Wiltshire, England
(Tom Riddle)
Gilderoy Lockhart Is Awarded the Order of Merlin, First Class!
I stared at the front page of the Daily Prophet, my fingers slowly curling until the paper crumpled beneath my grip.
That infuriating, preening peacock.
Lockhart… awarded an Order of Merlin… for killing my basilisk.
For a moment, pure, blinding fury swallowed every logical thought. If not for that pompous idiot and that accursed sword, my plans would have unfolded perfectly. Dumbledore would have been disgraced, the half-giant would have taken the blame, and I would have returned to this world in full power, with my pet still at my side.
The basilisk had been flawless. An ancient, obedient, utterly lethal weapon… wasted.
Instead, I was forced to skulk within the walls of Malfoy Manor, a guest in name and a parasite in truth, buried in their library as I rebuilt what my younger self had so foolishly scattered.
I should never have created my first Horcrux so young.
Ignorance had betrayed me. I had not understood, back then, that the first Horcrux was the most crucial, the one containing the largest fragment of my soul, the only one capable of restoring itself to life on its own. But its flaw was just as disastrous: it held only the knowledge I possessed at the time of its creation.
Seventeen. Brilliant, yes… but still incomplete.
That was the Tom Riddle who now walked this world again; limited, stranded, forced to rely on others because my true knowledge, my true power, had been split and scattered.
After escaping Hogwarts, I had sought out a wizard in Knockturn Alley. A weak, desperate, and easily disposable fool. I drained his life with ease and reclaimed my complete physical form.
It was pathetically easy.
My fingers absently twirled the wand I now carried. The moment it stilled, I examined it with revulsion.
A fourth-rate substitute. Unworthy of my hand and barely compatible with my magic.
Where was my wand now? I wondered momentarily… Perhaps the Nargles had taken it.
The very thought made my lip curl in disgust.
Nargles don't exist, I reminded myself sharply. That infuriating little girl had planted far too many useless notions into my mind during the short time the diary had remained in her possession. In hindsight, allowing my diary to stay with Luna was nearly as great a mistake as creating it in the first place. It was sheer luck that I had manipulated events well enough for the Weasley girl to recover it.
Another few days with that girl and I might truly have begun to question reality itself.
I rose from the chair, allowing the newspaper to drop to the floor. With a flick of my wand, it went up in smoke.
Now I had a greater problem.
Malfoy was beginning to doubt me. I had used the Dark Mark upon his arm to convince him of my power, yes, but Lucius Malfoy was a slippery, ambitious, and self-serving bastard. The moment he realized my weakness, he would turn on me without hesitation if it meant improving his own position.
I did not intend to let that happen.
And then there was Dumbledore.
The old man was no fool. Even now, I was certain he was searching for my trace, using every scrap of magic at his disposal. England… was no longer safe.
So where, then, could I go?
I required knowledge, experience, and magic. Power that could help me recover my subordinates and keep them in line.
But thanks to my own youthful arrogance, all of it was now beyond my immediate reach.
My jaw tightened, I blamed the Wrackspurts, they must have been messing with my head all those years back.
I would fix this… as I had fixed every other setback.
The world had not yet seen the true Lord Voldemort return, but when it did, it would beg to be spared.
…
June 19, 1993, Saturday
(Gilderoy Lockhart)
Today was departure day.
I stood at one of the tall arched windows, staff resting lightly against the stone floor as I watched the students trickle down the castle steps, trunks bumping along behind them, owls fluttering in noisy little flurries overhead. A few of them glanced back, whether in farewell to Hogwarts, or to me, I chose to believe it was debatable at best.
This would be my last view of the castle for some time.
While they returned to their families and familiar lives, I was beginning an entirely new chapter of my own. For the foreseeable future, I would be residing in Devon, in a modest and remarkably well-warded cottage belonging to Nicolas Flamel. Dumbledore and Grindelwald had agreed that my studies with them would have to be postponed. Nicolas' time was limited, and whatever knowledge he intended to pass on to me needed to be done soon, before time claimed him altogether.
A surprisingly sobering thought.
Speaking of Grindelwald…
That little complication had already been dealt with. Far more easily than I'd expected, in truth.
For several days, he had slowly "declined" in the eyes of his guards; weaker, paler, breathing ragged. The perfect illusion of a dying old man. Meanwhile, Dumbledore had quietly arranged for a terminally ill wizard to be transferred into Nurmengard under heavy secrecy; he was more than willing to accept an obscene sum of gold that would be delivered to his family in exchange for his cooperation. A body in exchange for security.
The old Barty method proved useful again.
But Polyjuice alone had been impossible, Nurmengard was saturated with guards, alarms, and ancient detection wards woven into the stones themselves. Grindelwald couldn't simply walk out wearing another man's face. No… he was wrapped in far too many magical chains for that.
Instead, we used an enchanted suitcase, not unlike Scamander's, though far more aggressively modified, layered with concealment charms, muffling enchantments, spatial distortions, and protective wards stacked upon wards upon even more wards. The kind of thing that made my head throb just thinking about how many hours it must have taken to create.
Grindelwald was hidden inside it. The dying man, masked as Grindelwald through Polyjuice, was left in the cell.
When the time came, the alarms never sounded, and the guards never suspected. All they saw was the infamous Gellert Grindelwald finally, quietly, mercifully dying in his self-made prison.
And just like that… history ended.
Of course, once he was safely transported away, we had to dismantle the enchantments placed on his body slowly and carefully, bit by bit, so as not to send a magical flare across half of Europe. Even now, he was still living inside the suitcase as the last few enchantments were being removed.
A man capable of shaking the world, folded into a suitcase like contraband. And I had helped set him free.
My grip tightened slightly on my cane as a group of younger students passed through the gates laughing, entirely unaware of what had been done, or what kind of world they were stepping back into.
Then again… neither was I, fully.
But I had never been one to fear the future.
…