Hunting For Wool's.
000. HARRY POTTER
Hunting For Wool's.
HOW MUCH FASTER COULD HE RUN?
In hindsight, the ordeal, the act of running toward their goal, was entirely unnecessary. There was no need. Policemen, military men, and armed guards all hounded the Ministry. Yet Harry still ran like the wind. It felt appropriate; he felt watched, and who was he not to scramble in the eyes of a spectator? He knew he was not the only one who felt as if they were being stalked. They all did. Of course, nobody but the three of them were there. The streets of London were barren and gold-gilded. Someone had gotten what had to have been a cluster of half-bloods (it was not the work of the mud-bloods; they were rarely allowed outside of the properties in which they resided) to clean up the streets). Harry was the first to skid to a stop in front of the wooden map that was etched into the side of the old city hall. Hermione soon stood beside him, her hair tangled as it whipped around her head. She looked about as grimy as people expected mud-bloods to appear. Ron limped after her, steadying himself on the wall. His mangled food had hindered their journey from Diagonally to the edge of urban London. Ron, in his entirety, was a hindrance. Barely able to walk, his voice was about as damaged as his foot. Ron had a cane at some point. Harry remembered it, but the imbecile had to have lost it at some point during the escape. While it was a strain to say that blood traitors were worse than mud-bloods, it was true.
Harry knew he shouldn't be sighted with either of these people; they were the bottom of the barrel, the worst of the worst. Being seen with stray mud blood and being stray oneself was a swift way to be dragged back to the sorting construct, a stifling brick building, bleakly decorated with no windows, where the lowest class members of the Ministry would assign jobs to half-bloods, and houses for mud-bloods to serve, that is if the mud-bloods had good behaviour. Suppose they didn't, off to the extraction factory.
A week or so ago, when Harry had been acquainted with his newfound rebels in one of the sorting constructs, Ron had meekly said that he had been in an extraction factory for most of his life before, under the torture, he ratted out his father for trying to save a muggle during one of the monthly reapings. He had not seen his father since, but that wasn't exactly saying much of anything. He hadn't seen any member of his family for months at that point. Ron was the only member of his family who had been granted the God-given gift of good behaviour, which very well saved his life.
'I don't want it, though,' Ron had said as they were shuffled into the meal hall. 'I'd rather my sister get good behaviour. I hope she got it, really. It's hell there. It's awful. Her name is Ginny — Ginerva, a year younger than me, she is.'
'I've got no family,' Harry had said, squinting to examine his new comrades. He had lost his glasses at some point when he was in the holding cell. Everything was blurred and was made up of mounds of merging colours. 'My mum and dad were killed. Nobody told me how.' Ron had nodded solemnly as if he knew the pain. At the time, Harry had doubted it. Ron's parents were likely being tortured and kept alive in the hopes of secrets being spilt. If there was a new rebellion awakening, Riddle would hear of it. To say Riddle's full name was taboo. It wasn't a curse, simply looked down upon by the lower class society. To call him Voldemort was a mockery towards your situation if you were half or mud-blooded. You'd be killed on the spot. Many people were. Harry had seen it, Hermione likely had as well. Recently, Harry had twisted his view until he realised that it was more likely Ron did know the pain that Harry felt.
Yes, Ron's parents were being tortured alongside the rest of his family, but several people died under torture. If the Prophet, or any other news station, were still reliable, the Casualty Counter of Torture (a new section that the Ministry thought it best to add. A warning, perhaps) would be in the thousands. If Ron's parents had died, which they likely had, the torturers would've probably used the deaths of loved ones as a taunt so many times that if they said it as truth, the tortured wouldn't believe them. Perhaps, of course, the ministry man torturing Ron had told him that one of his family members died, or was, more likely, close to death — his sister, let's say, Ginerva — maybe they would be able to wring some information out of him as he begged and pleaded for her life. That tactic would soon grow old, Harry imagined.
Hermione had been silent during the whole ordeal, picking at one of the several scabs on her forearm. She was covered in wounds of varying degrees. Cuts and bruises, old and new, lined the visible skin on her body. While she was quiet about it, Harry and Ron had both seen the mark on the side of her neck. When assigned a house to serve, mud-bloods were usually marked with the crest of the house. It was piteous that the crest of the Malfoys was of such intricacy. The act of getting it indented into one's flesh must've been agonising. And with all the little details...
