So sorry it's been a couple weeks! I ended up adding more to this chapter than I had anticipated. Good for you guys though, this chapter is longer than the prior ones!

Enjoy!


Harry had heard the girl after Kreacher had left, and had walked down the hall, wand out, Ron and Hermione close behind. She was in the room with the Black family tree, touching it with a pale hand. "How did you get in here?" He asked and she jumped, turning toward them with her wand raised.

"Bugger." She cursed in a soft, melodic voice, blue eyes wide.

"I'll ask again, how did you get in here?" Harry hissed, ready to disarm the girl, no matter how harmless and frail she looked.

The girl looked at the tapestry and back to Harry, as if she was trying to figure out how she had ended up in the room herself. She answered with furrowed eyebrows, as if confused by her own presence in the room, "I was in the cafe. I followed you."

That was all Harry needed to hear. "Expelliarmus!" He yelled.

Her wand sparked in her hand and jerked slightly, but didn't fly across the room as it should have. The witch and wizard stared at each other in shock. "Stupefy!" She said, waving her wand at Harry.

He skid back an inch or so, but that was the only reaction. "What the..."

"Serpensortari Major!" Miranda yelled, terror filling her. She couldn't handle being powerless, and whatever was happening with this boy was making it hard to breathe. A snake fell from the tip of her wand, turning to her for direction. She hissed at it to attack Harry just as he commanded the opposite of it. They stared at each other again, both knowing how rare their gift was. For it's part, the conjured snake just bobbed between staring at the both of them.

"Who are you?" Harry asked in awe, lowering his wand slightly.

"Miranda, Miranda Peverell." She felt herself saying, using the name she'd been born as Grindelwald's daughter with. Her heart pounded in her chest from a whole lot more adrenaline than it had been subjected to in months as she banished the conjured snake with a wave of her wand. She stared at the boy with Brennan's eyes, the boy whose magic had just behaved as a foil to hers. What it the world was going on? Her eyes drifted to his wand, and everything Ollivander had ever taught her about her own wand filtered back into the forefront of her brain. Her wand had two brothers, and that wand in the boys hand looked…she started to lower her wand.

"She's got to be a Death Eater, Harry!" Ron yelled, pushing past his friend, "Stupefy!"

Miranda flew across the room then, hitting the wall with a thud and falling unconscious to the ground. "Ron!" Hermione shrieked, running to the girl, "She wouldn't have just banished the snake if she was a Death Eater. She'd have killed us."

"She talked to it!" Ron said in his defense.

"Yeah, well if you didn't notice, I did too! That doesn't make me a bloody Death Eater!Shove it, Ron." Harry snapped, crouching next to Hermione, "Is she alright?"

Hermione nodded, "I think so. Probably just stunned." She looked at Harry, "What should we do? She's seen us, and knows where Grimmauld Place is. We can't let her go."

"Are you suggesting we kill her?" Harry said, looking at his best friend in disbelief.

Hermione recoiled, "No! Of course not! I thought we could just Obliviate her and dump her far away. It won't mend the Fidelius Charm, but as long as she doesn't remember coming here, she won't come back."

Ron nodded in agreement, but Harry looked at the girl again. "No, we need to keep her here." He picked up her left hand, pocketing her wand, and extended her arm, examining the pale limb, which was marred only by the blue veins under her skin, "She's not a Death Eater. She doesn't have the mark. She looked sort of scared of us actually, a little confused even." He grimaced, "And I did attack her first."

"Okay, so we interrogate her, and then we Obliviate her, brilliant plan, mate." Said Ron.

Hermione rolled her eyes, "I think what Harry is trying to say is that she's too pretty to have actually wanted to hurt us." She put a hand on Harry's shoulder, "She's not a stray dog, we can't take her home."

Harry scowled at her, "I know that. I just think it was weird how she was looking at the tapestry, like she was familiar with it." Harry stood up and walked to where Miranda had been standing, mimicking her stance to see what she had been looking at. It didn't help make things any clearer. He moved his hand up to where he guessed hers had been. She'd been standing right in front of Sirius's scorch mark, but her hand had been on Alphard Black's. "She was looking at Alphard Black."

"The one disowned for helping Sirius?" Said Hermione.

"Yeah." He went back to the girl, "I want to know why we couldn't curse each other." Harry touched his wand to her forehead, and whispered, "Rennervate."

