Voldemort's friends
“Oh yes, look at that!”, Tom called out. It was evening, their lessons were over and they sat in the library again. Alphard and Constance were writing to their families. Alphard’s uncle Arcturus, who apparently was not his real uncle, but a few times removed, worked for the Prophet and could probably get them the pictures. Constance’s father sold invisibility cloaks. Lance read a fat book full of dueling spells and Minerva an equally fat one about the many misdeeds of the Gaunt family. And Tom had just discovered the perfect hero's name.
“What?”, Minerva asked curiously and looked over to the parchment, Tom had scribbled on. “If you rearrange the letters in my name, you get “I am lord Voldemort”! That’s an awesome name for a hero! And in French it means “Flight of death”, and that also sounds very mighty and stuff”, he cheered. “The T would be silent if it's French though”, Alphard said, “Also, I want to be the black knight!” He raised an imaginary sword to the ceiling.
Minerva looked at them like they had lost their minds. “What? No! We don`t need any hero names! We need to do research!”, she snapped. Lance looked up with big eyes. “No, no, no! Let him talk.”, he said with a big grin. “What? You too?”, she asked, as if she had been viciously betrayed. “Tom might actually need a different name. I mean, Merope is probably looking for him right now. Maybe she plans to take out her whole family”, Constance chimed in and snatched up Tom’s paper. “Immortal love rodd! That one is great!”, she wheezed.
“No! Give it back!”, Tom yelled and ripped his notes out of his friend's hand. “We should still keep researching first”, Minerva mumbled and dropped a gigantic book about pure bloodlines from the founding era of Hogwarts in front of Tom. It was one of the most boring books Tom had ever read. After searching for what felt like hours, they finally found something. “There!”, Minerva called out and pointed at a paragraph in a green book, bound in something that looked like snake leather.
Immediately they all gathered around the Gryffindor’s seat. “Look at this!”, Minerva said and pointed at a paragraph she slowly read out: “Soon after Salazar Slytherin had left Hogwarts due to his argument with the other founders, the rumors about the hidden chamber in the castle started to spread. Especially the Gaunt family, the family Slytherin's only daughter had married into and that bore the great founder’s grandchildren, prided themselfs with knowledge of the chamber and the monster within. It was also the house of Gaunt, that claimed the monster would be a weapon against muggles and their brood, while Slytherin apparently claimed it to be a method of protection for the castle and its students untill he died. The existence of the chamber could never be proven, even though the Gaunts still claim to know of its existence and location, as well as a way to open it and unleash Slytherin’s beast.”
For a few moments they all were very quiet. “So that’s her plan, right? The giant cloud snake: That’s probably what’s in the chamber. She wanted her father to tell her how to unleash it, so she could kill Tom and his father for running away and after he told her, she killed him. It all makes sense. She doesn’t want any witnesses and that glowing locket is most likely the key to the chamber. It used to be property of Slytherin after all; my father told me as much.”, Constance suddenly whispered, her face pale. Tom shook his head. Had Merope not said that he was the biggest blessing in her live? Had she not given him biscuits and called him her little adder. She was clearly evil, but she had loved him. She had said so often enough.
“No”, Tom mumbled, “No, she wouldn’t kill m...” But suddenly he was not so sure anymore. He remembered the incident with the locket and the toilet again, or that one time when he and Constance had played together longer than Merope had allowed, or the time, he had told Merope about the book with the evil wizard and his love potion, Mr. Borgin had read to him and of all the other times he had done something the woman had disliked. Back then she had yelled cruel words or had beaten him with her bony fists or shoes, until he had cried and promised not to do it again. He remembered how she had told him once, that she was not a cruel mother, because, unlike her parents, she had never cursed him or starved him.
But those had been times when he had only slightly angered her. Running away with dad was most likely a much worse crime in Merope’s dark eyes. And, with a wave of nausea, he realized something else: in Merope’s eyes, in Merope’s story, he was already dead. She had told the Borgins that grandpa Thomas had murdered them. Maybe... maybe she really wanted him dead by now. Maybe, most likely, she did not love him anymore, just like he did not love her anymore. Suddenly Tom felt very cold.
He could almost see it in front of him: “Tom, you abandoned me! You left me. You took the biggest blessing in my live away, Tom! How could you!”, she would shout. Then her eyes would get cold, like they had been in his dream. “But what should I expect? I should have known! You are the worthless, impure son of a muggle after all! You cast shame onto our great ancestors, Tom!” And then she would draw her crooked wand and point it at him, like she had pointed it through those iron bars.
“No, maybe she would”, he whispered and his voice was shaking. Constance petted his back reassuringly. “Minerva and I won’t let anything happen to you. If your crazy mother shows her cross-eyed face here, we will stop her. I mean, there are three of us and only one of her!”, she announced with a big grin. “Five! There is five of us!”, Lance chimed in with a proud grin. “Yes, I want to see snake boy beat more people up. I haven’t laughed like that in years!”, Alphard giggled.
Suddenly the bell rang. Minerva flinched. “Oh Merlin! We have to go to bed. We don’t want to be caught out of bed after curfew in our first week, do we?”; she called out and snapped the fat book shut. They all nodded and began to rush out of the library.