tya's whimsies

Dying, stepping off a train, and waking up in the arms of a shivering house elf is an experience Harry would like not to repeat.

He had not considered reincarnation as an option when he’d decided he would rather face the unknown than go back to his life as the Boy-Who-Lived. He’d just taken the soul shard of Tom Riddle in his arms and hopped on the Express, hoping for the best. He’d felt kind of iffy about leaving it with Dumbledore, who’d had as much compassion for it as he’d had for Harry’s very legitimate desire to let someone else save the day for once.

His train ride to the afterlife hadn’t gone too badly. He’d been alone on the train save for the horcrux in his arms, which was a bit disappointing. He’d hoped to chat with his fellow dearly departed, hear a few stories. But the windows in his compartment showed the moments after his death, and he’d been vindicated to find that things had resolved without him being needed. Neville had killed the snake as instructed, Hermione had connected the dots about the horcrux within him, and Ron had taken the leap and offed the asshole himself. Voldemort was dead and everyone who’d fought on Harry’s side benefited from the magical protection he’d given them when he’d played the martyr. It sure helped dispatch the last Death Eaters.

A pretty neat ending, if he did say so himself.

He should have known his next great adventure wouldn’t go so smoothly.

Harry is now a baby. Squalling, smelly, and with very little control of his limbs. He’s taken care of by a house elf, which says a lot about the kind of family he’s been reborn in. He’s quite content letting himself drift; after everything, he deserves a little rest. And infant life isn’t exactly exciting.

He does make note of his surroundings, though. Some things stand out.

His mother, for one. His baby senses aren’t developed enough for him to catch her name, but he likes her purple eyes. She has two-toned hair, like Narcissa Malfoy. It must be a trend of some sort, he thinks, because he sees her apply potions to her wet hair from time to time to maintain it. When he yanks clumsily at his own hair after it has grown and his coordination is good enough for it, he finds only short dark brown strands. They’re smooth, unlike the curly mop he’d inherited from his first father.

He’s not sure if this is the usual pure-blood way or his mother doesn’t care much for the child she bore, but she doesn’t hold him.

She doesn’t touch him at all, in fact. Sometimes she’ll come to his crib and murmur things about him being the heir of something, and how he’ll bring glory to her and to the family. He’s not sure what that’s about. He’s too distracted by the very prominent Dark Mark tattooed on her left arm. She shows it off; she always makes sure the burgundy lace dresses she wears cut off at the elbow, and only covers it with a silk wizard robe if she has to leave the house.

This does not bode well for him.

She’s young, this mother of his. No more than a few years older than he himself was when he died. Probably the age his first parents were when they had him.

There’s no father in sight. Or at least, he hopes the man his mother calls brother isn’t also his dad. Harry and Ron might have joked a few times about inbreeding, but purebloods usually keep it to cousins, as discomforting as it already is. Harry’s new uncle-and-hopefully-not-dad seems familiar to him, but not overly so. He does not know what family he belongs to. They’re English, that he’s sure of. Everything else is a bit murkier.

His uncle is wary of him, he finds after the man has visited a few times. Or rather, he is wary of the consequences his mother will bear from birthing him. From context clues, Harry guesses he is a bastard child. There seems to be more to it if the fearful mutterings about line theft are anything to go by. Harry is in no hurry to find out. He’s still only half-aware, and tired besides. He still doesn’t know what to make of this new life meant to be lived as a Death Eater’s child. Maybe Fate wanted him to gain some perspective? He does not know and does not particularly wish to. As far as it goes, the guiding line of his second incarnation is, “this might as well happen.”

The man might be wary of Harry, but he always brings a gift for him when he visits his sister in their family home. His uncle seems to have no idea what to offer to a child, so he brings books for the elf to read him and an absurd amount of plushies. Harry now has five illusory-fire-breathing dragons to his collection, a dozen snakes, two owls who sometimes fly out of his crib, a self-warming ashwinder and a crup whose tail wags on its own.

And thanks to his uncle, Harry learns his mother's name.

Medea.

(How fitting.)

Harry’s new name is Hadrian. He gets used to it around the one-year mark. It’s easier than it could be. It’s not a very different name. A bit later than that, his mother has some sort of mental breakdown. Her brother is displeased too. Hadrian only figures out what’s going on after a few days, when his mother finally deigns visiting his crib.

The Mark has faded.

Huh.

It sure explains the hysteria.

Hadrian connects the dots. He’s been somehow reborn into the same era. The same year even, he suspects. Will he meet himself at Hogwarts? How discomforting. He pushes that thought as far he can and turns to the matter at hand. His mother is a fanatic profoundly unsettled by the disappearance of Voldemort. He is entirely at her mercy, and she seems determined to follow the dark path.

At first, he thinks it’s just average devotion, but then his mother speaks to him. “Your father will come back for you, my son,” she whispers feverishly, holding his head in her sharp-nailed hands. It is the first time she touches him. “You are his heir. He will be back, I swear to you. And we will be exalted.”

Hadrian has an inkling of who his father is. But he must be wrong, surely.

It cannot be.

