Chapter Text
Thomas Riddle sat in an armchair in an ostentatiously grand room, echoes of the last guest leaving the new year celebration barely reaching his secluded spot. He had missed the house immensely he thought, a slight shudder passing through him as his thoughts took him close to his time away. Tonight, had been nearly unbearable- all those discreet glances and whisperings in his direction- yet Tom Riddle knew it would pass. His family had too much money for it not too.
Thomas Riddle leant back in his chair, before a cough sent him jolting into standing. A woman was in the room, if her current state of dress would permit him to call her that. She was wearing trousers, of all things, and her hair and state of cleanliness reminded him of the street ruffians.
“What are you doing here woman?! You do not have permission to be here.” He practically shouted. If this woman was a thief, she would not get far he internally smirked.
The woman stepped forward into the light of the few gas lamps still lit and his confidence took a dip. This woman looked dangerous, she seemed to be dressed in a kind of reptile skin, like a crocodile, and although she wore trousers, her jacket was longer at the back, almost to the floor. But more than her garments were her eyes, a shade of green that almost… glowed?
Still, she was just a woman. “I will not ask you again, so answer or you will find yourself in trouble with the police, girl.”
The woman smirked.
“I come with news of your son.”
Her voice he noted was rough, almost disused. He noticed this alone, for the words had sent him into a state of paralysis. Fear and hate coursed through him in equal measure, until disgust grew to overthrow them both.
“I. have . no . son” his words were spoken with such vile and distinct revulsion, that it seemed to shake him as he spoke it.
The woman tilted her head.
“Yes, you do. He is named Tom Mar-“
“I HAVE NO SON!” he roared, and the women went silent. He breathed deeply.
“That… woman’s spawn is nothing to me. It will never be anything, but a disgusting filthy FREAK like them. It should be drowned at birth, just like its mother should die. That whole family and its blood should be wiped clean from God’s earth. An abomination, a stain, a creature of devilish nature, a-“
“You will not take him” the statement came out both as a question and a statement.
“Never.”
The woman nodded once. Then quicker than a snake a piece of wood was pointing at him, and by the time his face paled the woman spoke one word.
“Obliviate.”
…..
Harri looked at Thomas Riddle’s blank face as she removed all memories of her and of Merope informing him of being pregnant. He looked so similar to the monster she knew, but the differences were in the features too. But deeper than looks… “You sound like him, your anger- it’s the same.” She said to the unresponsive man, before ending the spell and disappearing into the shadow, leaving the muggle to celebrate the new year.
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She stood over the crib in silent confliction. She didn’t know what to do. The baby was equally silent underneath her gaze, it’s thumb in its mouth, eyes closed.
Killing it would still be easier. Him. She corrected herself, the baby was a him, not an it or thing or freak.
Harri turned away from the crib. How can I be so weak, she asked herself, so what if it was a baby it was still Him, the monster, killing it was the simple easiest solution possible. Vague memories of right and easy from a senile old man echoed in her head. Which she ignored. Completely.
But if she wasn’t killing it (him), and the father was a swine, and the orphanage was reprehensible and would shortly be empty of adults, then who was to keep it (him) ?
She could leave him on a muggle doorstep with spells to make them keep him. Well yes, because that worked out so well for you didn’t it? A snide voice in her head commented.
She could find a nice muggle family… how she wasn’t sure, and what if even a nice family turned to hate when exposed to the unexplainable?
So the wizarding world then? Except there were no orphanages there, and a lot of discrimination of muggleborns… which it wasn’t but… Crap. The Gaunts were still alive technically- so he would go to them? Harri shook her head, that would not work either. What the hell was she going to do with this child!
Harri paced back and forth unable to think of a way forward apart from killing it and becoming more anxious over the impossible situation by the second. A crazy notion of raising it herself passed her mind- but she couldn’t. The baby began to wake and with a soft cry opened its eyes, which seemed to freeze Harri in place.
She crossed over to it (him), gritted her teeth and picked it up. Her mind detached as she automatically shaped her arms to cradle the child, watched as it seemed to snuggle closer to her warm body. Then her mind caught up. Harri had to restrain herself from flinging the child from her, she froze stiff as revulsion and the need to vomit course through her. Memories flashing by of all the pain and suffering and tortured and dead.
She couldn’t keep him. It was too much. But she was now afraid of putting it down, fearing that if she did, she would leave altogether. This was too hard.
