I haven't got it posted anywhere because I never finished it to my satisfaction but here's what I have.
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Harry Potter and the Sixth Column
Thunder crashed over Godric's Hollow. It was the night of Halloween, 1981. When the last echoes of thunder were gone, five robed figures stood in the wreckage of what had been a cozy cottage home no more than an hour before.
Of the five, three wore hooded white robes and silvery masks on their faces. A fourth wore black robes and the last, and smallest, of the group wore grey. All five had their wands out and on reflex they spread out to cover the approaches to their position. One of those in white robes, the tallest of the group, carried a bundle cradled between his left arm and his chest. There was a sniffling coming from the bundle and the occasional choked cry.
"I think he's wet, Lils," the man advised conversationally.
"Oh for Merlin's sake," the smallest figure hissed. "You are the most useless lump in the world, Sirius Black." She tossed back her hood to reveal gloriously titanian hair and huge emerald eyes. Stalking over to the man, she scooped up the bundle and pulled back the wrap a little to reveal a small, black haired child little more than a year old. "He just misses his mummy, don't you Harry?" There was a gurgle from the boy and she directed a glowing look of maternal delight at him.
Behind the little tableau, the other three pulled back their hoods. All three men were weary - and in the case of James Potter and Remus Lupin, distraught as the silver masks fell away from them. Only the man in black, taller than any of them but for Sirius Black, managed to keep his face guarded and even he had to lean hard on the wall behind him for a moment as the adrenaline was leeched from his bloodstream.
Thomas M. Riddle - Slytherin's Heir, Dark Lord of the Sixth Column, notorious terrorist and revolutionary and mudblood apologist - was in his fifties, still in his prime by wizarding standards. His black hair was loose around his shoulders and his dark eyes were compelling. A handsome man, he had never wed and outside of his closest confidantes, rarely lowered his guard.
For most of the last five years, those confidantes had included the four Lords of Havoc, the Sixth Column's most notorious strike team. It was - or had been - a closely kept secret who the Lords were. Even in council with the Sixth Column's leadership, they had always kept their masks on. But now they were three and the last of them...
"I never would have believed..." Remus sighed.
"Peter!" James shouted angrily at the sky. "How could you!?"
"He is not without family, James," Riddle offered grimly. "Perhaps Dumbledore put pressure on him through them. It is unlikely that his position is to be envied, however."
"Perhaps you're right," James admitted, looking around. For the first time he looked around to eye their surroundings for more than potential threats. "Where are we?"
Riddle looked around. "I have a nasty suspicion about that," he confessed. "I... What!"
Heads jerked around at the exclamation and the three Lords of Havoc leapt to guard their leader, wands ready in an instant. To their surprise, Riddle began cursing in three languages as he yanked open what was left of a door and bounded inside. Sirius, who was somewhat familiar with the Goblin tongue, blinked at a particularly pungent description of Headmaster Aberforth Dumbledore's ancestry.
A moment later, the dark wizard was back, looking somewhat sickened. In his arms was a child no older than the Potter's son. He had produced a handkerchief and was gently blotting away blood from the forehead of the boy.
James's eyes locked onto the child in disbelief. "Impossible!" he exclaimed.
"Not at all," Riddle replied heavily. "Merely very unfortunate."
"This is Godric's Hollow," Lily said, arriving with Harry in her arms. "This is our home."
"No." Riddle said, and the look in his eyes made him look ancient. "This is not our world. In that room lay Lily Potter, fallen to the Killing Curse. I doubt not that we will find a dead James here also. It is as I feared. The ritual the Aurors were using was an ancient one, one of exile from our very reality."
.oOo.
Ten Years Later
Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster, Chief Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, etc. etc., looked hopefully at the quill that the Sorting Hat had dropped onto his desk that morning. Few wizards, in or out of Hogwarts, realised how critical the Sorting Hat was to the school. Not only had it once belonged to Godric Gryffindor and sorted innumerable witches and wizards into their Houses, but it was also the repository for several magical items related to the school, from as fantastic as Gryffindor's Sword, to the apparently mundane quill that would address the letters to the next year's students.
The use of the quill today might shed light upon a problem that had vexed Albus Dumbledore for almost ten years now. Even before he had been born, Harry Potter had been listed as a future student of Hogwarts. Now, the quill might reveal where he had vanished to on that terrible Halloween night, leaving his parents dead and Voldemort missing and presumed also dead.
Never in Dumbledore's experience had the quill seemed to move so slowly. Neville Longbottom would be a student, as would Draco Malfoy. One child who might have been the Boy-Who-Lived, had the fates fallen thus. Another who might yet follow his father's dark path unless he could be guided away from it. There were two Patil girls - products of the pureblooded Indian family who had relocated to England in the days of Dumbledore's youth, adding a much needed splash of colour to the traditional communities in his opinion. And then the quill wrote an æHÆ and the old wizard leant forward in anticipation.
Harry Potter. Riddle Manor, Little Hangleton.
Dumbledore blinked. Of all the addresses that he had thought to see displayed by Harry's name, an address associated only with the distant past of Tom Riddle had not even crossed his mind. The home of one of the Voldemort's pureblooded minions perhaps, but the empty home of his muggle father? Unbelievable.
Unmoved, the quill continued.
Henry Potter. Riddle Manor, Little Hangleton.
Another Potter? One that Dumbledore had not been aware of? Harry's brother? Likely, given that they were together at the moment. But James and Lily would have had no reason to hide a second child. A cousin perhaps? Or maybe an adopted child?
