Transcendence

Author's Note: I'm not sure I'll be able to keep up this pace as exam season looms, but I'm currently inspired.

There are various explanatory notes at the end.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Show me your Mark."

Lucius startled, his blond head whipping up to catch sight of Tom standing in the doorway to his study.

"My Lord?" he asked, but he began rolling up his sleeve all the same.

Tom had been taking a risk; he'd really had no idea whether his other self had actually gone through with Marking his followers. It had just been the beginning of an idea before Tom had been put into the diary. If Lucius had ended up having no idea what he was talking about, he would have had to Obliviate him.

He might still have to Obliviate him, actually, if he became too suspicious.

"It occurs to me that I have not investigated the effects my resurrection has had on this," he said by way of explanation as he took Lucius's outstretched arm into his hands. The truth was that he needed to investigate the nature of the Mark in the first place so that he could use it. He had started planning how to bring some of his other followers back into the fold, but he could not do that until he understood how their Marks worked. If he could not even utilize the very brand he'd placed on them, it would be a dead giveaway that he wasn't really Lord Voldemort.

Lucius winced uncomfortably when Tom prodded at the brand with his finger. "It is still faded, My Lord. I had thought that it must be an effect of you having obtained a new body rather than the one that originally created the Mark."

"Hmm..." Tom mused, only half paying attention to what the other man was saying. "Yes, probably."

This wasn't the Mark he had envisioned for his followers. Then again, he had never planned for his group to be called the Death Eaters either. The skull and serpent was eminently suitable for a group called the Death Eaters, he had to admit, but he rather doubted that he would have branded the Knights of Walpurgis with any such thing.

He sighed. I will have to find a way to examine Abraxas's Mark.

Still, he had more information now than he had before: He knew without a doubt, after having examined it, that it was a variant on the Protean Charm. He had not worked out exactly how to modify the charm to suit his purposes before he'd been sent into the diary, but at least now he knew that his other self had kept that idea instead of finding something else entirely. It was a place to start.

There was a knock on the door then, and he dropped Lucius's arm to face that direction.

"Father?"

Lucius paused in rolling his sleeve back down, shooting a vaguely horrified glance between Tom and the heavy oak panels. "I can tell him to come back later, My Lord. No doubt he just wants to ask me for some toy or another."

Tom smiled coldly and pointedly took a seat in one of the comfortable chairs in front of Lucius's desk. "No, Lucius, invite him in. I need to speak with him."

There was no arguing with such an edict, but Tom knew that Lucius desperately wanted to disobey him. He had not made a move to harm a hair on the Draco's head in the days since their rather unorthodox introduction, but all three of the older Malfoys had been quite on edge, as if he might change his mind at any moment and strike the boy down where he stood. No doubt he hadn't put them at ease by torturing Abraxas and Lucius for failing to have informed Draco immediately of his identity. He had enjoyed Draco and been thoroughly amused by him, but he had just needed to torture something and had found the boy's actions to be the perfect excuse to Cruciate his sires. He would have used any excuse at that point, and he didn't regret having done it.

Draco himself was still terrified to be around him, which was apparent from the way he trembled when he noticed Tom in his father's study. He bowed immediately, if stiffly, and murmured, "My Lord."

Lucius had come around his desk to stand protectively behind his son, for whatever good that would do, and seeing them together struck Tom anew with how close the resemblance was between them. When he had gone to kill his own father fifty years ago, it had been like looking through time at what he would look like in twenty or thirty years--well, more like in fifty or sixty years, given that wizards aged slower than Muggles. He had wondered then what it would have been like if the man had taken responsibility for him as he ought to have done, instead of abandoning his pregnant wife and unborn child.

The younger Malfoy always looked up at his father with undisguised love and a bit of worship shining in his eyes, and Lucius looked scarcely any more dignified when he looked down at his son.

Tom supposed that Draco Malfoy would never murder his own father.

Mentally shaking himself from those thoughts, Tom gestured towards the chair nearest his. "Come, Draco, sit by me."

Draco was obviously nervous at such a request, but to his credit he didn't look to his father for support before he did as he was told. Once he was settled, Tom offered him a kind look, one that appeared genuine.

"You are very important to my plans, Draco," he said softly, being as unintimidating as he could manage. "No one else has the information you do. I need you to tell me everything you know about Harry Potter."

"P--Potter?" Draco asked uncertainly. Then his eyes widened and he quickly added, "My Lord."

