Begin said by Merrythought
Bellatrix struck first.
"Expelliarmus!"
The spell cracked the air like lightning. Sirius spun sideways, barely avoiding it, and fired back.
"Stupefy!"
Gasps rippled across the hall.
Merrythought's wand twitched. "Black!"
"Sorry, reflex," Sirius called — but he wasn't sorry.
Bellatrix laughed darkly.
"Try harder, little lion. I thought Gryffindors were brave — not sloppy."
They circled each other like wolves.
"You know what they say," Sirius muttered. "The mad ones always come from our side of the tree."
Bellatrix didn't answer.
She fired three spells in rapid succession. One clipped Sirius's sleeve. Another cracked the platform where he'd been standing.
Sirius narrowed his eyes. Now he was serious.
"Expelliarmus!"
Bellatrix blocked.
"Flipendo!"
He stumbled back — just enough for her to raise her wand, whisper something dark and ancient—
Merrythought's wand flared with a silver burst of light.
"Enough!"
The platform lit up in a silencing field. Both duellists froze mid-motion.
"That's twice," Merrythought said coldly, glaring at them both. "One more step out of line, and you'll duel me instead."
Sirius lowered his wand slowly, breathing harder now.
Bellatrix smiled — not out of joy. Out of promise.
"Family, huh?" she said as she stepped off the platform. "Some things rot from the inside."
Sirius said nothing.
But his hands didn't stop shaking until he reached his bench.
Bellatrix returned to the Slytherin bench, smiling coldly — like she'd won something bigger than a match.
Professor Merrythought stood in the center of the platform, arms crossed.
She didn't raise her voice.
She didn't need to.
"Enough."
The entire hall went still.
"This was meant to be a learning exercise. But clearly, some of you have mistaken it for a battlefield."
Her eyes scanned the room — pausing on Sirius, then Bellatrix, then Tom Riddle, who still sat as still as a statue.
"There will be no more duels today."
A groan rose from the benches. Frank Longbottom just sat back quietly, accepting it.
Murmurs of protest rose immediately.
"But I haven't gone yet—"
"My name was next—"
Even Lucius Malfoy sat straighter in irritation. Severus Snape snapped his notebook closed with a sharp crack. Lily Evans exhaled in frustration — she'd been quietly excited to show what she could do.
Tom Riddle didn't speak.
He simply sat. Watching. Burning silently.
He had lost to James Potter. That was fact.
But he had wanted another chance — against anyone. He had planned for a rematch eventually.
And now it was gone.
"I gave you all a chance," Merrythought said, voice firm but cold. "Two duels in — and one of them nearly turned into a blood feud."
Her eyes flicked between Sirius and Bellatrix.
"Dueling Club will resume next week. And if anything like that happens again — it won't be wands that get taken away. It will be house points. And freedom."
Then she swept her robes and turned.
"Dismissed."
They all began to leave one at a time — shuffling out of the Defense classroom in pairs and clusters, voices still buzzing with theories and mockery.
James led the charge, tossing a final smug look over his shoulder. Sirius followed, grinning, while Peter trailed behind them trying to keep up.
Even a few Slytherins gave Tom sidelong glances as they passed.
He stayed back, as usual. Slower. More deliberate.
Then, just as he stepped into the corridor—
A hand grabbed his sleeve.
"Come with me," Lily said quietly.
Before he could reply, she tugged him toward a side passage — away from the press of students and the echo of careless laughter.
They slipped between two high stone arches and into a rarely used hallway just off the main corridor. It was quiet there, lit only by a floating candle near a tapestry of a three-headed lion.
Tom turned to her, his voice low. "What is it?"
Lily glanced down the hall, then looked at him directly.
"I found something."
His posture stiffened, just slightly. "Related to—"
She nodded. "The thing you asked me about. I think I know where we can start."
Tom studied her for a second — not with doubt, but with quiet intensity. As though he were reading a rune that only half-made sense.
"And you waited out here to tell me that?"
"I didn't want to say it in front of everyone. You've had enough stares for one day."
He looked past her, briefly, toward the now-empty corridor.
"People always stare. Doesn't mean they see anything."
Lily tilted her head slightly. "Maybe. But I figured you'd want to know this in private."
A beat of silence passed between them.
Then she said, "Meet me in the library after dinner. I'll show you."
Tom didn't answer immediately.
Then he nodded once.
