Riddle Manor is magnificent from the outside, and with its ridiculously rich interior, it seems only made to add all the world's irony to my very own malaise.
Massive wooden furniture against stone walls with tapestries and paintings, statues and coats of arms, books everywhere, ancient and heavy, and lush bouquets of flowers on every dresser …

It's almost cathartic to think I could've grown up here in the sun and instead was at home in London's slums. But who knows what my already arrogant megalomania would have been like otherwise. If I almost snap as an orphan, how much worse would my petulant narcissism have blossomed here?

The huge entrance hall, with its curved fairytale staircase, almost reminds me of the orphanage. But here, the floor isn't broken. The flight of stairs isn't scratched, the ceiling is not clouded with glass that has long since turned milky.

No, the sunlight finds its way down here, in a warm cone of calmness and balance. My tired ears hear no kids screaming like banshees. No rabbits biting me … It's as bizarre as it's kitschy, and the irony of my twisted fate is once again grotesque.

"Do you want to wait in the lounge?" Riddle asks, and his excitement is too annoying. "Let me look for our maids – they'll have your luggage collected. And my daughters should be here somewhere, too … Probably in the garden or by the stables – I'll be right back!"

Before I can protest, he leaves us alone, driven by a euphoria I simply cannot understand.

Harper continues to glance around in awe, taking in the high ceilings, the black and white floors, the marble statues – all of which keep her thoughtfully silent. Until she can no longer hold back. "All these books." She takes a few steps through the lounge. "We could be locked in here for a whole year and still have plenty of reading material."

I bleakly nod, then she notices a grand piano in the study next door.

"Tom, you're quiet anyway – at least play something." She likely assumes she'll have to repeat that request many times over, but the sight of keys without dust and flawless varnish basically makes me walk past her to just take a seat all by itself.

"That was easy," she's surprised and sits down next to me.

I want distraction, yes.
I need distraction.

For a moment, though, we remain indecisively silent. We just sit there and exist, probably wondering in equal measure how the past hours can ever be evaluated.

"Tom, you know …" She stares at her hands. Until she takes heart and pulls it out of her bag – right next to the grand piano – the Tales of Beedle the Bard. "I believe she would have read it to you."

I shake my head. "Your deluded solidarity with a woman who brought nothing but disaster is truly unmatched."

She says nothing in reply, just leafs through the yellowed old book that must have once meant a lot to my mother. Until she reaches the Tale of Death and the Three Brothers. Her nail polish is chipped – like it's a symbol of ourselves – but she lets her finger glide over an ink drawing right above the title.

A triangulum with a circle and a vertical line in the middle.

Bloody hell, where have I seen this symbol before? I know it, but where from?
I chase this very thought until, sighing, she slams the book shut and stows it back into her bag.

"Can you play something that reminds you of us?" she then asks.

I force myself to nod, I just can't think of where I've seen the symbol before.

Then I play. Chopin's Nocturne Op. 9 No. 1.

My fingertips, my hands – they leave blood on every single key, and even though I know I'm just imagining it, it scratches my core as much as the music calms me down in return. My hands are all too grateful to have something to do, and my head also wishes to be numb so that I hardly notice what I'm doing anymore. I just play.

Until, as the last notes fade, someone behind us says, "That was beautiful!"

Harper and I turn around at once, both awakened from our slumber.

Three girls are standing in the doorway behind us.
The oldest, probably Florence, brunette and high-cheeked, looks most like Thomas and me. Her mimic suggests a lot of circumspection, most likely since she's always had to look after two younger siblings.
The one in the middle, Ophelia, has an even more rounded face and at least as wild, weather-beaten hair as Harper. There's something about her that makes me think she has the most imagination of all.
The youngest one, probably Gwen, looks exactly like I'd picture Rouvenia as a child. Long, dark hair and obviously always up to mischief.

And when they see my face and stare at me in odd amazement, they're so obviously and undeniably taken aback that I almost think they're paralysed.

"Who are you?" the youngest of them wants to know. And after speaking up, she also comes closer in all her trust.

"A guest," I say.

"And why do you look like Dad?" she keeps going. "And who is she?"

"Harper," the very same replies, probably hoping that we won't have to explain any connections to Riddle ourselves. "It's nice to meet you. Are you going to tell us your name?"

"Gwen," she replies, "and these are my big sisters Florence and Ophelia."

"Hello," Florence, the tallest one of them, says. "Are you the tourists everyone's talking about?"

"Probably," Harper confirms. "You don't often have strangers here, do you?"

Ophelia shakes her head and takes little Gwen by the shoulders to keep her from coming nearer.

"Are you our half-brother?" she then asks, not taking her eyes off me. "Father has been talking about you ever since I can remember."

"Yes," Florence confirms, continuing to keep her distance. "He always used to say that one day you'd find each other again."

I hesitate, because – as much as I want to hate the man who left Merope and me – I would've acted just like him. And probably never even looked for me, unlike him. However clumsily he might have done it, it almost seems as though he indeed cared a great deal …

"Is this that day?" Ophelia asks.

I nod, after taking in a deep breath. "Looks like it."

Gwen smiles. "What's your name?"

"Guess …"

"Harvey?"

I almost smirk in irritation. "Harvey?"

"Alexander, maybe?" Ophelia asks. "Maxim?" she tries yet again. "As in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca?"

"No," I deny, "I'm not Mr de Winter."

But certainly a murderer like him, it flashes through my mind.

"Thomas," Florence says, looking at me for quite a moment. "Your name is Thomas, isn't it? Thomas Riddle Junior …"

"Just Tom," I correct her.

