Hope
January 6, 2026 at 6:30 AM
They rushed onto the island from all sides the moment Aola tried to move the stones of the tomb. Slimy, with glazed eyes the color of skimmed milk, the Inferi scrambled upward, wheezing, greedily stretching out crooked, half-decayed fingers as they tried to reach the woman—they feared the jinni. She suppressed a wave of nausea, drew herself up to her full height, and hurled several fireballs into the thick of the undead. Singed corpses fell back into the water, but new ones were already climbing up to replace them. This was his, Tom’s, handiwork… The Lady shuddered with loathing.
“Do what you planned, Mistress! I will handle them!” the jinni shouted, spinning into a whirlwind of fire and knocking the dead back into the lake. Aola returned to the tomb, broke the magical seals with some effort, and began hastily dismantling the stones in the spot where she felt a pulsation of living energy. HIS energy.
The grin of a skull and the hollow where a stomach once was beneath exposed ribs did not shock her. It had been little better even in life, after all… and she had seen enough on archeological digs. Besides, strictly speaking, this was not a real body, was it? The one she had kissed had died back in Godric’s Hollow. This frame was merely a temporary vessel for his soul, nothing more… or rather, for what was left of it.
The warmth and pulsation beneath her palm intensified; she was literally drawn there, beneath the ribcage in the tatters of decayed clothing and flesh.
Take it, take it, take it! the blood hammered in her temples. Hesitating for a second, Aola slid her hand under the sternum and, right where the heart had been, she felt the object that beckoned her. She squeezed a small, walnut-sized item in her fingers. Its warmth spread through her palm, calm and soft. She waved her hand, and the stones returned to their places as if they had never been touched.
“We are leaving!” she told the jinni.
Hagrid had managed to treat all the cabbages before sunset and was now preparing to enjoy a well-deserved dinner. He had already prepared a small glass of dragon infusion—it had been an emotional day, after all—and had skewered a fried mushroom on his fork. He had just opened his mouth to eat when someone knocked forcefully on the door. Fang growled, mostly for the sake of appearances.
“Who else could it be at this hour?” Rubeus wondered and went to open it. Seeing his visitors, he experienced what Madam Maxime called a deja vu. Just like in their school years, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were staring at him with round, anxious eyes, while an equally worried Ginny peeked from behind their backs. Under her arm, Hermione held a thick book. Total deja vu.
“Hello, Hagrid!” they blurted out in unison and crowded into the hut without waiting for a formal invitation.
“Hullo, everyone! What’s happened? You’re all ruffled up, like you’ve been chased by pixies,” he said cheerfully.
“A girl came into Ron’s shop today, introduced herself as Aola Meroving,” Harry reported without preamble. “She said she taught at Hogwarts once. She was looking for her old friend, Tom Riddle.”
Hermione slammed her great book onto the table, pushing plates aside, opened it, and pointed at a portrait on a family tree. “But this Aola died back in nineteen forty-three! Do you know anything about this, Hagrid?”
“Ah, so it’s Miss Aola you’re all worked up about?”
The giant frowned and looked sternly at Ron, who was eyeing the bowl of mushrooms with longing and lust. “By the way, Ron, yeh could’ve been a bit more polite to the lady! She really didn’t know that Riddle had gone bad, caused all that trouble, and then died.”
“She visited you too?” Harry guessed.
“Aye, an hour or so ago, before she flew off. She was upset, o’ course… her and the Lord, back when he was Tom and not that cursed Voldemort, ahem… they were friends, basically. Professor Galatea Merrythought fell ill, and Lady Meroving was sent to replace her. She worked for three or four months and then left.”
“Hagrid, how is that possible?!” Ginny exclaimed. “First of all, she is officially dead! Second, so many years have passed, and she’s still young? Are you sure it was her?”
“Who else could it be, if not her? She called me Ruby,” the half-giant smiled sheepishly. “And she knew all about Snowball, and we’d sworn not to tell a soul. There was a mistake with the death—even books lie sometimes, don’t they? As for stayin’ young—well, her mother was like a veela, she’s half-human, so she doesn’t age. She asked about Tom. She was terribly upset, she was…”
“I can imagine,” Hermione huffed.
“Who is Snowball?” asked Ron, whose stomach gave a mournful growl that was indecently loud.
“Well, I can’t imagine it,” Harry said suddenly. “I can’t imagine a person who was friends with Voldemort. Why didn’t you ever tell us about this, Hagrid?”
“Because I gave Miss Aola my word not to blab,” the giant explained calmly. “She was a professor, and he was a student. She would’ve had problems if anyone found out. And besides, what did that have to do with what he started doin’ later? She left, and life went on.”