She blinked awake. Jerkily, she sat up, pulling herself away from them, noticing the absence of her wand. She felt naked without it, and even though she could do wandless magic with relative ease, she knew she couldn't protect herself from all three of them and her new redhead induced headache was distracting enough to make wandlessly apperating a death sentence. She'd never been very good at it to begin with.

Turning her attention back to the room and off her wand-less state, Miranda felt herself start to panic. For a second, it was nineteen thirty five again: she was eight years old and disgustingly helpless. The wooden floor under her hands, the desperation, the male form hovering above her surrounded by several other presences set off feelings she had avoided for much of her teen years. Phantom hands grazed across her skin, tugged at her clothes, and tangled in her hair. Her breath caught in her chest and she dug her nails into her own arms, trying to pull herself out of the memories.

These three weren't those boys, they weren't the ones who had abused her and turned her brother into a murderer. The blind terror ebbed slightly when she focused on the sharp pain of her own nails in her flesh and the other female presence in the room, but her voice still trembled when she finally whispered, "Please don't hurt me."

"Answer our questions and we won't." Ron barked, receiving glares from both of his friends. Miranda flinched away from him, drawing herself closer to the wall.

"Miranda." Harry said, and they both shivered at the sound of her name on his lips. He held a soothing hand out at her, "How do you know Alphard Black?"

She looked up at the tapestry with sadness in her eyes, but the fear was almost completely gone, chased away by the pain in her arms and the back of her head. She took a steadying breath, grateful that she was able to do so at all without screaming, "I grew up with him, all three of the Black siblings, actually." Miranda forced herself to let go of her own arms, dropping her hands down into her lap. "He was a friend." She pulled her sleeves down to cover her arms, hoping they hadn't noticed, "We dated a bit."

The Trio looked at her like she was insane, "He would have been over seventy years old by now, you can't be older than twenty."

Miranda looked down at her hands, rubbing her right thumb over the head of her silver snake, a nervous tic she'd developed over the years. It twined tighter around her wrist in reaction to her stress, "I'm not, I'm seventeen." They looked at her like she was completely crazy, and she decided the truth would be the best way to get them to not throw her back out on the streets, "I should be somewhere around seventy one, but I'm not. I spent most of my summers living in this house after I turned eleven, Walburga was my best friend."

Miranda hesitated, but felt like she needed to actually explain why she was still so young. Wizards and witches may live longer than muggles, but, barring complicated illusions, they still visibly aged. "I don't know why exactly, but Walburga... she trapped me in a room where time was suspended. Or at least I think that's how she did it. I was released four months ago and I was still seventeen. When I was locked in there, it was 1944, and she was nineteen. I don't know how I got out, so you needn't bother ask. I'd like to know as well." Finally looking up she turned her blue eyes to Harry, "There's a lot I'd actually like to know. First off, just who are you?"

"Hey! We're asking the questions here!" Ron barked at her, resulting in Hermione dragging him into the hall, content with Harry's abilities to contain a wandless girl who couldn't apparently hurt him anyway. That, and Miranda's visceral recoil at his yell had a knot building in Hermione's stomach.

"What do you want to know?" Harry said, sitting down in front of her, making sure to keep his wand held in his hand but not aggressively.

Miranda forced herself to relax again, tucking her legs to the side primly, lacing her fingers together and placing them on her top knee, "Your name would be a nice start, but I'd also like to know who owns Grimmauld Place these days. I didn't see anyone when I woke up and ran out of here like a raving lunatic. When I tried to come back, it was like Number Twelve didn't exist. I couldn't find my way back, and I didn't know what else to do so I ended up in that miserable muggle diner." Miranda admitted shamefully.

Harry's green eyes seemed to warm by the second, and Miranda had to glance away to keep from abjectly staring at him when he started to speak, "My name's Harry Potter, and I guess… I guess I own Grimmauld Place now, my god father left it to me." Harry said, judging her reaction.

She just nodded, internalizing the grief that surged, but her voice was softer when she spoked again, "So, the Blacks are dead? All of them? Sirius too?"

"Yeah, in the male line, it ended with Sirius." Harry glanced at his wand, eyebrows furrowed, "Do you know why we can't hurt each other?"

Miranda nodded, "I think so. I was apprenticed to Olivander for a few years. I think the science of wand making is fascinating you see. But, when he gave me my wand, he said that she had two brothers."

"Brothers?" Harry asked, trying to figure out how this girl fit into the mess that was he and Voldemort.

"My wand is Holly with a phoenix tear core, the same phoenix gave…" Harry cut her off.

