The Patronus of Tom Riddle

Tom left the Merovingian castle by evening. The Duke had offered him to stay the night, but all words had been said, and to wander through the estate, feeling her invisible trace on everything and knowing she would never return… To encounter her portraits, which smiled kindly and greeted you… it was unbearable. Perhaps if he had grown up in a pure-blood family, where a line of ancestors casually chats with descendants from paintings above the stairs every day, it would not have made such a depressing impression on him. But Tom grew up among Muggles, and the school canvases depicted strangers indifferent to him. Seeing Aola like that… not knowing him, two-dimensional… it was infinitely painful; it felt as if his heart would burst from the strain. Parting, the Duke offered for him to visit whenever Tom wished and asked if he wanted something as a keepsake? Tom wanted something very much. And almost in a whisper, he asked for a lock of her hair. Milord granted this request. The golden strand, tied with a ribbon in an envelope, lay in his breast pocket, close to his broken heart. The lad stepped onto the white road, stood for a while looking at the castle in the sunset rays, and Apparated. Returning to the orphanage, Tom began to deliberate on a plan for revenge. In the bleak fog that shrouded his present and future, the light of a definite goal dawned. Milord had given not only names but enough information about each of the presumed killers. Of course, reaching them now, while the war was ongoing, would be no easy task. Moreover, he had to admit that he had killed Ragmudin more by chance, by a coincidence of circumstances, rather than because he was stronger in combat magic. His skill for confronting such opponents was clearly insufficient. That meant he had to learn, learn like one possessed, and learn things truly dark and dangerous… Revenge is a dish best served cold. And rushing to enact it with a hot head was fraught with the premature death of the avenger himself. Riddle’s cold, logical mind managed to subdue his emotions and subordinate them to pressing problems. He would prepare properly and appear before each one fully armed. And the Avada would seem like pure mercy compared to what he would do to them. Tom was born on the thirty-first of December, when the harsh Capricorn reigned in the zodiacal circle. For such people, a goal is the meaning of life, and it sometimes justifies any means. And plans are the steps toward it. Just as patiently and consistently as he had previously won over Aola, he now prepared his revenge. Returning to London, Riddle immediately went to the bank. The goblin clerk, small, shriveled, and so frightening he could scare unruly children, measured the handsome, aristocratically pale youth in a modest school suit with a suspicious gaze, but upon learning the amount he possessed, he forced a smile. Being under the care of the state in the person of a Muggle, Tom had every right to independently manage his money. He withdrew a fairly large sum and headed to Diagon Alley. There he bought a decent but quite formal suit, a pair of shoes, and several good shirts. Then he went to the bookstore and for a long time, fastidiously sifted through rarest editions and manuscripts on practical combat magic. The seller, seeing his choice, was surprised and asked why such a young man as he needed such books. “Scientific research. I am writing a thesis on Defense Against the Dark Arts,” Tom lied importantly, without blinking an eye. Then the merchant lowered his voice to a whisper and offered “only to you, so be it, since it is for science” a couple of folios for which one could end up under arrest. Tom leafed through them and barely suppressed a cry of joy. It was exactly what he was looking for. Returning to the orphanage, he sat down with the books. In the evenings, when the other orphans were already snoring on their hard institutional cots, he Apparated to some wasteland and tried new spells there. By God, there turned out to be plenty of things in this world worse than Avada. Studies occupied his mind almost entirely, allowing him to distract himself from pain and heavy thoughts. And only at night, when he was left alone with his grief, did it fiercely begin to tear at his worn-out heart. She often appeared in his dreams… Sometimes these dreams were permeated with the bright joy of reunion, warmth, and love… He held her hands, looking into her golden eyes, and she promised to stay with him forever… But more often they were viscous nightmares in which Tom tried time and again to save his beloved, almost succeeding, almost reaching her, almost shouting the protective spell… being late every time by some fractions of a second. And then her figure would vanish in a dirty-fire fountain of an explosion, and he, having reached it, would fall and fall into the black maw of a smoking crater until he woke with a cry of despair tearing from his chest. On one such joyless night, already at the end of August, lying sleepless after a nightmare, Tom suddenly thought that the time had come to get acquainted with his relatives. Aola would have approved of this… She would have liked his decision. The next day, an ordinary train delivered him to an unremarkable village, Little Hangleton, in the deep English countryside. From the small station, he had to walk quite a bit — Tom had never been here before and could not Apparate without knowing where. He found the Gaunt house fairly quickly, by the traces of used magic. He did not, of course, hope to see any ancestral castle, but the miserable hovel he knocked on exceeded all his worst expectations. And the drunk, cross-eyed uncle, barely standing on his feet and looking more like