The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part Two

Correcting the Family Records

Regulus sat at the desk in the library, a parchment unfurled, the quill wet with ink, wrist poised. He had started a list. So far, it went like this:

"What I Know About Voldemort"
1. He once went by Pleiades Gaunt - Gaunt is the sir name of a long-dead relative.
2. He attended Hogwarts.
3. Pureblood.
4. Made a horcrux.
5. Stayed here at Grimmauld Place for a time.
6. Stayed at Malfoy Manor for a time.
7. Last known headquarters was with Thorfinn Rowle.
8. Some connection to a place called the Riddle House.
9. Dumbledore calls him "Tom".

Regulus pushed the list back to survey it. He took a deep breath. "Well, I think this is - well, it's a start. It isn't grand, but it's a start." He stared at the list, then, because he'd hesitated as he wrote it, he brought his quill back down and made "Pureblood." into "Pureblood?"

Cadmus Peverell listened as Regulus read the list out loud, and he nodded his approval. "Very good. I can add to at least one of those points - his name was Tom Riddle and the house was of his father's family."

"I can't picture Voldemort with a father," Regulus said, revising the list to add, "10. Real name: Tom Riddle." He paused, looking at the words. "Or a mother for that matter," he added. "Certainly not a good one of either."

He had a very fleeting thought of Sirius with their Mother and Father, and pushed it away quickly. He didn't want to think about -- well, about any of it, but most especially about the way things had been back then...and even more most especially the way they had been back then for Sirius.

Had Voldemort's father been evil, too? Regulus wondered. Was it from his father that Tom had learned all the hatred and dark magic? If so, then shouldn't it follow form that his father would be well known for dark stuff as well? He mused and stood up, walking across the room to the books and looking over the spines.

"What are you seeking, boy?" Cadmus Peverell asked.

"I was just thinking that if You Know Who had a father he must've been where he learned all the dark stuff, yeah?" Regulus asked. "I'm looking for the name in one of Mother's old Registries."

"There you have it - now you're thinking."

"Riddle certainly isn't one of the Twenty-Eight," Regulus said, "I know all of those by heart, mind, Mother made Sirius and I memorize those when we were kids."

Regulus could remember long days of sitting at a table that had been in the far corner of the room across from Sirius, who was terrible at memorization, trying to help him memorize the names. Sirius used to sit on the floor in Regulus's room, trying to rattle them off together, and he could remember Sirius being nervous about not knowing all the names. "Mother's not going to be happy with me, little brother," Sirius had told him once, "You might be best to stay up here and let me go and be reviewed on my own, then you can come down with the right answers and not have to see me get into it."

"No certainly not one of the Twenty-Eight."

"But Gaunt is," Regulus said. He paused, "Weird that a Gaunt would marry outside of the Twenty-Eight." He looked at Cadmus.

"Unheard of," Cadmus agreed.

Regulus pulled down a heavy tome, dusty and leatherbound with thick, uneven pages. The book was ancient - probably one of the eldest books in the entire library. He carried it over to a reading stand, laying it down, and opening the cover from the back. The latest lines in the book had been penned in Walburga's perfect cursive.

Walburga Irma Black was married to Orion Arcturus Black in 1956.

The next line was viciously crossed out. Regulus stared at the scratched-out line that had been so violent as to come close to tearing the page. His eyes moved to the next line.

and to Regulus Arcturus Black on 25 December 1961.

He stared at his own name, how it was an incomplete sentence because Sirius's line had been etched off. "Yeah," he muttered, "That's about right."

Below that, she had written in Father's date of death.

Then, he had a wild thought. One that made him laugh to himself, and he walked over to the desk, ruffled about until he found a quill and a pot of ink and returned to the reading stand. He pried open the inkwell and dipped the quill, poised the nub and, in his own handwriting, added a few new lines:

Walburga and Orion had given birth to Sirius Orion Black on 3 November 1959. He is a great wizard.

Sirius Orion Black was married to Remus John Lupin on 24 June 1978.

He smiled at this. Oh how the Black family would react to seeing Lupin's name - a werewolf, a gay, half-blood werewolf.

"What did you just do?" Cadmus Peverell asked.

"Corrected it." He put the quill down into the inkwell and set them aside.

Cadmus looked suspicious.

Regulus took a deep breath, "Alright. Let's see.... Gaunt family tree... Gaunt... Gaunt... here we are. Hopefully whoever married a Riddle didn't get scratched out by Mother..." his finger ran down a long line of names that stemmed back centuries, even crossing into the Slytherin line relatively recently. But none of the lines mentioned a Riddle, and indeed all of the lines save for one ended by their own means quite a long time ago - the most recent ending in America, one of the Ilvermorny founders who had never married. The only surviving Gaunts in the 1900s at all read as such:

Celestia Khima Gaunt married Marvolo Omimis Gaunt on 2 May 1898. Celestia and Marvolo gave birth to Morfin Marvolo Ominis Gaunt on 14 July 1900 and to XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. Marvolo Ominis Gaunt died in 1927.

There was no records of Mofin's marriage or death, and Regulus could not tell what had been crossed out in the second line.

"Interesting."

"What?" Cadmus asked.

Regulus read what he had found, and Cadmus Peverell looked thoughtful.

"You don't reckon that perhaps the crossed-out line is where the Riddle comes in?"

"Must be if there's no other mention of Riddle in the rest of the tree," Cadmus pointed out.

"But it it's crossed off..." Regulus sat, staring at the line, thinking. Then he looked up, "Half-blood?" He whispered the word, almost half expecting the word, the implication, to draw Voldemort into the room as suddenly as speaking the name at the kitchen table of the flat in East London had done to him two months prior. He looked at Cadmus Peverell. "Half-blood? The Dark Lord is a half-blood?!"

Cadmus made a face, "Surely not - what sort of hypocritical --"

Regulus started laughing. He couldn't stop. "He is a fucking half-blood?" He shook, backed away from the reading stand and fell into Walburga's chair, barely able to breathe for the mirth that filled him. "Oh if Mother knew - she must not have known - must not have ever put together the pieces perhaps? It's not recorded here so of course not... but what do they think? What does he claim? Bloody hell has no one looked into lineage? Has nobody -- I have to be mistaken, yeah? He can't be a fucking half-blood! He can't... can he?"

But even as he asked the question, Regulus got back up, crossed the room to the desk, and, with relish, crossed out the third line of his list, cackling the entire time.

The great pretender -- Regulus thought, the great mirage, fooling all the fools.

You're going down.

I'll see to that.