"Two feathers! That's what my wand is made of! I knew that wands from the same source could have reactions, but our wands had nearly no reaction. It's strange, did you know the boy who got the other wand?" Harry asked, she might have known a young Tom Riddle.

Miranda wanted to tell him the truth, to tell him that, yes, she knew the boy who got that wand, that he was her twin, but she couldn't. Tom was a true killer now, and it would do her no favors to be seen as related to him. "No, I didn't. He must've got his wand before I ever met Olivander. He did say that the boy would do great things. Do you know him?"

It was Harry's turn to speak softly, "You really have been gone for over fifty years. He's the Dark Lord. He's called Lord Voldemort. He's tried to kill me ever since I was a baby."

"Lord Voldemort? Why would he want to kill you?" Miranda, unaware of the Prophecy, was utterly confused. Why would her brother have wanted to kill an infant?

Harry smiled, not knowing the affect of his next words on Miranda, "Because there's a prophecy, and, according to it, I'm supposed to kill him."

"Oh, that's...violent." She said, finally realizing why she had felt the need to be near this boy. The more time she spent looking at him, the less he looked like Tom, the more he looked like Brennan. The more time she spent with him the less he acted like Brennan, the more he acted like her Tom. She was utterly doomed, wasn't she?

He scratched his head, oblivious to her inner turmoil, but the action was more than enough boyish distraction to take her mind off of it, "Yeah, well, I might not have to kill him, I just have to stop him. He's trying to take over the Wizarding world, he's already got the Ministry. He wants to rid the world of everyone who's not pureblood."

"But he's not one!" Miranda blurted.

Harry looked at her like she'd grown a second head, his grip tightening on his wand, "How do you know that?"

Miranda realized the first of many slip ups she was bound to make and rushed to cover it up, "Um...I just assumed, since so few pureblood families probably still exist, and none of them want to get rid of all the half bloods. Who would they get to do their dirty work, the 'lesser' jobs without us?"

Harry relaxed, "Us?"

Miranda blushed, "Half bloods, like me. My father was a muggle. But you, you're a pureblood, aren't you? I knew of the Potters back in the day."

Harry smiled, "Actually, I'm a half blood too. My mum was a Muggleborn witch."

"My mum was a pureblood dwitch." Miranda whispered, certain she was about to just blurt out everything just from looking at those blasted eyes of Harry's.

"That had to have been big news back then, eh?" Harry asked.

Miranda shrugged, "It was a brief affair. I'm not sure he ever really knew what she was. They never married, and when she was pregnant he denied her. I think it's possible she enchanted him, but I'll never know for sure." Miranda had never told anyone that since her Papa had asked when he had first taken her home.

"What happened to her?" As soon as he asked, Miranda's face fell. She looked back at her hands, grief on her face. Harry put a hand on her knee, hoping he wasn't being too improper. "My parents died when I was a year old, killed by Voldemort. Whatever happened, I'm sure I'll understand."

Miranda winced at hearing that her brother had killed his boy's parents, but pushed the guilt aside. "She died right after I was born, barely had enough time to name me. I grew up in a muggle orphanage until my Papa took me away from that awful place." She met his eyes, "I'm sorry about your parents."

"I'm sorry about yours." Harry told her, and she hated it. This boy had no reason to apologize to her for anything, much less the choices her insane mother had made.

"Guess both our childhoods were less than idyllic." Miranda replied, staring at his hand on her knee. She hadn't even noticed him touch her. That had never happened before. Ever. Not since the first boy had touched her when she'd been four years old.

"My muggle aunt and uncle kept me in a closet under the stairs until I was eleven and started wizarding school." Harry admitted.

Miranda sucked in a sharp breath, "They abused you?"

He shook his head and shrugged at the same time, "I guess. I mean they never did anything really skeevy, but I didn't know what a hug was until I went to Hogwarts." He must have seen something on her face, "What about you?"

This whole conversation had gotten far out of hand. She had known him as Harry for less than half an hour, and already he had gotten to the deepest wound in her soul. She tried to keep her voice flat as she answered him,"The matrons and children in the orphanage were not kind to me."

Harry smiled comfortingly, taking one of her thin hands in his, but just for a second, because Ron and Hermione had finally come back and Miranda pulled her hand back.

"I'm sorry about Ron, he can be a little protective." The brown haired girl glared at the red haired boy, "And a little daft."

"It's okay. No blood." Miranda smiled, pulling herself farther from Harry. The closer he got the less clearly she could think, and she needed a clear head, "Have you decided if you're going to kill me or not? I'd like to know, just so I can get a head start out the window, buy myself a few more minutes of life."

