The Riddle Timeline
Saturday, November 9th, 1996
A week later the Quartet had made… gradual progression in learning about Horcruxes. Enough to make Harry and Draco happy to watch another memory so they could return to the library drafting up a table of all the known facts they had about what Tom Riddle prized and other traits about his person they had been able to deduce, and possible locations he cared about.
However, once they reached the office it became clear that the pile of memoires that had once appeared intimidating, were now really reduced to just two more, one labeled “Hepzibah Smith” and the other “Job Application.”
“One of these things certainly sounds more interesting,” Draco noted, lifting up the first, and uncorking it. Seconds later, they had dived into the rippling silver contents of the pensieve and landed on polished floor of a sitting room, instantly floored by the woman before them; a quite widely set woman, she dressed and appeared to carry herself like a princes, in an elaborate orange wig laden with jewels, and wearing an elaborately patterned set of pink dress robes. Even the mirror she peered into as she applied makeup to a face that surely didn’t need anymore was decorated with brilliantly sparkling jewels.
Her robes almost hid a tiny House-elf bent beside her, but only almost. The boys could look down and see her, the oldest elf they’d ever seen, lacing a pair of satin slippers. Clearly, this elaborate dress was the woman’s casual wear.
“Hurry up, Hokey!” said this woman the boys could bet all their galleons on being Hepzibah Smith. “He said he’d come at four, it’s only a couple of minutes to and he’s never been late yet!” They could also bet double that the “he” she was referring to was Tom Riddle.
Confirmed by, following a quick confirmation of Hepzibah’s beauty that, quite frankly, far and away did and may have never existed, the ringing of the doorbell, and the entrance of Tom Riddle himself.
Dressed in crisp black dress robes, he remained handsome even though his cheekbones had hollowed and his hair grown every so slightly, and Harry wasn’t the only who thought so, clearly, as when he knelt before Hepzibah to kiss her hand, she couldn’t appear more enamored.
“I brought you flowers,” he stood up and revealed a bouquet from thin air, which she beamed and blushed at.
“You naughty boy, you shouldn’t have!” It appeared, however, that he should’ve, as she immediately dropped and fluffed them into an empty vase placed right beside her. “You do spoil this old lady, Tom… Sit down, sit down…” Riddle sat down primly on a pink couch behind him, looking very comfortable, as if this was an abode he visited quite often. Following the both of them having a fair share of cakes, she leaned forward imploringly while the boy wiped his fingers.
“Now, how are you? You look pale. They overwork you at that shop, I’ve said it a hundred times…”
There was noticeably a mechanicalness to Riddle’s smile.
“Well, what’s your excuse for visiting this time?” she asked.
“Mr. Burke would like to make an improved offer for the goblin-made armor,” Draco and Harry’s eyes met, an understanding passing for them to tell Ron and Hermione later that Voldemort worked for Borgin & Burkes. Wait, didn’t Slytherin’s Locket get sold to the shop? “Five hundred Galleons, he feels it is a more than fair -”
“Now, now, not so fast, or I’ll think you’re only here for my trinkets!”
“I am ordered here because of them,” Riddle quietly reminded her. “I am only a poor assistant, madam, who must do as he is told. Mr. Burke wishes me to inquire -”
“Oh, Mr. Burke, phooey!” Hepzibah interrupted with a wave of her hand, “I’ve something to show you that I’ve never shown Mr. Burke! Can you keep a secret, Tom? Will you promise you won’t tell Mr. Burke I’ve got it? He’d never let me rest if he knew I’d shown it to you, and I’m not selling, not to Burke, not to anyone! But you, Tom, you’ll appreciate it for its history, not how many Galleons you can get for it.”
She would never know how much she had hit the nail on the head with this fact of Riddle’s personality, made clear by his quiet response, “I’d be glad to see anything Miss Hepzibah shows me.” Hepzibah simply giggled.
“I had Hokey bring it out for me… Hokey, where are you? I want to show Mr. Riddle our finest treasure… In fact, bring both, while you’re at it…”
“Here, madam,” the House-elf had returned, carrying two leather boxes she placed on Hepzibah’s lap, which she patted with a greedy smile.
