Mercy's Story

Albus Dumbledore sat and pondered the letter that had been delivered by owl.

Dear Uncle Dumbledore,

How are you? I am doing fine in school. My family is doing well, but that is what wanted to talk to you about. I know that you know about my real family, and I was wondering if you could tell me about them. I really need to know. Everyone at school knows who their parents are except me. If you could send me an owl, it would be appreciated. Thank you very much.

Love, Mercy

P.S. Say hello to Fawkes for me. Mercy

Albus sighed, remembering the tragic circumstances of Mercy's birth seven years earlier. Toward the end of the Voldemort War, Voldemort had conceived a desperate plan to escape the fate he saw coming. He had married and impregnated one of his Death Eaters, intending to switch places with the baby's spirit after it was born. However, Harry and the Order of the Phoenix had found Voldemort's base before the child was born. Mercy's mother Ariel Redstone had been sentenced to the wizard prison and had given birth to Mercy there. Mercy had been born there and removed into Albus's care two days after the birth. Albus had placed Mercy with a muggle born wizard's family so that Mercy would be comfortable in both worlds. He had foreseen that Mercy would be asking this question and the answer would be hard for her to handle. After the mistakes Albus had made not telling Harry everything during his years at Hogwarts, Dumbledore had decided to be honest with Mercy.

Albus took a deep breath and decided to have Mercy come to Hogwarts for the weekend. It being the summer holiday, she would not be in the way, and she liked wandering the halls, looking at the portraits and statues that lined the halls. Albus wrote to Mercy and her guardians, arranging for the weekend. After he sent the owl, Albus sat and considered how to tell a seven-year-old girl that her father was the most hated dark wizard ever.

Saturday morning, the Hogwarts wards alerted Dumbledore to the imminent arrival of Mercy and her guardian. After dropping Mercy off and talking to Albus for a while Mercy's foster father left her with Albus. Dumbledore had not seen Mercy in almost a year and he was struck by how much she resembled her mother. Ariel Redstone had been a good-looking witch, with black hair and large dark expressive eyes, and Mercy was the same person writ smaller. She was a quiet child, with a serious nature and a calm manner of accepting everything that went on around her. Every time Albus saw her, he was struck again by her intelligence. Hermione Granger might have been a little smarter, but Dumbledore wasn't sure about that. It was to be expected after all. Ariel Redstone had been one of Ravenclaw's best before falling prey to Voldemort's manipulations. Tom Riddle had also been a brilliant wizard during his time at Hogwarts, and Dumbledore had heard about the spell Voldemort had used to bind the child's spirit to his own. The spell had been designed to make sure that the body he would be inhabiting was physically fit and without flaws.

Albus had some reservations about that that he kept to himself. Mercy didn't need to know yet that Albus was worried about the long term effects of manipulating Ariel's body to make sure she was fertile on a specific night and doing that much magic on the egg and sperm before conception even. He had not found anything wrong with her yet and he offered up another plea to the universe that it stayed that way. Mercy and Dumbledore spent an hour walking through the halls, talking to the portrait's occupants and the ghosts. The two of them finally went outside and started walking around the grounds.

Mercy put her hand in Albus's and waited patiently. "I'm not sure how to tell you about your parents, Mercy," Dumbledore said.

Mercy looked down at the ground. "They were on the dark wizard's side weren't they?"

Dumbledore sighed. "Yes Mercy they were. I believe your mother was under a spell though, and not there of her own will."

Mercy nodded slowly. "I thought it was that. You have been avoiding talking about them for almost year now, so it had to be bad."

Albus reminded himself not to underestimate this child. She was smart, but more than that, she was perceptive. "The whole story is long, and it has some parts that are not very nice. One of them is that your father was Tom Riddle."

Mercy walked for a few minutes in silence. "Tom Riddle was Voldemort's name. I read that in Dark Wizards of the Modern Age."

Albus spoke softly. "Yes he was. However, before he was Voldemort, he was a student at Hogwarts named Tom Riddle. He was a very smart boy, but even then, he was not the best person. He opened the Chamber of Secrets and caused the death of a student."

Mercy walked on in silence for a while, until Dumbledore was about to say something, but Mercy spoke before he did. "What about my mother? You said you think she was under a spell."