***

Things take a turn for the worse after that.

His uncle is arrested. He finally learns his name when the Aurors come, and the family name both siblings claim. Hector Mulciber is not taken without a fight. It takes three Aurors to subdue him. Hadrian is begrudgingly impressed. Because of his strange wariness regarding him, he’d taken the man for a coward. Clearly, he was wrong.

Medea comes back from her errands – and by that he means her attempts to find a way to resurrect the Dark Lord – to find the Mulciber townhouse trashed and her brother gone. She howls in rage, so loud it makes the walls shake.

Later, Hadrian finds out from the house elf that his mother cannot control her magic anymore. It is the consequence of a curse thrown by a member of the Order. The shakes weren’t a metaphor, but a very real manifestation of her anguish. He remembers his own magic slipping from him in waves in another life. He empathises with that at least.

Uncle Hector used to help stabilise her, apparently. It explains why she’s so much worse off now that he’s gone.

As time goes by, Medea Mulciber grows more anxious. She raves about Voldemort at every hour of the day to the point it frightens the house elf. He barely sees her anymore, occupied as she is in her attempts to resurrect Voldemort.

Hadrian learns his caretaker is named Missy. The elf is the only sane person in the house, and he’s pretty sure he would not have survived without her. He’s grown fond of the creature. She is a jumpy thing, always flinching at every loud noise. But she’s patient with him, and caring.

It’s more parenting than he's ever received.

He makes sure his first word is her name, or an approximation of it. Missy bursts into tears as she hears him call out to her.

“Young Master Hadrian is growing so big,” she exclaims, and he has to clumsily pat her cheeks to wipe the fat tears running down her face.

At two years old, Hadrian finally sees his face in the mirror properly. Missy lets him observe his reflection, cooing that “the young master is very handsome, yes indeed.”

It’s horribly embarrassing, but he has to admit she’s right. Where Harry Potter was rough around the edges, and even wild-looking, the child in front of him is almost delicate. His eyes are wine-coloured, a mix of his mother’s purple and of the dark red of the man who unwittingly participated in his conception. As for his features, he has seen them on another child before, in a pensieve memory.

Hadrian can’t deny it to himself anymore.

He has been played by Fate and reincarnated as the son of Voldemort.

(That day, he has his first manifestation of accidental magic. The mirror splinters in a thousand shards, and Missy has to apparate him away.)

***

It takes some time for him to adjust to the idea.

He remembers another life where he sacrificed himself to rid his friends of the evil who in this world gave him life. Voldemort killed his parents, before. But now that grievance can’t be named. This Dark Lord did no such thing, or at least it did not happen to him. Hadrian Riddle is not Harry Potter, and his apathy at his situation only proves it.

He has the memories, but none of the heart.

(His hatred faded when he died. His love did too, somewhat. Not fully. Hadrian is an almost-blank slate, marred at the edges by the experiences of a boy who’d not lived to experience adulthood. He takes those memories as the lessons and warnings they are, but he operates under entirely different rules.)

He finds himself wondering what kind of father Voldemort would make. His mother seems sure he will exalt her and reward their family. She thought he would be so thrilled to have an heir that he would instantly forgive the crime committed, what Hector called line theft.

It does not escape Hadrian that it is ironically terrible that Tom Riddle Jr has fathered a child in much the same way as his father did.

Unwillingly.

At least Medea Mulciber did not violate him the way Merope Gaunt had Riddle Sr. She used a spell instead, to steel his seed and conceive the child herself without touching him. It is a small consolation, but one he clings to nonetheless.

***

Missy teaches him how to read and write. Hadrian had assumed that lesson would be a breeze, considering his reincarnation, but Missy wants his voice to be clear and confident and his handwriting to be perfect.

She’s an exacting taskmaster. Soon enough, his calligraphy becomes much better than it’s ever been, even with the coordination of a child. Missy calls her a little prodigy. She oohs and aahs at his progress, then moves on to etiquette lessons before he can even congratulate himself on a job well-done.

Hadrian finds that pureblood society is as stuffy as he’d imagined, but there is a method to their madness.

In polite society, the muggle world is not acknowledged. If needs must, it is only referred to as the Mudlands. Hadrian was surprised to find this was the case even among light families, who would not dare call someone a mudblood but still referred to non-magical lands as such.

The magical upper-class society is on the other hand called the Court of Albion. That only encompasses England and Scotland – and the Scottish clans claim a separate Circle of Clans for themselves while still participating in the Alban social season. The Court of Hibernia and the Court of Cambria are closed social circles, and only Irish and Welsh wizards are invited to participate in them. Unlike the Scottish, they snub Albans as much as they can get away with.

Wands are kept in holsters strapped to one’s forearm. Holding your wand in polite conversation is considered an insult and could be taken as a silent invitation to duel.

Wizards remove their hats in front of a social superior and press it against their chest before stepping to the side to give them the opportunity to leave if they wish to. Should the person desire to start a conversation, the hat will remain against their chest until the social superior begs leave. It used to be considered polite to use your wand hand to hold your hat to assure you are not a threat, but this changed after Grindelwald’s war and the climate of distrust it created in society at the time. Now it is socially acceptable and even advisable to use the opposite arm.

