The Secret of Riddles

Chapter 3: Memory

I hate my family. 'Tis an easy way to put it, is it not? I've grown up with my demented brother and his twisted views on worth and self-greed that I myself had been a once evil being. Yet I am still that evil being, still a monster, still that orphaned girl who inflicted pain for entertainment. That is still I. I hate that fact, how I was not able to control myself. Though I can now.

The boy, if you can still call him such, has been safe for years. Why can I not leave him simply be then? Am I trying to kill myself from the pain of memories? Is this a way to provoke my own self-destruction? The answer is a simple yes.

It has been almost thirty-eight years that I had looked after him. Thirty-eight long and painful years. Nor had one year been uninteresting. Always some accident had happened, especially after he found out what he was. Even then, when I had to be sneaky about how close I got when in a crowd or how many people I bumped into, he still had no idea that I had been following him for years. No idea who I was. No idea that I was the one who had helped he and his friends.

That was the way I liked it, unattached and painful. Good for him and bad for me. I saw watching him as a sort of penance.

My flow of thoughts stopped and I took in the view of the lovely street he now lived. Beautiful to the last flower. Everything alive with color. Amazingly perfect. Something that had not been seen twenty-one years ago.

At first I didn't recognize the anger, I didn't even feel it register. I had no idea I was angry until I felt my eyes burn and I knew at once what was happening. I blinked my eyes carefully and pressed my palms into them.

Images that haunted my dreams came to my eyes. All the anger in myself focused solely on my eyes, burning them from the inside out. I couldn't open them now.

I took deep breaths and counted to ten. That infernal counting method had never worked; it was a habit of thinking about something else. I thought of anything happy, any happy memory, my own special patronus for anger. I felt like I was fighting dementors. It felt that way.

That hopeless pit of despair they make you feel, of course I felt that everyday. Stop thinking of that! My mind screamed. Happy, happy.

My memory sent me back to the smell of green grass and salt water. When I opened my eyes I was no longer in the happy suburb. The lake surface was sparkling in the sunshine and it almost looked like diamonds were encrusted into the surface.

The sound of laughter pierced my ears and my head snapped to the noise.

A group of six was walking this way and I instantly recognized the short dark hair and blue eyes, the eyes that stared at me from a mirror every day. I automatically ran my fingers through the length of my hair, running down to my lower back.

I studied the girl more and smiled when I noticed her looking at her pixie cut evilly as they reached the water's edge. Staring at the reflection. I had hated that haircut, though I had not picked it out; that had been a prank.

She looked back at her group of friends and smiled sadly, a knowing smile.

"Come on!" a boy with untidy black hair called, his arms around the beautiful redhead next to him. The girl's green eyes finding the blue and she jerked her head for her to join them.

The younger me rolled her eyes and began walking over, plopping down on the grass next to her best friend.

She was smiling, and I knew she was thinking how perfect it all was. That thought made me frown and I was pulled back to the present, angry with myself for letting the memory carry too far.

~

Harry leaned across the counter, trying to snatch Ginny's hand as she pranced about the kitchen, readying their first supper alone since James was born. Ginny giggled as he, once again, missed her arm.

"You are impossible," she said as he practically leaped across the surface in an attempt to grab her waist.

"No, you are just evil," Harry replied running a hand through his hair.

Ginny raised an eyebrow. "Oh really?" she asked. "How pray tell am I evil?"

"You are walking around in one of my old shirts and pajama bottoms. Tell me that is not evil," Harry said surveying her. The shirt had to be over twenty years old, he remembered wearing it at Hogwarts. The bottoms hung loose on her waist and completely covered her feet.

"I can't be comfortable?" she asked walking over to him and wrapping her arms around his neck. After twenty odd years Ginny still looked in her early twenties, when she was actually thirty-seven. Harry glared at her, wrapping his arms around her waist.

"You know, Mrs. Potter, for having had three children you are as thin as ever," Harry said, making Ginny smile.

"Well, Mr. Potter, you look far too young to be a Father of three untiring children," she replied.

Harry laughed at her as she smiled sweetly at him. Just then his vision became hazed and he wasn't in his house anymore.

He was in the Headmaster's office when Dumbledore was still alive, he could see that because Faux was there on his perch and Snape was sitting in a chair opposite the old man.

"I can't believe I am doing this," Snape was saying when a dark figure emerged from nowhere.

