I've never liked the story of Merope Gaunt.

It's always felt cheap to me. I've seen children grow up in the foster system. I've helped raise such children. The idea that Voldemort was conceived under the influence of a love potion, and that's why he turned out the way he did, isn't just insulting.

It's disgusting. I actively hate it.

But there's a wrinkle in this: the story we hear in canon comes from Dumbledore. We don't know the objective truth, only his conjecture.

So, I submit, that an alternate explanation for Tom Riddle Jr.'s birth is more than possible.

I think it's likely.

This is my theory.

One.

"So," said Sirius, "we need to off Voldemort. That's hardly a difficult sell. Okay, so fewer of us are willing to admit he's still a threat than I'd like, but . . . at the very least, there's the Order. Unless I miss my guess, Dumbledore will be recruiting soon, if he isn't already. We'll need to bolster our numbers."

Kafell hummed. "I won't pretend that there is no use in such tactics," he said, "especially since it has begun much earlier than I have seen. But . . . I think, if you want to see the other end of this war without just as many casualties as before, you're going to need to stop thinking like a man and start thinking like . . . well, me." The prince chuckled. "Though, I will freely admit that I have made a rather serious mistake."

"Okay . . ." Sirius crossed his arms over his chest. "What's the mistake?"

"My magic has rules, the same as yours does." Kafell gestured. "One of the most important, as far as my lord father is concerned, is this: we fae cannot influence mortal events directly. We cannot step onto your world and do as we please. There are consequences to outside interference, you see."

"Uh-huh."

"Well," Kafell went on, "I have long believed this rule to be mere politics. I thought myself above such petty things. This is why, upon our first meeting, I . . . did as I did. However, if this fraying, as my dear Albus calls it, is any indication . . . well. That was a mistake."

Sirius frowned; his brow furrowed. "So, what? The world is upset at your interference and it's trying to fix itself to spite you?"

"More or less," said Kafell. "Fae magic works in a much more emotional fashion than you might realize. Anyway. The point I mean to bring up here is that, while I am fully invested in helping you with your mission, it seems prudent to follow the rules. In short, I can no longer set the parameters of the game myself. I am no longer a player, in other words, but an advisor. I cannot work magic of my own volition without tearing yet more holes in your reality. I am limited to making deals. However, given that our goals are likely the same, you are already fulfilling my end of the bargain. Think of me, thus, as a benefactor."

"In other words," Sirius guessed, "you can't tell me what I can do to bolster our chances. You can't just help me. I have to come up with my own idea, and ask you to do it, for the magic to work."

Kafell nodded. "Correct," he said.

Sirius ran a hand through his hair. "This sounds convoluted and ridiculous," he said, "which is possibly the most believable thing you've said so far. Magic always has stupid stipulations, and nowhere is that truer than with the fae." He shook his head and sighed. "All right. So. Tom Riddle, you said his name was, has to die. That's the end goal here. How much time do we have?"

"You have until the second day of May, in the year 1998," Kafell said promptly.

"Is that when he dies in my . . . old life?"

"Correct."

"So, let's say we have seven years. For the sake of safety and all that."

Kafell smiled dotingly, like Sirius was a favored student. "Steady caution. Rounding down. You're already a wiser man than you once were."

Sirius winked. "What can I say? I'm adaptable."

Two.

When Dumbledore came back to the Hog's Head alone, Remus stood up from his chair and approached him. "Is everything all right, sir?" he asked.

"I don't know if I'm comfortable saying so, Remus," said Dumbledore, "but I dearly hope that things will be all right." He smiled. "How are you holding up, dear boy?"

"Well enough, I suppose." Remus cleared his throat. "I'm going to assume that, whatever you needed Sirius for, it was a private matter. If you meant for me to know, you would tell me." He smiled, a bit slyly. "Besides, I'm fairly sure he'll tell me later, anyway."

Dumbledore laughed quietly. "Yes, I am quite sure he will."

"Um . . ." Remus rubbed at the sleeves of his coat. "I had a question for you."

"Please, Remus. Ask."

"Why was Peter not invited to this meeting?"

