Samsara

The Riddle Manor looked very different in Ta’om’s second life than it did in the first. 

Ta’om was sitting on the floor in the Manor’s rather spacious living room. The room was sparse except for a sofa that his mother, Ma’orope, happened to be lounging on, attended to by a metallic automaton called a ‘droid’. It was dark out; the only lights in the room consisted of thousands of small floating orbs scattered throughout. 

Ta’om’s magic pulled at a nearby orb, tugging the object towards him. He was still trying to figure out what was happening. 

The world that he had come to inhabit was strange and felt off—his magic, for one, didn’t work properly. Ta’om wasn’t entirely sure if that was a result of him being so young—they had celebrated his 3rd birthday just the other day—or if it had something to do with the fact that his magic felt more…spread apart, like it was part of the surrounding atmosphere instead of emanataing from his core. 

“Look, mama,” Ta’om said, showing his mother the orb he had caught. It was stupid, he knew, but a large part of him felt and acted exactly the age he biologically was. It was frustrating, but also lulling—Merlin knew how crazy Ta’om would feel if his brain seemed as old as his consciousness. Instead of seeming strange and otherworldly, the peculiar makeup of his thoughts just made him seem rather intelligent, constantly catching onto concepts much faster than he suspected other three-year-olds did. Which, he supposed, he was. 

He made the orb spin, the light amusing him so much that he had to let out a giggle.

“Very nice, Ta’om,” Ma’orope said. She looked distracted, eyes not really meeting his when he tried to search for a smile on her face. She leaned down to ruffle his hair. “Come sit with mama, baby.”

“M’kay.” Ta’om climbed up the sofa to sit next to his mother. He had a home now, Ta’om thought, nuzzling his head against his mother’s arm. In a way, that made all the strangeness worth it. 

He still couldn’t believe his luck—he had both of his parents! They were alive and certainly not insane. His mother, Ma’orope, was beautiful and smart. He suspected she also had magic, just like in his past life, though he hadn't seen it in action yet. His father, Ta’omas—and wasn’t that something? Even in this strange new universe, he was still named after the man—definitely had no command over magic, but was intimidating all the same, possessing such an imposing aura that Ta’om was sure he would be scared of him if the man wasn’t his own father. 

Speaking of the devil. “Lord Riddle has arrived,” the droid beside them informed Ma’orope just as the door to the room opened. 

“Thank you, Nee-3. Shut yourself down,” Ma’orope said dismissively, and then turned to her husband. “Hi, my love,” she called to him. Ta’omas Riddle offered her a wave in return. “We need to talk. Whenever you’re settled.” 

Ta’omas walked over, frowning slightly. “Hmm? We can talk now.” Ta’om stared at his father with curiosity. It was so strange to see what he would have looked like had he not meddled with soul magic so young. Morfin had been right—Ta’om had been almost a carbon copy of Thomas Riddle in his past life, and this time seemed to be no different. Ta’omas, currently in his early forties, showed some signs of wear and tear, but looked quite like what Ta’om himself had expected to see in the mirror come the 1960s and beyond. 

In lieu of a traditional greeting, Ta’omas also ruffled his son’s hair. “How’s he doing?” he asked, directing the question to his wife. 

“Well, that’s exactly it.” Ma’orope quickly and hesitantly glanced at Ta’om before continuing. “I’m a bit concerned, my love. Ta’om’s development isn’t where I want it to be.” 

Ta’om involuntarily made a distressed noise. How was that possible? He had passed all of Nee-3’s childish reading and writing tests, both in Sa’o and Basic. The orbs in the room began to shake. 

He felt an arm pull him closer towards his mother. “You didn’t do anything wrong, honey,” Ma’orope said gently, before turning back to her husband. The orbs calmed down. “Do you see what I mean?” she asked, inclining her head to the side. “He’s quite—”

“—Powerful. You’re right,” Ta’omas finished, taking on a pensive look. He glanced down at his son. “And what do you propose we do?” 

“The shields are up, yes?” 

“Of course.” Shields? What shields? Why did they need shields? From what? 

Ma’orope pursed her lips. “Well, they’re enough for now, but they won’t be for long. Not if you don’t want anyone to come talking,” she said, voice soft. 

“We could—”

“I was thinking—” 

The adult Riddles shared a glance, and then both looked at Ta’om. “What’e you talking about?” he asked, words spilling out of his mouth before he realized that he was speaking. 