Albus nodded, relieved that Mercy was taking this so calmly. "Your mother was Ariel Redstone, and she was here at the same time Tom was, but she was a Ravenclaw, and they had a bitter feud when they were here. I never knew what it was all about, but Ariel once hexed Tom during a Yule Ball. I do not believe that she would have changed so much that she would have married Voldemort of her own free will." Albus thought about the young witch that had been the Ravenclaw Keeper, and her nature. "Ariel was not the bravest person, but her sense of right and wrong was well developed, and I don't think she would have followed Voldemort. There is a spell that allows one person to control another person, and Tom would have thought it amusing to use it to have somebody that defied him before he was even Voldemort. That is what your mother said happened, and I believe her."

The pair walked a bit further, and stopped at the lake. Mercy stared out at the water, and thought about what Professor Dumbledore had told her. She considered what Dumbledore said about her mother, and felt nothing but pity for the woman she didn't know. Controlled by a man she hated, and forced to marry him, she evoked pity in Mercy, but nothing else.

Mercy had a harder time thinking about her father. Everyone knew about him. Voldemort, the greatest dark wizard of modern times, the man responsible for more death and destruction than any two other wizards in anyone's memory. The idea of being his child was disturbing. Mercy was smart enough to understand that people would not accept any member of the Riddle family easily, but she was more concerned about something else, a fear she voiced to Albus Dumbledore. "Will I be like him?"

Dumbledore shook his head slowly. "The very fact that you ask that tells me that you won't be like him. Tom never asked if anything he did was right; he just did what he wanted, no matter the consequences to anyone else." Dumbledore faced Mercy and knelt, so they were on the same level and he could look into her eyes. "You have strength of will Mercy, and the compassion to know when you are hurting someone. As long as you think about what you are doing, you will be a decent human being."

Albus reached out and took Mercy's chin in his hand. "Always remember this Mercy. While everyone else remembers that you are Riddle's child, you must always remember that you are also Ariel's child. She was not strong enough to resist the spell used on her, but you can be stronger than she was."

Dumbledore searched Mercy's eyes, finding hurt and confusion. He pulled her close, and held her for a minute. Mercy pulled away and stared out over the lake. "If you don't mind Uncle Albus, I'd like to think about this alone for awhile." Albus got up, and looked at Mercy.

"I'll be free to talk to you all weekend, Mercy," he said gently. She smiled at him, and hugged him. Albus walked back to the school, wondering how Mercy was going to take this knowledge of her family. Mercy was a bright girl, but she was still only a young child. He sighed, feeling the weight of his years and responsibilities. Taking on a young child at his age might not have been the best thing to do, but he didn't know whom else to give Mercy to. The wizard family that he had fostered Mercy with was all muggles, with just the one wizard in their family, and he had just finished Hogwarts when the War ended. That meant that he had not really been affected by the war, and could be trusted to treat Mercy like a human being, and not like Riddle's child. Albus was hoping that it stayed that way, or he would have to find another place for Mercy, and that would be nearly impossible.

Mercy stared out over the lake for a long time, but she did not see anything. Her thoughts were on her parents. She thought about what they were, and what she could become. Mercy was an intelligent child, but like most children faced with something that was too big for their experience she over reacted to her fears. Mercy decided the only way not to become like Tom was to go to the other extreme. As the sun set over the lake Mercy vowed to herself that she would never hurt anyone or anything in her life.

Albus waited all through dinner for Mercy to say something, but Mercy was quiet, talking only about light things, and avoiding any talk of her family. Dumbledore respected her wishes, even though he could see something different about her. It was not anything you could point out to somebody that did not know Mercy, but it was there. Something in the eyes, or her expression, that said she was different than she had been.

Mercy woke in the night sweating. She couldn't remember the details of the nightmare, but the residual fear it left behind told her it had been bad. She had been with her father as he killed many people, and they had both been laughing. Mercy lay in the bed in Dumbledore's quarters, and thought about the dream. She was still thinking about the dream when she slid back into sleep, and if she dreamed anymore, she didn't remember it in the morning.

The next morning at breakfast Mercy told Albus what she had decided the night before. Dumbledore listened to her, and asked her if that wasn't just a bit extreme. Mercy looked at him with all the seriousness of a young child, and disagreed. "Uncle Albus, I refuse to be like him. This is the only way I can be sure I don't end up like him." Albus regarded her for a few minutes, and let her be. He thought that she would change her mind as she grew older. Dumbledore didn't have the gift of Foresight, to see the future, and in this case, that was a good thing. Had Albus known what Mercy's vow would cost her in a few short years, he might have been tempted to try to talk her out of this oath. It wouldn't have done him any good, but he might have tried.