Chapter Text
Prologue
There were moments when Harry wondered if perhaps a quiet school year was simply too much to ask for. Considering the school year hadn’t even started, and already he’d been ambushed by a strange creature calling itself Dobby the House-Elf, then made his escape from Privet Drive via flying Ford Anglia, perhaps several weeks at the chaotic whirlwind that was the Burrow were all he should have dared to hope for. At least the Burrow had Ron and Quidditch and three (heaping) meals a day — meals that Harry both didn’t have to make and actually got to eat, at the table even.
He reflected on the likely impossibility of his wishes as he stood next to Ginny. Watching Mr. Malfoy and Mr. Weasley get into a fistfight in the middle of Flourish and Blotts, he felt as though this must be a cosmic sign of what was to come that school year.
His instincts, honed from years of surviving the Dursleys, told him to watch Mr. Malfoy. Harry’s eyes followed him as though he were a glittering Snitch, even after Hagrid effortlessly separated the two men with his overwhelmingly large hands.
As Mr. Malfoy broke free of Hagrid’s tight grip, he thrust the battered copy of A Beginner’s Guide to Transfiguration toward Ginny, who froze at the sudden attention. Harry instinctively surged forward, reaching out and snatching the battered book from Malfoy’s hands before he could think better of it.
As the Malfoys exited Flourish and Blotts, Harry eyed the sea of spilled books and turned to face the still-frozen Ginny.
“Let’s get this mess sorted and get out of here, yeah?” he tried, hoping for casual and missing by a mile.
Ginny ducked her head, looking as though she hoped at that moment the ground would open up and swallow her whole, and frantically nodded.
Harry carefully picked his way to the farthest end of the avalanche of books and leaned down to start collecting Ginny’s fallen second-hand texts.
His attention was quickly drawn away from the whirlwind of parchment as a thin, leather-bound black book slipped free of the copy of A Beginner’s Guide to Transfiguration still clutched in his arms. It landed with a soft thump on the polished wood floor.
Curiosity piqued, he set down the textbook and moved to pick up the mysterious black tome. A pulse of bright static ran up his arm as soon as his fingertips grazed the well-worn surface. The feeling was quickly dismissed as, upon opening the front cover, he found Property of T. M. Riddle etched in faded, neat handwriting. Quickly thumbing through the thick pages, he was disappointed to find nothing but blank parchment. Closing it, Harry tucked it into his bag without a second thought.
With the black book out of sight, he paused to consider whether he should return it to Ginny. Remembering the look on Lucius Malfoy’s face—and the empty corners of the Weasley vault—Harry decided she wouldn’t be interested in receiving yet another second-hand book. Peering behind a towering stand of The Essential Defence Against the Dark Arts and finding the Weasleys and Hermione suitably distracted, he put his hard-won Harry-hunting skills to use and crept over to the counter with a new leather-bound journal in Hogwarts colours and new copies of the same books he’d bought from first year to “return” to Ginny. It certainly wouldn’t make a dent in his Merlin-knows-how-large inheritance.
Hastily gathering the remaining texts into neat piles for the shop attendant, Harry brought everything to Ginny’s overturned cauldron. He made sure A Beginner’s Guide to Transfiguration was placed firmly on top to hide the glossy new covers, then followed behind the Weasleys and Hagrid as they made their way out of Flourish and Blotts.
Feeling satisfied and slightly less guilty over his inherited wealth, he couldn’t help the wandering thought: who exactly had been T. M. Riddle?