a cross between a troll and a bear than a human, completely killed Tom’s secret hope for a reunion with family. He recognized the nephew… grumbled: “Ah… son… hic… of that bitch… the thief Merope… the spitting image of that damned Tom Riddle, I should wring his neck…” He managed to share the coordinates of the hated relatives and departed to the kingdom of Morpheus, collapsing across a filthy armchair and vomiting into the basket of empty bottles below. Grimacing with disgust, Tom left the impossibly fouled dwelling and headed to the other side of the valley, where a solid, well-kept house of the Riddle family stood on a hill. The door was opened by his grandmother — still a handsome, striking woman in her fifties. Surely they had servants, but it was a day off, and the maid had likely taken leave. She opened it and gasped, leaning against the doorframe to avoid fainting. She recognized her grandson at first glance; clearly, the resemblance to his father was indeed striking. She stood there, hand over her mouth, staring at him with rounded eyes. “Did you think, madam, that I had died like my mother?” Tom inquired, already agitated by the meeting with his uncle. Without waiting for an invitation, he walked past her inside. “Mother, who is there?” came a dissatisfied voice from deep within the house. Tom followed the voice. In a cozy living room sat two men, reading morning newspapers and sipping tea. The younger one lowered his paper, looked at the guest, and lost the power of speech, just like Mrs. Riddle. “Good day,” Tom greeted coldly and politely, examining his kin. “Shall we introduce ourselves? Tom Marvolo Riddle, sixth-year student of the private school Hogwarts.” In the depths of his soul… perhaps he would never have admitted it even to himself… but in the depths of his soul, the teenager sought love. Aola had invited him into this magical world of care, warmth, and embraces… and then left him, depriving him of the wonderful feeling of being needed, valued, and desired. In the depths of his soul, Tom hoped they would repent. Ask for forgiveness for abandoning him, allowing him to grow up in an orphanage with cold strangers. Admire how he had grown, what he had become… Invite him into their home. He would have forgiven them everything. Even the fact that they were not wizards. Perhaps someday he would even have told them who he really was, so they could fully be proud of their son and grandson. Tom waited for warm words, for an embrace… None of this happened. The relatives panicked, stupidly and arrogantly assuming that Tom had come to them for money. “Are you planning to claim the inheritance?!” his grandmother hissed hysterically, knowing full well that her son’s marriage to Merope was legal. His grandfather babbled something about a check he would write immediately, provided they never saw him here again. And his father… his father just silently looked at his young copy as one looks at a corpse long since safely drowned in the park pond, suddenly surfacing right before guests gathered for a picnic. Tom himself did not understand how it all happened… It became so painful, simply unbearable! His suffering heart constricted into a trembling lump. And then the father blurted out: “It still needs to be proven that you are my son and not some impostor!” And this, when they looked like two drops of water! Freaks… What freaks they were! Hatred splashed into his head in a tight crimson wave, depriving him of reason. Like then… at the lake. His fingers gripped the wand. How dare they… how dare they speak to him like that, to the one who was loved and valued above all by the great-great-granddaughter of the greatest wizard-kings of Europe! When he came to, it was all over. All three lay on the floor, turned to stone, and only the fear distorting their handsome faces testified that death had been there. Realizing what he had done, Tom went cold with horror. No, he did not pity these soulless creatures. But Azkaban! For triple murder, they would lock him there forever! And he would not be able to avenge Aola! In panic, he hastily left the house and could think of nothing better than to return to the Gaunt hovel. There, pacing from corner to corner under the snoring of his drunken uncle, his gaze hit the man’s magic wand. An epiphany struck his trembling body like an electric shock. He hastily grabbed it and pressed it closely to his own. Yes, Aola had taught him how it was done… When Tom finished, his strength completely left him, and he slid onto the dirty floor, leaned against the blackened wall, and sat there, inhaling the air sour with vomit until he caught his breath a little. Then he extracted the memories of the committed murder from his own mind, adjusted them, and poured them into his relative’s ear. This alcoholic was a lost soul anyway… Let him do something useful at the end of his worthless life — save his nephew from prison, since he could not and would not give him a normal childhood. Already leaving, Tom glanced at the snoring Morfin and suddenly noticed something glint on his hand. Approaching, he saw a ring, rather simply and crudely made, with an ordinary black stone on which some signs were engraved. The Gaunt family ring! He could not leave the only thing proving his direct kinship with wizards to a drunkard who would be thrown into prison tomorrow? Not without effort, Tom pulled the ring from the calloused finger and put it in his pocket. On that day, Tom Marvolo Riddle ceased to be. Having severed his past in such a terrible way, he invented a new name for himself, the mere sounds of which would soon drive the strongest mages of this world into a tremor. A Lord avenging his Lady. What could be more noble and beautiful? Two days later, he