The Thing About Jack Riddle
It was a well understood fact to anyone with any social awareness at all (Slytherins) that any Zabini likely knew more about anything and everything than they should. It was part of the reason why, despite having a personality that was often described by those around him as “unbearably intrusive,” and “unnecessarily contemptuous,” Blaise Zabini was rarely challenged by anyone. Even the upper years were hesitant to disparage him in any way—for a 12 year old, he was relentless in his vindictiveness. Whatever dirty laundry another student or their family had, it was a near guarantee that Blaise Zabini somehow knew about it and would spread it around if provoked.
It was a blessing to most, then, that Blaise was a mostly reserved boy who found the majority of the rumors and gossip around Hogwarts frivolous and boring.
On this particular Monday evening, Blaise was using a slicing charm to cut himself an apple and ignoring Lydia Abeigh, who was talking very loudly next to him to one of her friends about how handsome Wallace Grame Jr. from Hufflepuff was. Blaise stared ahead of himself listlessly, setting down his wand as his apple slices arranged themselves on his plate.
He wondered if anything interesting at all would happen, and that was when Dumbledore entered the Great Hall with a Slytherin boy in tow. It was odd enough for the Headmaster to be entering late, and when he had failed to arrive with everyone else earlier, Blaise had expected that he simply would not appear at all tonight. It was stranger still that he was joined by a student—one that, despite wearing Slytherin colors, Blaise did not recognize at all.
He sat up straighter, watching with everyone else as Dumbledore and the boy moved to the head of the Great Hall. Everyone was rather quiet, aside from the expected murmurs and whispers of curiosity. The girls in particular sounded very curious about the boy. Blaise had been more concerned about who he was, but once he thought to wonder if the boy was handsome, he found that he certainly was. He stood beside Dumbledore, staring forward with an expression that made him look rather bored, but that did nothing to take away from his high cheekbones or his well styled black hair.
“I hope everyone is enjoying their dinner!” Dumbledore said. “As many of you may have noticed, there is a new face joining us tonight. Let us extend a warm welcome to Mr. Jack Riddle, who has been privately sorted and will be joining our Slytherin 5th years. I trust that you all will be welcoming and helpful as Mr. Riddle acclimates to Hogwarts.”
Dumbledore began to clap. Only four or five Slytherins bothered to actually follow his lead, and Riddle’s face visibly twisted up in affront. There was some laughter, and then proper polite applause. As Riddle finally went to take a seat at the Slytherin table, at the opposite end of the table from Blaise, chatter started up again. Talk was split between how good looking he was, Riddle being a muggle name, and how odd it was for him to be transferring this late in the year. Transfer students in general were not unheard of, but they were rare.
But that was not what Blaise was focused on.
Riddle was a muggle name, but it was a muggle name that Blaise recognized.
His grandmother had once told both him and his mother of one Tom Riddle’s deliberate shift into Lord Voldemort within dark aligned pureblood social circles, and how soon enough, Lord Voldemort was the only name that the general public was aware of, and Tom Riddle faded into obscurity.
The knowledge of Voldemort’s birth name was information that not many others were aware of. Blaise’s mother had told him that not even Lucius Malfoy was privy to that information—when Abraxas was alive, he’d been forbidden from sharing the name. As had all of Voldemort’s original followers. But Blaise’s grandmother had only ever run in the same circles that Voldemort had the strongest influence in: she’d never joined him, and neither had his mother. Anybody with sense, his mother often said, knew that regressive extremism was very rarely sustainable as the foundation of a public movement—and that the Zabini family should keep their distaste of mudbloods to themselves.
There was a chance that it was mere coincidence. But the chance was slim.
Blaise stood up from his seat, and walked around the table to someone he trusted not to be entirely incompetent with how he chose to disseminate information, like Pansy Parkinson, who would tell the entire school before Blaise even finished talking. The entire school would know, but only if it did turn out that Jack Riddle was in some way related to Tom Riddle.
Theodore Nott looked very unnerved when Blaise sank into the seat beside him.
“What do you want?” Theo asked, and practically wilted when Blaise leaned towards him and covered his mouth with a hand.
“I know for a fact that You-Know-Who’s real name was Tom Riddle,” Blaise whispered, and Theo dropped his cobbed corn loudly onto his plate.
“WHAT?” Theo yelled.
“Why are you yelling?” Blaise asked, and Theo looked at him like he was wondering what species of magical creature Blaise was. Theo looked back and forth to make sure nobody was listening, but they were listening, because Theo had made a racket. Theo scrunched up his face in frustration, before leaning towards Blaise anyways.
“Are you positive?” he asked, his brows furrowed. Blaise smiled a bit at Theo.
“You think I’ve given you incorrect information.”
“No,” Theo said, quickly. “I just—that’s—Blaise, that’s not rumors about someone’s crush or their parents being first cousins.”