Hermione smiled weakly, "We're not going to kill you. I don't think any of us are ready for anything like that." She sighed, "At least not yet, thank God."

"I want proof of your story." Ron said firmly, but with much less vitriol.

Miranda bit her lower lip in thought, "There used to be a portrait of Walburga and I hanging in the third floor hallway outside what was Alphard's room. He was always taking pictures of us so he could paint us later, but that photograph he liked well enough to frame. He was fond of sticking spells, and good at them too. I can't imagine someone being able to take his things down without ruining the wall."

Realization dawned on Hermione's face after a few seconds, "Oh! Of course, the two girls riding carousel horses!"

Miranda laughed shortly, her memories of that blissful day threatening to overwhelm her, "That's the one. Burga had her hair down like I usually kept mine, only she'd spelled it straight for me. That was the day of my seventeenth birthday. My last birthday actually." She stared off blankly for a moment, yet again wondering what gods she had displeased to be trapped for fifty four years only to wake up and find her brother so unrecognizable with a magnetic boy prophesied to kill him.

"I want to help you all." Miranda said suddenly, standing up.

"Why?" Ron blurted.

Miranda looked down at Harry, holding a hand out. Not because she wanted to touch him again, she reminded herself firmly. She was only being polite. "Because, with you all, I don't feel so alone. I couldn't find my way back to the wizarding world. So, for a while, I wasn't sure I'd ever see any one like me again." She helped Harry stand, his hand lingering in hers for an instant longer than completely necessary, "And then you all splashed into the diner. I was about to resign myself to living as a muggle till the end of my days. I owe you my life." She eyed the trio, putting both hands on her hips, "Also, quite frankly, I don't have anything else to do with my bloody self. That diner was going to kill me one way or another."

Hermione nodded, "I can't imagine being locked away from the magical world. I'm muggleborn, but I can't fathom living a muggle life anymore, especially with the war. There's too much here for me." The witch's eyes met Ron's and they both turned away quickly, blushing, Ron's face matching his hair.

Miranda noted the lost look in Harry's eyes and stepped closer to him. Not because she wanted to be near him. She was only trying not to yell across the room. "What are you all trying to do? What makes this Lord Voldemort so powerful?"

"Horcruxes." Hermione said bluntly, and Miranda blanched.

"Good God. He's split his soul?" She whispered, and Hermione nodded. "How many times?"

"Seven." Harry answered.

Things were worse than Miranda had expected. They said he had made seven Horcruxes, that meant he had eight. She hazard a glance down at the 's' on her right hand. They had exchanged pieces of their souls, a bit of accidental magic made when two emotionally aggravated twin wizards had sworn to always have the other one's back. She had to find Tom, or this boy that she found mysteriously attractive would kill him before she had a chance to see if there was any of her Tom left. She wasn't a descendent of Salazar Slytherin for nothing.

"That's a lot. Do you know much about them?"

Hermione took her attention, "Not much, only that to make one, you must murder someone."

Miranda couldn't look the girl in the eyes, she knew you had to kill someone. She had never taken a life, but Tom had. Obviously he had now, but then, when they were seven years old, Tom had killed his first victim. Tom had pushed a boy down the stairs. He had been dead before he hit the bottom step, his neck snapped. Tom hadn't meant to, not really. The fifteen year old boy had been forcing himself on Miranda for years, but she had never told her brother because Henry Matlock had threatened to hurt him. Tom had found her, and had fought Henry away from his sister. They'd ended up in the hallway and Tom had shoved him. Henry had lost his footing and fallen backwards. The orphanage had explained it off as an accident.

The incident had broken Tom a little on the inside. He was so afraid he would hurt her, but Miranda had forced him to sit with her that night. She had cut her own hand and then his, pressing their bleeding palms together. She had promised him that she would never run from him because of something he had done and she had made him swear that he would never hurt her. She hadn't meant to invoke the dark magic required to make a Horcrux. In fact, she hadn't known about them until nearly ten years later when her Papa had taught her about them. It was in the privacy of her bedroom that she learned she couldn't cast the spell to find a Horcrux on a compass because it would only point right at her. That had explained it though, why she hadn't died the last night with Henry. Right after she'd been made a Horcrux, she'd started hemorrhaging internally, but despite what should have been a death sentence, she'd lived, even though part of her wished she hadn't.