There are rules to handshakes, one of which being that they should never be refused. A wizard takes the measure of their interlocutor by seeing that they respect the proper pressure applied to one’s hand, and offering yours is an indication that you wish no harm to the person you offered it to. The hand should be shaken twice, not too firmly, and let go.

(Hadrian grimaces at that, recalling the seven-years-long grudge he’d created by refusing the hand of Draco Malfoy in another life. He would have still done it; Malfoy had offered insult to his friend at the time, but he would have liked to know the deeper implication of his act before making that choice.)

Introductions should always be made on your behalf when meeting for the first time, and names should be given clearly. There was no need to enunciate titles or call someone a lord. Those of proper breeding would recognise your last name and place you on the social hierarchy without needing a prompting. Foreigners were the only exception to that rule, as they were not expected to know the intricacies of a social circle they are not a part of.

In group introductions, social superiors must be introduced first, then Heads or Heirs of their Houses, then the remaining wizards are introduced by order of seniority.

The Bones, the Black and the Ollivander families are at the top of the social hierarchy. It used to be that the Princes, the Gaunts, the Dagworths – not to be confused with the Dagworth-Grangers, an offshoot of the family that had survived – and the Peverells were once counted along with them, but these Houses’ seats were closed, indicating that the name had been lost.

The Houses Longbottom, Greengrass, Crouch, Malfoy, Rosier, Lestrange, Shacklebolt, Rowle, Ogden, Marchbanks, Stokke, Macmillan, Nott, Carrow, Fawley, Merrythought, Prewett, Hawkworth, Scamander, Doge and Selwyn followed, having too earned the title of Ancient and Noble.

The Mulcibers were a Noble House, but not Ancient. Hector was not the Head of the family however. This would theoretically put Hadrian slightly under Crabbe and Goyle hierarchy-wise, but at the same level as Millicent Bulstrode, Zacharias Smith, Lavender Brown and the Patil sisters. Among many others.

Rules are waived at Hogwarts, where it was esteemed to cause too much division between the students. But they are very much in place during the Alban social season, which Hadrian will be expected to participate in once he’s received his Hogwarts letter.

(The nobility grumbled at Hogwarts’ decision, but the headmaster who enforced them stayed firm and they had to accept it. Their other options were to home-tutor their heirs, send them to hedge schools, whose education was often deemed subpar, or worse, send them off to another country.)

Hadrian is just relieved he’ll not be forced to kiss anyone’s ass at school.

"But the young master is the Dark Lord’s heir,” says Missy reassuringly. “No one will make him show respect once his father has acknowledged him.”

Hadrian nods obediently, and wonders.

***

The Aurors come for Medea when Hadrian is five years old.

It has nothing to do with the Mark on her arm. It is the shakes they are concerned about. Medea’s control has gotten worse, and if she doesn’t exhaust her magic during the day, she creates localised earthquakes in her sleep. A concerned passerby must have reported the situation.

His mother is in the basement when they force the entrance door open. She is once more working on a ritual to resurrect her Lord. She’s borrowed some blood from Hadrian to do the deed. It is her most potent ingredient, but the magic keeps fizzling out before the ritual can take hold.

Hadrian snuck downstairs a few times. He thinks what Medea is doing would have worked if only Voldemort was truly dead. Stuck as a wraith, he clings to life in a way that keeps the ritual from getting hold of him. He cannot tell her this, however. He needs to ascertain if this father of his is safe before even considering bringing him back to life. His memories as Harry Potter make him less than confident.

Besides, he could not explain how he knew.

“Hide him,” Medea hisses at Missy who just apparated at her side with Hadrian.

The house elf nods. She snaps her fingers, and Hadrian is turned invisible to the eyes of others. Medea activates the basement’s wards with trembling hands.

“Mother?” he murmurs, watching the woman bite her thumb bloody.

She looks half-crazed and on the verge of tears. He doesn’t think she’s much of a mother, but he feels for her nonetheless. She’s all he’s ever had in this life and the last. It would have been hard not to develop an attachment.

“They’ll take me, son,” she says, turning worried eyes on him. “And I will not survive Azkaban. Not with the curse placed upon me. Who will raise you?” she asks herself, pacing anxiously. “Who will teach you about the glory of the Dark Lord? Who will ensure you take your rightful place at his side? I have no ally, no one to entrust you to.”

She screams in anguish. Missy flinches. Hadrian only watches her evenly.

He understands her dilemma. The Mulcibers are isolated. Their close allies are in Azkaban, the other Death Eater families who ran free untrustworthy. They paid for their freedom or sold out others to save their own skin. The families who had the money to pay off the Ministry were comfortable and might not benefit from the return of the Dark Lord. They would see no issue in burying Hadrian to make sure that his blood could not be used to resurrect Voldemort. Others might protect him, but they would poison him against his birth family, kill the Mulcibers for their crime of line theft.

“Missy can ask other elves,” suggests Hadrian, turning to his caretaker. “You know other nursing elves, don’t you, Missy?”