"I can't believe you're here," came a girl's voice. The figure lowered her hood to reveal the same girl from Harry's nightmare.

Snape looked shocked, as if he had seen a ghost. "How... what..."

The girl smiled and walked towards the other two. "Professor," she addressed Dumbledore, who nodded. Then she turned her head towards Snape. "Severus."

Snape nodded, obviously shaken by her appearance, though Harry wondered why, the girl looked no older than sixteen.

"I never thought a follower of the Dark Lord would be found willingly in this office," she said. "Of course certain things of changed and you have only confirmed what Dumbledore and I already knew." Her eyes flashed red for a second.

Snape cowered under her glare, probably reminded of a certain other's red irises. "Confirmed?" he questioned.

"That's right, Sev," the girl said, using a nickname Harry had only heard his Mother call him.

"H-how?" he asked looking at Dumbledore.

"Alexis has her ways, that and she knows Tom better than anyone would expect," he replied looking at the girl, Alexis, smiling. "It is fortunate that she chose not to follow him. She has a great insight to his decisions."

Snape looked at Alexis questioningly. "How would you know who he would choose her son?" he asked.

Alexis gave an evil grin. "Tommy never was subtle. He would never choose a pureblood, though he thinks that only they are worth his time. He always relied on half-bloods, and think of it like this- he himself is a half-blood, much like you and I."

"The Dark Lord is a - hold on," Snape said. "You said like you."

"That's correct, Sev. I am also a half-blood, contrary to what people are told of me. You yourself were told I was a muggleborn," Alexis said with a smile that almost perfectly mirrored one that Harry had seen on Voldemort's face years before.

Snape flinched at the smile, probably remembering his master's.

"What was that for?" she asked, the smile turning into a frown. "Did I do or say something wrong?"

"That smile," Snape said with a sneer.

Alexis raised an eyebrow at him. "What about it?"

Dumbledore gave them a wry smile before answering her question. "I believe that you remind Severus of a certain master of his when you do that. Actually you probably remind him of his master, or old master, just by the way you talk and look."

Alexis sighed in irritation. Her eyes growing from anger, flashing a slight crimson again. "I am so sorry that I cannot control my expressions, if I am bothering Severus," she spat his name, "Then maybe I should just dismiss myself from his presence."

Dumbledore looked at her over his half-moon spectacles. "I do not think that is necessary, Alexis. Though acting like him we could probably do without."

"What do you mean, acting like him?" she asked, sounding scarily like Voldemort, her face contorting like his even.

Dumbledore's eyes flashed a warning at her and she averted her eyes to the floor, disgrace rolling off her in tangible waves. "I-I am sorry."

Snape looked confused to the maximum degree, probably trying to figure out what was going on.

"I think we are confusing, Severus," Dumbledore said looking at Alexis, who raised her head slightly.

"I can believe that, it is rather confusing, he must be wondering how I know so much and why I look so young," she replied with a smile that was anything but happy.

Harry took a step towards the girl. Studying her facial features, the dark almost black hair, the blue eyes that were probing to the last degree, the slightly bent nose that mirrored a woman's he had only seen in a memory, if anything she was a walking female miniature of the once human Tom Riddle. The only differences were the nose and gentle eyes that Tom Riddle had always lacked. Looking her over once more he found that her hair was course and lankier, yet still beautifully stunning, her face was fuller and she had a tiny stature. Yet the eyes never ceased to amaze him. It was as if she shared Voldemort's make-up with a few more human essentials, but the eyes were the exact same as Tom's younger self.

Harry reached out to touch her just as the memory froze and Alexis' eyes found him, hardening slightly. "You shouldn't be here, Harry."

~

Harry felt a gentle hand brush across his face, cooling down his overheated skin. He could hear a buzz of voices in the background and could barely make out what they were saying.

"He looks peaky."

"Always stating the obvious, Ron."

"Shut-up, George."

"Boys, stop your quarrelling."

"Listen to your Mother now."

"Mum, could you get me a wet cloth?"

"Yes, Ginny, one second."

"Is he going to be alright, Mum?"

"Harry will be just fine, Teddy," answered a voice as something wet touched his forehead.

"It's third year against Hufflepuff all over again," came a voice Harry picked out to be Ron's.

"Oh shut-up, Ron," Hermione's voice came.

"Yes, dah-ling, don't be such an ass," George said.

