AN: Again, the quotes in bold are from NBCs Hannibal.

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There is talk of suicide in this chapter so if that upsets you, feel free to skip the chapter and ask for a quick summary.

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[raising his glass] To the truth, then... and all its consequences.

It started off with searching the name Dr. Tom Riddle. All Ron found was psychology articles, people swearing by his therapy, and some articles stating Riddle attended city government events. Nothing was helpful, in fact, most of his findings made Tom sound like a nice guy.

Some searches even got a bit silly.

Where was Dr. Tom Riddle born?

Dr. Tom Riddle's' sketchy past

Where did Dr Tom Riddle riches come from?

It wasn't until Ron opened an article that felt like any other dead end. It was a short article from years prior. "Local school receives donations," Ron read over it. He muttered some words that were of no interest until he reached the name he was looking for. "-Tom Riddle wrote a check, given to Albus Dumbledore, after rumors of Malfoy cutting more funds for Hogwarts surfaced-"

Did that mean Dumbledore knew Tom? It wouldn't have been much of a surprise, Dumbledore had connections everywhere.

The article, as small as it had been, pushed Ron to visit Albus, and that was where he learned things that almost felt like something.

"Ah, Riddle. Yes, he had been a student of mine, only a few years before you were Ronald," Albus smile was warm, but his twinkling eyes looked as they were thinking of other things.

"He was Ginny's therapist," Ron said carefully and just like that Albus was back in his office, his smile fading.

"So I heard."

Ron cleared his throat. "What else do you know about Tom?" his words were rushed, barely seeming like words, he was almost afraid Dumbledore wouldn't understand and he'd have to repeat himself.

Dumbledore stared at Ron for a second before saying in a quiet, comforting voice, "There's some things that are better left alone Ronald. A wound can't heal if you keep picking at it."

Ron looked away. He saw the many certificates on Dumbledore's walls and thought about Ginny. Maybe, when she got through all the darkness she was going through, she could have earned just as many certificates. She had been a smart girl.

Hermione was a smart girl. And Ron needed with all his being to know Hermione was safe.

"Tom was a very charming boy," Dumbledore said after a moment. "But he hasn't always been known by the name Tom Riddle."

Ron turned back to Dumbledore and waited for more. His stomach was in knots but even this felt like more than he had found in his own research.

"He use to go by Marvolo Riddle. Tom was a middle name I believe," Albus looked sure of his words, but he spoke them with care.

"Is there a reason he changed it to Tom?"

"I assume he wanted a clean slate after Hogwarts. It wasn't his best years."

"What happened to him at Hogwarts?"

"While he attended Hogwarts, Riddle had his own issues at home. His mother was someone I talked to often. She worried for him, but I assured her Riddles grades were impeccable, and he seemed to be getting along with everyone here." Albus felt faraway. "Riddle was very close to the teachers, he even confided in one of them about his personal life. It seemed his mother was a very… paranoid woman. No one had said anything of her, not even Riddle had, until her passing."

"His mom died? How?" Ron couldn't imagine the pain of that.

"It was a very strange occurrence...They concluded it was a moment of desperation, but one that led to Merope taking her own life."

"She committed suicide?"

"That's what they concluded."

The tone was familiar to Ron. "What do you think?" he almost whispered.

"Merope was a very lovely woman, if she ever needed help with her inner demons, she hid that very well. The conversations I had with her, had made her sound like someone completely invested in her son's happiness." Albus paused. "Not everyone is what they seem I suppose."

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"It's gotten really hard to remember who I was when I wasn't him."

Hermione tried to read more. The days felt long and the weeks felt like they were flying by. It felt like she was rushing by an eternity where there was no end and the beginning was starting to be a far away blur.

The book in her hand felt much like time. She knew there was a beginning and an end, but it was hard to focus on the words, they were like short little obstacles keeping her from changing the page. They came in one after the other and they made her feel sluggish. When it was finally time to change the page, she sat there in wonder, what had she just read? The words, difficult as it must have been to read, left nothing behind for Hermione to think of.

It had been a rough couple of days. She had talked to no one except Tom. She hadn't gone back to work after a long talk with Tom, who convinced her his salary was enough for the three of them.

"You need your rest," he said to her as he slid a hand over her stomach.

It felt wrong, but she said nothing of it.

There was no easier way of describing how Hermione felt except, lost.

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"It's getting harder and harder to make myself look."

"No one's asking you to look alone."

