For the Procreation of Children

For the Procreation of Children

Tom Riddle had always considered himself an honourable man. It came as a shock to realize that here was somebody who thought that he was not. He flipped over the paper on the table. There was no return address, neither on the letter itself, a single side of attractive, if slightly old-fashioned handwriting, nor on the envelope. An Edinburgh postmark lay over the stamp, but there was nothing about the contents, Riddle thought, to indicate a Scotch writer. It was very strange.

Tom Riddle considered himself an honourable man. That he and his parents were not well liked in the village of Little Hangleton was neither news nor shame to him. Their family had never been the local squires - that privilege fell to the Cawthrops, over at Henton Grange - and hence had no need, and even less desire, to show any interest in the goings-on of the local country folk. They kept themselves to themselves, entertained their friends, and otherwise enjoyed a quiet life. On this score, the family's failure to provide a steady diet of local gossip might be considered a social lapse, but could hardly be judged a moral one. There was rumour that Tom's marriage had been unhappy, but not enough was known to call it a scandal; there had not been a divorce, and the young woman having died, there was no great appetite for conjecture. Riddle had earned a DSO in the war in a daring action behind enemy lines. He was highly thought of in business circles as a sound man, and one of great decency, known to have given a good deal of help in a quiet way to fellows who had found themselves fallen on hard times. He was one of the old school, a good cricketer, an honourable man. But now there was this boy.

It was a formal letter, written with a manly frankness that Riddle admired as betraying more sensibility than was to be expected in one so young. You must permit me, the boy had written, to state quite plainly that I write with no intention of gaining either financial or social advantage, but it seems to me only right that a man should know he has a son. Had you married again, I might have felt more reserve in intruding myself upon your notice, but it seems to me that I can do no harm, and that it could be pleasant to know one another. I have never known family, and I did not wish to pass up such an opportunity once I had learned of you upon my coming of age. The letter had finished,

I am told that I resemble my mother in looks; I have also inherited her talents.

Well that was plain enough. The boy was a witch, like his mother. No, Riddle thought, not a witch, of course not a witch. A wizard. That's what the men called themselves, she had told him, a wizard. Tom Marvolo Riddle, Tom for his father, Marvolo for his grandfather, the man who would have killed his son-in-law, had he only known him to exist. Oh yes, Tom Riddle, first of that name, knew all about witches and wizards.

They had met in London, back in '25. She had moved to the city after leaving school, slumming it in a bed-sit with another girl. It was the sort of thing that a lot of girls did, a few years in a job they didn't really need, camping out in a small flat with a gas ring. They learned a bit of typing and had some fun. It was all a game, looking after themselves; no chaperones, no responsibilities, supplementing their meagre wages with an allowance, meeting more young men than they might at home. Amaranth had just been another one. Slumming it a bit more than most from her point of view, but just another one.

They had met in St James's park when Tom had rescued her from being trampled by a poor chap on a horse who had had the fright of his life to see a young woman suddenly standing where the way had been clear a moment ago. Amaranth, struck with fear, had been unable to move out of the way and so Tom had found himself seizing her round the waist, yanking her aside, and apologising profusely for such rough handling. It occurred to him later that perhaps she had never really seen a horse before, certainly not up close, and that it had never occurred to her as she casually Apparated in full sight in a park on a Saturday afternoon, that there could be any such prosaic danger in a Muggle place. She was used to winged Thestrals, and dragons breathing fire. She was clever.

'It startled me so, I simply lost my wits.' She paused. 'I'm afraid of them, rather. I was very nearly in a bad accident when I was small. Thank you so much.' There it was, right at the beginning. She was such a good liar. Of course it didn't matter to lie to him; he was only a Muggle.

In the tearoom, to which he insisted on taking her to help her recover herself, she was still too shaken to pour out herself so he did it for her. She had a slight accent, which he could not place.

'I spent some years on the continent in my childhood,' she said. Later, he understood that it was simply how her people spoke. The girl she shared a flat with was the same, although better than Amaranth at hiding it.