“Problems? What’s the big deal, so they were friends?” Ron asked, bewildered. “Listen, since it’s all cleared up, can we eat now?”
Ginny was the first to realize and drawled out, “Oh, so they were friends in that sense…”
“In what sense?!” Ron wailed, utterly famished.
“They were lovers?!” Hermione cried out, her face a battleground between disgust and astonishment.
“Well, whether they were or weren’t, I don’t know,” Hagrid grumbled. “Lots of older students were lookin’ at her, she was so beautiful. And kind. Even your grandfather, Septimus, tried to court her. Invited her to the ball, and Riddle cast a jinx so he’d break out in a rash. He was jealous. I went to visit Snowball once—that’s a unicorn, Riddle and Miss Aola and me… ahem, we freed him from a traveling circus, he was dyin’ there, poor thing! Well, and I saw… saw them kissin’. And today she said they were in love.”
Hermione winced as if from a toothache.
“Dumbledore said Riddle never loved anyone,” Harry said thoughtfully. “That he was a stranger to that feeling.”
“Dumbledore might not have known everythin’. What does it matter now? It’s all in the past. But Tom killed for the first time because of her, too, according to the lady. That evening when we freed Snowball, they were attacked by bandits over the Black Lake, and he killed one with an Avada… Protected her, she said. She’s grievin’ now, poor thing… blames herself for what became of him. Wanted to visit his grave, but I told her he was burned and that was that. Why let her tear her soul apart for nothin’?”
“I think I’m actually glad we missed her,” Ginny murmured, turning toward the window. Ronald, tired of appealing to his relatives' consciences, sat down at the table and began helping himself to mushrooms.
Aola and Abu Apparated home directly from the cliff by the Crystal Cave. Only in her father’s study did the Lady finally unclasp her fingers to examine the object she had taken from the Dark Lord’s tomb. It was a black, opaque crystal the size of a sugar cube, so precious to Tom that he had literally kept it beneath his heart. Another Horcrux? But she felt no trace of dark magic in the crystal, only a warmth reaching out to her. A storage container? She had to perform a special ritual for the object to reveal its essence. But she couldn’t open it; none of the known spells worked! She turned to the books, fortunately, the study was full of them. But even they did not help.
Discarding the tenth volume, Aola paced the room nervously, ruffling her hair.
“Think, girl, think… This is something Tom treasured immensely; it is drawn to you. Right? Right. Something good that he loved… Love is tenderness. Love is kisses… Nonsense? Or maybe not.”
She hurried back to the desk, took the crystal in her hand, and brought it to her face. Hesitating for a second, she pressed her lips to it. The main thing was not to think about where this thing had lain for the last twenty years… She felt the surface of the stone heat up, pulsing—the object was coming to life! She placed it on the table, and after a few seconds, with a soft pop, a simple leather-bound notebook appeared on it. Aola tried to open it, but it nearly bit her finger. She laughed. Oh, Tommy… She immobilized the biter with a counter-spell and flipped through a few pages. They were empty—most likely, the owner had hidden the text from prying eyes. Tucked into the middle of the notebook was an old envelope with the Meroving crest. Aola opened it. Inside lay a lock of dark hair tied with a ribbon, and her locket. The warmth was coming from the locket itself. She lifted the jewelry by its chain and laid it on her palm. A feeling of closeness to Tom, both pleasant and aching, flooded her. He remembered her… all this time. Remembered and… loved? There was not a drop of evil or darkness in the locket. Why hadn’t he worn it around his neck? Why hide it beneath his heart? The jewelry had changed since she owned it. Changed energetically…
The Lady left the study and walked quickly toward the laboratory. The large room with a low ceiling in the castle’s basement was full of magical artifacts, bundles of dried herbs, bizarre vessels with multicolored liquids, books, and parchment scrolls. Generations of Merovings had conducted their magical experiments and research here. Aola took a large flat bowl from an antique cupboard, placed it on the table, and filled it with water from a huge jug. Then she began adding liquids and powders from various vials. The water changed color, turning green and swirling. Finally, Aola lowered the locket into the bowl and began to mutter spells in Farsi.
“Come on, show me what happened to you…” she whispered, leaning over the bowl and peering into the water. She watched intently for about a minute, then gasped, snatched the locket, put it around her neck, and ran up the stairs to her bedroom.
“Abu!” she shouted, remembering halfway that she had left the diary on the desk in the study. She dashed back for it. She nearly collided with her aunt, who had looked out to see what the commotion was about this time.
“My dear, you’re back?” she asked happily.
“And leaving again,” Aola pecked Gringualda on the cheek and ran on. A mad thought had taken hold of the Lady… mad, but full of hope. She just needed to consult… with someone much older, wiser, and more experienced than herself. Just to consult for now. And then…
