Gellert was sitting in his study in an armchair next to the dying fire. It was early in the morning and he found himself studying a picture of him with his sweet girl, they were both smiling, his curly blonde hair mingling with her straight ebony-like hair. He had been teaching her to ice skate, Walburga had taken it, saying that they were too cute. Miranda had loved the snow and had been so happy that day, her fifteenth birthday. She wasn't a little girl anymore, and, like all fathers, he was panicking a little.
Miranda was sixteen now, a woman in her own right. She and Walburga were near inseparable. She hadn't spent any real time with Gellert in months, but in all of the soft smiles and quick hugs, he knew it wasn't as if she didn't love him still.
The only problem was, as usual, Albus. He was getting closer. Every time he left Nurmengard, Albus would show up just after he left. He was losing followers, and fear was beginning to become a new bedfellow.
For her sixteenth birthday, Miranda had a particularly challenging request, but, his future plans not withstanding, Gellert Grindelwald was a doting father. Also, he knew by the time Miranda was free, her request would likely be all but impossible to fulfill.
So he found himself in the village of Little Hangleton with Miranda, the young woman wringing her hands nervously. She had her head down, hiding her eyes from him much like Credence Barebones had always done when he'd been posing as Percival Graves all those years ago. Very rarely Miranda reminded him of the battered boy, but it was often enough for him to wonder just how she had managed not to become an Obscurial. Oddly enough it was Tom who had kept her from that terrible fate.
Miranda may not have been his by blood, he may not have kept her from becoming an Obscurial, but he had left his mark on her just the same. Her parents had left her with sightless hazel eyes, but by him and his magic, she had crystal blue eyes that saw so much more than he wanted her to. She wasn't near as naive as she played, but he appreciated it all the same. "What happens will happen, pet."
She shot a dark look at him, cracking the facade of the perfect English lady she'd fussed over the whole morning, her magic frizzing the base of her tight bun, "Of all the times for you to be calm."
He had to smile slightly at her unease, "You know where I stand, Miranda."
"I know." She whispered, and met his blue eyes with her own, "I love you, but this is important. My mother died seconds after she named me, and Tom is out of reach until he graduates. These people are the only blood family I have left."
"They're muggles, Miranda. Just remember. I'd hate to have to obliviate them." He wasn't going to tell her that, either way, he was obliviating the inhabitants of the grand house. He wasn't going to let them take Miranda from him, or ruin her in any other way.
She knocked hesitantly, so gently that he was sure no one had heard, but the door opened a few moments later. "May I help you?"
An older dark haired woman stared down at them from the doorway. Gellert waited a few moments, but Miranda remained speechless. He stepped forward, putting a hand on the small of Miranda's back. She gasped, but said nothing. He had to step in. He wasn't going to let her leave thinking less of herself because of some bloody muggles.
"Mistress Riddle?" The woman nodded, her eyes fixed on Miranda. "We are looking for Tom Riddle. Is he about?"
"I'm his daughter." Miranda blurted.
Mary Riddle arched an eyebrow at Miranda, "From the mess with the Gaunt girl?"
Miranda nodded, "Yes ma'am. Merope Gaunt was my mother."
"You certainly don't look like her." Was the woman's snide reply.
Gellert was tempted to hex the woman at her tone, but Miranda unknowingly saved her, "I've always been told my brother and I take after our father. I'm very aware my mother was not choice in visage or temperament. I'm asking for nothing here but the chance to meet my blooded family."
But bless her, she was brave, that beautiful young woman Gellert Grindelwald had managed to not completely screw up. He scarcely managed to keep a prideful grin off his face.
Mary Riddle, to her credit, also seemed impressed by Miranda, but asked inquisitively, "You have a brother?"
"Yes." Miranda told her, "A twin. Hardly an hour older than myself. I'm sure he would like to be here as well, but he's studying at an elite boarding school."