The house elf squeaks and bobs her head in agreement. “Missy can hide the young master for now and look for someone to take care of him. If Mistress will give Missy requirements for her to start searching...”

Medea blinks a few times, staring at the elf.

The pureblood woman who had never once needed to consider her servant as a thinking being suddenly sees her in a new light. “Yes,” she murmurs. “Yes, Missy is a loyal elf. She can find a protector for my baby, my son, my heir, who will bring glory to House Mulciber and stand at his father’s side. You’ll do me proud, won’t you baby?”

She bends down and takes Hadrian into her arms for the first time since he was born. She kisses his forehead, smearing blood red lipstick on him. Hadrian hesitantly brings his arms around her.

Something in his chest hurts.

In his other life, making his parents proud was all he’d ever wanted. He’d not been the virtuous hero people thought him to be.

He’d found Voldemort and his Death Eaters mad and cruel, and he had hated the lengths they went to in order to accomplish their goals. But he’d not found the Ministry much better, and he’d not been blind to his and his friends’ own faults.

(A woman-turned-beetle kept in a jar for weeks on end. An upperclassman pushed into a vanishing cabinet who had to apparate himself out of it to survive. Unforgivables wielded with desperation by teenagers trying to fight against impossible odds. Nothing much, compared to the murders, the terrors imposed by Voldemort’s circle. But still... something to think about.)

Hadrian thinks there is something about wizardry that makes people’s morals looser. Magical beings don’t feel pain the way muggles do. It is not this all-encompassing, terrifying condition. It is a temporary inconvenience, vanished with a draught or the flick of a wand. Regrowing a bone takes one night. Only magic can hurt magicals with any kind of permanence.

He’d not agreed with blood supremacy, and he still didn’t. But he’d not fought Voldemort because their ideologies clashed. He fought because he was expected to, and because if he didn’t, people he cared about would die. He fought because of the prophecy. He fought because Voldemort killed his parents.

Can Hadrian Riddle stand by those ideals?

Here, the people he cares about are a mad woman doomed to die, a house elf devoted to the Mulciber family, an emotionally constipated uncle in Azkaban, and the promise of a father who might not accept him.

“I promise, Mother,” he ends up saying quietly, swallowing the lump in his throat.

He will stand in front of Voldemort and tell him who he is. If the man rejects him, he will have no shame turning his back on him. And if the man accepts him...

Medea smiles widely at his words, then pulls out her wand. “I will not let myself die in Azkaban, my son,” she says.

She turns to Missy and gives her a set of instructions to begin her search. It is long, and thoughtful. Hadrian feels his mother’s care in a way he never had before.

When she is done, Medea opens the wards just enough to let her pass.

The Aurors, who had been waiting for their wardbreaker to finish dismantling the workings of the basement’s protections, startle upon seeing her. One of them dies due to their unpreparedness. Medea is not proficient with the killing curse, but she knows plenty of other dark spells.

“Serpere Igne Formicae.”

Hadrian winces.

The Creeping Fire Ant curse claims its victims in a few hours, and any attempt to get rid of it without knowing the counterspell only shortens their lifespans. It conjures an “ant queen” which burns its way into the skin and expands its reach by duplicating itself, its drones making a slow advance towards the brain of the victim until they either burn a vital organ or overwhelm their pain receptors to the point their heart gives out.

Harry had seen a Mulciber use it once during the final battle. He’d found it especially cruel since the curse gave its victims a slow death. They could still fight, but the Death Eater liked to duel when their opponent was in excruciating pain. It gave them an advantage and... Hadrian was just now realising he’d never known Mulciber’s gender in his previous life, and the Death Eater he’d fought could very much be his mother or uncle in this life.

He watches detachedly as Medea subdues four Aurors. Three are dead, another writhing in agony on the floor. The two left fight in tandem, and she struggles against them. As such, she doesn’t see the man on the ground stand back up with a grimace.

Hadrian opens his mouth to cry out, but Missy uses her magic to silence him, tears streaming down her face. They watch as the three Aurors cry out, “Stupefy!” at the same time. The three stunners hit Medea in three different areas. Hadrian hears the crack her spine makes as it snaps. Her body crumples to the ground.

“That’s going to be,” pants the still-suffering Auror, “so much paperwork.”

Hadrian, who hadn’t paid attention until then, recognises the familiar voice of Rufus Scimgeour. His eyes narrow as a familiar hatred takes over his heart. He stays silent, and seethes. He doesn’t have to do anything. In all likelihood, his mother’s curse will take the man in a few hours. And if it doesn’t, he will remember.

In this life, it is what he does best.

***

The next few days are quiet. Missy is in-and-out of the townhouse, talking to elves to find someone who can protect her charge. She takes her new duty as his sole caretaker very seriously. She places baby-proofing spells all over the place, but otherwise lets him roam around as he wishes. He is still rendered invisible to anyone but the house elf.

Hadrian, whose last five years had mainly been spent in his nursery room, welcomes the added freedom. He putters around, trying to figure out where things are. It is not hard to learn the layout of the place. The Mulciber townhouse is very similar to Grimmauld Place in many ways.

