Chapter Text

July 31: Who Is Marvolo Gaunt?

Tom found it unexpectedly engrossing to trace the branching paths of Albion’s oldest magical families.

He had deliberately left this volume from Edmund’s shelves until last. There had always been more practical things to learn, and time spent upon idle curiosity was time poorly invested. He already knew the present generation of the old Pureblood houses, their names, their alliances, their grudges, and enough of the history between them to avoid making costly mistakes in Slytherin. Knowledge of the Founders’ descendents, or the ancient lines that had flourished beside them, had never been necessary for survival. It belonged instead to that peculiar class of learning pursued for its own sake, filling in the many gaps Professor Binns seemed determined to leave behind.

Following the descent of the Slytherins, however, proved less an exercise in history than in a slow-moving tragedy.

The line that eventually took the name of Gaunt was appalling.

Tom had thought the Blacks excessively insular, their family tree forever looping back upon itself through marriages between cousins. Yet even that seemed almost restrained beside the Gaunts. Brother to sister. Uncle to niece. Generation after generation.

He lingered over the pages, scarcely believing what he was reading.

How could the bloodline of one of Albion’s greatest wizards—the man credited with teaching Merlin himself—have dwindled into this? A family reduced to a tiny circle of increasingly isolated  descendants, each generation narrowing further than the last.

It was while contemplating whether magical inheritance somehow withstood inbreeding better than that of Muggles that his eye caught upon a familiar name.

Marvolo Gaunt.

Tom read it twice.

Marvolo.

The very name he himself bore.

His middle name had supposedly belonged to his grandfather, one of the last sentences his mother ever spoke.

Surely it could not be so uncommon.

The book itself was nearly sixty years old. There must have been another Marvolo somewhere in Albion or Britain. Someone who had not been born into a family tree that appeared determined to fold back in upon itself until became a single line. Some whose aunt had not also been his mother—or whose wife had not first been his sister.

The thought left a sourness in his stomach.

No.

Speculation was useless.

He forced himself to proceed as he always did: by separating the conjecture from the facts.

Fact one: he was born on the back steps of a muggle orphanage.

Fact two: he was named after his father, and given his grandfather’s name as a second.

Fact three: he could understand and speak to snakes, as Salazar Slytherin and his descendants supposedly could.

Taken together, the facts did not prove anything, but they did allow for him to synthesize a possibility.

He might, somehow, be related to Marvolo Gaunt.

It struck him then that, in his three years among the Slytherins, no one had ever spoken of the Gaunts. The Sacred Twenty-Eight were discussed often enough, but never them. Perhaps there had not been a Gaunt at Hogwarts for many years.

If the family truly had persisted in such relentless inbreeding, the consequences could hardly have been confined to illnesses alone. Even magical inheritance must have eventually yielded to such pressures.

He closed the book thoughtfully.

The Hogwarts library maintained records of former pupils. If there had been Gaunts at the school, he intended to find them.

August 2: Diagon Alley

The Hogwarts letters had arrived the previous morning for both Edmund and Tom, and now the five children sat together within the Mimph Frosks awaiting the arrival of the elusive Professor Kirke, who was to escort them to Diagon Alley.

From there, they were to meet the children belonging to Edmund’s study group and, more importantly, assist them and Tom in establishing a family vault at Gringotts.

“A single galleon’s enough to start one,” Peter had informed him earlier with a sharp, almost wolfish grin.

Apparently Peter intended to conduct the negotiations on everyone’s behalf.

The notion left Tom caught between indignation and outright alarm. Indignation that anyone should think him incapable of managing his own affairs—and alarm because Peter seemed not merely comfortable with goblins, but positively enthusiastic about negotiating with them.

Peter, disturbingly enough, appeared to regard Gringotts in much the same manner another boy might regard a Quidditch pitch.

At one point he had declared—with startling sincerity—that one day he intended to acquire goblin-forged blades for both himself and Edmund, “even if I’ve got to duel the bastards for them.”

The image that declaration produced was deeply unsettling. Peter and Edmund had both been kicked out of the fencing club for their ruthlessness. The prospect of placing some of the finest weaponry in Britain into their hands was enough to make him feel faintly ill.

Professor Kirke stepped lightly from the emerald flames, as though Floo travel were no more troublesome than stepping across a puddle.

His keen grey eyes swept the room before settling upon the little gathering waiting for him.

He wore a well-cut Muggle suit that had been fashionable perhaps twenty years earlier, with a wizard's robe, older still, thrown carelessly over it as though he had remembered only at the last moment that one was expected. His white hair had thinned with age and refused every attempt at discipline, though someone—perhaps Professor Kirke himself—had clearly tried to persuade it otherwise.

Lucy gave a delighted cry.

“Professor Kirke!”

She flung herself at him with such enthusiasm that the elderly wizard rocked backwards a pace before laughing heartily and embracing her in return.

“My dear Lucy! Wonderful to see you again.”

Tom caught himself on the verge of smiling, knowing what it was like to be on the other side of Lucy’s enthusiasm.

Peter shook the old man’s hand with obvious affection, Edmund scarcely less warmly, whilst Susan received an old-fashioned kiss on the back of her hand, which made her laugh aloud.