Mary seemed to soften, either due to genuine interest or material interest at a grandson she'd never met rating an 'elite boarding school'. "Twins? Oh my. My Tom never does anything by half, does he?"
Miranda blinked furiously at the off-color comment, but Gellert found himself amused by the woman's pride in her son. "I suppose not, Mistress Riddle." He felt a presence behind them, pressing his hand into the back of her waist, "Miranda."
She turned, and was face to face with the handsome muggle man her mother had ensnared. "Tom Riddle?" She asked, voice hardly more than a whisper.
"Tom, this is your daughter, come to meet you and tell you about her twin brother." Mary Riddle supplied to her son.
Tom Riddle Sr. stared at Miranda, much like his mother had done. "My daughter. You certainly look like me, don't you?"
It was true. They shared the same fair skin and dark hair, and Miranda's stubborn chin was an echo of the man's in front of her. She would have favored him even more if she wasn't Grindelwald's daughter too. Tom Riddle Sr.'s eyes were hazel.
What followed was a slightly awkward tea filled with subtle references to Mary Riddle's son needing an heir given his ever advancing age, and less than subtle inquiries into Gellert's presence. "I already have a father, Mr. Riddle, a very good one, and I don't need an explanation for your abandonment of my mother. I only thought it might be nice for us to know each other, even if in passing."
The afternoon hours passed with relative smalltalk, and they left with vague promises between Riddle's to write and see one another again, but Gellert hesitated at the door, "Go ahead into the garden, Miranda, I'll be only a moment."
She looked anxiously at him, but obeyed. She was such a good girl.
Tom Riddle Sr. took a hard look at the man who had allegedly raised his daughter, "You won't let her come calling again, will you?"
Gellert shook his head, "No, Mr. Riddle. That was the one and only time you will ever see your daughter. You do not deserve her."
"And you do?" Tom Riddle Sr. barked, watching as the girl bumped into the gardener outside, "I know men like you. She's a lovely girl. A distraction. Why else would you take the girl instead of the boy? Is she a freak like her whore mother?"
Gellert wanted to kill the man, but he couldn't. At least not when it was possible that Miranda might find out. "She is my daughter, not a distraction. You will never see her again because I am far more of a freak than she could ever be." He took care of all of those inside the home before Thomas Riddle ever arrived from the office.
That night, Miranda spent the evening curled up with Gellert, trying to process it all. He was proud of his girl, even if nothing truly had come from their afternoon in Little Hangleton. The promised letters never came. But Miranda herself seemed to have been obliviated, and never mentioned the Riddle's again. Life returned to normal. Gellert engaging in his cat and mouse game with Albus in-between times home with his daughter.
A few months later, however, Grindelwald was awakened by his elf screaming.
"Master! Master!" Claudius yelled, running into his Master's study with his hands waving about his head, "Master, Mistress wont's stop screaming! She won't wake!"
In an instant, Gellert was out of the study and running up the stairs. "Tom!" He heard as he busted her door open. "TOM!" She shrieked, and he pulled the curtains away from her bed, ignoring the fact that all the furniture in the room was moving around them. Her eyes were jerking rapidly beneath her thin eyelids and her body was covered in a sheen of sweat, the white nightgown visibly damp against her skin. She was clutching the bedsheets, which weren't the pristine white they should have been. Gellert felt his heart leap to his chest when he saw that her hands were bleeding, she had dug into her own skin with her fingers. "Tom! Stop!"
"Miranda." Gellert whispered in horror, touching her clammy shoulder as the furniture in the room jerked forward, pulled by her power.
She stilled after her last scream, but her eyes did not cease their frenzy. Suddenly, she let out a tiny gasp and all movement in the room ended, the furniture releasing a wooden creak as the pieces settled back onto the floor in unison. Gellert grabbed her shoulders and lifted her up to his chest, cradling her there as he ensured that she was still breathing.
"Don't, please, Tom, don't." She was whispering under her breath.