Amaranth, thought Tom, was beautiful. She had jet-black hair and pale skin, and she moved like a queen. When they met, she worked as a clerk for a property agent, had an excellent taste in wine, which at the time he had supposed must be innate as she knew absolutely nothing about it. She had no family at all. There were connections in Eastern Europe, but they were estranged from her branch of the family - something to do with politics, Tom understood. Her godfather, doddering down from Scotland and looking so fragile it was hard to believe he would survive the journey back, had to give her away. Her allowance came from the bank. She was clever, charming, the sort of wife a man dreamed of, and sometimes he felt that he couldn't take her anywhere. He suspected that she might have spent longer abroad than she admitted, and not in the best company.

They had been at a party, not with people he knew well, on the outskirts of a discussion on Empire. Rather, concerning Empire and the Iniquities thereof. Total bosh as far as Tom was concerned, but it wouldn't do to embarrass Cochrane, who had brought them and who held rather determined views on the subject, and so he kept his mouth shut. Amaranth did not. Cornered for a moment by a rather ghastly poet, he turned back to hear Amaranth, best voice firmly in place, speaking rather more strongly than necessary.

'But surely,' she said, 'surely you acknowledge that some people are simply ... of a higher order than others? You don't complain about the class system, do you?' Tom groaned, knowing this last to be untrue of the company. 'So surely it's obvious that certain races, certain peoples are superior?'

Tom's heart sank. He couldn't pull her away - that would be even worse. Best to grin and bear it and, coward that he was, turn aside to join a discussion about the most fascinating murder case in the papers.

He ought to have pulled her away. They ought to have left there and then. Cochrane would have understood. He knew all about difficult families, recently re-married and his daughter rebelling against her new stepmother. The room had emptied somewhat, the noise dropped, and there was Amaranth again, sincere and sharp.

'You talk about kindness,' she said, 'but when children are so deficient, surely it's kinder in the long run to face facts and deal with them? They'll never function properly in society. Most are a burden even to themselves. But then,' with a deprecating smile, 'I am hardly a social theorist, and every society needs its drones.'

'Darling!' Riddle lurched across the room, a turn of his wrist, aimed just so and he had spilt his wine on her frock. 'Oh no! Lord, I am sorry!' He turned again, knocked a hand and another drink was on the floor. 'Look at me, must be drunk, everso sorry. Hope my rabbits die. Come on darling, we'd better go before I make any more of an ass of myself. Thanks awfully. No, we can show ourselves out. Cheerio. Goodbye!' They were out of the door.

'What on earth was that about?' They were down in the street, not a taxi to be seen. 'Did you spill that drink deliberately?'

'Yes,' said Tom. 'Yes, I did.' He was angry now. 'For God's sake, Amaranth, you can think what you like, and with your own friends you can say what you like, but you don't know these people, you can't - look, you know that I agree with you about Empire and other races, and that would have been all right, if a bit off at someone else's party when you don't know the company from Adam. But look here, you must understand, eugenics might be in fashion in some of the highest circles, but that doesn't mean you can spout it all over a party of just anybody!'

'Eugenics? Oh, yes, I see, of course.' She must have looked it up later. 'Yes, of course, Tom. I'm sorry.' And then, 'Oh blast, will you look at my dress? It'll be ruined.'

That had been the moment, and why she had decided he would never know. The sheer triviality of it. Oh, it was a good frock, dark green silk and beautifully cut, but she could have bought another. They had plenty of money. She looked up and down the street, opened her handbag, and pulled out what looked like a long thick pencil.

'Scourgify!'

Tom turned to look at her, and frowned. The dress was clean.

So Amaranth was a witch. A pureblood witch, witch and wizard-bred ancestors stretching back into the mists, claiming descent even from Salazar Slytherin himself.

'From whom?' asked Tom. From Salazar Slytherin, one of the founders of Hogwarts itself, a parseltongue, a great wizard of his age and of all time. It had not been true about her not having a family. She simply didn't have a family to whom he might be introduced. They would, she said, do far more than cut off her allowance if they had learnt she wished to marry - indeed had married - a Muggle

'A what?'

Her father would have killed him. There were ways it could be done. A lesser family might stick at Memory Charms for both of them, but not Amaranth's father. Tom shuddered at the memory. She had lied about lots of things, but this he believed.

'My father,' she said with pride, 'would never let a Muggle shame him like this and live.'