The floo address is called Mulberry Manse; it is engraved on top of the chimney. The walls are painted in maroon and black, decorated with scenes from Greek mythology. There are no portraits of the family ancestors everywhere like in Grimmauld; Missy explained that the former master of the House greatly disliked them, and had them all sent to the country manor, where the main family lived. There is however a family tapestry depicting their relations in the form of grapevines, on which the name Hadrian Riddle is attached to that of Medea Mulciber and Tom Riddle. That section of the vine has been cut off from the others however, signalling that the main family likely believes that Hadrian’s father is of muggle descent. They expressed their disapproval by shunning the townhouse, it seems, and only visiting the branch families on other properties.

Since the deed is still in Hector’s name and he didn’t get a lifelong sentence – only thirty years, because they could not prove he had done anything more than take the Mark. The main house hadn’t saved him from Azkaban (the Imperius defence only works so many times), but they’d at least buried the leads – there should be no visitor on their side. That is reassuring. Hadrian hadn’t looked forward to managing the expectations of a main branch who surely would come to regret their treatment of his mother.

He finds this out by looking through his uncle’s paperwork, in search of the Gringotts key Missy normally uses to stock up on groceries.

The Aurors come back for an inspection of the house. Hadrian made sure not to reactivate the wards precisely in anticipation of this. They find what they’re looking for in the basement it seems, because they do not put any effort into searching the rest of the house. They would not have found anything; Missy had made sure to hide the door of Hadrian’s room from visitors too.

A few weeks later, Missy returns triumphant with a man in a sad state. Her hands are covered in blood, and her companion keeps shivering and raking his sharp nails on his temples and skull, making a mess of his straw-coloured hair.

“This is being Barty Crouch Jr,” she exclaims, switching to elf-speech in her excitement. When she notices, she blushes green and clears her throat. “He is a little beat-up, but once Missy fixes him, he’ll make a good protector for the young master. Missy had to kill his nursing elf and her master to take him,” she admits, her ears drooping, before cheering up, “but now Master Hadrian can be safe and raised like a proper dark wizard!”

The boy huffs amusedly. “Thank you, Missy.”

Hadrian walks cautiously towards the man, who still seems to be struggling with the after-effects of the Imperius curse. He’s already carved gouges on his skin, and it looks like it’s going to get worse if nothing is done.

“Can I help you in any way?”

Barty flinches, his hands stilling on his head. He turns slowly. He licks his lips.

“You freed me.”

Hadrian wants to shrug, but Missy will whine about him being uncouth.

Instead he replies, “Technically my elf did. Has Missy explained anything?”

The man shakes his head. He sounds disbelieving, and extremely wary. As if he’s wondering if he traded a cage for another. “Only that a little master needed protecting, and she thought I was well enough for the job. And then she killed our family elf and my father, then made it looked like Winky snapped and ate him like the old elves used to do before we bound them.”

Ah. Hadrian didn’t know Missy could be that bloodthirsty. But she’s been on edge lately. She lost both of her masters, and has had to take care of a five-year-old by herself. She does everything now; cook, clean, go to the bank, buy groceries, take care of him, and that’s without mentioning all she’s needed to do to find Barty. A nursing elf is not meant to be under so much stress.

Still. That is not ideal. It explains his suspicious attitude, though. He will start by introductions. That ought to help.

“My name is Hadrian Riddle.”

Barty gasps. As Hadrian thought, the Death Eater was among those who knew the real identity of the Dark Lord. The man shudders and prostrates at Hadrian’s feet. The boy pushes down his discomfort at the servile act. He bends down and grasps it gently.

And visualising a snake to trigger his Parseltongue ability, he adds, “Well met.” Then, switching to English. “Rise, Mr. Barty. You’ve been called upon to care for your lord’s heir.”

He must sound ridiculous. He’s only five, what is he even doing, he wonders. Calling upon others, claiming himself to be bigger than he is. And yet, it works.

“I live to serve,” murmurs the man feverishly.

“And you will serve better once you are healed. Let Missy take care of you, hm?” chimes in the nursing elf before leading the young man away from Hadrian. “Young master will ready himself for supper in the meantime.”

***

Life with Barty – as he asked to be called – isn't any weirder than life with Medea. His mother was just as insane, if less traumatised. His new guardian does a better job at keeping it contained. Some days, he locks himself in the basement and does not come out until he can keep the twitching to a minimum.

Once, Hadrian asks him what he’s doing down there. He’s in the library, and the man just joined him there. The child is enjoying some quiet time before his next dancing lesson with Missy, who is preparing an illusory partner to help him practice.

“I’m repairing my Occlumency shields,” he says. "I'll need them in good shape if I want to teach you anything worthwhile, and I can’t be of service to my Lord if I can’t keep a handle on... my issues.”

“Will you teach me?” requests Hadrian. “Occlumency, that is.”

He’d never been able to learn in his first life. It was kind of pathetic, when he thinks about it.