Gellert put her back down, assuming that her nightmare was ending. Claudius was wringing his hands at his Master's side. "I think she's alright now." Gellert whispered, stepping back slowly and waving his wand once to set the room back to how it had been before she'd half torn it apart.
As he turned to leave, Miranda spoke, her tone steady and assertive, "Tom, stop. Don't do this. This isn't you." There was a pause, as if she was waiting for a response in a conversation only she could hear. Her eyes were still closed, she was still stuck in her nightmare. Gellert knew better than to try to wake her up now, but what she said next sent a chill of glee into his gut. "Don't kill her, Tom. You don't want to do this." She started convulsing again, "Tom! Tom! No!" She shot up, her blue eyes open and bright with magic, her breath panting and erratic.
Gellert was back at her side, kneeling beside the bed, "Miranda? Pet, what is it? What did you see? Is Tom alright?"
She threw her bloody arms around his neck the instant the eerie blue light faded from her eyes, sobbing. He ran his fingers through her hair, whispering softly to her, trying to know what she had seen. Was everything finally paying off? He'd heard of problems at Hogwarts, could it be Tom? His pride at the possible destruction warred with his paternal need to protect her at all costs.
"Papa." She said softly, "Papa, he killed her. That poor girl. She was upset and wandered into the loo. I begged him not to, but he wouldn't listen." Her voice grew even softer, "He has a basilisk, Papa. He turned it on her, she didn't stand a chance."
No, that poor girl didn't. It had begun. Tom would be His heir now, whatever happened to Gellert didn't matter anymore, as long as Miranda was safe and Tom was embracing his future. "Shush, pet, it was just a dream."
She shook her head against his shoulder, "No, it was real. I was there. He didn't even look at me. I looked into his eyes, and I saw nothing. He was actually amused that she died. I'm losing him, Papa. Something is stealing him from me." She took a shuddered breath, "I'm not sure if I'll be able to get him back."
"Pet, please, it was just a dream. I promise you. Tom is at Hogwarts, he couldn't have a basilisk." Yes, he could. Salazar Slytherin was nothing if not a sneaky bastard, and leaving a deadly basilisk in a school full of children waiting on a descendent to unleash it upon them all would have been almost hilarious to him. "It's early, go back to sleep. Claudius will wake you before breakfast." He needed to leave. He needed to speak to Walburga.
He was out the door before she could protest anymore, but she sat there, looking at her bleeding hands. She looked up at Claudius, "It was real. I know it was, I was there, Tom killed that girl."
Claudius started to wrap her limp hands in gauze, "Claudius knows, Mistress, Claudius knows. Shh. It will all be over soon, then you'll be safe."
"Ow!" She yelped when he accidentally jabbed one of her wounds with his own fingers. She shook him off, finishing the gauze on her right hand with her dominant left hand. "I don't understand why that keeps happening! And why did you bring Papa this time?"
Claudius ducked his head, Miranda in a rage happened very rarely, but when she was, small items had a tendency to fly, much like she'd done in terror during her nightmare. "I could not wake you this time. Mistress, you would not stop screaming. Claudius didn't know what else to do. Claudius was so scared."
She softened quickly and picked up Claudius, giving him a hug, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. I'll change clothes and go to Burga's" With a snap of her fingers, her dampened nightgown transfigured itself into a grey cotton skirt and a white shirt.
Claudius shook his head, "Claudius never should have taught Mistress wandless magic. Bad Claudius. Mistress too smart for her own good."
She scoffed at him, "Oh, stop that, you funny little thing. It was the only way you really could teach me considering I didn't have a wand and was blind for most of my early life. Let's go, I know it's early, but I can't sleep now. Burga's probably up anyway, she's an earlier riser than I am." Miranda was trying desperately to keep calm, to keep the panic from building in her chest again. What she had seen in her dream had been just another in a long line of dreams featuring her brother.