Tom honestly did not have much patience for this sort of thing. He had hated children even when he was a child himself, and that opinion had certainly not improved as he grew older. However, his observations over the past several days had shown him that, no matter what Draco's father thought, there was more of Narcissa than Lucius in the boy's personality, even if his appearance was every bit his father. Unlike Abraxas and Lucius, Draco was sensitive and appeared to have no taste for true violence. He would not respond well to being treated harshly, but Tom suspected that if he handled the boy with a soft hand then he would be able to coax just as much loyalty from him as from either of the older Malfoys. And soldiers were not the only followers Lord Voldemort would need.

So he leaned back casually in his chair and consciously softened the usually harsh lines of face. "Yes. I need to know his strengths and weaknesses: who his friends are, which subjects he does well in and which poorly, which professors are his favorite. That sort of thing."

Draco blinked up at him through long, pale lashes, seemingly still unsure about this turn of events. Tom supposed the boy might just think it was some sort of trap and that he was going to be Cruciated as soon as he said the wrong thing.

Then he released his lower lip from between his teeth and said, "He--he is treated favorably by the headmaster, My Lord, and by his head of house, Professor McGonagall. In first year he should have been expelled because he was caught on his broomstick after Madam Hooch had told us not to fly until she came back, but when McGonagall saw him she gave him a place on the Quidditch team--as a first year!--instead of expelling him or even taking points."

Tom raised his eyebrows. Potter must be extremely talented on a broom. "And Dumbledore?"

Here Draco scowled in clear irritation. "At the end of first year everybody knew that Potter and his friends had to have broken at least a hundred school rules, the rumors were so incredible--something about a Cerberus and the Sorcerer's Stone. But then, at the end of year feast after Slytherin had already won the House Cup and the whole Great Hall was decorated in our colors, Dumbledore awarded them all fifty points each and took them from dead last all the way to first! Right there in the middle of the feast, after we had won fair and square!"

He had never cared for such things himself, but Tom well understood the motivation that the little House Cup competition provided for most students. He had even played along and done more than his share of helping Slytherin win, although it had been done in service of his being recognized for his brilliance and talent and not actually as a quest to earn house points.

"Oh!" Draco exclaimed, the color in his cheeks rising even more. "Hagrid, the nasty half-breed groundskeeper, seems to have a soft spot for Potter. I know that Potter helped him hide a baby dragon last year, and I got detention from McGonagall for reporting it!"

Tom actually laughed at that, just a single chuckle that escaped his mouth before he could check himself.

"A baby dragon? Well, I suppose I am not surprised that Hagrid still has a penchant for dangerous creatures that he has no business keeping as pets."

Draco and Lucius were both staring at him now, and he realized that he had been mistaken to say that aloud. He wondered if he would ever get used to putting his thoughts through the The Lord Voldemort They Know Would Never Say That filter he had been attempting to construct in his mind.

"The acromantula, My Lord?" Lucius asked finally.

Tom realized that of course it made perfect sense for Lucius to have already known, since he was the chairman of the school board during the most recent Chamber incident. Surely Hagrid would have been the first suspect, since he had been expelled as the culprit fifty years ago.

He ignored the question and turned back to Draco. "And his friends?"

"He's friendly enough with all of his housemates, but he's only close to Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, sir," he was quick to reply. "Did you kill the Weasel? Only I couldn't think how Potter could have gotten into the Chamber if he wasn't the Heir of Slytherin, and he did speak Parseltongue. I thought--I mean, until I learned of your return, My Lord--I thought that maybe Potter really had run mad and done it all himself, and Dumbledore was just covering for him."

If he hadn't had so much practice controlling his reactions, Tom might have reared back in genuine surprise. There was so much information to shift through there, but he settled for asking, "Potter really could speak it then?"

"Oh, yes, My Lord. He spoke it right there in front of everybody when I was paired with him in Dueling Club."

Draco seemed like he would say more, no doubt to regale Tom with a heavily edited version of the duel that made him look the best, but Tom held up his hand to forestall it. He had a lot to think about--Why had Potter lost the ability to speak it, or had he been telling the truth in the bathroom and merely had difficulty unless he had a real snake to talk to?--but there were more pressing matters to attend to at the moment.

"Tell me about this Granger, then. A Mudblood?"

Lucius cleared his throat and Draco looked extremely uncomfortable.

"Yes, My Lord. She's very smart, though, at least with books. I'm sure she's the brains behind everything Potter's done; Potter and Weasley can't even manage to catch the Hogwarts Express on time."