Barty looks amused, and a little intrigued at his charge’s thirst for knowledge. Hadrian heard Missy tell him he is uncommonly advanced for his age, but he thinks the man did not expect how much. The boy does not make a big deal out of it, he’s well-aware that his inexplicable memories of another life give him an unfair advantage over his peers. He might have the conscience of a child and find his life as Harry Potter to be slowly effacing itself, but he regains a good chunk of foreknowledge and insight a boy of five should not have.

After Barty realised how wide the gulf between him and other children was, he started treating him like a little adult. Hadrian likes it much better.

“Among many other things, yes.”

Hadrian nods, satisfied, and returns to his book.

On the subject of his father, Barty shares with Medea this surety that he will be recognised and cherished by the Dark Lord. He considers his role as tutor, guardian and protector to be of the utmost importance. In his mind, there is no question that Voldemort will adore his son. How could he not, when he preached the value of family and the importance of blood to his followers? And so he must protect him. It is his priority; while he has no doubt that the Dark Lord can handle himself without his aid, the same is not true for young Hadrian.

Despite this unrelenting trust in his leader, Barty seems less fanatical than the Barty of his memories. Hadrian remembers a man obsessed with the Dark Lord, and hateful enough of the Death Eaters who abandoned the cause to turn a child into a ferret and beat him into the ground. But, he realises, this man had spent a decade under his father’s control and been liberated by Voldemort himself.

In this world, Barty only spent three years under the Imperius curse and he was saved for Hadrian’s sake. He is much closer to the Barty at his trial, the still-teenaged boy who was begging his father to spare him. That explains his strange moderation.

He still requests some of Hadrian’s blood to conduct his own research as to the whereabouts of the Dark Lord. The boy offers it willingly, though he privately hopes Fate will interfere and let him keep his protector for a little longer.

This is how he learns that Barty Jr’s intelligence is something he underestimated. The man is a voracious reader and a greater thinker. It takes him no time at all to unearth what Medea has already attempted from the scraps the Aurors left behind, and only a little longer to figure out why the last ritual did not work. He has not yet made the leap concerning the wraith form Voldemort is still stuck in until he is re-embodied, but he understands that the Dark Lord is out there, somewhere, gathering his strength.

Barty despairs a little then, as he explains to Hadrian that he had already tried locator spells before his incarceration, but the Dark Lord had magically obscured himself, making it impossible for such spells to take effect.

He would have to find another way.

***

While Missy has taken a lot of pain to help Hadrian memorise the names of the prominent families in the Court of Albion, Barty makes sure to outline clearly who among them has sworn to the Dark Lord and whose surviving pureblood families have been directly attacked by Death Eaters. The latter is important, stresses Barty, because those people should never learn the identity of Hadrian’s father until he is strong enough to protect himself. The list is long, and Hadrian finds that he remembers many of the names on it.

But there are discrepancies. Which is how Hadrian finds out that there is no Harry Potter in this world. There is a Boy-Who-Lived, but it is Neville who has had the dubious honour of receiving the title.

He even manages to pin-point that there was still a second child targeted. In this life, Fabian Prewett and Dorcas Meadowes had a girl named Lillian in honour of Lily Evans, their friend who died during the war. They were the ones who were targeted by the Lestranges.

Barty was not with them.

Like in his previous life, the man broke into the Longbottom wards, but this time to let the Dark Lord in.

Barty is the Peter Pettigrew of this world.

“How did you do it?” Hadrian asks him curiously, trying to ignore his inner conflict.

The part of him that is all Riddle thinks it is a matter of course that Barty would follow his master’s orders and break into the wards. Harry Potter rages at the very thought and wonders who he was to the Longbottoms for him to even be in a position to betray them.

“Ah,” says Barty, looking conflicted. “My mother was a Longbottom,” he explains, licking his lips. “We visited her family home often when I was a child. Her brother Baldwin... he abandoned us. Left us with that man. His son, that condescending little—I was not sad to see him gone. They betrayed me first. They betrayed me first,” he repeats faintly. He does not say more.

Barty is in no state to continue the lecture after that. He locks himself in the basement and does not come out for an entire day. Harry will later discretely probe to find out what became of Sirius Black and James Potter. He will learn that the latter died in the war, betrayed by his friend Peter Pettigrew, who currently served time in Azkaban.

As for the former... Sirius Black sorted into Slytherin in this world. He had no friends there, and despite his little brother taking the Mark, he did not follow him on this path. Instead he disappeared from society after graduation, locking himself with his grandfather in their ancestral manor to learn under him and ensure a smooth succession. He only emerged after the war, at his little brother’s trial. Regulus Black pleaded the Imperius defence and was acquitted.

There is little that remains of Harry within Hadrian Riddle, but his love for Sirius Black is one of those things. For his peace of mind, he will find out where the path diverted for his former godfather.

***

Hadrian, like his Dark Lord father, is a natural legilimens. He finds this out during their first Occlumency lesson. It happens when he is eight. Barty has recovered from his imprisonment, and Hadrian’s mind is deemed developed enough for a first attempt at a lesson.

They haven’t been idle in the past three years. Of course not. Barty taught him history, potions, magical theory, wards, and as many spells as his magic could handle without straining his core. Barty used Medea’s spare wands to teach him. It didn’t always work, but for a pre-Hogwarts child, it was good enough.