'You don't believe - ' Tom began, and stopped. But you don't believe it's a shame, he meant to say, but he knew that she did. 'You can't believe he'd kill you, his own daughter,' Riddle finished lamely.

'Oh no,' she said, 'he wouldn't shed magical blood. Daddy can be terribly superstitious.'

To tell a man that his wife is a witch ... Riddle picked up the letter again. It would come as a shock to anyone to hear of this secret world, of wizard Britain where dragons roamed, where women called themselves witches and rode broomsticks, where men wore robes and pointed hats, and children were sorted into school houses by a talking hat. He thought, for a moment, of a divorce, even an annulment. Surely no one could believe a woman who spoke like this of being sane. She must be judged unfit to consent. But she never would speak like this before a judge. There was this International Statute of Secrecy, and some dreadful place called Azkaban. Or perhaps the judge would simply take her at her word and try her for witchcraft. That was odd, to think of all these people living illegally all their lives, men, women and children, but if HM and the PM knew about this world, there must be a loophole for people who really were witches and wizards. Besides, Tom loved her. She had chosen his world and him. He loved her.

When she left, it made life simpler. Her short note contained a forwarding address for her clothes - I suppose they might come in useful for something - and to which he might apply if he sought a divorce. He sent the clothes. When he heard that she had died - a curt letter from some official body - he might have been free, but he still loved her. He would not marry again. He thought that was the end of the matter. Connections secured him an interview with the PM who gave him the confirmation he needed, the promise she had told the truth, a greater assurance than that of his own eyes.

'So you married one of them,' he said. 'Bad business, bad business. Never seems to work out. They're not like us, no logic to them, no character. Wish we could warn people, but then how does one know? She didn't tell you in advance, I suppose? No, they don't. They aren't gentlemen.' Tom had been an honourable man, but now there was the boy.

Mr and Mrs Riddle offered to make themselves scarce. They had known about Amaranth; Riddle had told them one night, just after she had gone, when he felt he would burst with the secrecy. He hadn't yet posted off her things, and the Floo powder still worked in the grate; it wasn't hard for them to believe.

'I'll ask him to stay for dinner,' Tom said. 'If he agrees, I'll introduce you then.' He hoped that the boy would agree. The lad had never had a family; it could not have been easy for him. He had gleaned enough from Amaranth - and from the PM, who had been helpful in the matter of books even as he shook his head and advised Tom to forget it - he had learned that the attitude of his wife's family had been a minority one, but only because of its extreme form. That all wizards considered ordinary people as rather comical was plain enough. Most further considered them pitiable and inferior, that charming inferiority one sees in children, but inferior nonetheless - and this from a race that had parasitised the ordinary world for its every technological advance for at least the past five hundred years so far as Tom could see. It could not have been easy for the boy, raised in the magical world, imbibing its values and learning so late his true origins. As a, what was the word in the back of his memory, yes, half-blood, he must have been cared for by people at least sympathetic to his birth. Certainly not by his mother's family, although perhaps ... might they have taken her in when she repented? Need she even have told them of the boy's true father, or that there was a child at all? Perhaps she wasn't even dead; she might have pawned the boy off on foster parents and started again in her own world, none the wiser, none to know. But there was the letter, and more than that, there was the feeling Tom had had receiving it. He had known the content before he had read it. Amaranth was dead, and there was only the boy.

The boy looked like his mother. Like his grandfather, too, this Marvolo whose face Tom once had seen in a photograph, a dark-haired, upright man swathed in dark wool. The boy was wearing robes, too, of course; a seemly plain fabric, but well cut; styled and worn by ones who knew about such things, about making the most of one's material. Tom was glad that he had dressed for dinner. He had wondered whether he ought, whether it would make the boy feel awkward at the formality, but in the end he decided it was for the best. Formality, normality, attention to the rules would make it easier for everyone, and he felt his boiled shirt like armour plating as he rose to welcome the boy and take his hand. With a bare moment's hesitation the young man accepted a glass of sherry.

'I could like this,' he said, sipping it slowly. 'I've never had it before.'

Tom smiled. 'Don't wizards drink sherry, then?' he asked. 'Your mother had quite a taste for it.'