He guessed from their reactions that this girl must be smart enough to have challenged Draco academically, which he knew Lucius would not be happy about.

"Potter is close to his friends?"

"Yes, My Lord. He's always with them. They do everything together, as far as I can tell, including whatever stunts Potter pulls. He wasn't himself at all when he came back from the hospital."

Well, at least there was some good news! The Malfoys had shrunk back from him as much as they could without moving, and Tom realized that he had started twirling Potter's wand between his fingers without thinking about it. He often did that when he was thinking of something particularly violent. Although in this case it wasn't aimed at the Malfoys, they obviously had no way of knowing that.

He smiled and kept twirling the wand, which did very little to alleviate his hosts' fears. "Tell me, Draco, do you think Potter would be just as affected by the loss of his Mudblood as he was by the loss of Weasley?"

Draco blinked at him several times in surprise. "I--I suppose so, My Lord. He spent every second with her after he came back to school."

Tom rose suddenly from his chair, causing Draco to scramble up after him to copy his father's bow. He reached out and ran the tips of his fingers along the boy's cheek as he passed by them on his way out the door, enjoying the shudder it drew. "You have done very well, Draco."

It turned out that it was a bit more difficult to track down a Mudblood than Tom had originally thought. Abraxas had been a bit surprised by his anger over the time it was taking him to complete the task.

"My Lord," he had placated, spreading his hands in front of himself to show his submission, "you know that these things take finesse to accomplish, and, as a result, a certain amount of time. It would be easier if we could use Lucius, but of course we can't blow his--"

Tom had snarled at him quite viciously, and he had abruptly stopped talking. Perhaps his other self had known that, but he hadn't known any such thing. Every time he found something else he didn't know that he should have, he got more and more angry.

"I don't care whose arse you have to lick, Malfoy! I want the information by the end of the week!"

Whether Malfoy really had put himself out to get the information sooner or whether he would have had the information by the end of the week anyway, Tom had no idea. But he had the information in hand that Friday afternoon, so he was quite content either way.

The next obstacle had come when Lucius had become quite horrified at Tom's plan to carry out the kidnapping himself.

"But, My Lord, surely you should not lower yourself to this!"

Tom might have been amused by this earlier, but by that point he had been quite annoyed with the whole exercise. "Who will do it in my place, Malfoy? You? You would stand out in a Muggle neighborhood as much as a troll would, even if you changed your appearance."

And really, the icing on the cake had been that clearly Lucius had wanted to ask quite a lot of questions about why Tom himself would have more success blending into a Muggle neighborhood.

"Tell me, Malfoy," Tom had said by way of diversion, "have you any idea how to mask your magic so that the Ministry does not immediately know that magic has been performed in the vicinity of the Mudblood?"

"I--No, My Lord."

Tom let his wand out to twirl around his fingers. "And are you confident in your ability to either escape or, upon capture, talk your way out of it if Dumbledore or the Ministry is having the house watched as a precaution?"

"No, My Lord." Lucius had looked quite put out to have to admit that.

Tom had held him under the Cruciatus Curse for longer than was strictly necessary for the offense of questioning his lord's plans.

And so on Saturday nearly two weeks after he had learned of the girl from Draco, Tom found himself standing on her street. It was in an affluent London suburb, the kind of place where Tom had always imagined that he would someday live, before he'd discovered that he was a wizard. A church dominated the center of the neighborhood, and four streets spread out around it like a cross. He selected the street directly in front of the church door and set off down it at a casual pace, smiling and nodding to the residents who took note of him. He looked like he belonged there, he knew, and aside from the neighbors not recognizing him as a resident he should have no trouble. He would probably be thought of as the school friend of one of the neighborhood kids.

The Grangers had their name on their mailbox, so Tom had no trouble at all finding the house. It was a typical middle-class home, two stories and an attic made of brown brick with large white windows. The front garden was planted heavily with trees and shrubs of all sorts so that only the narrow stone walkway up to the door was clear. Tom kept up his leisurely pace as he made his way up the walk and rang the bell.

The door was opened by a rather tall woman with dark hair pulled back into a loose bun. She seemed quite bemused by the strange boy standing on her stoop clutching a book to his front with anxious fingers. "Can I help you, dear?"

"Mrs. Granger?" asked Tom in a soft, nervous voice. At her affirmation, he went on, "I'm Dean; I go to Hog--erm, to school with Hermione. I was hoping to visit her, you see. But only if she isn't busy--and also you aren't busy, I mean! I wouldn't want to--to intrude."