When his tutor had deemed him settled enough to start leaning the Dark Arts and Occlumency, Hadrian was thrilled. He didn’t expect it to go sideways.

His failed attempt at blocking his tutor’s intrusion results in him plunging headfirst into the man’s mind and being confronted with his devotion.

Not his devotion to Voldemort, as he expected, but to him. Hadrian, through no fault of his own, has somehow shifted the man’s loyalty to the point where, he is sure, Barty would disavow the Dark Lord if the man were to reject him. Hadrian witnesses the moments during which this resolve sets in in Barty Crouch’s mind and reshapes his life’s purpose. He sees himself grinning at the man after he finally understands a concept of magical theory. He sees himself asleep in the library, a book tucked in the crook of a tiny elbow. He sees himself singing to Missy while she dances, and laughing when Barty clumsily attempts to copy her.

A tear rolls down Hadrian’s cheek before he even notices he is crying.

“Hah,” he hears. Barty is breathing loudly. He was taken off-guard by the sudden fall back into his own mind. As such, he takes a moment to notice Hadrian is crying. When he does, however, he forgets his own pain as if it had never existed and crouches down to comfort the child. Barty is much freer with physical contact than Medea ever was, and Hadrian didn’t realise how much he needed it until the man ruffled his hair for the first time. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“You’re mine,” tries to explain Hadrian, his voice rendered shaky by emotion. When Barty makes a confused sound, he attempts to elaborate. “You’re not Father’s. You’re mine.”

Realisation dawns. Barty looks conflicted, guilty, and most of all caught-off guard, but the undercurrent of elation is too obvious to be hidden.

“I am,” he admits after a beat. “I am still loyal to your father, but you have won my allegiance, young master. I noticed it happening a long time ago. I did not stop it. I had no reason to. Love and duty are not in conflict, here. Taking care of you is serving my master in the best possible way, and obeying the Dark Lord is securing your future.”

He says it firmly, and Hadrian believes him. But he also felt Barty’s emotions, and knows that should he and Voldemort ever be in conflict, his tutor will choose him.

And that is a relief he cannot put into words. So he hugs Barty tightly before asking him if they can try Occlumency again.

***

It is only because of the Occlumency incident that Hadrian finds the courage to ask.

“Barty?”

“Yes, young master?”

The man had stolen the phrase from Missy and seemed to delight in using it. Hadrian ignores it. He’ll probably never get any of his favourite people to call him by his name, and it would be an exercise in futility to even try.

“Why a civil war? Why did Father choose violence to enforce his will?”

Missy steals the Prophet for them sometimes. They are not so cut-off from the outside world as to be unaware of the growing influence Lucius Malfoy has in the Ministry, and the distinct return of positive ratings on traditionalist legal proposals. Muggle-borns have always had a hard time finding employment at the Ministry, but under the Fudge administration, it is next to impossible for them to get further than entry level positions. Many of them return to the muggle world, and become essentially muggles with magic.

They are not at the level of segregation supremacist purebloods wish for, but discrimination is there, and the gaps can be widened via bureaucracy. Hadrian does not want that, but he wonders why it hasn’t happened.

“Because true change cannot come about without Albus Dumbledore’s death.”

Hadrian blinks.

Seeing his confusion, Barty elaborates. “His opposition described the Dark Lord’s main goal as the overthrowing of the Statute of Secrecy and the subjugation of muggles along with the establishment of a class society where purebloods would reign and others would serve.” He presses his lips together before continuing. “But that is a gross and malicious oversimplification. He first approached pureblood families with a promise: magic will be preserved at all costs.”

He turns to his pupil. “You remember your lesson, yes? Between the official establishment of the Statute of Secrecy in...” he stops leadingly, goading Hadrian into providing the answer.

“1692,” supplies the boy.

“Very good. Between 1692 and the present day, magical areas have diminished by about 65%.”

Hadrian nods. He knows that. This phenomenon is attributed to industrialisation and the dissemination of irons and plastics throughout the lands and oceans, two materials commonly referred to as anti-magic for the way they appear to disrupt the flow of it. Since the flow of ambient magic is diverted from its natural course, the magic cannot replenish itself and the residue left starts to decay until it is nothing but poison to the magical creatures in that area.

Other factors come into play, of course, but it is a common worry of magical people everywhere that muggles will someday manage to hinder the production of ambient magic to the point that the world will slowly starve out. Goblins, elves, and other fey-blooded races will be the first to feel the effect, followed closely by dragons, unicorns and other magical creatures. Wizards will ironically be the least affected, in the sense that they will not die and instead simply become squibs.

Another factor is believed to be the loss of dark magic. And by dark, Hadrian means sacrificial magic. The shedding of blood, the release of pain or the splitting of souls for the accomplishment of one’s goal. Dark rituals were thought to give back to the land in a way that light magic – the simple use and dispersion of the energy stored in the arcanic veins of a wizard – simply could not accomplish. This theory is less popular because it relies on an esoteric understanding of magic. It is the same belief that leads people to sacrificing animals in the names of the gods. But concepts can be magical in and of themselves, and the idea cannot be dismissed. It is undeniable that there is a sick feel to ambient magic that cannot be entirely attributed to muggle development, and the idea that wizards only take and do not give back to magic might have to do with it.

