Chapter Text
Introduction
Tom Riddle tinkered with his notebook in the ray of sun lighting his compartment of the Hogwarts Express as it made its way, nearly imperceptibly, through the countryside.
He had begun working on his study guide journal enchantments since the very first day of runes back in September, and he felt more accomplished at the fruits of his third year than he ever thought he could.
He always knew he was special, but he hadn’t realized just how so until he, in desperation, called out to the various snake effigies littering the Slytherin common room. He didn’t know it at the time, but while looking at the relief of the giant cobra, adorning the wall, he called out in Parseltounge.
More surprising to him was the sight of all the stone snakes unwinding from the columns, lamps, and furniture, all converging on his attackers.
The most surprising of all was how Malfoy, Black, and Nott sprang to action, coming to his side after two years of quiet disdain at the mud blood everyone thought he was.
Mudblood or not, (and he couldn’t possibly be with Salazar’s Gift, his house mates realized), when the scions of the three most wealthy families take your side, your-side becomes their side and nobody would dare cross that line in Slytherin in 1940.
Tom found that for the rest of his third year, he was untouchable, he found a comfortable niche in the pureblood circle, easy to fit in with them and blow their minds with advanced revelations of magical theory, he de-mugglefyed his life, and found ways to make quite a few Galleons, translating some old parcel magic tomes for Lord Black, his dorm mate Orion’s father. Merlin-knows-where the family got such books, but Tom wasn’t complaining about all that he was learning from them.
Back in the corner of his mind, a small part of him felt repulsed by what he was reading, but he had a job to do so he just pushed those feelings back and continued on. He wouldn’t realize it for a couple of years after stumbling upon the word again in the Restricted Section, but those scrolls and old codices was where he learned what a Horcrux was and how to make one.
Tom flipped through the pages of his Runes project, inspecting the arrays on each page, there was just something missing. He whispered a parseltounge password at the book and all of the rune pages fused into one, hiding the enchantments within the space between the front and back of a single sheet. He tested the enchantment out, he flipped to the first page and wrote ‘Contents’ his ink sunk into the page and a table appeared showing all of the subjects and entries he had stored in it.
He had written in the book all year, copying out all of his notes and using it as a place to hold his translations, he had the copying charm working, the scanning charm, the recall was near instant, nothing flickered, and the diary wasn’t getting hot. But still he felt it needed something else. He thought about it, and his mind wandered to the moving portraits all over Hogwarts.
“Do you think it’s possible to charm a personality into this to compile the information and present it better, instead of me still having to read through it?” He mused aloud to the other boys in the compartment.
Sunday, 15 June, 1941
Hogwarts 3rd year graduate, Tom Marvolo Riddle, 14, stood, clutching his black, leather NEWT Study Guide -slash- Runes Project Diary to his chest, shrunken school trunk slung over his shoulder with a strap, in total time-stopping shock.
A web of interlaced, complicated and contradicting emotions fell over his consciousness, a wet blanket of suffocating confusion.
His clear blue eyes scanned the sight before him, the evidence of his mental exertion present in a bead of falling sweat from his increasingly disheveled hairline.
“Gone?” He asked the pile of rubble where his home had been, where his mother died, his oppressive cage.
He had walked all the way from Kings Cross, so focused on his extreme aversion to returning to Wool’s, he hadn’t really noticed the widespread destruction during his ambulation through the familiar streets of London.
Sequestered away in the Scottish highlands, he made it a point to pretend that the Muggle World did not exist. After learning what his snake-speak meant to the Slytherins, the very same rich bigots who’d made his life Hell since the moment the Sorting Hat condemned him to the dungeons, were now falling over themselves to placate The Heir. He hadn’t heard of The Blitz.
The longer Tom looked at the pile of bricks and broken breezeblocks, which was his childhood he had to fight… something trying to bubble up in him.
That could have been me.
He pushed that down, stiffened, cleared his face, turned on the spot and held his wand up.
CRACK!
“Step aboard the Knight Bus, transportation for the stranded witch or wizard. Where to, Lad?”
Tom hadn’t anywhere to go. He had to go somewhere wizard, some where close. Silver-grey eyes, the image popped into his mind’s eye.
“Grimmauld Place,” he replied, with no further deliberation.
“23 knuts, 5 stops between.”
Tom nodded and handed the man a sickle and impatiently tapped his fingers, waiting for the man to give his change. Tom stared into the eyes of ‘Ernie’ apparently, according to his name tag, not even flinching when the bus took off.