The woman looked as if she had to resist the urge to coo at him and pat his cheek, which was just what Tom had hoped. "Is Hermione expecting you, dear?"

"No. I rather wanted it to be a surprise to cheer her up. She had such a hard year last year, and I know that she was so--so upset by what happened to--well, you know...." He trailed off uncomfortably, and Mrs. Granger's eyes darkened and crinkled in understanding. "Only I know--that is, I've noticed--that she loves to read, and I thought that she might enjoy this book"--here he indicated the book that he had deliberately been keeping in a white-knuckled grip--"and that maybe she wouldn't mind if I visited her instead of just owling it."

"Oh, of course. That's so thoughtful!" Mrs. Granger moved aside to allow Tom into the house. "Where are you from, dear? Do your parents expect you home for dinner?"

Tom crossed the threshold triumphantly, but he maintained his pathetically nervous façade. "I haven't any parents; I live in an orphanage in Lambeth."

She looked at once pitying and uncomfortable, as Tom had known she would. All adults reacted the exact same way to hearing of his childhood circumstances. On the other hand, in his experience all children reacted with either curiosity or ridicule, but never kindness.

"Oh dear! Well, you shall certainly have to stay for dinner, if you've come all this way. Here, you go wait in the sitting room and I'll call Hermione downstairs."

Tom found himself deposited into a room where another man was already occupying the only sofa. He was watching the television, and Tom had never seen one as large or colorful as that. In fact, he had only ever seen the large boxes with small, black-and-white screens that were displayed in some of the most expensive Muggle stores in London during his childhood. It was really fascinating that the technology had come so far, and he wondered what else was different about the Muggle world so many years later.... But he had work to do, so he shoved the thought aside for later consideration.

Mr. Granger didn't seem particularly pleased that a young man had come to his house looking for his daughter. They exchanged only the most cursory of greetings under Mrs. Granger's watchful eye, but then they sat in silence when she left to call up the stairs for Hermione. It was only after the girl could be heard coming down the stairs that the man ventured to speak.

"So, do you have an, erm... interest in our Hermione?"

Tom looked away from the television to meet the man's gaze and allowed a cold, high laugh. "An interest? You could say that."

Mr. Granger's face had colored and he looked as if he was about to speak when his daughter stepped through the door and gasped loud enough to draw everyone's attention. She staggered backwards right into her mother, who was a couple of steps behind her.

"Hermione, dear, whatever is the matter?"

But Hermione paid her mother no mind. She was staring wide-eyed at their guest and had begun frantically patting at her pockets. "You!"

"Yes, me," Tom agreed, rising from his armchair with a grace that belied the nervous suitor act he'd been performing before. "I should have known that you would have managed to find a picture of me somewhere in the Hogwarts library."

"Hermione...?" her mother tried again, even as her father exclaimed, "What is going on here?"

She put her arms out and tried to herd her mother backwards out of the room. "It's him! Voldemort--the man who killed Ron and Ginny!"

There was a general explosion of chaos at that point, with Mrs. Granger screaming and trying to switch positions with her daughter, who was having none of it, and Mr. Granger rising from the couch with a great shout to rush towards Tom. The man was soon face-first on the floor, and Tom trained his wand steadily at the women.

"Tsk, tsk, little Mudblood. No wand? A true witch would never be caught without it."

Hermione stood defiant next to her mother, who had frozen and was staring unblinking at her husband's unmoving form. "I wouldn't have been able to fight you even if I'd had my wand."

Tom laughed again, the sound causing Mrs. Granger to flinch. "True enough, but it's the principle of the thing, you understand.... Now, you can come quietly or not."

With a great flurry of movement, Hermione shoved her mother towards the door once more, but the cry for the woman to run had hardly left her mouth before her mother had dropped to the floor, screaming in agony.

"That will be 'not,' then? I admit that I had hoped you would say that; it's much more fun this way."

Hermione had knelt down next to her mother, but there was of course nothing she could do to help the effects of the Cruciatus Curse. She only received a hard knock across the face from one of the woman's flailing arms, which knocked her backwards onto her ass. She glared up at Tom through a mass of wild curls, sprawled out on the floor in front of him like an offering.

"What do you want?"

He smirked. "You. Did I not make that clear?"

Mrs. Granger continued to scream and thrash.

"I'll go!" Hermione cried. She was watching her mother with wide, teary eyes. She had snot trailing down her face from her crying, and blood from where her mother's arm had split her lip. "I'll go! Please, take it off!"

