Voldemort quietly. "By my hand. I... I regretted his death. Sometimes in the years that followed, I recalled the rain in his hair, and I wished that he had been more reasonable..."
The door closed behind Regulus. The half-familiar Dark Lord of Regulus' time walked over to the window and stood quietly, looking out into the night. Harry could see his reflection in the darkened glass; at this distance, he looked remarkably like Tom.
The elegant sitting-room flickered and faded, and a moment later, Harry, Tom and Voldemort found themselves back in Dumbledore's office. Fawkes greeted them with a shrill cry and burst into a violent blast of flames.
Voldemort regarded the burning bird for a moment, as if mesmerized by the incandescent flames. Then he murmured: "Believe me, Harry, I wish that evening in Riddle House had been different."
The flames inside the golden cage flared brightly for another moment, then they flickered and died, leaving only a small pile of ashes behind. Dumbledore looked up from his work. "Ah, about time." Harry couldn't tell if he was talking about Fawkes or Voldemort.
Harry glanced back at the silver waters of the Pensieve and breathed deeply. He pulled the golden time turner out of his pocket and lowered it into the luminous mist of the basin. "It will be different," he said softly.