The Love Story of Harriet Potter and Tom Riddle

Chapter 117 - The Riddles

Thank you for reading! I don't own any of Harry Potter! Please let me know if you enjoy! Updates every Saturday!
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Mark had lost far too much for someone so young.

In the spanse of a few days, his best friend and his brother were suddenly no longer with him.

All that was left was his mother, grandmother, grandfather and………dad.

Somehow, that notion failed to comfort him very much.

As he watched the adults in his household spiral through grief, the weight of his pain seemed to crush him further every day.

One rainy afternoon, on an unusually gray day for the season, Mark lay on the floor of his room leafing through the same book his father had often read to him, Mae, and James during earlier years and better times.

And his grief was so profound that he took up his brother's axe. Determined to avenge his brother, the huntsman chopped the castle down until the evil Queen fell into the sea.

Mark blinked as he looked up.

A determined frown marred his face as he thought.

He carefully left his bedroom to tiptoe downstairs and out of the house.

The journey ahead of him loomed in an air of daunting foreboding.

He may get caught and brought home…..

He may very well get lost, known to be bad with directions.

Still, Mark knew he had to try.

He had to try to take the three muggle buses necessary to reach the craggy cliff that would lead him to Seamus Finnigan's home underneath the craggy cliffside, deep in the western highlands.

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Mark couldn't help but entertain a sense of pride as he completed his journey and finally arrived at his destination, much later in the day.

As he lifted his hand and knocked on Seamus's door, he feared Harriet had probably noticed his absence by then and wondered about where he had gone.

Tom did not come to his mind.

Mark frowned as he waited on the stoop, brushing his foot through the nearby grass as the bright sunlight beamed down upon his back.

There was a fair amount of clatter from the other side of the door before it swung open to reveal Seamus, looking disheveled and bewildered as he peered out at his unexpected visitor.

"Yeah?" He asked before he saw who had come to call on him, "Oh, Mark, it's you."

"Hello, Mr. Finnigan." Mark nodded.

"I heard about……" Seamus nodded before he looked down for a moment and met Mark's eyes again, "I heard about your brother. I……I'm sorry for your loss…….James was…….James was a good lad."

Mark mumbled his thanks as he looked down at the ground while he tried to withhold the hot tears that gathered in his eyes.

He would not shame himself by crying in front of-

"Would you like to come in?" Seamus asked as he stepped to the side and gestured into his humble house, "I'm not exactly prepared for company, as ya can see, but I know ya didn't came all this way for nothin'."

"Thank you, sir." Mark nodded as he accepted Seamus's invitation and walked inside.

The interior of the house seemed to be as untidy as its owner, but Mark paid no attention to the mess as he walked in and sat down on the only available spot along the edge of the cluttered sofa's buried cushion.

"So, what brings you by, lad?" Seamus asked as he walked towards the kitchen, "Tea?"

"Um, no…..thank you." Mark shook his head, "I actually wanted to talk about……getting Mr. Weasley's permission."

"Permission?" Seamus asked as he narrowed his eyes, "For what, exactly?"

Mark blinked before he reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out the scrap of muggle paper that detailed his plan.

Seamus kept his eyes narrowed as he took the paper from his visitor and unfolded it to read over whatever it contained.

"My brother is gone." Mark said with a bitterness far beyond his years as he sniffed, "It's all up to me now."

As Seamus scanned over the intricate diagram Mark had drawn on that single piece of paper, his eyes widened.

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Until the final arrangements were made for James's funeral, Tom and Harriet had reluctantly made the decision to store his body in the Ministry's morgue.

As customary for all wizards and witches of great rank that were entombed within that deep portion of the Ministry's bowels, James's corpse was carefully laid on a stone table, in a temperature controlled room, watched over by the Unspeakables in rotating shifts.

With their long robes trailing the floor and their hoods hung over their heads to cover their faces, those that worked in the Mourning Chamber silently carried out their duties in nearly complete anonymity.

Candles burned around the room to bathe James and his guards in a flickering glow of soft light.

Once midnight came, the hooded, anonymous Unspeakables silently filed out of the room, eager to return to their homes and rest, preparing to let the next batch of designated employees come in and take their place.

A particular person had been assigned to oversee the changing of the guard as the safety of the Minister's fallen son's body was deemed a top priority.

As each Unspeakable left the room, they all nodded in turn at the hooded figure who stayed behind.

The door to that lonely stone chamber closed and with it, the last of those who were to leave.

Across from Jame's corpse, his sole guardian stood watch, vigilant and alert.

Unbeknownst to the rest of the Ministry just then, the man who had been chosen for the task that evening had already been released from his mortal coil earlier in the night, dispatched by a single burst of green light, his body changed over to one of the inky, hulking horrors that the Minister's daughter kept for future use.

The hooded figure took a step towards James.

The candles flickered.

Another step, another flicker…..

Step, flicker, step, flicker……

The hooded figure came to a stop when it stood at the foot of the stone bed upon which James Riddle's corpse lay.

The figure raised a single hand to pull the hood down and with it, the robe that covered the frame underneath.

Once that rough, brown piece of clothing slid to the floor, Mae's bare, beautiful body gleamed like wet silk in the soft light of those incessant candles.

As she crawled forward and onto the stone bed on which her dear, dead brother lay, there had never been a brighter fire burning in her shimmering, green eyes.