"Tom Riddle?" she repeats.

I nod. "You got me, Florence."

She smiles cautiously, pointing to the piano. "Will you play something else for us?"

"Yes, please." Gwen also comes closer again.

Harper makes room on the piano stool for her by walking towards the bookshelves opposite us.

"The Venetian Gondola song, perhaps?" Ophelia suggests. "That would be nice …"

"Haven't played that in forever," I mumble and promptly get an open notebook placed on the music stand by Ophelia.

"Well then," I sigh, surrendering to fate once again, stretching before I start.

Harper reads book titles with a tilted head while Gwen eventually sits down next to me, beaming like she's never seen darkness.

It takes me back to the orphanage when Susan took a seat while I played. Except that there, I still held a faint, unquenchable hope that all the gloomy assumptions about my origins wouldn't necessarily come true.
I thought I could find an anchor, in Harper, along with her redemption, and answers … I thought I wouldn't have to become a self-fulfilling prophecy – and now there's irrevocable guilt on my hands and deviant outrage in my veins, from birth. Blood and guilt tearing my soul …

The Song Without Words, Op. 30 is a short one. There is not much more to say, and not much more to hear as the last notes echo through the room.

"Children?" we hear Thomas call from the entrance hall next door just then, and the heavy door of the mansion slams back into the lock. "Where are you?"

"Grand piano!" Ophelia shouts at the top of her lungs, I almost wince. I've been quiet all my life. Like a snake in tall grass. Here, on the other hand, roaring lions live …

And before we know it, Riddle is standing in the doorway, looking at us with much too vivid emotion.

"This is …" Words fail him briefly as he nods. "That's everything. So you've already met?"

"Tom just played Mendelssohn Bartholdy for us," Florence says, standing right beside the grand piano. "And Chopin, before he noticed us."

How incredibly odd to have the man who never voluntarily intended to be my father smile at me with utmost pride.

"To see you all in this room, together … It's like a miracle." Again he pauses and holds on to his composure, then he turns to the sisters. "Do you know where your mother is?"

"She was going to meet you at the café," Florence says.

"I wasn't there for long today. I'm sure she'll be back soon, and then we can discuss what to have for dinner. Together …" I already want to protest and puke and announce that all this is clearly becoming too formal and warm and cheerful for me, but he's already planning ahead. "Let's go into the conservatory, shall we? With a bit of luck, the sun will come out from behind the clouds after all this rain."

Ophelia looks at Harper as though she was about to conspire. "I bet I'm faster."

"Faster?" Harper repeats.

"Whoever's there first!" Ophelia shouts, hurrying past Riddle and already followed by Florence.

"They race all the time," he tells Harper. "But my hurting back … I prefer to just follow them walking."

"Then I'll join you," Harper says.

Gwen and me, we're left. I can't move. The little girl eyes me serenely and then claps her hands as she jumps up from her stool. "Are you coming?"

"Not sure." I'm completely honest, but she just grabs my hand and tries to pull me along.

"You have to!" she finds, but I still can't move. "Come on, you've got no roots!"

How right she is.

I sigh, and for the lack of options, let her think she pulls me along indeed.

"Where have you been all these years?" she then asks, looking up at me as we begin to walk through various rooms to the other side of the building.

"In London." I do my best to ignore two puzzled maids staring at me like a ghost. "The Highlands."

"In Scotland?" Gwen yells, giggling. She doesn't notice it, but we – mainly me, I suppose – cause whispers with the staff at every turn in the house. "That's far away … Have you ever seen Nessie?"

"Nessie?" I give Gwen an irritated look. "Do you believe in such stories?"

She nods, not even flinching. "When I grow up, I'll find her and prove she exists!"

"Sounds like a plan." I can't help but grin at the motivation to prove the world wrong.

"Will you be you coming, too?"

"Me?" I raise my brows.

"Yeah." As a matter of course she adds, "you're my big brother, after all."

"Half-brother."

She shakes her head. "A brother is a brother!"

"Well …" What could I possibly say to that when she smiles so eagerly? "Send me a letter before we start and we'll have a good look at Loch Ness."

"Until we find Nessie?"

"Of course. But we can't go there alone. In fact, a classmate of mine is conveniently knowledgeable about –"

Kelpies. Water demons. Something a little Muggle girl had better not worry about ….

"Rouvenia knows a lot about legends," I say.

"Is your friend coming, too? Harper?"

"She should," I reply. "Without her, my mood tends to be unbearably bad."

"Then she's coming, too!"

"Selfish of us, isn't it? Chaining her to my side just so I don't go mad."

"Oh, I don't know … I always want Ophelia's company, too."

"But are you bad for Ophelia?"

"I don't think so. Do you think I am?"

I shake my head. "I'm pretty certain you're not."

"I'm sure you're not bad for Harper either. It'll be fun."

If she says so …
Gwen can't possibly comprehend the extent of my inherent destruction.

"Do you know what funny means in Russian?"

"No, Gwen, as it happens, I don't."

"Zabavnyy," she informs me. "Do you happen to know a Russian phrase?"

"Gwen, no, I –"

"Jazyk do Kieva dovedjot. Your tongue can get you all the way to Kiev!"

"Marvelous," I mumble. "Really helpful in Great Britain, I'll keep it in mind …"

"Do you know what winter means?" she continues.

I'm beginning to think this is will be a very long afternoon, but somehow I also sense that this – this rollicking cheerfulness – should probably have been my life, too.

For the records:
1. zabavnyy = Забавный = funny
2. jazyk do Kieva dovedjot = Язык до Киева доведёт = Your tongue can get you all the way to Kiev