“And this,” Professor Kirke said, turning bright eyes upon Tom, “must be young Mr Riddle.”

Something eased within Tom.

The Pevensies trusted this man completely, and that mattered.

He realised, to his surprise, that their judgement carried weight with him now. It did not banish his caution—nothing could do that—but it placed Professor Kirke immeasurably above Professor Dumbledore before a single word had passed between them. 

Professor Kirke had a firm handshake, his skin warm and dry.

Then their eyes met, and something deep within Tom shifted, as if he’d been swept up into a current.

Professor Kirke frowned only briefly, before something questioning flickered over the old man’s face before it vanished behind a pleasant smile.

“Shall we, then?”

☩ 𓆙 ☩

By the time Edmund's friends had joined them, Diagon Alley had become noticeably crowded.

Yet something about it differed from the previous summer.

The number of witches and wizards seemed much the same, but the atmosphere had altered. Conversation carried more quietly. Heads turned more often. People watched one another with the cautious attention of strangers sharing uncertain news.

Tom noticed groups of young witches and wizards stationed throughout the alley.

They wore black travelling cloaks embroidered over the breast with a bind-rune formed from Tiwaz and Othala. Rather than moving through the crowds, they remained at key corners and crossroads, cheerfully distributing pamphlets whilst directing interested passers-by towards Gringotts.

Professor Kirke altered their course more than once, leading the children just beyond easy speaking distance of each group.

Tom filed the behaviour away without comment.

Whatever was happening, Professor Kirke preferred not to involve them in it.

The reason became apparent as Gringotts came into view.

A hundred people, perhaps more, had gathered before the great white façade. They stood reading pamphlets, talking amongst themselves, waiting.

Some twenty feet from the entrance a temporary platform had been erected, and several black-cloaked stewards surrounded it.

Scattered throughout the crowd stood men and women dressed quite differently from the modern styles.

Their robes followed traditional fashions—deep blue, pleated across the front and fastened with ornate brooches bearing the same bind-rune. Some garments were plainly woven from costly cloth, others from coarse homespun, yet the style united them all.

Professor Kirke's expression tightened.

There would be no reaching Gringotts without passing directly through the assembly.

Tom finally managed to glimpse the front of one of the pamphlets as they edged through the gathering. Edmund and his friends linked hands to keep from becoming separated.

Tom himself had little difficulty keeping sight of Professor Kirke.

It was not losing him that caused Tom to stop, it was the woman mounting the platform, handsome in a way entirely unlike Susan.

Dark brown hair had been gathered into an elaborate arrangement Tom recognised from girls of traditional Anglo-Saxon families at Hogwarts. Her complexion carried the pale olive tones of Roman Britain, whilst her long nose looked as though it had been broken at least once before healing imperfectly. Her features were severe without being harsh, thoughtful rather than cold.

She stood nearly six feet tall.

Her cloak, fashioned in the same traditional style as those worn throughout the crowd, was dyed a deep, commanding crimson.

At her hip rested a sword.

She surveyed the square once, unhurriedly, simply making certain she possessed it.

Then she began to speak.

☩ 𓆙 ☩

“My name is Clara Valeria Cornelius Osric, and I lead the Party for Magical Renewal.”

She paused, letting the weight of her name settle on the crowd. Tom recognised parts of it, the Valerii and Cornelii, heard in passing from those Slytherins with family on the Wizengamot. The Romano-British attended their own schools rather than Hogwarts. 

But Osric—

That was Anglo-Saxon.

It was a purposeful combination, adding to her heritage instead of denouncing it entirely.

She had woven them together, allowing the name itself to become an argument before she had spoken a single political idea.

“I stand before you because our society has tolerated the secrecy of the guilds for far too long. They hoard knowledge instead of advancing it. They lock away recipes, enchantments, and magical formulae, not for safety, nor for wisdom, but to preserve monopoly.

She neither shouted nor harangued, voice remaining entirely calm and measured.

She spoke to the crowd as though they were intelligent enough to follow her wherever she chose to lead.

And they did.

Tom had scarcely realised he had stopped walking, watching the crowd as much as the woman herself.

Every eye remained fixed upon her. Every pause belonged to her, the square breathing when she breathed.

He wanted that.

For the effortless certainty with which she occupied the attention of hundreds of strangers. For the quiet authority that needed no raised voice because it had already convinced the room it ought to be heard. The crowd was buzzing with energy, like a frenzy could break out at any moment, yet she kept them in their place with every well-placed phrase.

Warm fingers rested lightly upon his shoulder, and the spell broke at once.

Professor Kirke stood beside him, entirely untouched by the fervour gathering around the platform. His presence was so calm that it felt almost like stepping into the Black Lake after standing too long in the sun.

"It'll be your turn with the goblins in a moment," he said.

Tom looked back towards Clara Osric.

The force of her presence had faded.

She seemed farther away now, as the sun from the bottom of a lake.

Professor Kirke followed his gaze.

"If you'd like to understand what she's speaking about," he said quietly, "I'd be happy to tell you a little about the Arithmancy Guild."

Tom met the old man's eyes.

"I think," he said, "I'd like that."