"I don't know why you want to look this up Ron." Harry said. He wasn't complaining, but he sounded tired. He didn't want to do this, but if it helped Ron get over whatever it was he thought he had, he'd do it. "How do you think Merope is spelled?"

"I'd say just as it sounds. It's an odd name, but so is Marvolo."

"Maybe Tom only changed his name so he wouldn't go around with a name like a character out of a science fiction movie," Harry said, typing in 'Merope Riddle' into the search box.

A few relevant articles appeared, Harry clicked on the first one. Their findings was not much more than Albus had told Ron about.

"Tom was questioned for her death," Harry said, reading through one of the articles.

Ron peered over Harry's shoulder and read. "Merope Riddle was found, multiple wounds over her wrist -" he stopped reading and felt a tug in his stomach.

"Suicide was their first suspicion but after an autopsy, they decided to question her only son."

"I wonder what they found Harry."

"They just had no other leads besides her son, it sort of makes sense."

"Maybe Remus knows something about it, he's been a teacher at Hogwarts, maybe they talk amongst each other."

Ron looked at Harry, so immersed as he typed other searches. This was good. There was something here.

They spend days like that, writing down any seemingly important part of information. When Remus finally called Harry back, he had more details of what had happened those years ago.

"It was before you kids were in Hogwarts, before I was in Hogwarts even. I knew what was going on because of James. He wasn't exactly on the case but not for the lack of trying. Riddle was a very liked student at Hogwarts. There was not one bad thing said about him by his classmates."

"So why was he a suspect?"

"There was doubts," Remus continued, "Marvolo found Merope and he called the authorities. He told the operator he thought his mother took her own life, there was nothing off in the way he acted. He had been emotional and looked to be grieving. James said they found some of the cuts on her wrists were at an angle where it would have been difficult for her to do on her own. The problem was, most of the other officer wanted to leave the kid alone. They didn't want to question it any longer. They figured it wasn't impossible for Merope to do those cuts on her own and there wasn't anyone they really suspected to want to harm her. Marvolo was a good kid, he seemed to be grieving enough, and all his stories and alibis fit. After his mother passed, he was sent to a group home and they figured it was bad enough for him. He wasn't questioned any further and they ruled her death a suicide."

Harry was at loss for words. "That's awful," he finally said.

"Is there a reason you're digging so deep into his past?"

"He's the guy Ron was complaining about last time. The one Hermione is dating."

"I see. You boys be careful. Hermione is an adult and she knows what she's doing. The most you can do is be there for her, through good times and bad times. You have to respect each other's decisions."

"I know uncle Remus," Harry murmured. "Thank you."

Almost as soon as they hung up, Harry called Ron. "I don't know Ron. He doesn't sound like a bad guy."

"I've got a bad feeling about all this Harry."

"I know. We need to talk to Hermione, just be her friend again."

Rons gut wrenched.

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"So killing somebody, even if you have to do it, it feels that bad?"

"It's the ugliest thing in the world."

Narcissa sat with Hermione, both quiet as they sat in the living room, the TV set on low, and warm teas in their hands.

"He made you do it, didn't he?" Cissa finally asked.

"Ginny?" Hermione voice shook. "No."

Tom had reassured Hermione that if anyone could keep secrets, it was Narcissa. He said she helped make an alibi for him with the police and they could trust her with anything.

Tom figured if Hermione was having the urge to tell someone, it was better for him to have control over who she told. She needed to get it off her chest and if she could do so with Cissa, better for him.

"He was in trouble. I didn't think. I just- I don't know why I did it. I didn't think. I just didn't think," Hermione tried to find other words for what happened, all that came out was, "I just didn't think."

"It felt like your only option," Cissa voice filled with empathy. This wasn't the woman Hermione thought she was. How was this Draco Malfoys mother?

"It really did."

Cissa swallowed the knot in her throat and said what Tom instructed her to say, "You didn't have a choice Hermione. You can't feel guilty over something that was not in your hands."

Hermione stared at the television, not seeing or hearing anything from it. "I feel awful. All the time. Even when I'm not thinking about her, I can feel it. It's just an ugly feeling dragging me down, holding me and suffocating me all the time."

"Maybe we should get you out of the house. We can go shopping, get nice things for the baby." Cissa pretended not to notice Hermione cringe at the word baby. "Or go to the bookstore, Tom tells me you like to read."

Hermione thought of polite ways to decline.