“Now, I think you’ll like this, Tom… Oh, if my family knew I was showing you… They can’t wait to get their hands on this!” She opened the lid and the boys bent forward to get a look at the contents. A small golden cup sat wrapped in silk with two finely wrought handles curved around it, a carved face of a badger looking up at them. “I wonder whether you know what it is, Tom? Pick it up, have a good look!” Riddle stretched out a hand and, seeing how long his fingers had become, Harry added that to evidence that he was descending quickly down the path to becoming Voldemort.
As he ran his fingers over the badger engraving, Harry swore he saw a red gleam across his eyes briefly. “A badger,” he murmured. “Then this was…?”
“Helga Hufflepuff's, as you very well know, you clever boy!” This time she leaned forward and actually pinched his hollow cheek, causing Draco to snort and pressed a fist to his mouth to stop himself. “Didn’t I tell you I was distantly descended? This has been handed down in the family for years and years. Lovely, isn’t it? And all sorts of powers it’s supposed to possess too, but I haven’t tested them thoroughly, I just keep it nice and safe here…” Smoothly, she took the cup back off of Riddle’s finger and wrapped the silk back around the cup so intently she didn’t take notice of the dark shadow passing over the young man’s face.
“Now then,” she looked up, and he was smiling once more. “Where’s Hokey? Oh yes, there you are - take that away now, Hokey.” The elf obediently returned and took away the box, leaving Hepzibah with a flatter one she eyed hungrily, gesturing Riddle forward.
“I think you’ll like this even more, Tom. Lean in a little, dear boy, so you can see… Of course, Burke knows I’ve got this one, I bought it from him, and I daresay he’d love to get it back when I’m gone…”
She flipped open the box and both boys couldn’t call themselves surprised in the least to see the heavy golden locket that once belonged to Merope Gaunt sitting among crimson velvet.
Mesmerized, Riddle reached out and lifted up the locket so that the light shone on a snake forming the letter ‘s’ on the surface of the locket.
“Slytherin’s mark,” he spoke quietly, almost to no one.
“That’s right! I had to pay an arm and a leg for it, but I couldn’t let it pass, not a real treasure like that, had to have it for my collection. Burke bought it, apparently, from a ragged-looking woman who seemed to have stolen it, but had no idea of its true value -”
Draco winced and Harry scowled as it was very clear that at the mention of Merope, Riddle’s eyes flashed scarlet and for a second, he was Lord Voldemort as his knuckles tightened around the locket’s chain.
“- I daresay Burke paid her a pittance but there you are… Pretty, isn’t it? And again, all kinds of powers are attributed to it, though I just keep it nice and safe…” She took it back, and Harry was surprised to see Riddle put up no fight in letting her place it back on the velvet cushion and snap the box shut. “So there you are, Tom, dear, and I hope you enjoyed that!”
She looked up, and her smile faltered, her eyes meeting his and no doubt seeing the blood red orbs before they softened back to black, and he titled his head at her surprise. “Are you alright, dear?”
“Oh yes,” said Riddle smoothly, smiling and reaching forward to pat her hand, though it noticeably was set on top of the locket’s box. “Yes, I’m very well…”
The boys returned to McGonagall’s office and, as soon as they had turned to look at each other, Harry said, “Hufflepuff’s cup” at the same time Draco said, “Slytherin’s locket.”
The two of them smiled in the same share of genius they had a week ago. “He liked trophies, didn’t he? Would’ve wanted to seem important with artifacts from two founders,” Draco lifted the bottle, waving his wand over the pensieve to draw the memory back into the container, and rubbing his thumb over the peeling label as he did so. “Poor Smith, though, Riddle probably killed her for it.”
“Why else would we woo her…” Harry noted, placing his hands on the side of the pensieve, already preparing to dive forward into the final memory.
“Let’s just hope this one has something of Ravenclaw or Gryffindor’s,” Draco said and together they plunged down into the final memory.
However, when they landed, it was in the same room they had left; the Headmaster’s office which, at the time, was clearly Dumbledore’s, as he sat upright behind his desk, noticeably younger, but older than he had been when picking up Tom Riddle from Wool’s orphanage. Still, the office appeared the exact same as it had the last time they’d seen Dumbledore sitting behind it, complete with Fawkes the phoenix perched above him.