Dumbledore studied the young man for whom he'd once moved Heaven and earth; he thought long and hard before he answered. "In truth, Remus, I do not believe it right or correct to press Peter Pettigrew into service."

Remus raised an eyebrow. "I feel like your words are being chosen very carefully right now, sir."

Dumbledore drew in a deep breath. "I do not believe that forcing Peter Pettigrew to work against Voldemort, either directly or indirectly—by order or by peer pressure—will lead to any positive outcome." He gestured. "If he chooses of his own accord to join this cause of ours, I will not deny him. However, he has seen the very worst of our enemy, he has endured much at their hands, and I find myself quite incapable of demanding more from him."

"We already demanded plenty from him," Remus murmured, "and look where that got us." He tilted his head to one side. "That's what you're saying, isn't it? That's what you mean."

"It is."

Remus hung his head and stared at the floor for a while. "I don't suppose I can argue against that logic." He smiled humorlessly. "I don't think it would do much good for us to see him right now. Pressuring him again, like we used to do. It just doesn't seem like the right thing to do."

"Every member of the Order of the Phoenix is a volunteer," Dumbledore said. "It was true when I first called you together, and it is true now. If he approaches me, I will not deny him. I have no right to deny him, just as I have no right to force him."

Remus nodded. "I see," he said. "Thank you, sir."

"You are disappointed in me? Or, perhaps, Peter?"

"I don't want to be," Remus said, hesitantly. "I don't think that's right."

"That is not an answer to either question I asked you."

"No. It isn't."

Three.

Sirius learned quickly that talking to a fae prince was like piecing together a logic puzzle. Everything Kafell said had three different meanings; everything Sirius asked, Kafell would answer in some way that made no sense at all or, if it did, only after three different retellings. Every so often, Sirius would find his gaze drawn to the empty frame hanging on the wall behind Dumbledore's desk.

And the name: Caius Labeau.

Dumbledore said he'd been a Ravenclaw, and Sirius didn't think he'd ever heard a less surprising fact in his life.

"So, hold on," Sirius said, "you're telling me that this boy, Tom Riddle, was born in the 1920s. In winter. To a woman with no home, no prospects, no family, no guidance, no money, nothing."

". . . She had a home," Kafell said, "technically."

Sirius grimaced. "What the bloody fuck does that mean?"

"The building in which she grew up—the walls and ceiling—existed when she gave birth," Kafell said. "This is not to say that she was anywhere near it at the time, nor that it would have provided any kind of adequate shelter."

Sirius shook his head. "I don't like this," he said. "I hate it. None of this sounds above-board." He stood up from the seat he'd been occupying and started pacing around the room; it took more than a little self-control not to start throwing things. "You say she married this man, Tom Riddle Sr., against his will. While he was under the influence of a love potion."

"Evidently," said Kafell.

"Aha!" Sirius jabbed a finger in the prince's direction, looking triumphant. "When I have something right, you say 'Correct.' But you didn't say that just now. You said 'Evidently.' Do you know what that tells me? That's the prevailing theory, not the truth."

Kafell's stormfront eyes sparkled; he grinned. "Clever boy," he said.

"It doesn't even make sense," Sirius went on. "I may not know much about potions, but . . . I bet if I brought old Sevy in here and asked him, he'd tell me that any love potion would be too complex for someone to mix out of a shack with a dirt floor. No schooling, no apprenticeship, no ready access to components, no wand? Never. Not even close. That means all she'd ever done was the same innate magic that we all throw around when we're young."

"Mmm?" said Kafell, clearly enjoying himself.

"No, no," Sirius grumbled, "I don't think there was a love potion at all. I don't think that's even close to the truth about Voldemort's origin." His eyes snapped wide, and a happy little smile lit up his face. "Your Highness. I have a request."

Kafell's grin widened. "Do tell, dear boy."

"I want to know how Merope Gaunt grew up," Sirius said, "and how that upbringing led to her son's birth. I want to see it. I want the truth."

Kafell's teeth were so white that they looked like a hole in reality.

"As you wish, Professor Black."

Four.