“Yes, which is why I told you and not Pansy.”
“What?” Pansy said, because she was across from them. Blaise ignored her and cupped a hand around his mouth again, and Theo offered his ear.
“If he’s fifteen, You-Know-Who could have fathered him before the end of the war.”
“Fathered?” Theo whispered, resting his head on his fist and turning his body almost completely away from the table. “Not—you don’t think he could just be distantly related? A cousin? And how do you know it’s not his grandson?”
“I said he could have. I don’t know. It’s your job to find out and get the right people talking.” Blaise said, and stood. Theo grabbed his sleeve, but quickly let go when Blaise turned around to look at him.
“What do you mean it’s my job? You’re not going to help?”
“No. Why would I do that?” Blaise said, and went back to his own seat. He put a slice of apple in his mouth and bent his head to look all the way down the table at Riddle, who was buttering a potato and ignoring the attempts of the people around him to make conversation.
Jack really wasn’t sure why the Harry Potter series had exploded as it did back in the real world. There wasn’t all that much excitement at Hogwarts—in fact, it wasn’t very different from his own days as a schoolboy. He bullshitted in class no less at Hogwarts than he had there.
In that vein, Jack’s first few days of classes had gone… fine. He found that directing the same aggressive and demanding thoughts that he had used to (kind of) heal Ginny generally worked, and so he didn’t have to do much at all. He was also capable enough of following a recipe that was in three different goddamn places in a room, and had enough experience making shit up in emails that he could write a passable essay after skimming a few pages in a textbook. He hoped so, at least. He’d only had to write one, and it had yet to be marked.
As for his social life, most everyone outside of Slytherin ignored him because he was in Slytherin, despite the lingering looks plenty of the girls and a few of the guys would send him. In Slytherin, however, there seemed to be a bit of an internal divide.
Jack had noticed, mostly at mealtimes, that he was either quietly or very loudly scorned for his blood (something he had heard mutters of enough, but still couldn’t quite grasp what that meant or why anyone gave a shit) by the subsection of the Slytherin house that consisted of students who were either very young, very irritating, or both. There was a larger subsection that didn’t really seem to care much about Jack’s presence at all, and seemed to think ignoring his presence would make him go away.
There was a much smaller subsection than the other two that bothered Jack specifically because they seemed far too interested in him. They hadn’t started until his second day of classes, but it was like the group had had some sort of meeting on how much they should stare and whisper amongst themselves at Jack during class and meals. It was maybe only about nine or ten students total, most of them in upper years, but two were in his. Kearney and Shafiq—he still didn’t know their first names.
They sat together, often with heads bent towards one another, very obvious as they muttered and glanced at him. Jack had made a habit of staring at them whenever he wasn’t actively doing something, and was disappointed to find it only worked to dissuade them a little bit. Kearney was more likely to avert her eyes and pretend she hadn’t been looking, and though Shafiq would often be thrown off kilter, it didn’t stop him from glancing up at Jack every five seconds. It seemed like everyone around him really was unbearable.
There was Ginny, of course, who had been let out from the Hospital Wing sometime on Tuesday, but Jack had only caught glimpses of her at meals. The one time he had seen her in the halls, she had been effectively dragged along by her similarly tiny housemates as they glared at Jack, presumably for existing within the same passageway as them. It was embarrassing that the one person Jack longed for the company of was a child, but there was nothing to be done about it.
There was nothing to be done about any of it, really, which is why Jack was currently sitting in Transfiguration, staring at a brick, and ignoring the two pairs of eyes boring into him from across the room.
All you’re good for in this form is being laid in a path, or maybe being flung at Shafiq and Kearney’s heads, he thought at the brick. You’ll be much more useful as a book.
The brick didn’t do anything. Jack sneered at it. Somehow, he’d been getting worse at this the past day or so. Things just haven’t wanted to follow his magical orders.
Turn into a book or I'll smash you into pieces, you hunk of shit!
His brick turned into a book. Jack opened the book to a blank page and stared at it a little harder. ‘Blah blah blah blah’ appeared in black ink on the page. Jack closed it, and felt very bored. He looked up and raised an eyebrow. Kearney quickly bent her head, fussing with her wand and whispering an incantation at her brick, and Shafiq stared at him for a second or so before waving his wand and making some changes to the book that sat in front of him.
“Riddle,” McGonagall said primly, and it took Jack a second to remember that Riddle was his name now. He looked up, and found her looking down at him with pursed lips. She usually looked that way when she saw Slytherins. “If you’ve completed transfiguring the object, you ought to help your classmates rather than simply sit there. Your wand shouldn’t be away.”
“Well, I don’t have a wand.” Jack said, irritated that she was bothering him. McGonagall didn’t look agitated at his snappy tone because she was too busy staring at Jack like he’d just sprouted a second head. The light chatter that had been filling the classroom also died down, and Jack started to wish he hadn’t said that. Now everybody was staring at him.