“My change, Ernie?”
“Oh right, right, there you are,” he said placing six knuts into Tom's hand, who nodded again and took a seat.
Three cracks and two jumps across the Thames and the Knight Bus slammed into existence on the quiet street of Grimmauld Place, the late afternoon sun, just beginning to hide behind the roofs of the townhouses, was casting half the street in cooling shadow. Tom stepped out and followed Orion’s directions to find number 12.
Eight… nine… ten… eleven… thirteen…
Tom stopped and stared at the shining brass ’11’ and the copper ’13’, he made two large backwards steps while looking between the two houses over his left shoulder. The moment he brought his right foot back to his left on the second backward step, the large, dark townhouse appeared out of nowhere, silver ’12’ emblazoned by the sun.
He approached the door and reached up for the knocker. The silver snake uncoiled and bared its fangs at him and hissed. It’s meant to frighten surprise callers, apparently, but Tom chuckled at the door knocker.
He had heard it say ‘:Whaaaaaaaaaaat?:’ With a great, put-upon sigh.
At Tom’s laughter, the snake slumped a little, then shook and hissed louder, more threateningly.
“:Fink um funny, do ye!?:”
Tom’s face contorted with suppressed giggles, he bit it back and replied, “:Wee bit, hatchling.:”
The snake’s mouth dropped and eyes widened and he started furiously hissing “A Fuckin’ hatchling, he says! HATCHLING?! I’m four—fucking—undred years old, ya right git! You’re the bloody Hatchling, two-legs!:”
Tom was unsure what to do, he found the outburst adorable, but didn’t know how to proceed, pissing off the door knocker might not’ve been wise, but he didn’t have to worry for long, the door swung open.
To Tom’s relief, it was his dorm mate.
“Black,” he said, in a polite enough, friendly manner.
“Riddle? You having a row with the decor?” Orion waved at the door knocker and it stilled, although still mumbling abuse. “Come in, wasn’t expecting you for a week,” he said, ushering Tom into the foyer.
Tom was taken aback by the house, the staircase ahead of him was taller than the building, itself by at least double. The whole space was lit with a calming, greenish hue, hearkening to the Slytherin Common Room. Portraits and trophies lined the walls, and he could hear the sounds of entertainment happening somewhere up to the left. He must have made some sound because Orion explained.
“Oh yeah, It’s tradition, the whole family comes on train day, and the house gets decked out,” he said, with a presentation movement of his arms, wide and welcoming. “All Slytherins, the lot of us, all the way back since the castle started taking students.” Tom responded with appreciative noises.
Orion looked Tom up and down, tapping his chin, lips pursed. He drew his wand and gave it a series of flicks at his house mate, who had for some reason been even quieter than usual.
Tom didn’t flinch, nor gasp at Orion’s blatant disregard for the Underage Sorcery thing, as his outfit transformed from the muggle-approved attire to something more formal and wizard. Orion swept his wand over his friend, fixing his hair and freshening him up a bit. Tom blushed in embarrassment, but Orion just looked him over and nodded.
“What’s happened, Riddle?” Orion finally asked.
“I was going to ask you the same question, Black. Half the city’s been blown up!”
“What? Blown up how? By Grindlewald?”
“I wouldn’t know. But my…. House, the whole block, really, it’s just.. all gone.”
“Do you think the muggles did it?,” Orion asked, scandalized. Tom shrugged slightly.
“Well they have been at war,” Tom said flatly, while flapping his hand.
“Say no more, you’re staying with us,” Orion announced. He changed his tone and called out, “Kreacher?”
“I wouldn’t want to intrude, you did say the whole family was here.” A house elf popped in.
“Young Master calls Kreacher?” The elf said, bowing low.
“Yes, Kreacher, prepare us a room for my classmate. Tom will be spending the summer with us.”
“Kreacher be doing this right away for Young Master.” And he was gone, along with Tom’s trunk. Orion clapped his hand on Tom’s shoulder and looked into Tom’s eyes.
“Nonsense, the house always has extra rooms. Sometimes too many extra,” he said seriously, face stern for a moment, then he made a face of mocking disgust, turning his head to the Ballroom.
Tom laughed and let Orion lead him through the double doors.
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“I, Orion, Heir eventual Black,” chuckles scattered across the large room. “introduce my peer to you all.” He stood aside and nudged Tom forward. “Tom Riddle.”