When her brother and father are sent to Azkaban, she lives alone in the woebegone hut that's always served her as a home. She's never known anywhere, or anything, else; she doesn't even think about going to another location. Why would she? She just continues going through her usual routine, because some part of her is convinced that Morfin and Marvolo will both be home shortly; no prison can hold them. It's ridiculous to even entertain the idea.

So, she doesn't.

It would only do for her to keep the house ready for them.

It takes so long for her to realize that it isn't going to happen, and she spends so long waiting without bothering to take care of herself, that she very nearly dies the first time simply by hoping too hard. Hoping that her life will make sense again; hoping that she will have direction again.

She doesn't have the understanding, the perspective, to know that her family mistreated her.

Not consciously.

The first time a non-magic person comes to see her, she doesn't understand why. All she knows is that the food this person brings her, as an offering, is quite possibly the most delicious meal that she has ever experienced. She eats ravenously, utterly unable to observe decorum, and her houseguest watches her pityingly.

This person is a middle-aged woman, and this middle-aged woman wants her help.

The woman has heard, from little whispers, that real magic lives in this house.

She asks what it is that the woman wants from her, because it's all she knows how to ask.

The woman asks if she can help handle a little problem.

Shockingly, she can. She knows how. She doesn't know how she knows how, when or why, but she does. Her magic has always been innate; but, more to the point, she has always understood on an equally intuitive level—an innate, primeval level—what resources she has at her disposal. The plants, the animals, the resources, surrounding her ugly little home.

She agrees to help the woman.

The woman offers to feed her even more delicious food in exchange.

Merope Gaunt has never been happier in her whole life.

Five.

Her reputation spreads, among the poor and destitute, both in and around Little Hangleton. It becomes known that, if you need help with something that normal medicine, or science, cannot provide, then you ought to visit the girl living in the horrid little cottage with a snake on her door.

Few know about her, as she hasn't ever been permitted to interact with others; not when her brother and father were around. Freed from them, however, she begins to build a name for herself. None of the people who come to her for help have anything nasty to say about her appearance; they are just as desperate, and hungry, and listless as she. They view her as one of them. She is one of them, in her own way, and that connection permits her to help them. She doesn't know proper spells—she's never had a wand or an education—but she knows that she wants these people, these people who never call her ugly or stupid or useless, to be happy.

She wants control over her life; she takes it by changing the lives of others.

The magic in her blood responds to her desire, and that is more than magic enough.

She never asks for money. She has never had money, and she has never seen a need for money. She only asks for things she needs: food, water, clothing. A cobbler brings his baby to her; she heals the child's fever, and the cobbler comes to her days later with the finest shoes she has ever seen. A carpenter needs help repairing his marriage; when she helps him do it, he helps her by repairing the roof of her cottage so that rain no longer leaks onto her bed.

Soon enough, she is warm. She is full. She may not have friends, but she has people who look after her because she looks after them, and that is close enough. She becomes a beloved figure in her tiny little community, secret but known well enough. Everyone knows that if they aren't careful, witch-hunters will come for her, and so they keep quiet about her.

The witch-hunters travel the roads to villages and towns and cities all, seeking out any and every excuse to do their unholy work, burning and whipping and bleeding. If they found out about her, they would be all too happy to do their horrid work on her.

No one wants anything like that to happen.

One day, made dark by storm clouds, with rain falling like daggers to the earth, she sits and sips tea. She is contented, smiling to herself, wrapped in blankets while she listens to a little gramophone gifted to her by a traveling salesman, after she helped to break a minor curse for him. She's cold; she's always cold. But she's dry, and she has food for her supper, and her little cottage is filled with music.

She needs nothing else.

At least, that's what she thinks . . . until a desperate knock comes at her door, and Merope Gaunt sees Tom Riddle standing at her threshold with his hat in his hands.

Six.

Tom has a fiancée. His fiancée is ill.

She knows this story; she knows it quite well.

She has Tom sit in her father's old chair, and part of her feels a child's titillation at the trespass. What would Marvolo Gaunt say if he knew a Muggle was sitting in his chair? She can almost hear his indignation from here. She hopes his cell in Azkaban is treating him well; she isn't sure if that wish is honest or mocking. She has never had much luck at the art of self-reflection.