“You don’t have a wand?” McGonagall repeated sharply, and Jack shrugged.
“That’s what I just said.”
“If you don’t watch your tone, I’ll have to take points from Slytherin,” she said, though it was half-hearted. “Mr. Riddle, do you mean to tell me that for the past four days you have been performing wandless magic in all of your classes?”
“I definitely wasn’t performing it with a wand.”
That spawned some whispering.
“5 points from Slytherin,” McGonagall said, but no one even bothered to groan because they were so interested in Jack’s wandless wizard wonders. “And 10 points to Slytherin for your impressive mastery of wandless magic at such a young age. Regardless, I’ll be contacting your Head of House—Professor Snape ought to help you obtain a wand.” she said, and turned around.
“You all should be working!” she said, and everyone slowly turned back to their bricks and brick-books and very few books, but eyes still remained on Jack. He very seriously considered turning his book back into a brick and throwing it at someone’s head.
Later in the day, Snape accosted him in the hallway and informed him that he would be taking him to Ollivander’s immediately after dinner.
“What the fuck is an Ollivander?” Jack asked. Snape looked ready to yell at Jack before he remembered he was afraid of him, or something like it, and decided simply on clenching his jaw. Regardless of whoever he thought of when he looked at Jack, Jack thought being so consistently wary of who the man thought to be a 15 year old was rather embarrassing.
“1 point from Slytherin for your hideous lack of respect and your filthy language.” he said, and turned down the hallway and went away from Jack, who didn’t really care about points and was busy lifting a hand to fix his hair, only to stop in his tracks when he caught a look at his fingers, which looked decidedly not the way human fingers should look.
They were fuzzy, almost blurred, like he was looking at them while drunk off his arse. He turned his hand over, flexing it and wiggling his fingers. Nothing changed. The edges just fizzed around. He looked at his right hand, and found his fingers there to look completely normal.
“Yeah, alright.” he muttered, and shoved his left hand in his pocket. He was going to be late to Charms, and he still barely knew where the damn classroom was.
The consensus within the group of 11 Slytherins who now knew what the Dark Lord’s real name was, was that Jack Riddle was dangerous.
Information on him was sparse—he wasn’t keen to interact with his housemates, in fact he clearly saw them as pests and nuisances. That much was obvious by the clipped, mocking way he would address the few who attempted to speak to him.
The group of those in the know consisted mostly of upper years who didn’t have much of a chance to interact with or even observe Riddle. He did not spend his time frivolously—he could sometimes be found in the library, but was often tucked away in his dormitory, and none of his roommates had been told. None were trusted enough not to spread the word before any confirmation was had. He spent no time dithering about the castle or any of the courtyards, and appeared to feel something close to loathing at being in the common room.
The best time for anyone not in his year to observe him was during meals. Riddle ate, often in silence, and by Wednesday everyone who had cared to try had given up on speaking to him. His silence and isolation were clearly of his own volition, and he hardly looked bothered by the fact that he was on his lonesome. Prefect Farley had said he seemed only somewhat interested in the conversation around him—he didn’t care for talk of crushes or classes or tough professors, but seemed amused by discussions of family drama and bumbling politicians. He remained completely stone-faced at any discussion of blood, and seemed the most interested whenever discussion veered towards Harry Potter.
In fact, those in the know muttered to each other about how often Jack watched the Gryffindor table during meals. It became quite obvious to them that he was scoping out Potter: for what, exactly, was unknown.
The most important information regarding Riddle came from Rashid Shafiq and Nora Kearney, who were in Riddle’s year. It didn’t matter how discreet they attempted to be in their observations of him, he always seemed to know. And in class, they reported, Riddle exclusively used wandless, nonverbal magic, and seemed to be under no strain from doing so. He also made no attempt to bring any attention to this—he would sit in the back of classrooms, alone if he could, and made no fuss over his own magic. He didn’t speak unless spoken to, did not ask questions or even glance around to see if anybody noticed.
But he would almost always meet Shafiq or Kearney’s eyes after such feats, saying nothing, merely staring, or raising a brow in their direction. As if to ask, ‘What will you do, then, with this information?’ A clear challenge.
And Riddle’s awareness was not only of the two in his year—he somehow was aware of all those who knew of his possible relation to the Dark Lord. But he still did nothing.
“It’s a very Slytherin tactic, isn’t it?” Cecily Fawley, a seventh year, had said on Wednesday night, while the group sat around a table, under a few silencing charms. “He won’t make any moves of his own—not of weakness, Shafiq and Kearney have assured us of that. But he could very well claim his relation to the Dark Lord and cement his place in Slytherin. But he’s not doing that; and for a reason. He wants us to make the first move. To seek a confirmation of his identity ourselves. It’s all a power play. He won’t take his assured spot at the top of Hierarchy: he’s going to make us give it to him.”