She began to pace again, unknowingly soothing the baby back to sleep.
More wild theories flew through her head, up to and including forcing the royal family to adopt it. All shot down for logical reasons, or so her mind classed it.
She could do this. Harri felt her breath quicken as she tried to find a way not to kill the thing in her arms. It just needed to be raised right, it just needed a family and-
Harri stopped pacing. Her thoughts flew quickly by, so quick even a natural legilimens wouldn’t catch them. It took only seconds for Harri to commit to the plan. She glanced down at the child and looked away just as fast. Taking a deep breath, she apparated away from the orphanage, and silently prayed to magic that this plan would work.
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Harri stared at the manor in front of her. It was nothing like the ostentatious palace of the Riddle’s or Malfoys. In fact, it didn’t look much like a manor at all. A heavy big stoned turret of a medieval castle sat on the right side an old weathered rook reminding her Luna’s home. She shook her head free of the memories of her screams. The rook was connected by a smoother built rectangle structure two stories high with a large domed roof and three floor-to-ceiling windows along its sides. It was then connected at a right angle onto an old large red brick Tudor like house, with large windows and beams visible on its exterior. A smaller turret could just be seen behind the house, and a large orchard encased in an old brick wall lay to one side of the dwelling, with a river flowing on the other. The house was situated almost in the centre of a low sloping valley of hills and forest, illuminated by the crescent moon and a thousand stars.
Harri had apparated on to a large crop of rocks a considerable distance from the house, as she had been unsure of the location. This was the third place she had apparated to, the first was where she knew a grand manor had, or as it turns out, would be. It had been particularly disorientating to appear in an empty field before she remembered she was in the past. The second location was Godric’s hollow, but the cottage was empty and devoid of life and so she had remembered the third place where she currently stood.
The child shifted in her grip. She shook herself from observing the landscape and started to descend toward the house. She was unfamiliar with it, for the house did not exist in the future, it has been destroyed in the late 40’s when the remnants of Grindelwald’s followers had attacked. It had been described as the last attack and end of Grindelwald’s influence from inside the prison in the last chapter in the book entitled the rise and fall of the Dark Lord Grindelwald. All she knew was its location and who the historic manner belonged to.
The Potters.
Harri had discovered a few years ago a wizarding family genealogy book. She had taken it to attempt to find death eaters family manors or estates and had learnt from it a lot of her own family’s past.
The potters had always had tight relations to the muggle world, and that had earned them much condemnation over the last few centuries. They had kept doing business with muggles after the statue of secrecy and the European wide witch burnings- and through doing so had managed to survive various wizarding world economic recessions. They were as old as the sacred 28, but not members, and through varied marriages, was related to most of wizarding Britain. It allowed them to maintain lots of broad relationships, even while being unpopular for there continued muggle ties. Harri’s mother was not the first muggle born to marry a potter but there were not many, and she was the first in over a two hundred years.
When Harri had first learnt the information, she had been simultaneously happy and angry. Happy to know and angry that she had never known even the vague history of her own family before. Harri had used that anger to burn many of the death eater manors to the ground.
The child snuggled closer into her.
Harri had maintained strict occlumency shields since her earlier urge to drop or throw it from her grasp. As long as those shields were up, she could dissociate from the fact that the child held in her arms was the monster of her future. But it moving wasn’t helping her shields at all. Harri quickened her pace.
She prayed to Merlin that her ancestors would take the child, because she couldn’t bear to hold it for much longer and feared her initial response would mean…. Harri prayed harder as she drew closer to the manor, finally reaching its shadows and began searching for a door to enter the Potter’s Estate House.
She had to travel around the rook to find a door, entering a cobbled courtyard with plants strewn across it. She reached for a humble wooden door, rather than the main door which while also wooden was decorated in carvings and metal studs. Her plan of sneaking in however was ruined as soon as she touched the door, as humble or not, her touch sent a loud reverberating swell of magic across the house, alerting the owener to which the wards where tied of her arrival.
It seems she would meet her ancestor soon. Which one she didn’t know. Hopefully what she read would be true. Hopefully they would take the thing (child) and she could go slaughter those muggles. Hopefully.
Harri sighed She didn’t believe in hope anymore.
Ignoring the alert ward and pushing her way past a few others, Harri for the first time, entered her ancestral home.
Come what may.