Darkness and Devotion - A Tom Riddle Story

The Daughter

Rain poured endlessly on top of her like tears fallen from a sullen god. But this was a godless place.

She sat in the mud and watched as rain fell around her. Pitter patter. Pitter patter. Pitter patter. Endlessly drops of cold, hard rain on top of the tombstones, each one harder than the last. They thundered against her soiled black dress, combed through each one of her dark curls in their pursuit of the ground. The girl didn't seem to mind the rain. In a way, the cold droplets reminded her that she was alive.

She was the only one that was.

Her gloved fingers reached out to comb some of the dirt off the stone, wiping it until it was clear enough to read again. She was the only one who did this, visiting the isolated graveyard every day in the summer until she was once again torn away from the only real family she had to be thrown into a school where she was more alone than the bodies in the ground. 

Regulus Arcturus Black (R.A.B.)

1958-1976

Son, brother, friend

It should have read "Father" too. But she wasn't born when he was put in the ground and her grandparents did everything they could to wipe her from existence. Regulus didn't know he had a daughter. Hardly anyone did. It would seem that her grandparents were successful in their endeavors.

"Hello, father," she whispered to the stone. Another drop of rain fell onto her lips. "I will not be able to visit much longer. I am going back to Hogwarts for my seventh year. Can you believe it?" She chuckled bitterly and looked down at the ground where her shoes were getting ruined from the rain. Her grandmother would probably hit her for destroying them. After seventeen years of it, she could hardly bring herself to care. In fact, she didn't care about anything anymore. Not her shoes, her dresses, her school, herself. All she cared about was visiting a stone where a dead man lay, one who had no clue she was even in this world at all. Perhaps it was better this way. Being unknown. It meant that no one was there to hurt her.

"You died in your seventh year," she whispered. "Perhaps the same will happen to me." The girl caressed the cold tombstone with her fingers, taking off her black gloves and allowing her now-wet hands to touch the cold rock. It was the closest she would ever get to touching her father, to touching either of her parents, really. And yet she still felt helplessly far away. "We can only hope. Then we will be a family again."

The girl's grandparents—Regulus's parents—had done everything in their power to ensure that she did not have a family. They locked away all of her father's belongings, removed every single painting that could have communicated with her, and completely cut ties with her mother. They told her that her mother gave her up right after her birth, knowing that they could take care of the baby better with all of their money and connections. Perhaps they were right. After all, her grandparents had made it more than clear that she was unwanted in their home. It seemed only right that her mother wouldn't want her either. 

The only one who hadn't proven that he didn't want her? Who was ripped away from all of their lives before he could even hold his daughter in his hands? The only one who truly felt like a family figure despite the fact that he lay in a cold box in the dirt?

Regulus.

The bells from a nearby church chimed. One... two... three... four... five... six... The seventh bell echoed in the air, an omen that sent the nearby crows scattering in the skies. If she lingered much longer, she would be late. Being late meant being disrespectful and that meant another ruler to her hands. 

She touched the tombstone one last time. "Goodbye, father," she whispered before apparating out of the graveyard and in front of the Black family's country estate in Northern Scotland. The air was heavier here than in the graveyard. Cold, foggy, dark. It was the most unwelcoming sight she had ever seen.