Her words had rung through the heads of each of them throughout the rest of the night. And they all knew that by Thursday, a move would have to be made.
It was Prefect Farley who would make that move. She was diplomatic, intelligent, and had been one of the most aware of what Riddle cared for, and more importantly, did not care for.
So Thursday evening, during dinner, the entire group sat in the general vicinity of Jack Riddle. Arriving a few minutes late, Prefect Farley sat directly across from Riddle, who was buttering toast and watching the Gryffindor table.
“Riddle. I do hate to bother you, but I have something important to ask you.” she said. Riddle’s gaze snapped over to her. Prefect Farley flinched very slightly.
“Maybe you should have opened with the question rather than just telling me you intended to ask one.” he said. Farley nodded.
“I’ll keep that in mind in the future, then. I only wished to ask… well, would you happen to be related to someone named Tom Riddle?”
Those in the know held their breaths. Riddle’s brows rose on his face, and his mouth shifted, very slightly, into something that may have been a satisfied smile.
“Oh, yes. He’s my father.” Riddle said airily, and went back to buttering his toast.
Something shifted, then. Understanding dawned on all those in the know that the Slytheirn hierarchy had just made a quick and unprecedented change. They whispered to themselves, and then went and whispered to those not in the know .
Within ten minutes, the entire Slytherin table knew exactly who Jack Riddle really was. And by lunch tomorrow, there wouldn’t be a soul in Hogwarts who did not know that Jack Riddle was the son of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
“It smells like a basement in here,” Jack complained as he stepped into Ollivanders that night. Snape said nothing to him, and Jack rolled his eyes and turned around, only to jolt in surprise when he met the gaze of a man who looked very much like the illustration on the cover of Willy Wonka. The man looked quietly at Jack for a moment, and his expression was something very harrowing.
Jack really did not understand who the fuck he either was or looked like, because it seemed that the world was divided in two parts. One part clearly thought the spirit of Satan himself was lying dormant inside of Jack’s soul, and another did not give one fuck about anything to do with Jack other than his new, admittedly, very pretty face.
“I’m here for a wand.” Jack said, in case the man was stupid.
“They usually are,” the man, who Jack was unfortunately beginning to suspect was Ollivander, said. “It is not often that a wizard must be matched twice to a wand.” So Ollivander had met whoever Jack had bodysnatched! Not much to do about that, then, unless he revealed who the hell Jack was.
“Well, mine’s gone and fucked off somewhere. Probably in Aruba without me, the ungrateful thing.”
“Watch your language, Riddle, or I’ll spell your mouth shut!” Snape snarled. Jack looked over his shoulder at the man like he might look at a piece of dog shit on the sidewalk, and Snape sent him a very similar look in return, though he remained as rigid as he ever was in Jack’s presence.
Ollivander said nothing to them, but ambled off to grab wands in no apparent order off of the walls. Jack watched him, skeptically, and hoped that the man wouldn’t give him a wand that looked like it had been pulled from the skeleton of a rotting corpse this time.
Jack tried several wands, none of them particularly hideous, to varied results. One of them exploded a lamp. Another nearly decapitated both Jack and Snape when it sent a drawer flying deathly fast across the shop, where it smashed into a wall and exploded into a thousand little splintery pieces. Another set Jack’s scholarship-fund-provided-scarf on fire.
“Another, here, here, take it! I think… this one… yes! Pine and dragon heartstring, thirteen and a half inches, with a hard flexibility.” Ollivander said, and pushed a light brown, oddly warped wand, that looked like it may have been run over by a car, and had a crack straight down the middle of it into Jack’s hand.
“Um,” Jack said, because that was the most certain Ollivander had sounded about a wand.
“Give it a wave, then!” Ollivander said.
“UM.” Jack said, louder.
“Wave the wand, boy!” Snape barked.
Jack waved the hideous wand, and let out a very put upon sigh when a blue flame burst from the tip, curling and twisting around itself in an elegant, very non-dangerous way, and the wand itself seemed to say, strong, good. dark, like a fucking freak.
“I had thought so.” Ollivander said in a solemn manner. He sent a look towards Snape, but Jack didn’t catch it, because he was busy frowning at the wand in his hands. He turned it over, attempting to see if it looked any better from another angle. It didn’t.
As Snape paid for the wand with money from the school, Jack’s gaze turned from the damn wand and onto his damn hand, which apparently had spread its blurry blight down the rest of his fingers, and was creeping onto his palm. He clenched his hand into a fist, hoped that didn’t mean he was dying or something equally tacky, and shoved his hand into his pocket again.
He ought to tell Ginny about this, if he could interact with her for more than two seconds. She likely wouldn’t know what to do, but at least Jack would have someone to complain to.