Miranda swallowed, shaking herself from her awful past, "I know about them. Walburga taught me a little, but I know where she kept the book on them. She kept it hidden because she didn't want her brother Cygnus to get his hands on it. She never even let me read it, only told me a tiny bit." She lied effortlessly, the book hidden in Walburga's room had been from Gellert. It was a Black book stolen decades before his time, but he had given it back to them by giving it to their voracious daughter. Miranda began to move past Harry, but stopped, "May I?"

"Yeah, sure." Harry said, and he followed her into the hallway.

She walked into the room that had been Walburga's as a child, the one that had become Sirius'. She stood in the doorway, momentarily stunned, "Oh, my, she had quite the Gryffindor, didn't she?"

Harry chuckled once, "Yeah, she did."

Miranda threw a smile over her shoulder at him, "You know, I never went to Hogwarts, but I did hear about all the rivalry. Walburga thought it all rather stupid. Especially when the dueling got in the way of one of her spells. Why she preferred to work here, actually." She ran her hands along a section of the wall, "Her bed used to be here, and she'd write spells in chalk on the wall. Used to drive her Mum barmy. She kept the book..." Miranda tugged on a section of molding. "under her bed." A foot long chunk of wood pulled away from the rest, revealing a thin cubby, a battered book resting inside. "Here." Miranda said, handing the book to Harry, "I'm not sure what is in there, but I hope it helps."

Something else in the cubby caught her eye. A gold ring, tossed in the back corner. Miranda sighed, but left it there. It really wasn't her place to divulge the mystery of Brennan Evans and Walburga Black, and she wouldn't if she didn't have to.

Sitting upright as she popped the piece of wood back into it's home, she found herself looking out the window as the trio muttered over the book. "Sorry to bother, but, if you don't mind me asking, is there any chance we've been followed?"

"Well, you followed us, didn't you?" Grumbled Ron.

She looked at the red haired Weasley darkly, "Yes, but I wasn't wearing black robes and staring intently at a seam between two houses from a decrepit garden." She came to her feet to get a better look, "I walked to the porch with you, but those men, they must have come after. They weren't there when I came inside."

Harry ran to the window. "She's right. Those have to be Death Eaters. How did he find us?"

"We need to get out of here then." Ron said, starting for the door.

"No!" Hermione exclaimed, "What if someone from the Order comes looking for us here? We need to know who's okay."

Harry nodded slowly, "I agree with Hermione, we'll stay until Kreacher comes back."

They all noticed Miranda recoil slightly, "Kreacher? That old bottle brush is still alive? He was old fifty years ago." Truthfully, she had no trouble with the elf, but he'd known more about her than she cared to share with the trio. Hopefully he would keep his mouth shut, but given his temperament, she couldn't be sure.

Ron actually almost smiled at her, "Yeah, and I don't reckon he's gotten any nicer either." The two shared a look of disgust for the elf, which Hermione reluctantly joined.

Harry looked out the window again, "I really don't like them just standing out there though. They might eventually get Snape to come show them the house."

"I can get them to leave." Miranda said. "I can act like a trollop or something, make them uncomfortable enough to leave."

"I don't trust you out of my sight." Ron said, and Harry nodded slowly.

"I think we can trust you in here, with all three of use here, but I'm not sure it's a good idea to let you go outside alone." Harry said, glancing at her, "Sorry."

Miranda grimaced, "No, I'm sorry, I didn't think about the fact that you've barely known me three quarters of an hour. I just really want to help." She looked at Harry plaintively, "I don't suppose I'll be getting my wand back, will I?"

He shook his head, "No, not yet. Not until we're all sure we can trust you."

Hermione's stomach broke the following silence, "Let's all get something to eat." She took Miranda's hand, pulling her out the door, "You'd best come with me before Ron gets into the kitchen, he has a tendency to eat whatever he can get his hands on."

They ended up finding a few cans of soup and some crackers that weren't stale. When Miranda saw the dead rat on the floor she winced, "Eww, a friend of Kreacher's?" The others nodded, "He never could keep his little nest clean. It was worse when the others lived in there with him. His mum was a right foul old elf." She looked warily towards the front hall, "I'm pretty sure they had her stuffed...icky."

They all shuddered. They ate in relative silence, and Miranda tried to ignore the feel of Harry's eyes on her.