She was a quiet yet rather intellectual girl. It was a shock. She used proper sentences and correct grammar, and she could read and write to an astounding degree. Mud-bloods weren't allowed an education. While it wasn't stated in any of Riddle's many constitutions or his many laws, it was more or less assumed that the prospect of mud-bloods ever getting taught anything or being able to attend a proper school was outlawed. Mud-bloods were never given the opportunity to acquire the simplest of knowledge, as they were either in the extraction factory or they were serving a house — education was never in the cards. Neither Harry nor Ron bothered to ask how she knew so much, how she knew more than them. It was a marvel, a miracle, and in a country under Riddle's reign, a miracle was rarer than ever.
PRESENTLY, HARRY STOOD BEFORE THE MAP, meticulously staring at the small indents that marked the roads and buildings. The map lingered with magic as Harry dragged his fingertip along the dusty wood. If he had known any of the more frivolous spells, spells that were not strictly used for surviving, he might have been able to redo what had once been done to the map to make it seem more alive. More helpful.
'What are we looking for again?' Asked Hermione, her head popping up beside Harry's. He acknowledged her with a sidelong glance and turned back to squint uselessly at the map. He missed being able to see.
'Wool's,' Harry replied, recollecting the minuscule details from the documentary he had heard of, one of the many restricted ones. 'It's the orphanage Riddle went to. Suppose it's still there, they might have records on him, something we can dig up and use to our advantage.'
'The orphanage Riddle went to?' Ron cut in, his trembling voice grating. 'Why wouldn't he destroy it when he gained power? Everybody knows he got rid of anything even similar to his past — '
'Oh please, Ron, that's only a rumour,' Harry's voice, like an unsheathed knife, ripped through whatever else Ron had planned to say. 'Speculation, at best. We know nothing of Riddle. Well, except for the fact he went to Wool's. Are you proposing that we don't go there? What's our next best shot, huh? Do you have a better plan? Do you? Are you suggesting that we prance up to the Ministry and demand to see Riddle's private information, or his files, or something that could be used for a goddamn rebellion? A revolt? Wool's is our best shot, Ron, you know that.'
'Harry—' Ron snapped, taking Harry off his guard. 'Harry, I know, I know, but just listen to me. What if, suppose, it's not there? We need a backup plan. Why wouldn't Riddle have destroyed it, speculation or not, rumour or not, it's a place that connected him to his past. He hates his past. It's one of the only things every single person, regardless of status, can agree on knowing. It's the one truth. The one absolute. We can't possibly be stacking our hopes up on a piece of his past he very well may have destroyed! We need another place, another plan, if Wool's isn't there, we need to find another way to revolt.'
Before Harry could restrain himself, he shouted, 'THERE IS NO OTHER PLACE, RON! There is nowhere else. You're right. You're right; maybe he did destroy the other remnants of his past; he did, and we all know it. But people speculated, in there, in the half-blood holding cell, that he hadn't destroyed Wool's. I know that I'm being a hypocrite, basing our freedom, our hopes and everything on speculation while simultaneously berating your speculation, I know I'm being a hypocrite. But we can learn something from Wool's; it has to have something on him. It's our only chance. If Wool's isn't there, we escaped for nothing. We'll be killed if someone from the Ministry finds us, you know that they have Aurors do their rounds outside the city, and our deaths can't be for nothing. Wool's is far away. It's rural, near the cliffs. It'll be a long walk. But nobody lives near the cliffs anymore. It's empty summer homes and overgrown yards that belonged to the half or mud-bloods that were hiding out. No one is there. We'll be safe. We can even hide out there for a while, at least until Riddle sends out the Aurors.'
Harry hated the desperation in his voice, hated the pockmarks in his statements. So many holes. They were relying on what wasn't punctured. They were relying on a maybe. Other than what Harry hoped and prayed for, the idea that Wool's was still there was quite a baseless assumption. He had staked his life, alongside the lives of Hermione and Ron, two youths he didn't even know for more than a week, on the speculation of prisoners-turned-slaves.