A knock sounded behind the boys and they turned as Dumbledore said softly, “Enter,”
Striding forwards and causing them both to gasp was a man who had lost all of his handsome features, replaced with a face so hollow he appeared like a corpse not yet gray, hair grown in a wild sort of way which reminded them painfully of the manic boyishness to Barty Crouch Jr, only dark instead of straw colored. His skin did have the waxiness of a corpse, his limbs slightly distorted in a strange, unhuman way, and the whites of his eyes now appeared to have permanently turned bloodshot. He wore a long cloak and, probably the most stark comparison to present day Voldemort, his skin had turned white as the snow falling down outside, making it unmistakable that this man was no longer Tom Riddle.
“Good evening, Tom,” said Dumbledore. “Won’t you sit down?”
“Thank you,” he strode across the room and took a seat Harry and Draco had sat down in themselves countless times before. “I heard that you had become headmaster, a worthy choice.” Another noticeable comparison, Voldemort’s voice had already begun to get higher and colder, just not as much as it would reach in the present.
“I am glad you approve,” Dumbledore smiled. “May I offer you a drink?”
“That would be welcome,” said Voldemort. “I have come a long way.”
It was all very robotic, even as Dumbledore stood and opened up the cabinet where the Pensieve was kept, though absent now, instead filled with bottles. He turned with two goblets of wine and, after handing one off to Voldemort who took it with his even longer-fingered hands, he sat down back behind his desk.
“So, Tom… to what do I owe the pleasure?”
After a swallow of wine Voldemort eyed him carefully and said, “They do not call me ‘Tom’ anymore. These days, 1 am known as -”
“I know what you are known as,” Dumbledore still smiled as if it wasn’t a name that would one day strike fear in nearly all of the Wizarding World. “But to me, I’m afraid, you will always be Tom Riddle. It is one of the irritating things about old teachers. I am afraid that they will never quite forget their charges’ youthful beginnings.” He raised his glass in a sort of toast here, but it appeared more like a mockery, as Voldemort’s face remained expressionless, but the atmosphere became even tenser aside from the already robotic movements.
“I am surprised you have remained here so long. I always wondered why a wizard such as yourself never wished to leave school.” said Voldemort.
“Well,” Dumbledore’s smile seemed glued to his face now. “To a wizard such as myself, there can be nothing more important than passing on ancient skills, helping hone young minds. If I remember correctly, you once saw the attraction of teaching too.”
“I see it still,” Harry and Draco exchanged a confused glance. What could that possibly mean? “I merely wondered why you - who are so often asked for advice by the Ministry, and who have twice, I think, been offered the post of Minister -”
“Three times at the last count, actually,” said Dumbledore. "But the Ministry never attracted me as a career. Again, something we have in common, I think.”
Voldemort took another sip of wine and didn’t, noticeably, smile. It was here the reality that this and the memory at the orphanage had both involved him speaking with Dumbledore, and both had rarely contained a single smile, sunk in. Not for one second did it seem Tom Riddle had even attempted to use his usual charm on the only one he ever feared.
“I have returned,” he said after a pause. “later, perhaps, than Professor Dippet expected… but I have returned, nevertheless, to request again what he once told me I was too young to have. I have come to you to ask that you permit me to return to this castle, to teach. I think you must know that I have seen and done much since I left this place. I could show and tell your students things they can gain from no other wizard.”
Dumbledore eyes Voldemort over the top of his goblet as he sips his wine and it couldn’t be plainer; he knew of all the things they could teach them, and didn’t like a single one.
“Yes, I certainly do know that you have seen and done much since leaving us,” he said following a swallow. “Rumors of your doings have reached your old school, Tom. I should be sorry to believe half of them.”
“Greatness inspires envy, envy engenders spite, spite spawns lies. You must know this, Dumbledore.”
“You call it ‘greatness,’ what you have been doing, do you?”
“Certainly,” Once again the red gleam passed over Voldemort’s eyes, longer this time. “I have experimented; I have pushed the boundaries of magic further, perhaps, than they have ever been pushed -”
“Of some kinds of magic,” Clearly, he meant the Dark Arts. “Of some. Of others, you remain… forgive me… woefully ignorant.”
And now at last Voldemort smiled, but it was nothing charming, instead an evil expression of a monster, and far more threatening. However, Dumbledore stared him down with his piercing gaze without a single blink or shiver.