He was trying to figure her out, she was a puzzle. She seemed familiar to him, but according to her, she'd been locked in a room for over fifty years, long before even his parents were alive. She was beautiful. He studied her as she helped Hermione clean the bowls they'ed eaten out of. She was thin, her hair dark like his, contrasting with her pale skin, and her eyes were a deep crystal blue. Her face was another familiar thing, like he'd seen her before. Her cheekbones were high, but her jawline softened what could have made her face look standoffish and cold. Her smile made her whole face light up, and she smiled easily. He couldn't wait to see her smile again.

"Harry, mate. Harry. Harry!" Ron was shaking his arm, and hissing, "Mate, quit staring at the girl, it's creepy. We need to talk without her." He gestured to the previous object of Harry's gaze.

Harry nodded, "Yeah, you go, I'll get 'Mione." Ron stomped into the hall, and Harry heard him go into the living room where they had slept. Harry touched Hermione on the shoulder, "Ron wants to talk to us."

"You have these?" Hermione asked Miranda.

Miranda smiled, nodding her head, "Yeah, I've got the rest of the dishes. Got to pull my weight somehow since it seems like I'll be wand less for a while." Hermione laughed uncomfortably, but they left Miranda anyway.

The girl moved to look out the window again, the wizards were still there. Something had to be done about them. Obviously the house was hidden by a vast network of spells, but eventually they would need to leave. The cans in the cupboard wouldn't last forever, and she doubted that even she and Hermione together were creative enough to get too wild with meals with such limited ingredients.

Potions were Miranda's strong suit, but those weren't usually enjoyable when consumed, much like most meals she'd ever tried to cook. Past sandwiches and store-bought pasta, Miranda had eaten very little in her apartment above the diner. Hopefully Hermione was a better hand in the kitchen, or they would starve within days.

Of even more concern was the tribunal the three modern teenagers seemed insistent on having. If the trio was going to debate every little thing, they were going to get themselves in even more serious trouble. She couldn't really cook, but Miranda could still do more to help than just clean dishes.

Yes, she wanted to help them, but selfishly…those men were connected to her brother. Or what was left of him. Either way, maybe they could get a message to the shell of him, something to help trigger his memory. She'd long suspected that Tom hadn't been able to remember her and that her Papa had done it. The man had simply been too paranoid about her attempting any contact with her brother, and now, she couldn't help but wonder if Walburga had been in on the plot too.

Miranda could only try to get Tom to remember himself before Harry tried to kill him. She didn't want to have to hurt the poor boy. Really, he was just too handsome. And she didn't want to give up on Tom. She could feel him still, sometimes, when she'd lay still in her bed above the diner, there had been a fleeting of awareness of him, of his soul left somewhere amongst all the quaking evil keeping them apart.

It was worth a try, she decided after a few more seconds of considering the possibility that her Tom was out there somewhere. Making up a quick and possibly overwhelmingly stupid plan, she concentrated on the space just behind the two men for a few minutes, forming the intent, pulling on the magic inside of her, and then she finally felt like her body was being compressed to between her ears. It took infinitely longer to do without a wand and was twice as unpleasant, but she stood behind them an instant later, smiling in exhilaration at the old talent that hadn't left her like she'd feared.

The two men turned around, wands raised. "I wouldn't do that if I were you." Miranda whispered, smiling sweetly, "Tell Tom I said hello." She grabbed them both swiftly and knocked their heads together, pushing them out of view in the dilapidated garden. That was a move she'd picked up from Cygnus, she wasn't afraid to admit, and it suited her needs just fine as she laid some regrettably sloppy magic into their minds. She just didn't have the time to make it elegant without a wand, it needed to get done. She just had to keep her fingers crossed that the monster wouldn't realize she was leaving not just memories, but a back door into her mind.

She apperated back to the kitchen and quickly finished with the dishes, appearing perfectly innocuous when the trio returned. None of them noticed how badly her hands were shaking.


Voldemort was furious. "You mean to tell me that two of my DEATH EATERS were knocked unconscious by a little girl?" He crucioed the both of them.

The Dark Lord was really only mildly angry a few minutes later, who could have expected anything more from the two simpletons in front of him? After waking up, the two blubbering idiots he had assigned to check out the Taboo in London, had come simpering back to the Malfoy's with no real idea of where they'd come from and blood dripping from the sides of their heads.

"My Lord, she came from no where!"

"We didn't see her until she stepped on a leaf!"

"Was she armed?" Voldemort asked, allowing the two men one last chance to redeem themselves before he took it upon himself to see exactly what they'd seen. He was nothing if not a kind tyrant, of course.

"No, my Lord, but she said to tell some bloke named Tom hello."