“The Statute of Secrecy was thought to be necessary when it was enforced; colonialism brought the European anti-witchcraft sentiment to a heightened level everywhere in the world, and more and more magical communities were affected. That is not to say that only Europeans were culpable, but they were the first muggle populations to turn their fear into an organised body dedicated to eradicating it. The Church was a real threat back then. A wizard without a wand was no wizard at all, and those who truly care about history remember the nest of chimeras harvested for their blood under the Vatican. They made sure they could hurt us, and we could either eradicate them all, subjugate them or make them forget we existed.”

Barty licks his lips and continues. “We chose the more peaceful solution, but nobody expected that leaving muggles alone would allow them to develop so rapidly. Not only did they outnumber us, but they sharpened their skill in warfare against each other to the point where they created weapons capable of killing us – I won’t even go into the possibility for mass-destruction they have engineered in the decades following Grindelwald’s war, this is only a brief overview to make you understand the scope of what we’re talking about. So not only has magic been decaying, but muggles are now armed with weapons capable of killing wizards without aid. And on our side, spells meant for us to fight back are forbidden, and the dark rituals that are proven to set back the negative effects of muggle development are forbidden.”

This time, his nod is more tentative. He understands what Barty is saying, he just doesn’t understand what this has to do with Dumbledore. His tutor seemed to understand his confusion, because he raises a hand and continues.

“I’m getting at it. Multiple people have brought up their concern to the Wizengamot and to the International Confederation of Wizards. Nothing came of it. They were dismissed every time. And of course, Albus Dumbledore has a seat in both governing bodies. He has always painted muggles as ignorant but otherwise harmless people and dismissed everyone who said otherwise as prejudiced. And his disdain, no, his disgust for dark magic is known to all.”

It is ironic, thinks Hadrian, considering what happened to Ariana Dumbledore. But he supposes it makes sense; in the end it is a wizard, not a muggle that killed her. And the father of the three Dumbledore siblings did much more damage to the muggles who assaulted his daughter than they did her. Of course Dumbledore overcorrected after Grindelwald. He and Voldemort after all had very similar ideologies.

“The history curriculum at Hogwarts only uses one book for seven years of schooling. A History of Magic, written by Bathilda Bagshot,” he says, sneering all the while. Another person related to Grindelwald, notes Hadrian. And she knew Dumbledore in his youth. “And it spreads misinformation about the number of wizards killed by the Inquisition. It says many more lies than that, but this one is the most egregious. Even pureblood families have been misled.”

Barty sighs. “People like the Malfoys would have you believe the Dark Lord’s agenda is mainly to make sure that pure-blood culture and values doesn’t die out, but he’s only feeding into their ego. It is the main recruiting strategy the Dark Lord employed to convince people that something must be done.”

After some time to think, Hadrian thinks he gets what his tutor is trying to say.

People do not care for something so abstract as the possible death of all magic. But Dumbledore’s insistence on banning anything Dark is happening now, and he uses muggle-born integration as a shield to justify the restrictions.

(The Ministry of course goes along with it because a population that cannot defend itself is easier to control. Ultimately, they’ll ban all Defence spells, and Lucius Malfoy, so focused on his crusade against muggle-borns and creatures instead of the things that truly matter, will be left wondering why.)

This draws the ire of pureblood families who blame the criminalisation of their culture on muggle influence. Then the Dark Lord uses the same technique to draw attention back to the problem, and organises his Death Eaters to regain control of the magical world. Once that is done, they can focus on the two-fold problem by one, re-instauring practices that reverse the decay of ambient magic and two, stopping the muggle population from poisoning magical areas further. All this under the guise of blood supremacy.

“So, because Albus Dumbledore has so much influence and he can’t be made to change his mind, Father decided that the only way to create change was by force?” concludes Hadrian. “He doesn’t necessarily want the subjugation of muggles and muggle-borns, he wants control over them because muggle technological advancement is a threat to magic and... muggle-borns haven’t been raised with magic, so they are more likely to betray the magical world for the sake of their family.”

His tutor nods approvingly.

Hadrian restrains a grimace. He thinks this might have been Tom Riddle’s goal, once upon a time, and that the Dark Lord understood enough of Barty’s character to share it with him. When Hadrian’s father was an orphan who had to survive the bombings in London during the Second World War and then go back to school to be looked down upon by purebloods for his apparent low-birth, he doesn’t doubt that he must have thought of manipulating them all to ensure the preservation of magic, the only thing he thought worthwhile in the world besides himself.

But the Voldemort he knew as Harry Potter had abandoned all pretence of wanting the good of the magical world.

“There is no good and evil. There is only power, and those too weak to seek it.”

He hopes that his father in this world is the man Barty Crouch Jr believes him to be. But Hadrian needs more than a loyal follower’s word to trust it.