was already traveling to Hogwarts. Neither dementors nor an investigator from the ministry ever came for him. The murder of three people went unpunished for Tom. And it gave him confidence that everything would go just as smoothly with Aola’s killers. Upon arrival at school, the teenager donned his usual mask of benevolent politeness with teachers and a patronizingly-frightening one with students. Without problem, he obtained the position of Prefect of his house and all the privileges attached to that status. But going to Defense Against the Dark Arts classes was real torture… Everything in that classroom reminded him of milady. The students were not told of the death of the pretty teacher — they were spared. And Tom did not say a word about it to anyone, carrying this terrible weight within himself, not showing a sign. Dumbledore, who surely knew of Aola’s death, must not suspect anything. Pain ate the young heart, undermining his mental health. Perhaps he had already reached some brink from which there was no return when he stumbled upon information about Horcruxes in the Forbidden Section. And about the Deathly Hallows. When Tom realized what ring was on his finger, he almost went mad with joy. He would resurrect her! Bring her back to life! He would snatch her from the clutches of death, and everything would be as before! They would marry, he would find some Philosopher’s Stone, and they would live forever, enjoying each other! To the Blue Stone, away from prying eyes, Tom ran so fast he nearly broke his neck, stumbling. Standing facing the lake, he took the ring in his hand, imagined his beloved in minute detail, and turned it three times in his hand. His heart beat against his ribs painfully, blood thundered in his ears… now, right now! She would return to him! Nothing happened. Tom repeated the procedure again and again… Nothing. He groaned with frustration and threw the ring to the ground. A cheap imitation! A fake! And then a thin, ringing thought like a string tinkled in the depths of his consciousness… what if she had not died?! Grabbing the ring, Tom summoned the image of his father from memory. And he appeared, with a face distorted by fear as at the moment of death. So the stone was real! Without hesitating a second, he sent the father back to the kingdom of Thanatos and jumped about the shore in a wild fit of joy. Aola is ALIVE! His beloved is ALIVE! That witness was simply mistaken! Perhaps she was wounded, or lost her memory, or… she was thrown into other dimensions during a quick Apparition — after all, she is a peri! But she is alive, alive! And that meant all he needed was to ensure himself immortality to wait and look for her. To wait until she returned. How to know if the Duchess Meroving was truly not in the world of the dead? Or did the call of the ring not extend to beings like her? Or maybe she herself did not want to appear, seeing from the next world what the boy she loved was becoming without her care? Who knows. Tom chose the version he wanted to believe in. He created Horcruxes without feeling a drop of tremor or doubt. What is it to tear a soul when a heart has already been shattered to pieces? Hope did not make him kinder — he continued to blame the cursed Muggles and the wizards who sold out to them for the separation from his beloved. The idea of pure-blood elitism gained a strong base, and Tom began to gather supporters around him. The mangled soul now demanded not only love, but power. He would become great… truly great, and when he and Aola met, he would be her equal. Everything good that milady had nurtured in him was quietly dying. Everything bad she had suppressed flourished in full bloom. The foul Gaunt blood took the reins of his mind into its hands. The fascist ideas she fought against possessed him. Becoming the cause of Moaning Myrtle’s death by accident, he did not pity the girl one bit and without hesitation framed Hagrid. What would Aola have thought of that? But at that moment, he was angry with her, deciding she had left him consciously, faking her death to get rid of a tiresome admirer. The old Duke could have pretended… If Tom was so good at playing benevolence, why couldn’t someone play grief? Pity, this could no longer be checked… milord passed away a month after his daughter’s fake death. He looked for her… how he looked. But the witness of her death, even under the Cruciatus, howling from unbearable pain, swore he had seen everything with his own eyes. Just as her aunt, haughty and high-born, swore that her niece’s funeral was real. Tom left them alive. Unlike those who took Aola from him. One died during the war. The second was arrested and imprisoned in a likeness of Azkaban in the mountains of Switzerland. The third thought he had safely hidden… Tom got them both. And he killed them so slowly that both went to the next world absolutely white-haired. Time passed. Lord Voldemort became so caught up in his game that his goal turned into a means, and his hardened heart and shreds of soul prevented him from pausing and realizing that upon seeing the monster he had become, his beloved would only recoil from him in horror. No one ever knew the true motives of his actions. Neither the Merovingian medallion, nor the lock of milady’s hair, nor his diary for the fifth year were ever seen by a living soul. He buried them securely… with the help of rare ancient magic. And only occasionally, bringing these treasures into the light, in complete, well-protected solitude, touching the soft, golden hair with withered, scale-covered fingers, he saw the sunlight-drenched summit of the pyramid, the amber eyes looking at him tenderly, felt the half-forgotten scent of his beloved woman, and felt himself happy and young.