Voldemort froze, "She said what?"

"To tell Tom she said hello! I swear, that's all she said."

He needed to know who else knew that name belonged to him. The Order did, so did a few of his old teachers, but no young girl should have known it, much less have the audacity to say it. Perhaps it was Potter after an ill-fated spell from the daft Weasely boy. Wouldn't that be a twist, a female Harry Potter.

He penetrated their feeble minds with ease. Through their memories, he watched the event happen again. They both spun on their feet, to see the girl behind them. She was a pretty young thing, and most definitely not Potter. Her eyes were blue, not green and they didn't have the right fire in them. There was fire there, yes, but it wasn't the half scared, angry look of Potter, more like a mother scolding errant children.

Voldemort was startled to notice how familiar she was.

He'd dreamed about this girl before, well, he'd dreamed about this girl if she were a small child with hazel eyes. The face was the same. When she raised both her hands to knock the idiots heads together, he saw the scar on her right palm, one that matched a scar on his left perfectly. That scar had been the only wound that had come from the body of Tom Riddle to this new magical body, and he had yet to figure out why.

Instantly, his mind was alive with ideas. Perhaps she was something the Order had conjured using his link to Potter? Perhaps they had pulled this girl right out of his nightmares? No, the only person who would have had the power for something like that was dead. Albus Dumbledore. He knew he was dead, but he wouldn't have put something like this past the old man.

"Tell Tom I said hello." He heard her say through them and suddenly he was thrust out of their minds and into another memory, like one from a pensieve, one the girl had obviously planted for him to find:

"Hello? Tom? Hello? Where are you?" Everything was dark, but he could feel the wood of the orphanage floor under his stockinged feet and the air brushing across his face in astonishing detail. He suddenly realized he was the one speaking, in the high, airy voice of a little girl. "Hello?"

"In here." A boy's voice responded. Instinctively, he knew where to turn in the darkness, but that didn't stop him from catching his shoulder on the door frame. The boy chuckled, "Careful. There's a door there."

"I know!" He whined. He wasn't controlling himself, he was stuck in this vision, in the body of what appeared to be a blind little girl. "I'm glad I found you." He felt for the boy, his hand finding purchase on a head of soft short hair. He lowered his body to the floor next to the seated boy, "I missed you." The boy took his hand and pressed their palms together. Light emerged into the girl's sight, flooding from his grasp to hers. He looked at the boy who's hand he was holding and froze, the face looking back at him, in black and white, was the face of Tom Riddle as it had been long before he'd become Voldemort.

A smile graced his child face, no more than ten years old. "I missed you too, Randa. Were they simply awful again?"

He felt the girl smile, "Not this time, they seemed pretty nice. They were both doctors."

Voldemort didn't understand, he remembered sitting in this room as a boy, his room, but the other bed against the wall hadn't been there. They had never trusted him with a room mate, and it never would have been a girl. His boy-face looked pained, "I'm sorry."

The girl plucked the photo out of his right hand, pulling them both onto his bed with surprising strength. "Don't be. What's this?"

Voldemort knew what it was in their hand, it was the photo of the cave near the orphanage. The boy scooted closer to her, tightening his grip on her hand, "I took it with the camera that man left last month, it's the cave we always go to."

She nodded, "When you all go away on holiday and leave me?"

He smiled, "You know I don't like to, but Miss Mary has a point. I can't be with you all the time, and the sea is dangerous if you were to go wandering about on your own. You know I don't like leaving you."

"I know. It looks like a scary place, if you ask me."

"You're only saying that because you can't see it in color. Randa, the water is so clear you can see near straight to the bottom. When we get out of this place, I'll take you there, and you can see it for yourself, promise. You'll love it." This boy wasn't him, couldn't be. This boy was a dreamer, the same anger was there, but not the pure evil Voldemort remembered himself having.

"Will I love it there?" The girl reproached, resting her head on his boy-shoulder.

He felt the other him kiss the girl on the top of the head, "Yes, most definitely. You'll love it, Randa. We'll build a house next to the sea and be happy."

Voldemort felt himself sigh contently, "Happy, I can live with that." They heard a clock chime out in the hall. Midnight, "Happy birthday, Tom."

The boy laughed, pulling his hand from hers, making the world go dark again, and putting it around her shoulders, pulling her to lay next to him, curling protectively around her. "No, not any more. It's your turn now." They heard the popping of fireworks outside, "Happy birthday, Miranda."

