Silence.
That was the first thing I noticed. No whispers. No hissing voices clawing at the edges of my thoughts, no gnawing command seeping into my skull. For the first time in decades, my mind was my own.
And the source of that silence stood before me, alabaster skin gleaming faintly in the frozen light, her hair a cascade of moonlit silver. The woman's eyes burned like ancient stars, and her grin curved sharp and knowing.
My throat worked, but words refused to come. My body, once so full of certainty and venom, trembled like a child's. I wanted to demand answers, to ask her what manner of sorcery she wielded to still even my inner torment—but I could not. My tongue was lead.
Her hand shot forward with terrifying swiftness. Fingers colder than stone clamped to my face, her nail digging deep into my forehead. Pain lanced through my skull, searing, blinding.
I screamed. "What—what the hell—!"
The pain ceased as suddenly as it had come. She shoved me backward and I staggered, clutching my brow. My vision swam, my breath ragged.
Her voice came, melodic, edged with cruel amusement. "Better?"
I blinked, realizing… realizing what was wrong. Or rather, what was missing.
It was quiet.
Truly quiet.
For the first time since boyhood, the constant whisper that had plagued me—the insidious suggestions, the malicious urges—was gone.
I froze. My heart was hammered.
"…What did you do?" My voice was hoarse, barely mine.
The woman tilted her head, her smile widening. "I removed a parasite."
"A… what?"
"A brain parasite curse," she explained, as if lecturing a child. "Insidious magic, seeded into your mind while you were still young. It latched onto your thoughts, guided your instincts, whispered commands so softly that you believed them to be your own. It's why you never had full control."
My stomach clenched. My hands shook, though I hid them in the folds of my robes. "Who?"
"Who else?" Her laugh was like wind chimes, sharp and mocking. "Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. The 'greatest wizard of the age.'"
Her words struck like curses.
I staggered back a step, heat rising in my chest. "…Lies. He could not—"
She cut me off with a flick of her wrist. "Who do you think whispered to your mother, poor Merope Gaunt, to use a love potion on your father? Who do you think kept you in that miserable orphanage rather than guiding you elsewhere? Who do you think has sat back all these years, letting you play the Dark Lord while he polishes his reputation as the saint of the Light?"
My breath came fast, ragged, fury boiling in my veins.
"You mean—" My voice cracked. "—I was his puppet? All this time?"
"Of course." She arched a silver brow. "Every atrocity you regret, every decision you thought was yours… nudged by him. You were his foil, Tom. His shadow, to make his light shine brighter. And now—" her eyes slid toward the frozen crib "—he intends the same for this child. To mold Harry Potter into his little sacrificial lamb, destined to die just in time for Dumbledore to swoop in and 'save the day.' The cycle repeats. Unless…"
My teeth ground together. Rage, shame, horror—emotions I thought I had purged from myself flooded back with suffocating force.
The voice. The urges. The war. The endless spiral into monstrosity.
Dumbledore.
That sanctimonious bastard.
I wanted to tear the world apart with my bare hands.
I forced my voice low, dangerous. "Why tell me this? Who are you to meddle in my life?"
Her smile softened, though her eyes burned brighter still. "Because, dear boy… I will need you."
The weight of her gaze crushed me. For the first time in my life, I understood what it was to be prey before a predator. She did not simply carry magic—she was magic.
She extended her arms in a graceful gesture. "As for who I am? I am Hecate. The first witch. The flame from which all others were lit. The ancestor of every witch and wizard who walks this earth. Including you, Tom Riddle."
My heart skipped.
Hecate. A name whispered in fragments across dusty tomes, half-myth, half-divinity. No scholar ever agreed if she lived or if she was a legend. And here she stood before me, solid, terrifying, undeniable.
Hecate moved like a thought. One moment she stood across the room, the next she was at the crib, fingers hovering just above the frozen child. The air around her rippled, the torches bending low as if in reverence.
"Though I am bound to all witches," she murmured, "I am more closely tied to one above all others."