“The old argument,” he said softly. “But nothing I have seen in the world has supported your famous pronouncements that love is more powerful than my kind of magic, Dumbledore.”
“Write that down,” Draco whispered in his friend’s ear and Harry snorted, not being able to stop himself.
“Perhaps you have been looking in the wrong places.”
“Well, then, what better place to start my fresh research than here, at Hogwarts?” He must’ve thought that was a smooth way of sliding back on topic. It wasn’t. “Will you let me return? Will you let me share my knowledge with your students? I place myself and my talents at your disposal. I am yours to command.”
Dumbledore was able to show how much of an un-smooth transition this was with just an eyebrow raise. “And what will become of those whom you command? What will happen to those who call themselves - or so rumor has it - the Death Eaters?”
Voldemort’s eyes flashed red once more, lasting even longer this time, and his nostrils flared so that it appeared very slitlike.
“My friends,” he said, though once more, this was a rubbish explanation. “will carry on without me, I am sure.”
“I am glad to hear that you consider them friends,” said Dumbledore. “I was under the impression that they are more in the order of servants.”
“You are mistaken,” said Voldemort.
He was not.
“Then if I were to go to the Hog’s Head tonight, I would not find a group of them - Nott, Rosier, Muldber, Dolohov - awaiting your return? Devoted friends indeed, to travel this far with you on a snowy night, merely to wish you luck as you attempted to secure a teaching post.”
“Yes you would,” Draco confirmed, and Harry looked down to see he was counting the names off on his fingers, he gave Harry an innocent smile and, despite the seriousness of the scene, Harry couldn’t help the flip in his stomach and the flushed smile he gave back.
Meanwhile, Voldemort was saying coldly, “You are omniscient as ever, Dumbledore.”
“Oh no, merely friendly with the local barmen,” Draco snorted but waved a hand when Harry looked at him curiously, mentally noting he’d have to tell his friend’s about Aberforth being Dumbledore’s brother later.
“Now, Tom…” The atmosphere couldn’t have been more tense as Dumbledore set down his glass and sat up straighter, the tips of his fingers steepling in such a characteristic way, it made Harry’s heart clench with grief. “Let us speak openly. Why have you come here tonight, surrounded by henchmen, to request a job we both know you do not want?”
Voldemort’s eyes widened with surprise he rarely exhibited. “A job I do not want? On the contrary, Dumbledore, I want it very much.”
“Oh, you want to come back to Hogwarts, but you do not want to teach any more than you wanted to when you were eighteen. What is it you’re after, Tom? Why not try an open request for once?”
Voldemort sneered far greater than Draco or even Snape ever could. “If you do not want to give me a job -”
“Of course I don’t,” said Dumbledore as if it was obvious, and Draco was painfully reminded of the conversation he’d had with him on the Astronomy Tower, when Dracco had persisted in saying he was going to kill him, whilst Dumbledore dismissed him repeatedly, saying they’d already established that that was the last thing he’d ever do. “And I don’t think for a moment you expected me to. Nevertheless, you came here, you asked, you must have had a purpose.”
Swiftly, Voldemort stood up, and he looked the least like Tom Riddle than he ever had. “This is your final word?” he practically hissed coldly.
“It is,” said Dumbledore, standing from his chair himself, so that it was the two men staring eye to eye, perhaps for the last time in either of their lives.
“Then we have nothing more to say to each other.”
“No, nothing,” said Dumbledore, and, remarkably, a grief fell over his face. “The time is long gone when I could frighten you with a burning wardrobe and force you to make repayment for your crimes. But I wish I could, Tom… I wish I could…”
With a slight twitch toward his pocket that appeared to be Voldemrot reaching for his wand that ended as quick as it started, Voldemort turned and, slipping through a closing door, was gone in a second.
The boys landed back in the present office, and were silent as both stared into the cold basin.
How perfect an ending, really, to show the moment it seemed Voldemort chose the Dark Order and Dumbledore the Order of the Phoenix, and ever since they would be pinned against each other, the greatest wizard’s of all time to their respective sides. And yet it had begun quite simply with a boy at an orphanage and an old man introducing him to a world beyond his wildest dreams.