"I'll be there."
Lily didn't smile. She just stepped back, gave him a slight nod of understanding — and disappeared into the shadows of the corridor.
Tom stood there for a few seconds longer, alone now — but no longer entirely in the dark.
The Great Hall was alive with the clatter of forks, the rustle of robes, and the familiar hum of floating candles overhead. Golden light danced across the four long house tables.
It was dinnertime.
Tom sat near the end of the Slytherin table, as usual — quiet, listening.
Across the room, fellow Gryffindor has surrounded Lily, but her plate remained untouched. She glanced up, once.
Tom looked back at the exact same moment.
The gaze was brief.
But thick.
Unspoken. Precise. Message sent.
It was more than a look — it was a confirmation.
And Lucius Malfoy, sitting beside Tom, happened to glance up at just the wrong time.
He blinked.
Looked at Lily.
Then at Tom.
Then at Lily again.
And with all the grace and smugness of a boy who had never once minded his business, Lucius leaned slightly toward Tom and whispered from the corner of his mouth:
"If you're going to start having inter-house eye conversations, could you at least warn me first? I nearly swallowed my goblet."
Tom didn't even blink.
"Try chewing next time."
Lucius raised a brow, half-smiling.
"Touché."
He turned back to his meal with a small huff and an exaggerated sip from his goblet, muttering something under his breath about "Gryffindor softness infecting the air."
Tom didn't say anything else.
But as he stood from the table, leaving before dessert, Lily was already doing the same.
Both of them walked out of the hall and made their way to the library simultaneously, without being observed.
No one called after them.
No one noticed the perfect timing.
The crowded hall kept buzzing behind them — laughter, cutlery, stories, house rivalries — but they slipped out like shadows through the side entrance, one moving from gold, the other from green.
Two steps apart.
Headed in the same direction.
And neither one looked back.
The library was nearly silent.
Rows of tall shelves stood like sentinels in the soft candlelight, casting long shadows across the floor. The smell of aged parchment and binding glue hung in the air — thick and timeless.
A quill scratched faintly behind the main desk.
Madam Pince, the castle librarian, sat perched like a hawk over a stack of overdue returns. Her beady eyes flicked toward the doors the moment they creaked open — but she said nothing.
Tom entered first. Lily followed.
Neither spoke.
They walked with measured steps down the center aisle, their shoes making only the faintest sound against the stone floor. They passed under arched beams, past floating candles and chained tomes that pulsed faintly with magic behind glass.
In the far corner, beneath a high window dusted in moonlight, Lily stopped beside a table already set with two books she'd hidden earlier beneath a folded map of magical surnames.
Tom slid into the seat opposite her without a word.
Madam Pince coughed once — loud enough to be a warning — then bent again over her quill.
For now, they had privacy.
And the room felt like a sealed vault, where only truth and ink mattered.
Tom glanced at the cover of the book nearest to him.
It was thick, bound in worn dragonhide, with no title on the front — only a faded symbol, half-erased by time. A curling rune, shaped like a broken ring.
He ran a finger over it.
"Where did you find this?"
Lily leaned forward slightly, her voice just above a whisper.
"Technically, I wasn't supposed to."
Tom raised an eyebrow, but didn't interrupt.
"There's a shelf in the back," she said, "behind the seventh column on the east wall. Madam Pince uses it to sort books she's not finished cataloguing. Not officially restricted — but not exactly available."
She looked at him evenly.
"It was buried under a stack of curse theory manuals. Dusty, half-forgotten... but the name was in the index."
Tom's eyes sharpened. "The name?"
She nodded.
"The one you're looking for."
Tom sat still, letting the weight of it settle.
"You knew I'd come."
Lily gave the smallest shrug.
"You would've done the same."
For a moment, there was no sound but the crackle of candlelight and the soft rustle of parchment.
Tom opened the book carefully.
The pages were stiff, browned at the edges. But the ink was sharp. Sharp enough to slice.
"The House of Gaunt — descended from Salazar Slytherin — was once regarded as a sacred line. But the centuries warped them. What began as pride in their lineage turned into poisonous obsession."
"Their bloodline was kept 'pure' through generations of inbreeding. This led to madness in nearly every branch of the family — whispered voices, cursed tempers, erratic spells, and deep paranoia. They trusted no one, not even each other."