Walburga always settled her down. Sure, she had finished Hogwarts at the end of the last term, but she had always made sure to keep an eye on Tom for her best friend. Walburga was an expert at siphoning information from her brothers, not that Alphard wouldn't tell Miranda everything she wanted to know.
She hesitated. Walburga was in the midst of her own troubles. Would it be right to add to them? She had to. Miranda wasn't so naive that she didn't understand that her Papa had told her only what she wanted to hear, or that his flight from her room was peculiar. She needed Walburga's decisive mind to give her some idea of what she was supposed to do. Surely she had to do something, right? Tom needed her, even if he didn't realize it. She'd pulled him back from the brink once before, surely she could do it again.
"Mistress, one moment." Claudius said, grabbing onto her hand when she started towards the door again, "Firstly, it's four o'clock in the morning, and secondly, your hair is a bit of a mess, as is your face."
Miranda smiled tightly at the elf, feeling more than a little silly and off kilter, "Oh, thank you for letting me know. I would have scared her half to death. Not to mention her brothers would have screeched at me for days." She sat back down on her bed, patting a space next to her, "Help me brush my hair?"
The elf smiled, picking her silver brush up off her dresser, "Of course, Mistress." He had always brushed her hair when she was a child, and it had been a common thing for them after one of her nightmares. He hated using the silver brush on her, but she wouldn't stay in the house otherwise, and his Master had made it quite clear as he'd left that she was supposed to stay put.
They had started when Tom had first gone to Hogwarts. Miranda had sat through the opening feast with Tom, standing just behind him, running her hands through his short black hair every so often. It had seemed to calm him. No one could see her, and she knew that Tom couldn't either but she knew he felt her. Sometimes, in her own dreams, she could feel eyes on her, but when she turned around, she never could see anything. She knew it was Tom though, he had a familiar feel to him, if she closed her eyes and thought hard enough, she could imagine the feel of his hand in her own, their scarred palms pressed together.
Lulled by the sensation of the silver brush running through her hair, she decided not to believe what she had seen was real. It was simply a bad dream. Her Papa was right. Only a nightmare. Claudius caught her head as Miranda fell back, fast asleep.
Her Papa was pacing the Black family library. "Irma. Where. Is. Your. Daughter?"
The pale woman was sitting in the corner, looking at her lord from her plush chair with sunken eyes, "Pollux went to get her, my lord. Please, don't be angry. Walburga can be quite stubborn." The woman shifted shakily in the chair.
"I am aware." He grit out, thinking about how the pigheaded young woman had rubbed off on his Miranda over the years. Walburga was going to get herself in trouble one day, but he needed her continued usefulness to last just a little while longer. He continued to pace.
Walburga, on the other hand, was sitting on her bed with her back towards her father, quite resolute as she told him, "No. I will do no such thing."
"Walburga, the Dark Lord is not a patient man, and leaving him with your mother is not a good idea. Please, Walburga, would you mind me just this once to get him out of the house? Your mother doesn't have much time left." Pollux was at his wits end with his oldest child. She never listened to him, only to her mother. Why did she have to be so much like Irma? Why couldn't she be as people pleasing as her two brothers?
She continued to write on her wall with chalk, trying to finish the spell she was working on, her brain focused on the spell as she dismissed her father, "If he wants to talk to me without Miranda present, he can come here. There're no boggarts in the closet, promise." She said, waving her hand behind her back, "I'm not the one who swore my loyalty to him. I don't owe him anything, I never have. Miranda is my best friend, but I was always very clear this arrangement was for her and I, not him. Now, get out of my room."
Pollux swore darkly before leaving her room and returning to the library, trying not to tremble in fear, "Master, forgive me, but my daughter requests that you go to her quarters." He kept his head down, expecting the dark wizard to attack him. He didn't care, just as long as Grindelwald didn't hurt Irma.