Once again Harry was painfully reminded of how easily he could have been Voldemort.
“The Defense Against the Dark Arts position,” Harry wheeled around and saw Draco was staring up at the snoozing portrait of Dumbledore. “That’s what he wanted, right?”
The former Headmaster gave a nearly imperceptible nod, but a nod nevertheless. Draco wheeled back around to Harry and firmly deduced, “Then that’s got to be why the position’s cursed.”
Harry’s eyes widened to round emerald saucers. “You’re right! Voldemort wanted to get back at Dumbledore for not giving him the job, so he made sure he’d never be able to keep a teacher longer than a year!”
“But then…” Draco frowned over at the basin. “Aside from the fact that that’s probably the last time they saw each other… What’s so important about that? Knowing he cursed the position and all?”
McGonagall swung the door open. The boys departed while hurriedly wishing her a goodnight, but immediately Harry answered his friend’s question.
“It’s got to do with Snape. He’s the DADA teacher now, isn’t he?”
Draco recognized, with a suppressed but endearing eye roll, the rage at just the thought of Snape that passed over Harry’s face, so wasted no time in stamping out that theory. “Dumbledore wouldn’t have known he’d be teaching at the time, would he? Besides, he refused to give the position to him year after year.”
“Not unlike Dumbledore. What if he was warning -”
“He told me to trust him, Harry,” Draco said persistently as they paused once more at the crossroads between the dungeon and marble steps. “Why do you keep forgetting?”
They both knew perfectly well Harry hadn’t been forgetting, instead stubbornly encased in rage for the man to make peace with the fact that Dumbledore trusted him with his life. And yet he felt guilty looking at Draco’s hurt expression, knowing how much he cared for the man despite all reason.
“Sorry,” he muttered and, sighing deeply, Draco swiftly stepped forward and brushed his lips against his cheek, before stepping back, already headed down the stairs. “We’ll talk tomorrow, okay?” Harry nodded, and the boys turned away from each other for their separate houses.
-*-*-*-
Sunday, November 10th
The next day the Quartet had swiftly retreated to the library following breakfast and assembled at their usual table, pulling book after book off the shelf of yearbooks of Hogwarts from the 40s-60s, and, seeing the mountain and wanting a better way to pinpoint the exact years Riddle graduated, applied once, then a second time, Hermione had stood up and firmly declared:
“Alright, timeline time.”
A few minutes later they were all looking at a wide scroll of parchment she had titled “The Riddle Timeline” and stating important dates they recalled or otherwise read from the yearbooks.
“He opened the Chamber of Secrets somewhere during the school year between 1942 and 1943.” It seemed realistic enough to begin with the first fact they’d learned about Tom Riddle, and then they could backtrack the years for the specific year in which he was born…”
“He was born December 31st, 1926.” Draco noted, pointing at the beginning of the timeline which Hermione noted as soon as she’d finished with the Chamber.
“I’d bet anything he killed the Riddle family the summer of 1942,” Harry said, pointing back over at the Chamber line. “Which would’ve been when he got the ring, and made it a Horcrux.”
“Theoretically,” Hermione corrected, to which all three boys groaned, but she wrote it down after the opening of the Chamber nonetheless.
“So he asks Slughorn about Horcruxes during his Fifth Year,” Ron said, pointing at the list of Head Boy’s in the book of records in his hands. “Because he was wearing the Gaunt ring, right, Harry, Draco?” The two nodded and Hermione wrote it down under the Chamber line, which lined up perfectly with Riddle coming and stealing the ring the summer before.
“Dumbledore said he applied when he was eighteen, so he had to have as soon as he graduated, then went on to work for Borgin & Burkes.”
Hermione wrote down 1945 - Riddle graduates and applies for DADA position 1st time, then turned around in mild confusion when her friends fell silent, and saw they were examining the yearbooks from the 50s for the exact moment when a teacher who had lasted a good long while, switched over to one who had lasted for only a year.
“1966.” Draco deduced after a moment of them comparing yearbooks, and Hermione nodded with a smile and wrote down that that was when the curse began. Then, stepping back, she gasped, and they jerked their heads up in surprise, as she spun around and exclaimed, “That means Hogwarts has been through thirty Professors!”