"The Gaunts were feared not only for their ancestry but for their affinity for Dark Magic. They could speak Parseltongue — the language of serpents — and were said to be able to command creatures ordinary wizards could not even name."
"Their signature trait was unmistakable: striking, vivid green eyes. Described by Aurors and survivors alike as 'venom in glass.' In the dark, they seemed to glow — a color too bright to be natural, too sharp to be safe."
"It is said they were born with shadows instead of souls."
"Their home — a rotting shack deep in Little Hangleton — became a place of legend. No one who entered without permission left unchanged. A Ministry raid in the early 1900s recovered cursed items, unstable relics, and a journal filled with a list of 'the impure to be erased.'"
"Their purpose, once noble, became vile. The Gaunts believed it was their divine right to 'purify' the wizarding world. They targeted Muggle-borns, half-bloods, and even purebloods who intermarried with Muggles. Their goal was not dominance. It was extinction."
"The line collapsed upon itself. One vanished entirely — a daughter, unnamed in records. Some say she fled. Others say she was destroyed from within. Either way, she took the last thread of that line with her."
"Yet... no record has ever confirmed the death of the last Gaunt by blood."
"And the green-eyed curse... may yet survive."
Tom closed the book.
The candle beside him flickered.
For a moment, he didn't move. His fingers remained lightly pressed to the cover, as if the pages were still speaking — even in silence.
Lily waited, watching him carefully from across the table.
He hadn't said a word since reading the last line.
He looked distant. Not frightened. Not angry. Just... caught between thoughts.
"Tom?" she asked softly.
He didn't answer.
His brow furrowed — not with rage, but with something harder to name.
Then, slowly, he turned the book over.
And there it was.
A faint mark, almost invisible unless the candlelight hit it just right — burned into the leather at the back of the book. Circular. Spiraled like a snake eating its own tail. Within the circle, a symbol that almost looked like a letter... but older. Twisted. Wrong.
Tom stared at it.
His hand hovered above the mark — not touching, just hovering.
And then—
His eyes changed.
Just for a moment.
A pulse of green lit in his pupils. Bright. Unnatural. Almost reflective, like emeralds catching fire.
Lily's breath caught.
"Tom...?"
He blinked.
The light faded.
He looked up at her, startled — not by her voice, but by what had just happened.
"Did you see—"
"Yes," she said quickly. "Your eyes—they glowed."
He said nothing.
But Lily saw it — the brief flash of wonder, the curl of something ancient and dangerous behind his expression.
Not fear. Not even excitement.
Just... recognition.
As if something had looked back at him from the book.
He placed his hand over the mark.
But this time, it didn't glow.
Only his fingers remained still, pressing into the shape like he was trying to remember it forever.
Lily's voice cut gently through the silence.
"Tom... are you okay?"
Tom didn't answer.
His fingers were still resting on the strange mark burned into the back of the book. The green in his eyes had faded, but something behind them remained alight — like a lantern in fog.
He finally looked up.
"I don't know."
Far from Hogwarts, past fields that had long turned to frost and valleys erased from maps, lay a forgotten stretch of land known only to those who whispered in Parseltongue.
The Hollow of Wyrms.
A cursed graveyard sunken into a ravine of black rock and thorn root. Headstones leaned like broken teeth. A stone mausoleum jutted from the earth like a wound. Fog clung to everything like old skin.
Inside, cloaked figures stood in absolute stillness.
Until one... stirred.
His breath caught.
A second man's eyes flicked open, pale and glassy.
The tallest among them stepped forward. Slowly. Like a shadow remembering how to move. He pulled down his hood.
The torchlight hit a face warped by a jagged scar — one that split through his brow, down his cheek, and across the top of his lip. Like someone had carved a symbol there... and it never healed.
He raised his head — eyes turning toward the north.
Toward Hogwarts.
Toward him.
"He touched it," the scarred man said. "The mark. It's awakened."
No one replied. But they all felt it — a low hum in the stone beneath their boots, like a drumbeat buried under the earth.
"After all these years..."
His voice cracked slightly, from age or awe.
Then it steadied. "Our legacy is alive."
A gust of cold air swirled around the chamber. The blue fire trembled in its sconces.
"He bears the blood," the man continued. "The gift. The sign."
His eyes burned with something older than madness.
"The heir walks again."
Then, a final whisper escaped his lips, almost reverent:
"Gaunts... our time is near."
NESSGEEORIGINAL