"In Place And Blood." (Harry Potter) G
Title: In Place And Blood. (On Archive Of Our Own)
Author:
lannamichaels
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Rating: G
A/N: The title is from the Ring Out Wild Bells section of In Memoriam by Tennyson.
Summary: Tom's going to show all those purebloods what a half-blood can do.
1.
At eleven years old, Tom Riddle takes his first train ride to Hogwarts. He is sorted quickly and without any fuss: Slytherin like his mother, like all the Gaunts. They were Slytherin's heirs, weren't they? They belonged in Slytherin's house. It was a house for purebloods, but Tom, proudly, isn't one of those. Purebloods treated his mother horribly, had beaten her, had thrown her out, had rejected her. They never regretted it or looked for her after she left. So be it. Then they lost all claim to her son. He's half-blood, not pureblood; he may be Slytherin like them all, but he's better. He isn't a Gaunt; he's more than that.
That night, for the first time, he shares a room with six other boys, five of them purebloods, and he wants to murder them where they sleep. He doesn't know how to do it, but he has ideas. They all deserve it. They deserve it for what they did to his mother. Purebloods had left his mother friendless, a disgrace, had thrown her out and left her to die and her son with her. Tom is going to make sure they live to regret it. Tom is going to make every one of them regret it.
Tom has the name of a muggle, but he happily will choose that over the Gaunt name. The Gaunt name is ancient, it is historic, and it disgusts him. Tom's father had deserted his mother, but his mother always said that she never expected better of a muggle. She should have expected better from purebloods, but purebloods had already taught her that was a lie. Purebloods crowed about their lineage, but that was worthless if they spat on their own children. If blood meant anything, then it had to mean better than that. And so blood meant nothing. Their vaunted pureblood status meant nothing if it meant they rejected Tom's mother.
And they were wrong about Tom's mother. She was better than them. Tom's mother is the best potion-maker in the village. She had sent him to school and supervised every moment of his education. She expected him to excel at the village school and now at Hogwarts. And Tom is quick, he is smart, and -- half-blood that he is, Gaunt that he isn't -- he still spoke parseltongue from the cradle.
Tom is not going to be rejected by the pureblood world like his mother was; he rejects them first. His school robes declare him to be just like them, but he isn't. He's better. He is going to prove it, and then he is going to kill them all.
2.
Tom's first year and second year go by. He is not a popular student. He does not have friends. He excels in Charms and Transfiguration. He makes his mother proud in Potions. And he performs poorly in Defense; it is never too early to plant seeds in people's minds. If he is to be underestimated, it is going to take steady, patient work. A Slytherin is expected to do well in Defense; a half-blood is expected to not be in Slytherin. People are already looking at him. He has to be careful of what they see.
He goes home for breaks and for the summer. His mother has told him stories of the Chamber of Secrets from the cradle, but now when he asks for the stories, he pays more attention to the details that the Gaunt family had accumulated over the years. His mother humors him in his requests; the story has always been one of his favorites. Tom should consider the Chamber the way the Gaunts had: as a legend, a mere story. It can't be real. It would have been found centuries ago. Enough of Slytherin's descendants have passed through Hogwarts's halls. It would have been found.
If no Gaunt has found it, the thinking goes, then it can't really exist. If no proper heir of Slytherin has walked Salazar's path, then it can't really exist.
Sheer pureblood arrogance. Tom will find it. Because he's determined. Because he will claim Slytherin's heritage for himself. Because no Gaunt has found it, but Tom's better than all of them and this is the perfect way to prove it.
It takes him until a frozen winter day in his third year to find the Chamber of Secrets. And after all that searching, it takes him only five minutes to open it. And Slytherin's monster welcomes him like nothing has at Hogwarts. It feels like he's home. This is where he belongs. This is what he was meant to do. This is where he was meant to be. Salazar Slytherin foresaw his true heir and crafted this Chamber for Tom alone. For Tom and his work. For Tom and his destiny.
Tom's destiny is not Slytherin's. He has stood in Slytherin's chamber and embraced Slytherin's name, but his is a greater cause. Tom is going to cleanse Slytherin's legacy of the rot that has grown up in it, strangling it from its true potential. He's going to show all those purebloods what a half-blood can do.
He is the heir of Slytherin and, like all heirs, he is going to improve on his ancestor's work.
3.
He kills Lestrange first.
It was hard to choose, but he had to pick someone and Lestrange had distinguished himself by being the most persistent. Lestrange had known Tom was powerful and had been trying to flatter him to learn his secrets, but only when no one was paying attention. Tom despises a toady, and worse than a toady is a coward, not willing to flatter in public. Lestrange was not the worst, but he had earned the distinction of being Tom's first.
And so Tom has the basilisk kill him.
There is an outcry, naturally. Hogwarts prefers when its students are killed during classes; extra-curricular death is so tedious. There isn't a mark on Lestrange, no spell damage or poison found in autopsy. There's nothing to indicate that it was murder. But Lestrange was a pureblood, so the investigation is long and thorough. Tom has one worried night when the rumor is everywhere that the Headmaster has brought in Aurors who specialize in the most unusual and obscure deaths. But the Aurors leave without incident and Tom breathes easily.
The Aurors return when Avery dies, when Nott dies, when Black dies.
It's a plague attacking Slytherins and only Slytherins. Tom is careful. There are purebloods in all of the other Houses, but he knows Slytherin the best. He knows which are the worst, who deserve to be targeted first. He knows how to get them alone in the best places for the basilisk to strike. He gets Avery in the Restricted Section during a free period on his first try. Nott's a seventh year who likes to go after Hufflepuff first years; it's remarkably easy to get him into an abandoned corridor. Black is harder, but Tom stalks him through the walls until Black takes refuge in Dumbledore's empty office.