Tom was a bit disappointed that she had capitulated so quickly, and he held the curse for a few seconds longer just because he was enjoying himself. But he lifted it eventually. Mrs. Granger continued to lie on the floor sobbing, of course, and not moving, but the screams stopped. He levitated the woman next to her husband and conjured a magical chain that he quickly set about manacling around their ankles.

"You--you're bringing them with us?" the girl asked weakly.

Tom dragged her up by the hair and shoved her in the direction of her parents. She stumbled and landed in a heap across their prone forms.

"Of course I'm bringing them, you stupid Mudblood. I can't believe I've been told that you are sensible."

He had no desire to explain it to her further if she couldn't figure it out for herself, but it was quite obvious to him. First, even the Ministry was not so incompetent that they would fail to notice a Hogwarts student and friend of Harry Potter being kidnapped when her parents were left behind. Either her parents would raise the alarm or, if they were Obliviated or given false memories, their memory lapses would be a sure sign that there was magical foul play involved. If they all came with him, he was counting on the Ministry's denial of his existence to lead them to believe that the Grangers had all disappeared in some sort of Muggle incident. After all, there would be absolutely no sign that anything magical had occurred, as he had been very careful to only use magic on the Grangers themselves and not on any doors or other objects that would leave behind a magical signature, and the lack of a Dark Mark or any other signature would have them refusing to attach the name Lord Voldemort to the disappearances. Surely the Dark Lord would sign his work if he was behind the disappearance of the best friend of the Boy Who Lived?

Honestly, why else had she thought that Lord Voldemort had used subterfuge to gain access to her home instead of blasting his way inside?

Second, Hermione had proven much easier to control if he had her parents under his power. He wouldn't mind torturing information out of her or forcing truth serum down her throat, but with a prisoner as important as this he preferred not to burn his bridges that way unless absolutely necessary.

With another roll of his eyes to signify his disgust at her idiocy, he tapped the chain he had conjured to turn it into a Portkey, and the Grangers spun away in a swirl of magic.

After a sweep through the house to make sure there was nothing out of place that would immediately indicate that something strange had happened--no television left on, no kettle still on the burner--he Apparated into the front drawing room of Malfoy Manor. Narcissa was waiting for him, but Abraxas and Lucius had gone about their days as usual (Abraxas attending a schmoozing business lunch and Lucius a Quidditch match of the professional team he owned) in order to stave off any suspicions that might happen to arise from the Grangers' disappearance.

"My Lord," she greeted him coolly, "our... guests have arrived safely in the cellar."

Tom smirked, half in amusement at her attitude and half in pleasure for a mission well done. "Excellent. I imagine that you'll sort out the details of their stay."

She did not look pleased, but nonetheless she agreed and bowed as he strolled out of the room.

He would have to deal with her later.

Tom intended to leave the Granger girl to stew for a while before he interrogated her, so he made his way to the library to continue his research. He had made some headway on the Marks, but he still did not feel confident enough to use them without giving away his ignorance. There was also the matter of what to do about his other self. He had determined by this point that he needed to bring him back. Tom was already running out of time before everybody learned what he really was, and he simply did not have time to gain decades of knowledge and experience before he was found out. If he wanted to take over and change things, as he had always planned, then he needed his other self.

Exactly how to go about bringing him back was an entirely different matter, and one that Tom had no clear answer for. Yet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author's Notes: I base my assertion that wizards age slower than Muggles on the fact that Dumbledore in his seventies or so (in the flashbacks during CoS) still has auburn hair, and McGonagall in her sixties or seventies still has black hair. And they were all quite spry and didn't seem to be at all affected by age when dueling, including Voldemort, who was seventy-one when he died. I assume they don't dye their hair or have hip replacements, but rather wizards just age slower than Muggles.

The Grangers' home and streetin DH Part 1 is in Hampstead Gardens; for my own convenience I've envisioned that street and house in this story. As for Tom's orphanage, we don't really know where it is, but in CS the back of the diary has a stamp from a bookshop on Vauxhall Road. That isn't a real road in London, but Vauxhall is a real enough place; I have decided that Tom would probably have been from Lambeth, which is a community in the same borough as Vauxhall, because during the 1920s (and beyond) it would have been a poorer area than Vauxhall. There was even a workhouse there in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Their neighborhoods are about eight miles apart, which even today would be about an hour trip using public transportation. So if Tom's story had been true, he really would have had to have quite the crush on Hermione.