Her eyes flicked to me, then back to the boy. "Young Harry Potter. My tenth great-grandson."
I turned sharply, my pulse a hammer in my ears. "Him?"
"Yes." The word glided from her lips like a blade across silk. Her expression was not just smug but radiant, a predator's pride in the strength of her bloodline. "He carries my blood in its purest form. He could even rival me, given time."
I stared at the child. Even frozen in time, he radiated power like heat off stone. My magic prickled in recognition.
"From the Potter line?" I asked warily.
Hecate's laugh filled the chamber, deep and rolling, like thunder echoing over mountains. "Not the Potters, Tom. His mother. Lily Evans."
The name hit me like a blow. "Evans? A Muggle-born?!"
Her eyes glittered with something ancient, older than contempt. "You think the Ministry's little labels define truth? Foolish boy. Long before the Ministry existed, before the Statute of Secrecy, the Imperial House of Emrys ruled magical Britain. They held my banner and my blood. They kept the old ways. And when the Salem trials burned their kin, they vanished—by choice. Their records destroyed. Their name scrubbed of power. What you call Muggle-born are often their scattered heirs."
I felt my breath catch. "Why have I never heard of this?"
"Because they erased it." Her smile was like a knife unsheathed. "When witches first walked the world, all were my descendants—half-bloods born from mortal fathers and my own magic. But only the House of Emrys—my House, born of my union with the quite dashing young Sebastian Emrys—carried my bloodline making them the only true Pureblood family that carried my gifts. When they disappeared into the mundane world, they chose a new name: Evans. A name safe enough to be forgotten."
I stared at the child again. "He's their heir?"
"He is," she said softly. "And through him, my line could be restored." She turned back to me, her gaze hardening. "I want you to return the House of Evans to its glory, Tom. Change the wizarding world for the better. Tear out the rot. Rule it, reshape it, burn away the lies. That is what I ask of you."
My instincts screamed, and my rage coiled. "So that's it. Another puppet. You want me to be your instrument."
Her laugh rolled again, genuine and terrifying, curling around me like smoke. "No, Tom. I've no need for puppets. I want a show. A spectacle. You will act as you will. Rise or fall, it will be of your own making. I will only watch."
She stepped closer, and the air thickened until I could hardly breathe. The torches went out one by one, plunging the room into shadow save for her eyes—twin green suns burning through the dark.
"I am offering you a choice," she said, her voice now low, intimate, inescapable. "Take my hand. Train under me. Learn what you never could at Hogwarts. When the time comes, you will wake inside this child's body, keeping your power, your knowledge, your will. In five years, the original boy will be beaten to death by his uncle—a meaningless end. You will take his place, and the world will never know."
Her hand extended, pale and flawless, yet heavy with the weight of eternity.
I stared at it. At her. At the boy. My mind roared like the sea. A chance to live free of Dumbledore's whispers. A chance to rebuild, to wield power untainted. A chance to destroy him. A chance to reshape everything.
But also—her words lingered—entertainment. She would watch, as one watches a play.
"What's your angle?" I hissed. "What do you gain from this?"
Her grin widened, terrible and beautiful. "A good story. That is all. Do not mistake me for your old headmaster. I will not pull your strings. I will simply…enjoy watching what you do with them."
I drew a slow, steady breath. My choice crystallized.
I reached.
Her fingers closed around mine like a trap of steel. The world shuddered. Stone cracked underfoot. My vision blurred as the walls bent inward, twisting into a spiral of green fire.
"Then it's decided," she whispered, her lips at my ear. Her breath was cool and smelled faintly of storms. "Good luck, Tom Riddle. You'll awaken in five…perhaps ten years. In his body. Make something magnificent of it."
She flicked her finger against my forehead.
Agony tore through me. Every nerve screamed as if my soul were being unstitched, re-threaded. The familiar wrench of Apparition magnified a thousandfold. Darkness swallowed me whole.
The last thing I heard was her laughter—wild, triumphant, echoing into the void—and her voice, soft and sharp as a knife:
"Do not disappoint me."
Then nothing.