Hermione stepped forward, placing a hand on Harry's quaking shoulder. 'You're right. Even if we find nothing, or it is destroyed, we can hide out and think of a plan before the next reaping.' She said, her voice forced into a tight line of neutrality. Harry faltered, then nodded. He turned to look at Ron, offering him an apologetic look. Ron merely shrugged, though he did look somewhat upset, and the three of them continued to walk.
WHILE WOOL'S WAS NOT COMPLETELY OBLITERATED, it looked as though Riddle had certainly tried to destroy it. The bricks and wood that made up the building were charred and misplaced, the roof was missing all but five of its shingles, and the door had been torn off. In front of the building itself was a lawn of yellow and black grass and wilted honeysuckle. Chunks of the grass were yanked out of the ground and had been thrown up towards the steps by the wind. Wool's Orphanage was alarmingly near the jaded white cliffside, the only thing keeping the children, when they had still lived here, from falling into the pitch water was a measly, uneven fence that didn't seem properly planted. Most of the fence had been torn down or was hanging by a few lone posts.
'Of course, Riddle would've lived here,' Ron was muttering. He had picked up a curled walking stick, something from an oak or a maple. When the three of them stopped to view the building in its glory, Harry saw Ron stab the stick into the ground and lean on it as he spoke, 'This place looks about as evil and unstable as him.'
'Harry, should we go in there? It doesn't look very safe.' Said Hermione, eying Wool's with patent discomfort.
'Nothing is safe under his reign,' Said Harry solemnly, taking a step forward. 'We're here to end it. If this orphanage does kill us, it'll be a kinder death than whatever it is the Ministry will do if they find us.'
From behind him, Ron scoffed. 'Way to lighten the mood, Harry. We're lucky we're even out here, out here in the open, in nature. Stop prattling on about death and the Ministry and Riddle. Yes, that's why we're here, but can't we stop thinking about how risky this all is and just try to appreciate that none of us are being sent to be slaves to a family of rich cunts?'
Hermione cringed and glowered at Ron, walking past him after a vicious kick to his walking stick, sending him staggering. She sighed as she turned to step beside Harry, offering Ron a hand back up as though apologetic. 'Ron is right, well, in a way. Living with the Malfoys was... difficult. While it does depend on what family you're assigned to, it's never truly that hard to do their bidding. Riddle outlawed anything relating to...' Hermione trailed away, tucking a cluster of curled strands of hair behind her ear, '...anything relating to rape or, ah, you know, doing things with one's servant, even if they are to consent. The heads of the house always make some sort of disclaimer when a new servant is sent to their house; they say that they aren't going to do anything to you or any of your peers. They're killed on the spot if Riddle finds out they did anything, um, non-conventional with their servants. He hates that sort of thing. One could say it's the only good law he ever made.'
Harry turned to look at her in surprise. 'You're saying you would rather go back to serving the only people that are benefitting from this psychotic society; you'd rather go back to being a cog in the clock, go back to being a coward, than to die alongside a noble cause?' He asked, his voice slow. This shocked him. Hermione was a mud-blood; she was in the worst of the worst situations one could ever have in a world like this, and she didn't want to do anything about it. She simply wanted to go back to being a cook, or a cleaner, or whatever it is she was when she lived with the Malfoys, as opposed to doing something good in this destroyed society. In this autocratic world they lived in, a world that nobody had control over, if Harry won, if Hermione and Ron won this revolution that they had made as soon as they ran away, they could have control. Not of the world, not of society, but of their own lives. Which was far more important than world domination or control. Harry didn't want what Riddle had. He simply wanted to live a life that he could take the reigns of, and he was certain, entirely certain, that when Ron and Hermione had agreed to run away with him, they wanted the same. But it seemed nought. Hermione seemed, with longing in her eyes that was so alien to Harry, as though she wanted to go back to being a slave. To, in some infinitesimal way, yes, but in some way — helping Riddle's rapidly-growing reign continue.