The reactions were mixed, but Portraits are chatty, and the door knocker has a thing for the grass snake in the landscape by the door. There were respectful, welcoming noises mostly, and several of the sea of Sltherins had made their way over to meet them.
The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black lived in the Magical and Most Spooky Townhouse of the House of Black, Grimmauld Place, for nearly five centuries, long before the surrounding neighborhood was even surveyed.
The area in Islington where Polaris XXVI scouted for the Lay Lines and built the manor was always just outside of the hoi polloi and hullabaloo of Londinium, according to his portrait, anyway.
Well, he erected the house in a field and hid it from the general population, as Tom had witnessed in his coming, and as industrialization spread, as did the development, and Grimmauld Place came to be surrounded on all sides and the house took it upon itself to blend in.
Orion’s grandfather, Sirius Lord Black, made a joke that the old girl wanted friends. The whole several dozen Blacks seemed to all talk about the house as a living thing capable of amazing feats of magical architecture.
“Yes, the house is really here, it is quite larger than it appears but in addition to space-time being warped, the mind-magic continuum manipulation is especially potent from the Lay lines.”
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Tom was accepting of the description but it hadn’t sunk in for a couple of days. He walked into the ballroom, curious about the enchantments on the tapestry and hoping to get a closer look.
He had a short-circuit, eye twitch and everything, when instead of the gargantuan black-and-white Ballroom, he was confronted with an intimate space, the magical tapestry took up the entirety of one wall, the faces on which were all talking to each other. And all the other walls displayed Moving Portraits, who were also in deep discussion.
Tom realized he interrupted something when all the enchanted replicas of Blacks long passed stopped chatting and all looked at him, simultaneously. He bowed slightly and went to leave the room, when one of the portraits called out.
“You there, mud blood boy! Come sit.”
Tom bristled, flicked his wrist and spun around, wand coming level with the ignorant facsimile of an arrogant, inbred cumstain.
“What did you call me, portrait,” Tom near whispered out. His voice, low and threatening, had provoked the snake decor to shiver at the sound. Lepus Black, Phineas Nigellus’s Grandfather, was not shaken at the display.
“Zap him! I’ve been waiting for years to be rid of him,” another portrait encouraged, Sol, the plate said. But it’s hard to tell if the figures are in their own frames or someone else’s.
“On with it then,” Tom said, taking a seat.
“We have heard of you, boy. The heir says you wanted to know about the animation enchantments,” Lepus said.
“I do,” Tom confirmed, arms crossed, wand still out.
“House Black is grateful for your contribution to our library and so we wanted to offer to tutor you on your spell craft.”
“I accept,” Tom said, softening quickly. Whatever else the paintings could ask of him couldn’t possibly cost him more than what they were offering.
“Excellent,” The portrait said, and a frame to the left of the fireplace swung open to reveal a book, Animae.
Monday, 1 September, 1941
To Orion’s insistence, he and Tom walked the streets to King’s Cross Station next train day. Tom was amazed at, and mildly threatened by the pace the Muggles were cleaning up and rebuilding. The roads were wider, the rubble was nearly all gone, crushed and repurposed. The war machine churned out the rehabilitation of the capital nearly as quickly as it demolished others.
Orion looked around at the remaining rubble and rubbish with a self satisfied look on his face, as though all of his biases were confirmed.
In all his 14 years, he had never gone out the front door of his house. He’d taken the floo, or gone with his Father.
He’d never been so close to Muggles in all his life, unless you count the ones who lived on Grimmauld, although he’d never talked to them, and typically had his window enchanted to show the coastal view from Chateau Noir, has Great-Great Aunt’s house on Corsica.
“And we just walk through it?” Orion asked Tom.
“We do.” Tom chuckled.
“In front of all these,” he lowered his voice “Muggles?”
“They don’t notice anything, come on!” Tom said, not reassuringly at all, as he grabbed Orion’s arm and pulled him through the brick wall.
“I have to admit, she’s a sight more impressive from this angle,” Orion said gesturing at the Hogwarts Express.
“Who, Wally?” Tom asked, and Orion rushed to cover his mouth, with a worried look on his face.
“Speak not the name, lest she appear!” He whispered in Tom’s ear. His breath, brushing the tiny hairs, gave Tom goosebumps. Walburga had graduated the year before, but Orion was still worried his father would find a way to marry them together sooner than later.
“Geroff!” Tom said, pushing Orion back with his shoulder,“Let’s get a compartment,” he took off stiffly, in a quick clip toward the train. Orion laughed and darted along after his friend.
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