When Voldemort opened his own eyes again, the two men in front of him were unconscious on the floor. What ever that girl was, she was powerful. Powerful enough to mess with his mind, and clever enough to lay a trap for him, embedding a vision inside her words to the men, knowing that he would search their minds.

That had been the night of his ninth birthday, and he had been alone, no girl next to him, blind unless she touched his hand. He'd listened to the fireworks in the city, alone in his bedroom, looking at the picture of the cave that had housed Salazar's locket.

He wandered into his room now, suddenly drained. It was just after noon, but sleep seemed to call for him. As he walked past the mirror above the dresser, he paused, looking at his scaly reflection. For an instant, the face of Tom Riddle-Head Boy returned in the mirror, confusion on boyish features. "Miranda." He whispered, touching his face, and pulling the name out of memories twice removed from the man he was.

He could see the girl standing behind him in the mirror, but when he spun to attack her, she wasn't there. When he looked back at the mirror, his face was still Tom's and the girl was still behind him, smiling patiently. "Tom, I'm waiting for you." Voldemort felt his stomach in his throat, side by side, the resemblance to the girl was sickening. But he couldn't remember her from anytime in his life. Or did he?

Vaguely, he remembered sometimes in his days at Hogwarts, when he'd first begun to be the boy in the mirror. He would catch a shimmer out of the corner of his eye in the shape of a girl, he could never make her out clearly then, but this girl fit. Sometimes then, he could hear her say Tom, like a ghost stuck in another plane, only able to reach out a hand to brush his shoulder or to say his name.

He laid down on the bed, and his snake eyes closed in a second. In his dreams, he saw the girl, in all ages. When she was younger, her eyes were hazel and unseeing, but when she was older, in the shadows, they were blue, like his now. Blue eyes that weren't human, but were magic through and through, the original color stained by that which gave her sight. She would giggle and laugh as he told her jokes, and scold him when he did things to the other kids and stole their things. She had shared his room with him, and he remembered panicking every time she was sick, not leaving her side, even with the adults tried to drag him away out of fear that the rattling breaths would end. Who ever this girl was, he had been fiercely protective of her.

When next he regained control of his body, Voldemort had come awake screaming the name 'Miranda', her name. He had come to the conclusion that she had been Tom's imaginary friend and he had forgotten about her. It was the only thing that made sense. But then he remembered more clearly the aspects of himself that he had hidden in Marvolo Gaunt's ring, and admitted that imaginary friends were never shivering in pain draped by white hospital cloths. He had hidden her away, had pushed all the ghostly images and half-baked memories away when Tom was just a boy. She must have been released in the ring, let lose in a more powerful capacity when it was destroyed, one where she could hurt him, where she was truly corporeal. She may have been the death he'd used to make that Horcrux, she must have been even though he could no longer recall the particulars of that first night Tom Riddle had become a murderer.

However, he couldn't quiet the nagging feeling in his chest that he was wrong. Nagini had found him again, "Good hunt, my pet?"

"Yessssh, massster." She said, sliding up his body to rest on his shoulders.

"Anything of note?"

"I ssmelled the two you left out. Very familiar sscent. From when I was a hatchling."

Voldemort didn't want to believe his gut instinct, but if Nagini remembered the girl's scent than that meant that she had been corporeal then. Why couldn't he remember her? Had Dumbledore done something? Or was Tom Riddle protecting her?

"Malfoy!" He yelled in the hall, walking back to the dining room. Both Malfoy men entered a minute later. "I need one of you to find everything you can about Merope Gaunt. She died on New Year's Eve, nineteen twenty-six. Bring her bones here, or what ever's left of her. I want to know everything. Kidnap a medi-wizard if you have to. It is imperative I know who she was, how she died, everything! Go!"

Lucius looked to his pale son, "Draco, go."

With an appreciative glance to his father, Draco bowed, "Yes, my Lord. It's an honor to be of service to you in any way."

When both Malfoy's left, Voldemort found himself staring out the window at the decaying, malnourished garden, touching the s shaped scar on his left hand with his right. He'd always wondered why it had been reformed when all other scars from Tom's body had vanished when he had been reborn. Now he would find out, and he would find Potter and kill him. He squeezed his hands together so hard that they ached. Potter would die. Then the world would be his. Without Dumbledore or Potter, nothing could stand in his way.

When the glory of that realization faded, he realized that deep down, Tom's shriveled heart had always been aching, longing for something. He just hoped he was wrong about what he was missing.


Let me know what you think!

-Jenn