She has Tom explain his lady's illness, and it doesn't take long before she knows what to do. She gathers up plants and other ingredients from the land surrounding her cottage—it seems utterly random to Tom, who has no idea what she's even looking for, nor what any of it will do—and then she sets to work in the kitchen. One of the women she's helped with a pregnancy scare, of which there have been many, cleaned the entire Gaunt home as payment, and she has never been more efficient in this space than she is now.

She offers Tom the finished tincture. She instructs him to make sure that his beloved drinks the proper dose in a tea, thrice a day. By week's end, she will begin to mend. By the turning of the moon, she will be well.

Tom thanks her profusely, humbled in a way that he has never been, and she feels every piece of herself flush warm with happiness, with pride, with pleasure, with satisfaction. He assures her that, if this works, he will pay her price; whatever it turns out to be.

He will give her anything.

When, the next month, Tom comes to her beaming and skipping with joyous relief, she knows what she will ask from him. She knows what her price will be. When she asks, she tells him:

"Love."

So, he gives her love. She spends one night with him, fulfilling every dream she's ever had since the first time she ever laid eyes on him; in the morning, she is as fulfilled and blissful as she has ever been. There has never been greater joy than this. She just about convinces herself that all will be well, that everything has changed for the better. She hums a little song to herself as she fixes breakfast; she sweeps the floors of the old place with a spring in her step that she has never felt before, and she thinks perhaps that this truly is her home.

Tom Riddle doesn't stay.

She never thought he would.

It doesn't matter. Merope Gaunt will treasure the memory of him for the rest of her life.

Seven.

Sirius leaned forward and sat in dead silence for a full three minutes, as he digested what he'd just seen; what he'd just lived through. Eventually, he managed to bring himself to look Kafell in the eye again, and his face was twisted in something like rage. "A love potion," he said, through his teeth.

Kafell shrugged. "Who is to say?"

"So," Sirius said, "let me set this right. Merope Gaunt helps Tom Riddle Sr. save his future wife. He spends the night with her, as payment for her help. That's it? Is that all that happened?"

"The wrong people found out about Miss Gaunt," said Kafell. "Witch-hunters. You know the type, I'm sure. Zealots. Congregationalists. Hucksters. Whatever they were, they delighted in using every excuse they could find—gossip, mostly—to root out witches in the name of God. Now, it is true that the smartest and most resourceful among you would have little trouble dealing with such people. Merope Gaunt, however, was not among that illustrious number."

"No," Sirius agreed. "She worked humble magic."

"So," Kafell went on, "when good Master Riddle found out about a band of hunters approaching Little Hangleton, he returned to the Gaunt home to warn Merope of this threat to her safety. He spared as much of his own money as he could spare without drawing more attention to her. He bade her run; for her own sake, and for the sake of the child she was soon to bear."

Something smoldered behind Sirius's eyes. "A good man," he said. "She knew she wouldn't survive the birth, so she wanted to make sure that her child bore his name. It's only right. It's only fair. What birthright does a son have, if not his father's name?"

Kafell hummed. "A profound truth," he said softly.

"Where does little Tom Riddle end up?"

"Wool's Orphanage, in London," Kafell said. "A less than reputable home for children." He rubbed his chin, then he said: "Your own godson, in the world I helped you to avoid, saw much of himself in young Tom. I think that should tell you plenty about what sort of upbringing an orphanage like this would offer. Does it not?"

Sirius scowled. "It does."

"Are you feeling . . . sympathy, perhaps, for the man who killed your dearest friends?" Kafell asked pointedly.

"No," Sirius said. "I have no sympathy for the man. For the boy, though? For his mother? I have quite a lot. I've done a lot of research for the teaching post I've been placed in, and there are tragedies like this one all over Britain. All over every place in the known world. It's pathetic, it's infuriating, and I don't think the story of Lord Voldemort will ever be complete without this."

"So," said Kafell, gesturing, "what does this mean to you? What will you do?"

Sirius's eyes burned bright.

Feverish.

He started laughing.