To his surprise, Gellert shrugged magnanimously, "Fine, I don't have time for this, show me. I'll play her games."
Pollux bowed, "Merciful Lord, thank you for not being angry."
Gellert looked at the man dismissively, "You and your children are good to my Miranda. But really, I simply don't have time to punish anyone so early this morning."
Irma cleared her throat, "My Lord, forgive me for questioning you, but what do you want with my little girl. She's just a child, surely there isn't something I could do for you?"
Gellert knelt in front of the fragile woman, "Irma, you've done enough." She had been cursed while doing recon for him just over a month ago. She didn't have long to live, and it was painfully obvious. In the last few weeks, her striking beauty had faded leaving a frail shell of the woman she had been before. She coughed daintily into her handkerchief, and blood smeared on it.
"I'm not dead yet, my Lord. I can still do anything she can do." She smiled weakly, "Just give me a few moments to freshen up and I can seduce anyone you need." The woman had always been so loyal to him, his best at getting information from hard targets, she had a gentle hand coupled with what had once been a pretty face. Her bright eyes were sunken now though, her hands bony and her entire body was emaciated. She was in the library to sleep because she could no longer sleep laying down without nearly drowning in her own fluid.
"Irma, you don't need to worry about Walburga. I simply need her to make something for me, she won't even need to leave the house." Irma blinked at him, and smiled again, closing her eyes and falling fast asleep in an instant.
"Forgive her, my Lord. She tires so quickly." Pollux said, pulling a blanket into her lap.
"No, forgive me, Pollux. I'm the reason she's dying. I'm sorry I've done this to your family." Gellert found that in the end, there were a lot of things he was sorry about. He left the library and found the girl's open door on his own. "There you are, Walburga. I was looking for you."
"No, you summoned me. I don't come like a dog. What do you want?" She pulled her hair over her shoulder.
"I'm not a very patient man, but I am here, begging your help." The wood creaked under his feet as the Dark Lord bowed to an eighteen year old girl.
Walburga straightened at the sound and turned around cautiously, her book falling from her lap with the chalk. Gellert Grindelwald was knelt next to her bed, his head bowed. She very well might have been a queen in a different life, but she was still stunned, staring at him. Quickly, the heiress regained her composure, sniffing lightly as she looked at him. "I'll ask again. What do you need from me?"
He looked up, fixing her with his green eyes, "I need you to help me keep Miranda safe."
Walburga made to stand up, suddenly panicked, "Why? What happened? Is she alright?"
"She's fine. Forgive me, I didn't mean to frighten you. She won't be fine for too much longer, however. I know you've read the Black family dark texts."
"Yes, I have, just don't tell my mother." Walburga said with a smile, standing and moving past him, "What in those texts could interest a man like you? Surely you have all manner of books at your disposal. The Blacks are just one of many dark families."
"Yes, but the Blacks are the only ones who have such a talented young lady in their home. You are a gem with the knowledge to destroy men and burn this city to the ground. You're smarter than you let on, little girl."
Walburga leaned against the wall of her room, careful not to smear the chalk that covered almost every wooden space. "So, you want me to serve you?"
"No, help me protect Miranda and I will help you with what I know you want."
"What do I want? Money, power, fame? I have all of that. As you pointed out, I am a Black." Walburga had no fear of him, he was a man, nothing more, nothing less. Men she could handle, it was love that she couldn't deal with. A shiver went down her spine. Did he know? Did he know that on the end of the necklace she wore around her neck was an engagement ring? The one given to her by her beloved?
Brennan Evans had given the ring to her on the day he'd graduated from Hogwarts. She was his, and he was hers. Her Mudblood. Yes, Brennan Evans was muggleborn, and she couldn't love him more, no matter what her family said. She would go against even Grindelwald to keep Brennan from harm. She would protect her family.
The man's words were not what she expected: "You want your mother's pain to end."