Tom's getting reckless, he knows. The school being put under increased scrutiny is a blessing for him, really. He has to stop before he gets too careless. Taunting Dumbledore like that might be fun, but it's too dangerous. Dumbledore has never liked Tom, but why should he? Dumbledore's a pureblood and was an early follower of Grindelwald. He has no reason to ever be fond of someone like Tom: powerful, half-blood, Slytherin. Dumbledore's never liked any Slytherins. Tom shouldn't give Dumbledore an excuse to start looking too carefully at Slytherins. Tom can't let Dumbledore think that the Slytherins have started killing their own. He can't let this end yet. He's not done yet. But he has to slow down. He can't be caught.
But no one knows anything at all. No one knows Tom is the one behind it. No one knows it's murder and not terrible coincidence. No one has figured out anything about it at all.
There's no spell residue for anyone to find. The Ministry has exhausted the expertise of their best Aurors. St Mungo's has sent over healers to examine all the bodies. The student body is divided on if it's an untrackable spell no one has seen before or if it's simply a new mysterious deadly illness born in the Slytherin dungeons. Breeding basilisks has been banned for hundreds of years, there are no known parselmouths at Hogwarts, and no one has reported seeing snakes, but Tom keeps an ear open for any rumors that might point to a creature being at fault. But he hears nothing. He has told no one the Chamber is open. He has told no one he is the Heir. They have no reason to suspect a third-year half-blood. There is no reason for anyone to look at Tom at all.
But he is getting too careless. If he goes too quickly, someone will surely catch on. And so he tells the basilisk to be patient and that he will return.
And so the school year ends, with four dead Slytherins and no answers to show for any of it to the wizarding world.
4.
The Gaunts had never cared to claim Tom as one of their own; no one knows he is more Slytherin than most Slytherins. No one except Tom's mother, of course.
Merope Gaunt says, "Tom, I'm worried about you going back to Hogwarts next year. Beauxbatons would be much safer."
And that was something Tom hadn't considered. Short-sighted of him. If purebloods think being Slytherin is too dangerous, the sort of thing that could kill them, they might decide that survival is more important than maintaining tradition. They might decide to send their children elsewhere. And Tom has no reach beyond Hogwarts's walls. At least, not yet. He has no power base, he merely has a loyal monster. If his victims leave him, he has no way to reach them elsewhere. Yet.
He hadn't considered that. Maybe he was too eager. If he'd spaced the deaths out more, there might have been less of a fuss made. He should have thought of that. He'd gotten too far ahead of himself, he realizes. It had been satisfying to kill them. But it hadn't been strategic.
"I'm confident no one will die next year," Tom tells his mother. "I think the illness burned itself out."
His mother looks... Tom doesn't like how she's looking at him. Not like she's scared for him. Like she's scared of him. His mother knows, Tom realizes. His mother knows. But of course she does, he thinks proudly. His mother is the best of them all. "Promise me, Tom."
"I promise," Tom says, and he's never broken a promise to his mother. Not yet. And it won't be for this.
"Good," his mother says.
5.
Tom tries. Books start appearing on his shelf in the tiny dining room of their cottage. They're about politics. They're about manipulation. They're about tactics, and strategy, and victory. And all have been written by Slytherins. They tell him: it's not the Slytherin way to kill. It's too blunt. Slytherins find other ways of waging war. And Slytherins won't wage a war until they are certain they can win it.
And so Tom tries to find other ways of waging war.
He keeps his head down at school. No one dies in his fourth year, in his fifth year. Tom takes to visiting the Chamber with his schoolbooks and talking with the basilisk. It's good company. He can't tell his plans to the other Slytherins. They're wary of him now. He's not the only one who responded to the deaths by drawing into himself, but he's the only one who can cast advanced spells wordlessly. He's the only one who has drawn so far into himself, he's starting to scare his classmates.
It used to take more than this to scare Slytherins, Tom thinks contemptuously.
But his mother's lessons have stayed with him. He won't kill again at Hogwarts. Not unless it's necessary. Not until he's sure it won't be treated like the last time.
But he's attracting notice. Without intending to, he starts gaining a following. Not purebloods, he's too ordinary for them. But muggleborns and half-bloods want to follow the half-blooded Slytherin who hates purebloods. Tom doesn't trust them; anyone who chooses to follow could always choose to stop. They're not reliable. But they might prove useful, especially the giant. Tom examines their minds closely before allowing them close to him. He won't have anyone who'll go tattling back to Dippet and Dumbledore about what he's doing.
He's still not sure what he's doing. He's revising his plans carefully. He won't make the mistakes he made in his third year. He's older now. Wiser. He won't rush anything. He won't forget to expect others to react to his attacks. He has to out-maneuver them before they even know they're at war. If Tom's going to accomplish anything of note, he can't do it recklessly. He needs to be a pure Slytherin. Ambition, yes. But he's not a Gryffindor. He won't rush into this.
And he has to make sure that everything he does will stay.
Tom realizes, late in his seventh year, that he can't die. He is certain that he will succeed. But he isn't certain that his victory could out-last his death. Everything might go back to the way it was, back to a world where the purebloods stomp on everyone, back to a world that had thrown out his mother for loving a muggle, back to a world that thought Tom should never have been born.
And so Tom can't die. His life is too important. The work is too important. He's going to change the world. He's going to make his mark. And he can't do that if he's going to die someday and let Dumbledore and his ilk just remake the world again. It can't be allowed. He won't let it.
Carefully, deliberately, Tom Riddle starts researching horcruxes.
This entry was originally posted at https://lannamichaels.dreamwidth.org/1018211.html.