'Oh,' said the boy, 'some of them do, but we didn't at school, of course, nor in the orphanage. The matron used to let the elder children try it at the Christmas party, but I always stayed at Hogwarts once I'd started there.'

Tom frowned. 'The orphanage?'

Not, it turned out, a wizarding institution, but Barnado's, somewhere near the Vauxhall Road. Good enough of its type, but compared to what he might have had with Amaranth's family, with Tom, with anyone to call his own ... God! Tom didn't understand.

'It seems that nobody knew about me,' said the boy. 'Mother was ill, and though there is a register of children bound for Hogwarts, it isn't actually readable until nearer the time. The Ministry doesn't like to identify Squibs too young.'

'But after you went to Hogwarts ... surely they didn't send you back?'

The boy shrugged. 'Where else was there for me to go?'

A generous place, this world of wizards.

'I didn't know,' said Tom. 'She never told me. I never knew.'

The evening went well. The boy was offered wine like a man, and being unused to it, refused like a man to take more than a glass. He had character, Tom's father said with pleasure, true character, and brains as well. He wouldn't hear the results of his examinations for another month, but he felt reasonably sure he had done well. He was going abroad to study some of the more difficult forms of magic.

'I could have gone to the Scholomance,' he said, 'but I preferred Belarus instead. I want to follow my own interests. Of course, things may be difficult in Eastern Europe for some while, but I think it's worth it. There are some remarkable libraries mouldering away out there.' At present, he was working as an assistant for an alchemist, tiding himself over until his travels. He rather enjoyed it, working as a grown-up. It was the first step.

Then the disaster came. They had eaten the first two courses and the maid was serving as Tom and his father chatted, and his mother talked to the boy. Tom didn't hear her question, only the answer, something about a coming of age party, the words my birthday, and the month. A month two months too late. His mother sipped her wine, his father's eyes flicked over him, and he forced himself back, to carry on as before, but he knew all three of them were aware of it. Not my son, he thought, after all this, not my son.

He wondered how Amaranth could have done it, but supposed that she might not have had much compunction about lying to a half-blood, even to the baby about to be left alone. Yet it must have been a wizard, Tom thought, not another Muggle - another man. He was certain of that; she simply couldn't have done it. He felt a sudden brief stab of pity for her. She had tried over that at least, but her training had been too much for her. At first he had thought her simply shy, her reluctance that natural to most young women of the day. It was only later that he understood it was more than a simple shrinking; not nervousness, modesty, nor even simple distaste, but a deep physical repugnance that she could not overcome. One had heard rhetoric on the subject often enough in certain quarters, he should have realised at once. He was a Muggle, a mudblood, inferior in blood and race, and his hands on her flesh an outrage against everything she had ever believed. It wasn't enough that she had thought she could love him. She simply couldn't. Not like that. She could never, never have brought herself to bear his child.

'Will you tell him?' Mr Riddle asked. The boy had excused himself, and Tom and his parents sat exhausted around the table, the strain of the evening visible on their faces.

'I think that I must. It's a shame - he's a nice young man, I could have liked - but in the long-term, I think he has to know.'

'But what about his mother?' said Mrs Riddle. 'One can see that he worships her memory. Will he really want to know she...?'

'I doubt it, but one ought to consider, it would make him a pure-blood wizard. Weighed in the balance, I think that might count for more in the end, even if pure-blood wizards are the sort to leave one of their own in an orphanage because they don't like his birth. I don't believe for a second they couldn't have found him. Amaranth's death notice came from their Ministry. They knew about me, so someone must have known about her.'

'Yes,' said Mr Riddle. 'It's funny. All that honour in the boy, it might have come from you, and instead it's from some London institution. It's certainly not from them.'

'No, poor lad,' Mrs Riddle opened her hands and let them fall in her lap. 'Shall you tell him now?'

Tom bowed his head. 'Yes,' he said finally. 'Not for an hour, maybe, but this evening, yes, I must. He must know the truth, and he might still - he is her son after all; I should like to know him. Perhaps when we leave the table you could -'

Mr Riddle nodded. 'We'll make ourselves scarce. I wonder where the servants have got to? The fire's burned right down. Ah!' They heard a noise on the stairs. 'That must be the boy coming back.'