She froze, her hands halfway to the wood of the desk. He was the reason she was like that. How could he talk like it was so commonplace? Like Irma Black had gotten ill for no reason. She was dying and it was his fault. Walburga's defenses snapped up on that unexpected front, "How can you say that? I love my mother."
"Yes, I see that, but, Walburga, your mother will linger for months. She'll get sicker and sicker, and that shell of a woman in that room will become a ghost. You know that. If you help me protect your best friend, I will end your mother's suffering. It will be peaceful for her, easy. You want that for her, don't you?"
Walburga felt the tears fill her eyes against her will. "Yes, I do. I don't want her to be in pain anymore." She wiped her face with the back of her hand, "What do you need me to do? If you want Miranda to live here, that's fine, we could pass her off as a cousin, she looks enough like us." He let her ramble on for a few minutes.
"Miss Black, all of that is well and good, but it's not foolproof. She's in danger as long as Albus Dumbledore is alive."
"Can't you just kill him?"
"Not hardly, and he can't kill me either, he doesn't have the heart."
She eyed him critically, and saw his own unwavering resolve, "Fine"
"Excellent, I need you to make a room, that's impenetrable, unplottable, and where time ceases to move." Gellert circled the girl who had stumbled into the center of the room, "Walburga, you are the only one in this family strong enough to use those ancient spells."
"How do you know I even know spells that will do that?" Walburga said, her voice soft. She felt defeated already. She knew what he was asking her to do. He wanted her to trap Miranda. He wanted her to trap the sweet soul who had thawed Walburga's heart enough to be ready to accept Brennan's love. He wanted her to trap her best friend…her only friend. All to keep her 'safe'.
Gellert smiled, "I know that some of the darker books can only be opened by someone of Black blood."
"Rather, using Black blood." Walburga added, when she was young she'd given herself a paper-cut examining one of the books whose pages were blank and then words had filled the page. After that, bloodletting was one of her standard practices when encountering a new book. It was a process Miranda loathed.
"Will you do it?" Gellert asked, "For Miranda? For your mother?"
Walburga laughed bitterly, "How can I say no to that?"
"You can't."
"I won't." Walburga made a deal with the Dark Lord. In the end, it was a good deal, but it was one of the hardest things she'd ever done. She made the room as her mother sat dying a slow and painful death in the next room. She had Alphard, her kind, loving brother, paint a portrait of her and she'd infused it with some of her energy by mixing her blood in the red paint. When it was done, she stuck it to the new door she'd made to the room she and her brothers' had played in as children that was connected to her bedroom. The door in her room had been sealed, like it never existed, and the portrait with it's Permanent Sticking charm covered the door entirely. The spells were set that January, Miranda had just turned seventeen, and Walburga knew that she would never see her best friend's eighteenth.
Gellert personally brought Miranda to the house one morning a few weeks later, whispering to Walburga that it was time before hugging Miranda closely one last time.
Feeling like the villain she was, Walburga had plastered on a smile and led Miranda up the stairs, "I want to show you something."
Miranda rolled her eyes, not noticing how ill her best friend and house elf looked. "Not more books, Burga, you know I can't read half of them. I'm not a Black. The last one nearly bit my bloody finger off."
"Not books." Walburga said, fighting back her emotions, "A room." She tugged on the portrait that had for now been hidden as a family portrait. "Alphard, Cygnus and I used to play here as children."
Miranda moved amongst the old dolls and hoops, "Wow, all of this is so fascinating! How have I never seen this before?"
Walburga shrugged, "It's a storage room, Randa." She watched her for a few minutes before Claudius pulled on her skirt, reminding her of what she had to do. The elf looked as terrible as she felt when she said softly, "I'm so sorry, Miranda. I hope one day you'll forgive me." Tears rolled down her cheeks.
"Whatever for?" Miranda had said, turning to comfort her friend before a trunk caught her eye, "That's mine. What is it doing here?"