A pause, then the boys awkwardly turned their attention back to the yearbooks, feeling rather guilty for making fun of the jinx for years before they had truly thought about the amount of bad luck those applicants had experienced.
Regardless, they had their timeline and, standing up from his seat Draco picked the quill out of Hermione’s hand and wrote down the Horcruxes they knew of below it.
The ring - Hidden at the Gaunt House? Riddle House?
The diary - given to Lucius Malfoy.
The locket - Gaunt House? Riddle House?
The cup - Hogwarts?
Something of Ravenclaw’s.
Something of Gryffindor’s.
He stepped back and the kids all crowded around the list, nodding to each other as they read each line, and understanding being made that this would be their next mission for the rest of the year, if they ever wanted this war to end and Harry to have a chance at defeating Voldemort.
With that Hermione crossed a line through the diary, indicating they were one Horcrux down, rolled up the list, and the kids had departed to research through ancient and dusty old textbooks for anything on artifacts of Rowena Ravenclaw and Godric Gryffindor.
-*-*-*-
Saturday, November 16th
The days passed, and progress towards possible objects remained slow and stilted, leaving Ginny to take notice of the Quartet appearing exhausted at breakfast one morning and offering a retreat from their research to attend the Hufflepuff vs. Ravenclaw match.
Thankfully, the weather for this match hadn’t been freezing as the match the boys had been dragged to as a result of their respective dates on the Ravenclaw team, so going now for more particular reason outside of fun wasn’t that bad.
In fact, the Quartet got to have a little mischief within themselves when they each got to the Great Hall, Hermione sporting blue because Ginny was and Harry doing the same to support Cho, whilst Ron had hopped on the Cedric train - “He’s an Eighth Year, basically, and a Triwizard Champion! He’s leagues better than Cho!” - and Draco had studied Hufflepuff’s progress as a team under Cadwaller’s direction versus Ravenclaw's and determined they were destined to win.
What resulted was the Quartet standing at the cross between the sea of yellow and blue, a unique moment when the group wasn’t united on an opinion.
Pansy, once again perched up in the top box, this time seated on the railing and kicking her legs as McGonagall rubbed at her temple behind her, rolled off the names of each member of the team as they marched out in lines, Harry smirking as he got a glimpse at the weedy looking Fourth Year who had stolen the position from a grumpy looking Zacharias Smith a row below them, looking as if he had only been dragged he at the behest of the group of Sixth Year Hufflepuff's standing around him, a yellow and black scarf tied in a knot around his forehead like a bandana, no doubt to hide the scar of pimples hidden beneath.
The brooms all shot in the air as the six Chasers all warred for the Quaffle before Cadwaller emerged with the ball and charged off to the Ravenclaw side of the field.
The game commenced and it became clear quite quickly Draco had been correct in his theory, and Harry kept glancing at the sky worriedly for the Snitch Cedric and Cho were circling around to find, hoping Ron hadn’t been correct as well.
However within half an hour Harry was proved wrong, and Cedric snatched up the Snitch with Cho still many feet behind, no doubt very eager to get back to the game after one whole year in a cellar. Hufflepuff won, 170 - 10.
Regardless it had been quite a fun escape away from spending every hour they could spare inside the library, dotting their i’s and crossing their t’s on their homework in spare seconds over books on the history of the Hogwarts founders. In fact, Draco even found himself standing next to a Hufflepuff-supporting pair of younger girls asking if it was true he had seven newborn kittens he was eager to get rid of.
Thus instead of returning to their research the group instead set up a table outside the Great Hall, trying to go off of Ron’s idea of having the many students waiting for seven kittens to fight for the highest price like an auction until Snape stepped in and separated them all, confiscating the newborn kittens.
Fortunately Draco was able to sweet talk him into returning them on Monday and the babies were sold properly at thirty Galleons per kitten, earning Draco plenty of pocket money he’d been needing.
-*-*-*-
Friday, December 6th, 1996
Snow had begun to fall at Hogwarts; winter had come. However, this meant holidays were creeping ever closer and with them Draco’s anxiety that, despite Ron’s insistence, Percy might crack and reveal where he’d be spending his holidays, revealing the secret base of all of the Order in turn. These worries weren’t aided in the slightest when Ron awoke to find his best friend sleeping in the fourposter across from him once again tossing and turning from a horrible nightmare in his sleep.