There was a thud, followed by a - What was that for?

"For teasing your brother," Mrs. Weasley's voice came.

"Even when I'm passed out the family is still entertaining," Harry said opening his eyes to see Ginny.

The room laughed in response.

"Well someone looks well enough to joke," George said smiling.

"I had to take a leaf from your book," Harry replied sitting up. "You lost your ear and I'll never forget your holey joke."

George laughed in response, remembering a night that had long been forgotten.

"Yes, well," Ginny began. "Now that you men are done joking around I would like to speak to my husband in private." Ginny glared at them all over her shoulder then telling a distraught Teddy, "I'll call you back in after."

When they had all left Ginny sighed and looked at Harry carefully. "I was worried you know."

"I'm sorry," he replied, though even he wasn't sure what had occurred.

"One moment we're talking and laughing and then next you freeze up and collapse," Ginny continued, tears welling up in her eyes. "Teddy found out and started panicking, saying things like 'I won't lose another Father' it was so distressing."

Harry pulled Ginny into his chest and hugged her tightly, her tears staining the front of his shirt. "It's alright, I'm right here and I don't plan on leaving anytime soon."

Ginny tried to smile, but failed miserably. "I almost flooed Hogwarts to tell Minerva," she said. "To tell the children we were taking you to St. Mungo's.

"But Mum told me that considering your situation it would probably be considered normal all things considered."

"Smart woman," Harry replied with a smile.

Ginny laughed in response and held Harry tighter.

He placed a kiss on her head and held tighter as well.

"Are you done?" an impatient sounding Teddy called through the door.

Harry and Ginny laughed before calling, "Come in."

Teddy came into the bedroom. His resemblance to Remus was uncanny, yet he somehow had the balance and grace of his Mother and tended to trip of thin air at times. At the sight of a happy Harry however, his hair turned an almost pure golden color, causing Harry to laugh.

"Happy to see me are we?" he asked as Teddy sat down on the bed.

Teddy smiled. "Just a bit." Then before Harry knew what had happened he was hugging his godfather for dear life.

Harry returned the hug warmly, patting his back and rubbing soothing circles like he had when Teddy was young.

Teddy pulled away. "If you scare me again like that I'll - "

Harry held up a hand to stop him. "I know, I know."

"What was all that about anyway?" Teddy asked his godparents.

Harry looked at Ginny before answering, "Just a memory."

~

Alexis stood outside the house again, this time better concealed from any wondering eyes. Her memory had carried too far again, and it wasn't only the happy one. She had no idea that Harry had seen the second one.

It had been a close call and had taken her a while to notice the intruder. Longer than usual.

Hopefully he would forget everything he had seen and go back to the safe ignorance that she and Dumbledore had planned for him since that fateful night in Godric's Hollow.

Ignorance is bliss.

Memories are hell.

Alexis turned her back on the happy home, wondering when the actual chaos would begin, knowing that Harry's ability to see memories was the beginning of the end of all the secrets.

When she was a good mile away she turned on the spot and disapparated straight into the Headmistress' office.

Minerva McGonagall jumped at the sudden crack! that accompanied apparation.

The portrait above her desk was of an old man wearing half-moon spectacles. He smiled down at Alexis as she nodded to the old Headmaster. A slight cough brought her attention to another picture just over from Dumbledore's showing a slick haired man.

"Sev."

"What is it that you must scare me half to death, Alexis?" McGonagall asked of her.

Alexis smiled at her slightly and replied, "Harry saw a certain memory of mine."

Dumbledore sat up straighter and Snape walked out of his picture to Dumbledore's. "What?" Snape asked.

"He saw a memory of mine, I had no idea he was there until he had taken the time to look at me and he heard my name I'm afraid."

"Your full name?" Dumbledore asked of her.

"No, Sir," she replied. "Though my first."

"What shall we do?" Snape asked of his superior. McGonagall looked to Dumbledore as well.

"We must prepare for our arrival," the Professor replied. "We must speak to Lily, James, Sirius, and Remus. It would be best to speak to Fred and Nymphadora as well."

"Very well," Alexis replied. "I shall be... somewhere else."

Dumbledore nodded, he knew where she was headed.

A slight crack announced her departure.

"I still have no idea how she manages to disapparate from Hogwarts," Snape said.

"Maybe one day you'll find out exactly why," Dumbledore responded, "one day soon we all will."