"Lucius and I are going to a charity function next week, I'm sure Tom will tell you about it. But in the time building up to it, we're helping to fund soup kitchens and women's shelters. Maybe you'd like to go help? We can go together if you'd like."

Hermione felt herself genuinely smile at that, "I would really really like that."

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"That was once you, I'm told. [He] got deeper inside you than he did any of us."

Ron and Harry devoted days to what seemed like useless information. They went to Hogwarts and spend hours looking through the yearbooks from years before they were in school. When they finally found the year Riddle was in Hogwarts, their work began.

"Take all the ones he's in. Remus said nobody spoke ill of him the year his mother died. That had to be around his senior year. Maybe we can look up that one first," Ron said, picking up the books from the shelves.

"What exactly are we looking for?"

Ron seemed almost lost as he looked for an answer. "Anything."

Harry only took the books from Ron and together they looked for a empty place to sit.

They looked through the books, Riddle had many pictures in his senior year. Awards after awards after awards. He was in different intellectual clubs and had even founded his own to help kids who needed tutoring or needed people to talk to. "He called his club Knights of Walpurgis. This is nauseating, he's so much like Hermione."

"What does Walpurgis even mean? Does that have something to do with helping people?"

Ron shrugged, "Slughorn was their club advisor, maybe he came up with it, you know how he loves dramatics."

Harry grimaces but wrote down the club name to look up later.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until they got to Riddles freshman year. He was hardly in any pictures in that book. No awards, no clubs, almost no acknowledgments to him except for one.

"Isn't that him in the back?" Ron pointed to one picture. "This kid looks terrified," Ron laughed a little at the odd boy having his picture taken. His eyes were wide and his body stiff but he faked a smile at the camera.

"Where?" Harry asked, looking at the picture. He only saw the terrified looking boy next to a small paragraph explaining why his favorite teacher was Mrs. Cole.

Ron pointed to someone behind the boy who was said to be named Billy Stubbs. "That kid." It was a much younger Riddle, giving Billy a look that explained the terrified look on his face. Riddle's eyes were low and seemed reproachful. "You think they didn't get along?"

"I wouldn't bet against that."

"Look for that kid in the other yearbooks," Ron suggested. "Maybe they were friends and just having a bad day."

Harry quickly looked through the classes in the other yearbooks, no one by the last name Stubbs was there. "He must have moved."

Ron began looking himself and while Harry waited, he decided to look up the word Walpurgis. "Walpurgis doesn't really seem to have to do with helping people," Harry looked over the search results on his phone and shrugged. "It's either a day to celebrate a saint, or a day to celebrate witches."

"Look up Billy Stubs," Ron suggested.

"Why?" Harry didn't see the point in that.

"We don't have a lot of leads. We don't have any answers to anything because we don't even have questions yet, just a bad feeling. I'm just going to have to let this feeling lead me, and if it leads to dead ends then so be it. I'm not going to live through 'what ifs' anymore."

Harry typed Billy Stubbs into a search engine and found nothing useful.

"Social media maybe?" Harry said aloud to himself as he searched further. "There's a Billy Stubbs who lives in the city actually!"

"Really? So why would he move schools if he's still in the city?"

"He owns a little auto shop, he's advertising it like crazy," Harry muttered. "There's a phone number for the shop."

"We can call him," Ron said, dropping the yearbook and reaching over to look at Harry's phone. "Call him."

"And say what?"

"Ask him about Riddle!"

"No! You can't just call someone's business to ask about someone they may have known just for a bad feeling we have on the guy."

Ron thought about it, "Ask him if he can check out my car."

"Check out your car?"

"Like a physical check? They do that with cars right? Or tell him it's making a weird noise?"

That was good enough for Harry, he dialed the phone number and almost instantly got an answer.

"Hello this is Stubbs Auto Shop how can I help you today?"

"Billy Stubbs?" Harry asked hesitantly.

"Yes that's me."

"Oh uh you went to Hogwarts right? I was recommended to you by a friend," Harry tried to sound easygoing.

The man on the other line was quiet for a while before he finally answered, "I went there for a year or so, how can I help?"

"Would you have the time to look at my car today? It's uh making an odd sound in the uh engine?"

"I have the time, bring it by whenever you'd like sir, I'm here until 6."

"Great we'll be right over Mr. Stubbs thank you." Harry hung up and looked at Ron. "We'll just have to try to make conversation with him, how do we casually bring up Tom Riddle?"

"We'll figure it out. We always do."