He was gliding around the high walls of a black fortress. Below he could hear his Death Eater’s doing their dirty work on those foolish Auror’s as they Imperiused prisoners and had them rise up against Fudge’s meager support, as they had been told. His dragon had been distracted by the giant outside, but it didn’t matter. Looking up, up to the tallest tower, through the window…
He flew through the night and straight to the window, stopping only due to its size, too thin for a man. There he was, a skeletal figure lying beneath a blanket. Was he dead, or merely sleeping?
Surely alive, or Fudge wouldn’t have made such an effort to shield him. So he slithered through the window like a snake and landed before him on the cold stone floor. The figure stirred.
He was nothing more than a skull of a face, frail and old, with great sunken eyes and missing teeth.
“So, you have come. I thought you would… one day. But your journey was pointless. I never had it.”
“You lie!”
“Maybe so,” the man spoke, even though his voice was raspy and his body on the brink of death, surely, with confidence and taunt. Still, Voldemort saw no reason as to why Grindelwald could’ve been as great a wizard as he was at any time. “But then again, my reputation is not one which merits truth, is it, Riddle?”
“Dumbledore has come,” Voldemort growled, sneering at the horrendous name. “He spoke with you, before his timely demise at my -”
“My understanding is that you never laid the killing blow,” Grindelwald gave a malicious grin with only half a normal amount of teeth showing. “You did not kill Albus Dumbledore. You were too afraid.”
Voldemort’s sneer increased as his slited nostrils flared. “Where is the wand?”
“You’ll never have it.” Voldemort didn’t wait to listen to what Grindelwald had to say before diving forward and grabbing his skull, plunging into his memories easier than he expected as the old man put up no fight. As he had witnessed Gregorovitch watching a younger version of the man before him steal the wand, he now saw two men standing and facing each other on a street before hundreds, who all seemed to have paused in their own fights to gawk as they fired their wands at each other. Voldemort recognized the phenomenon happening as a bead of light passed between their united beams, for it had happened to him two years ago in a graveyard. Then, suddenly, Grindelwald’s wand was flying up, up, up, and falling into the man before him’s patiently waiting palm.
Albus Dumbledore.
He pulled back from his mind to find Grindelwald laughing, laughing like a madman, and grabbed a hold of his torn robs, sneering into his face.
“You are an old fool, Grindelwald!”
“Kill me, then, Voldemort, I welcome death! But my death will not bring you what you seek… There is so much you do not understand…”
He thrust him to the ground, drawing back and retrieving his own long wand from within his cloak. A wand he had once prized beyond any possession, which now served only as a stand-in until he could obtain the real prize. “I, above any other wizard, am worthy of the wand. Far more than you, far more than Albus Dumbledore.”
But still Grindelwald laughed in his face, crawling towards him as he did so to make sure he was staring into his eyes as he declared, with words Voldemorrt heard barely through the rage boiling in his veins. “Kill me, then!” he demanded. “You will not win, you cannot win! That wand will never, ever be yours -”
His vision filled with bright green before Harry jolted forwards in bed and howled with pain, gripping his skull, Ron instantly running towards him and sitting at the end of his bed, unsure what to do but knowing he should be there. Once his screams died down as the pain in his scar dimmed as well, Ron rested a hand on his friend’s knee and, in a brittle voice whispered, “What did he do?”
“Grindelwald’s dead,” Harry choked out, gulping. “He’s one step closer to Draco.”
In the morning, this was everywhere on the Prophet, and his friends tried their hardest, truly, to reassure Draco he couldn’t be more safe, Hermione remarking she’d done research on Grindelwald and learned he was a Seer who was actually accurate, unlike Trelawney. Normally, even that wouldn’t convince her of the legitimacy to prophecies, even with Harry’s ‘Chosen One’ prophecy, but they all were desperate to reassure Draco the next day, who barely ate, much less spoke, in a horrific mirror of his behavior in Fifth Year.
He got better as days passed and no word appeared in the Prophet that Voldemort was spotted on Hogwarts grounds raiding Dumbledore’s tomb for the wand, but the underlying sense that everywhere he went he was not safe or being watched still stuck with him, even as he put up a facade of bliss to his friends as a week passed by.