Riddle for an Answer

Salina poured all of her love into the three young boys, changing every aspect of her life.

Her reading was confined to story books, Potions were healing, and picnics were grand adventures.

Harold worked, played, and smiled with his sons--he never held back his love.

But everyone knew James Potter to be the son they cherished--the child made of love. James Prince was the son to fulfill all his duties, and Thomas was the child who killed his mother and barely lived.

And their behaviors followed in the way that they were born.

James Potter was bright and carefree. He basked in the love of his parents, did as he was asked but always sought to have his own fun. He was powerful, but not dedicated. He was the first to play a prank.

James Prince was calculating and solemn, ever trying to prove his worth. He was studious only so long as to be better than his brothers; he was the first to blame another for a mistake he had made.

Thomas Prince was quiet and violent. He often cried, and his work was done on his own terms--he rarely went outside. He did not exhibit magic, and therefore he felt vulnerable. He was the first to hit his brothers.

With three young boys growing in the house, it was a long time before they realized Thomas’s total lack of magical powers. After the age of nine, they only thought him a late bloomer.

All the boys would steal their parents’ wands--create a mess--and run away (chastised). The Potters let themselves believe that Thomas was smarter, and would not wave the wand about just to get into trouble.

But on the boys' eleventh birthday, Ollivander gravely refused to sell the youngest Prince a wand.

Salina looked in all directions for some answer--but mostly she prayed.

The brothers were at odds, but all of them saw Salina as their mother, and they all responded to her wish for peace.

Until the day that four letters of acceptance flew through their window.

Two for James Prince: Hogwarts and Durmstrang; Two for James Potter: Hogwarts and Beuxbatons; Thomas received none.

And James Prince rashly invoked his responsibility as a Prince, to challenge his brother’s place in the Prince family.

Salina separated the three, which was all she could do to stop a killing over breakfast. When she stared across the table to her husband, she saw a different person. Maybe he was the same person she had known him to be the first year of her marriage. Maybe it was her who had changed—out of fear for a child that wasn’t hers.

“Why didn’t you help me stop this?” She asked, once the children were effectively banned from the room and each other.

“I cannot. My hands are tied.”

Salina knew that any kind of magic could be at work on her husband, but he had never been so shuttered when she asked him a direct question. Her anger flared. “I SEE NO BONDS! He is your son, can’t you do anything?”

“Wife, this is none of your concern--he is not your son.”

Harold, her Harry, had adopted a cold persona. She wondered how he had frozen his heart so quickly. The years of love between them seemed just a passing of seasons. “Then he is my nephew! I will not stand idle and see him die! I am not of half a heart as Demi was. I have cared for Thomas, WE have loved him!” Her gestures were frantic, and Salina felt as if she had gone crazy for the world had left her behind.

“The Prince name can only be carried by a wizard, and the branching off of names is only for an extra wizard son. I gave up my name as Prince, and James has the right to control his family--he is the head of it.”

“Then… I leave.” Salina spoke--falling back upon the only answer before her.

“Wife--”

She could not stand to hear him address her so coldly, not after all these years. “I am Salina Delacour until I return on my own. And that will be Thomas’s name if my Brother will have him.”

“Yes.” Harold would not look into her eyes. “Do what you must.”

It was a lost cause, and they both knew that the Delacours were just as proud as the Princes.

~*~

A great dark wizard will be born

A Prince and a Snake, his wretched form

Salina did not return to the home of her childhood--her brother had never cared for her, and he would not respond to a woman shamed. A sister blamed for the great Demi’s death.

Salina simply traveled east, to the small town of Little Hangleton.

And here she slipped her child, devoid of memories of Princes and Potters, into the bed of a child dead. Their features were alike, a gift of the God who gave her Harold to love, and here she knew Thomas would live. He would be cared for, spoiled, from a middle child to an only child, from haunted Squib to miraculous recovery. Here, in the Riddle House.

~*~

Salina returned with the dead body of the Muggle boy, and they treated him as a wizard who never came into his powers. They burnt his body and they freed his soul. Salina would not tell of the Riddle house. To those with magic the Riddle’s young gardener was the secret keeper.

Harold did not ask, no one would--they were too relieved to see Thomas dead. No one had expected him to live. Without magic, he was meant to die.

They sent James Prince to Durmstrang, in the shadow of all the Princes before him. James Potter started his line at Hogwarts--as a Gryffindor.

Grindelwald made his first appearance four years later.