Walburga grabbed the edge of the portrait. "I'm so sorry for this." She closed the heavy door with a solid thud, falling against the outside as the sobs overwhelmed her. She wanted to open the door again, but she couldn't, the door would only open when Gellert had set it to. She didn't even notice Claudius slip out of the hallway and down the stairs.
"Burga?" Miranda said, her voice seeking. "Burga? This isn't funny!" Her voice rose in her mounting panic, "Walburga! Where are you?" She tried tugging on the door, but it wouldn't budge. Everything was black. Walburga knew that the one thing that scared Miranda was darkness. She'd lived in a world of darkness long enough and being with her sight but unable to see terrified her. Walburga wished she had thought to put a lamp in the room. The flame would never burn out due to the spells, but she hadn't had time for things such as that. Perhaps that would have made it easier on both of them.
She sobbed harder as she listened to the younger girl shake the the handle of the door. "Walburga!" Miranda cried, making Walburga pinch her eyes shut.
"Let me out of here!"
"Please!"
"Papa! Claudius! Anyone!"
"Help me!"
"Tom!"
"Help me!"
And softer, in the voice of a child: "It's dark."
She screamed for what seemed like hours before the spells subdued her, drawing her unwillingly into a peaceful sleep. In the next room, Irma Black closed her eyes for the last time. Walburga kept her vigil until her father came home, discovering his wife dead and his daughter in shock just outside the door.
The only thing that kept Walburga from falling apart during her mother's funeral was that, just on the other side of the grave, was Brennan, his sad smile keeping her sane. Her father was not so lucky, when Grindelwald fell at the hands of Dumbledore, Pollux had no purpose in his life anymore except to cleanse the family name. Walburga was forced into revealing her relationship with her green eyed muggle born when her father had insisted that she wed her cousin Orion.
Pollux had beaten his daughter half to death and then ordered her to kill her lover who had been disarmed and forced to watch the brutalization of his love. She had refused and then her father had turned his wand on her. Brennan begged then, begged her to just kill him, to save herself and to live. What he hadn't needed to say was that she had to live for their son, their Sirius, the baby that had been growing inside her since March.
Staring into his green eyes, Walburga had done it, with one last kiss and two words, her future was ruined. She married Orion two weeks after. When her son was born, she hid him away. She couldn't let her father notice Brennan's face in their son's. She used the same spells that held Miranda, and in 1959, after another in a long string of miscarriages and her father's death, she retrieved her son, allowing Orion to raise him. She'd betrayed Miranda and made her beloved's son a changeling.
It wasn't his fault, she had tried to reason with herself. It wasn't Sirius' fault that he was just like his Gryffindor father, but the madness that had destroyed the once brilliant witch wouldn't let her forgive him, so she punished him. And she lost him, like she lost everyone. In the end, she was alone, but no one missed her.
Gellert spent everyday in Nurmengard thinking of how he would feel the day Albus died, his ex-lover would be dead, but Miranda, she would be free. And she was. As Albus Dumbledore fell from the tower, Miranda Riddle stirred, waking alone in the darkness.
The door that had trapped her swung open, but the once familiar house behind it had changed. Gone were the rich fabrics and well polished bannisters, replaced by filth and despair. Confused, Miranda had run out of the house, letting the door slam shut behind her. It was fall again, and Miranda's instincts kept her alive 'till summer, as well as her knowledge of how to create muggle currency. She tried very hard not to stand out, to blend in, with moderate success. She got a job as a waitress in a tiny diner and lived out of her transfigured handbag, without a real home. While London itself had changed very little in the last fifty years, 1997 was a whole new world that took some adjusting to, as did muggle life. Something in her had told her to hide, but she couldn't hide when two teenagers ducked into the diner in the middle of the night like the devil himself were after them.
That's a wrap on chapter two! Many thanks to all of you who have favorited this story thus far, I really appreciate it!
Let me know what you think!
-Jenn