They didn’t answer him. Ta’omas leaned down and gently unclasped a heavy looking necklace from Ma’orope’s neck. “Wear this,” he instructed Ta’om, wrapping the surprisingly light chain around his neck. 

“Why?”

“It’ll keep you safe, honey,” Ma’orope said, moving the chain to rest directly on Ta’om’s chest, right under his shirt. “Don’t take it off.” 

And that was the end of that. 

— — — — — — — —

“What’s that?” Ta’om asked, pointing to a moving star. He and Ma’orope were sitting on the roof, watching the sunset set over the city. The star zipped past them into the fading light of the sun, moving too quickly for Ta’om to make out any details. 

There were a lot of moving stars, actually. He could see them everywhere he looked. Ta’om couldn’t figure out where they came from or what they were always doing or why they were always moving.

“It’s a starship, honey. People fly on them to get to different cities or planets.”

Planets?! There were different planets? Ta’om’s head spun. What a strange universe he was living in.

Well, if there were other planets, that meant there had to be other suns, right? So maybe…? “Can you fly to the moon?” The American muggles had made it up there, back in the 60s. An incredible achievement, by any standards. At the time, Ta’om hadn’t paid much attention to the news, too preoccupied with the internal machinations of taking over Magical Britain. 

Again, he cursed himself for his haphazard decision making in his first life. If he hadn’t been so preoccupied with currying Orion and Abraxas’s favor—why had he even cared so much?—he wouldn’t have emphasized anti-muggle ideology so heavily. That had been one of the turning points, he knew. The Ministry had been an impressively incompetent organization, especially when he had been growing up; he knew no sane wizard would have truly opposed a change in leadership. 

But he had gone about it the wrong way. Of course heaps of wizards vehemently opposed purist ideals; Ta’om had been myopic in only trying to gain power and influence from wealthy Slytherin families. Ta’om knew he should have realized that limiting himself just to appease a certain subset of the population would have ended badly. His goals had extended farther than just Slytherin domination; his plans should have, too.

Of course Dumbledore had used his foolishness against him when rallying those heaps of wizards into an active fighting force. Instead of expanding his influence to other continents—and perhaps even to muggles, because regardless of what Abraxas liked to say, Ta’om was very familiar with the great power they could possess—he and his Knights had been caught up in a turf war.

Of course it had been his downfall.

Ta’om wouldn’t be so stupid this time around. 

“Sa’ovansa has three moons, Ta’om. Vera, Sa’era, and Avasna. Yes, you can fly to any and all of them.” 

“Why th'ee?” Ta’om asked, mind back in the present. There was no use keeping his mind on the past. He was here now. He needed to learn more about wherever he was. “Why can’t it be more?” 

Ma’orope laughed. “There are more. Millions and millions more. They orbit other planets, honey.”

“Does ev’yone have three moons?”

“Some planets do. Many don’t. Coruscant has four moons.”

Coruscant. That’s where his father was headed to tomorrow, right? Ta’om heard and understood more than he let on. “Whe’e’s it?” 

“It’s one of the Core Worlds. Not too far from here,” Ma’orope said, pointing somewhere east. “That’s where your father works.”

“Does he go on a–a sta’ship?” Curse this young body; he couldn’t fully pronounce his r ’s yet. Again he sent a silent prayer of thanks to whatever force out there had merged his old and new brain so seamlessly. He constantly had a nagging feeling of frustration that he was sure would have blossomed into clinical insanity if his old brain was completely present in this young body. “I want a sta’ship.” 

“We have a starship. That’s what we use to travel.” 

Ta'om fidgeted with his new necklace, careful not to pull at it too hard. “Can we go trrravel on it? To Corrruscant?” he asked, careful to correctly pronounce his r ’s. Spacious as the Riddle Estate was, he was impatient to explore the planet outside of it. A new world sounded even more interesting. And there was probably a good chance he could actually visit it, seeing as his father worked there. 

“Soon, honey. You’ll go when you’re ready.”

“I’m 'eady! I can go!” He was sure of it. He could take on anything. He was, after all, a former Dark Lord—now with his entire soul intact. 

Ma’orope laughed again. “You need to learn about your own planet first, Ta’om. This all belongs to you. Coruscant won’t welcome you until you have something to bring to the table.” 

Ta’om’s head snapped to face his mother. This planet belonged to him? Forget Coruscant. “It’s mine?” 

“All yours,” she echoed, smiling kindly at him. “One day, this will all be yours.”