The Art of Secrets

Chapter Nineteen: Tom Riddle

Erica's father looked like a younger version of the man she saw in the photographs, much more like what she had imagined than the phantom she saw last year, though in this apparition he must have only been a few years older than herself, and he didn't know who she was.

His features twisted into a smirk as he looked at her, eyes colder than she had ever seen them, even when they were red and glowing and terrible, like ice. Eyes that looked exactly like her own. She knew that expression. It was the one she wore every time she was looking at a problem that she thought was beneath her, something petty and unimportant. It was a face she saw every time she looked in a mirror, a reflection of herself in him.

He had her wand before she even really knew what was happening, and she was fairly certain that she'd pretty much just handed it straight over, half in shock at everything. He shouldn't be able to do this, but whatever that diary was meant that he could, and this was a massive mess and he had her wand... he had her wand. Oh, Merlin's underpants, she really was in trouble.

"Erica..." He spoke, soft, tone not much different to what he'd come to sound like so many years later as he tapped her wand along his thigh, smirk growing wider. She had no reasonable explanation for how he knew who she was other than the fact that she looked like a much younger, female version of him only with messier hair, and apparently he did know who she was. "Your name I've heard quite a bit, through the girl." She cast her eyes quickly to Ginny where she lay, silent and still, before returning her gaze to him. "Though she seemed to have left out one important part."

"My last name," She didn't have the strength to try and mirror his smirk, knowing that Harry would be coming soon, because he would have heard about Ginny by now and if she'd learnt anything it was that he always seemed to show up in these situations even if he had no right to, knowing that she wouldn't be able to control the basilisk when she awoke, just like she hadn't been able to all year. Knowing so many things, but never enough.

"Say it," he hissed, features twisting into something she didn't recognise. "Say it, Erica."

"Riddle," she tilted her head to one side, gave a small smile instead, tired. Tired of the fight, of the Chamber, of him. Tired of it all. "My name," he'd calmed down somewhat as she spoke, face smoothing out into blankness, "Is Erica Riddle."

"And you have been the one thwarting me all year. You were the one to track down our birth right, to convince her not to kill, to take me from dear, little Ginevra and twist her mind in a way that even I couldn't achieve, in a way that made her want to give me up."

They weren't questions, but statements of fact, and though she had no idea what he was talking about with Ginny, she answered him anyway. "Yes, that was me."

"Why?" He seemed genuinely puzzled by that, as though she had suddenly grown to be more complex than he had expected, not as easily figured out. "We are Slytherin's heirs, Erica. You should want this. We're purifying Hogwarts, but instead you try and protect the filthy mudbloods and traitors, the same ones that have rejected you."

"Because..." she paused, took a deep breath, "Because my mother..."

"Your mother?" He repeated, "Yes, who is she?"

"A muggle," Erica gave him a smile, though it hurt to do it, "Her maiden name was Loretta. Katia Loretta. You fell in love with her, you married her, and then you had me."

"No... No..." his voice was surprisingly soft, quiet, all the things she had come not to expect from him. "That cannot be..."

"I know," she was still smiling even though it hurt, "I asked my Godfather, Severus, and since then I've come to terms with it, somewhat. You cannot love, can you?"