She wheeled on him, suddenly red in the face. 'What? What are you on about? I never said anything like that! I was just telling you what we'd have gone through had we been too cowardly to run away from the selection. Harry, I understand that you're paranoid about being caught, but you can't go around claiming that I'm a traitor because I prefer living, even if under oppression. I'm not a hero. I know what Riddle does to my kind, and is it wrong to be scared? I'm terrified of that man. He killed my parents and then sent me to live with the Malfoys, and sure, living with them, for the most part, was dreadful. But sometimes it was good. Sometimes it didn't feel like I was their servant. Sometimes I felt like a person. We're going to be caught, Harry. We all know that. There's nowhere to run. If Wool's doesn't provide any information, if our little escapade was for nothing, I'm jumping off that cliff.' Her voice was shrill, but trembling. Harry couldn't tell if she was angry or not.
He sighed. 'Fine. Then we should look in this ruin of a building, yeah?'
Hermione didn't bother to respond, simply sidestepping Harry and walking into the rickety remains of Wool's Orphanage.
The inside of Wool's was as charred and destroyed as the outside. When walking through it, Harry thought of it as some sort of walk-in bonfire. It smelled like flames and soot and, deep down, like the suffering of children. He knew the lattermost smell well. Hermione chose to look around alone, which was probably for the best. After all, despite the shape of Wool's, it was a miraculously big building. There was a dining hall in the distance, and some of the plaques on the walls that titled the rooms were still somewhat legible. Hermione took the small library, saying that if there were to be records of the children, it would be in the room with all the books. Ron, still staggering around with his stick — it proved to be less useful when the ground wasn't dirt that he could stab the stick into to rest — decided to accompany her. Harry, at first, felt mildly offended that Ron, a pure blood, preferred to stay with Hermione, the potential traitor in the ranks.
Once taking two lefts from the entrance of Wool's, Harry found himself in front of a small room, about the size of a broom closet, the door ajar, with the semi-legible plaque that read Records Room. Briefly, Harry wondered whether or not to call his comrades. They didn't feel trustworthy. Yes, he'd run away with them, but they had both seen the horrors and still, in some fundamental way, wished to return to them. To Harry, the both of them felt like traitors. Until they proved him wrong, he simply wouldn't trust them with information. So he looked around, left to right, almost boyishly, as though he was about to commit some sort of minor crime, and stepped into the Records Room.
Closing the door behind him felt inessential, after all, they were searching for the same information, the three of them. But Harry only trusted this information with himself. He kept the door ajar, hoping that Ron and Hermione would be searching the ruined library for a while longer — did either of them know how to read?
Harry turned to face the room. It was poorly illuminated, but he saw warped, semi-melted filing cabinets at the back wall. The floor was ashy, as was everywhere else but covered in curled brown papers. He'd look at those later, perhaps. The cabinets, or what was inside them, were far more promising. Staggering through the papers, he caught himself on the edge of one of the cabinets. It wasn't very large, but it looked as though, at its peak, it looked better. Feeling the deformities of the cabinet under his fingers, he carefully knelt before the bottommost cabinet. The bottom was always a good place to start, work your way through the drawers. And, if they were the resident's files and also, coincidentally, alphabetical, R would be closest to the bottom rather than at the top. He pulled open the drawer with some effort; it seemed the fire had warped the cabinet so much that just the shape of it obstructed the small railing that the drawer rolled on. He sifted through names — Zimmer, Yates, Xavier, Wilson, Von Raum, Underwood — and other such names were all the first drawer contained, and so he moved on to the second. The files were in decent shape, somewhat curled in at the edges from, Harry suspected, the heat. But they were not as burnt as the papers in the library or even the papers on the floor of the Records Room. Quickly, he skimmed the names of the second cabinet — Tallow, Simmons, Reid, Roberts, then, almost abruptly, Riddle, Tom — Harry pulled the file out of the cabinet with such ferocity that the edge of the paper sliced open his thumb. He barely noticed and he, with trembling hands, opened the file.
Riddle, Tom.
Arrived at age 9.
A troubled child.
Tom has caused us nothing but suffering at Wool's; he goes as far as to hurt other children. The police provided some information regarding the suicide of his father and the unfortunate death of his mother. The following is all we have, and most of it is accounts from Tom himself. The boy is unreliable, but he is the only witness of the suicide. Perhaps that is why he is the way he is.