Still, there was no need to wait around. With a flick of his wand, Dumbledore summoned the book lists for the next year and paired them with the two letters, addressing them with a steady hand, although his fingers shook slightly with excitement as he sealed both with green wax and imprinted them with the Hogwarts seal.
No sooner that he was done than the old man was gone from the desk, turning to the stand where his friend and familiar, Fawkes, awaited. "We've been waiting a long time for this," he told the phoenix. "Now we can bring Harry home at last."
.oOo.
A few hundred miles away and around a few twists and turns in the trousers of time, another office was filled with paperwork. The man working here was younger than Dumbledore by almost a century, although his lined face and greying hair would have to all appearances have shaved decades off the difference. This maturity was belied by the fact that he was evidently playing hooky from the papers stacked on his desk, leaning on the windowsill and looking out at the lawn in front of the Manor where, protected by layer after layer of wards, two teams of children were swooping back and forth in hot pursuit of quaffle, snitch or bludger.
"The paperwork won't do itself, you know," observed Remus Lupin from the doorway. His own eyes twinkled as he walked over to the window.
Thomas Riddle smiled and he rubbed at a thin scar that rose up his right brow and ran back beneath his hair. "Just reminding myself what we fight for, old friend," he said lightly. "But I suppose I should get back to the battle."
"And a perilous one it is," Remus agreed. "Why the potential for papercuts alone..." He shuddered and Riddle rolled his eyes. "I suppose that there's no hope..."
"Not this year," Riddle said firmly. "I'm sorry, Remus. You've worked miracles but there's no way Hogwarts can be reopened for students until next year at the earliest. The basic structure is there, but rebuilding the facilities, and the faculty for that matter, is an uphill battle."
Remus sighed. "The kids will be disappointed," he said. "We've tried not to raise their hopes, but you know how the twins hang upon our words when we talk about the old days, back at Hogwarts."
Riddle shrugged. "Barring accident, they should be able to attend for their second year. It won't be quite the same of course, but..." He tailed off - Hogwarts would never be the same after the terrible fire of 1986, when three tragically misguided students had set fire to the library in protest at the Wizengamot's decision to strike down the legislation that prevented muggleborn students from attending. The fires had spread rapidly and any hope of containing the blaze died as the Sixth Column, responding to a desperate request from an agent among the staff came under fire from Aurors as they forced their way into the Slytherin dorms to rescue students trapped there. The Fire of Hogwarts had killed twelve students - the battle had killed three others as Aurors fired blindly at anything moving.
For a change, the Daily Prophet had reported events reasonably accurately. The Minister of Magic, Aberforth Dumbledore had neither made nor accepted excuses for the damage to his old school. His resignation followed a wave of purges in the auror ranks and left the ministry leaderless during the critical week as popular opinion crystalised and the pureblooded families mourned. Bartemius Crouch was instated as an Interim Minister, but in the subsequent elections, a recordbreaking turnout of muggleborn and halfblood voters, registered despite sometimes bloody opposition over the previous decades, had voted in Thomas M. Riddle as the new Minister of Magic. Even then there had been opposition: Crouch had contested Riddle's election on the grounds that a wanted criminal could not take public office, but after months of wrangling, the Wizengamot had voted by a narrow margin to pardon the incoming Minister of Magic - or rather, as Lord Black had phrased it, ôsentenced him to unceasing labours on the behalf of the Wizarding Worldö.
Thomas hadnÆt said anything to Sirius thenà but the young Lord of the ancient and noble House of Black woke up the next morning, dangling by a long rope from a muggle suspension bridge, clad only in womenÆs underwear.
As the two mused on the last few years, Riddle's attention was drawn by the chirping of an intricate device of crystal and silver, buried at the back of one of his office cabinets. "My word," he muttered. "I didn't expect to hear from that."
"What is it?" Remus asked. He was familiar with most of Riddle's office in the restored Manor, but he had never really explored that cabinet.
Riddle rubbed his scar again. "You may recall a certain Halloween, a decade or so ago." he murmered, examining the device carefully. "When we made our return from that timeline I left a few wards around our point of departure - this manor's counterpart in fact - in case anyone tried to follow us. This little toy is what I tied them to - and now someone's disturbing those wards." He rose to his feet and gave the papers on his desk a derisive sneer. "I do believe that a field trip is in order, Remus. I'm sure I can leave the paperwork to you and James for once."
He flicked his wand and with a mumbled phrase of latin, vanished as swiftly as if he had merely apparated.
Remus rolled his eyes. "For once," he told the emtpy chair behind the desk. "Hah!"
.oOo.
Riddle Manor was a ruin. Dumbledore had visited only once, when he was looking into the past of Lord Voldemort. Then it had been large and stately, if neglected. At some point in the intervening years, considerable damage had been done. One entire wing had collapsed in upon itself and the rest bore marks of destructive magics. There was no sign that anyone had visited for years. Certainly no sign of children being present.
Puzzled, Dumbledore left the ruin and walked down an overgrown lawn to get an overview of the property. A few paces away, he felt a tracery of magic and grimaced. In his haste, he had had Fawkes bring him directly to the Manor and now he realised that he was inside a sensitive tracery of wards that had doubtless detected his presence.
When he turned to look at the house, a lean dark man was stood in the doorway, eyeing him oddly. For a moment, the distance deceived Dumbledore's eyes and he thought that his potions professor had followed him, but then he realised that the face below that long black hair was smoother than Severus' and that the robes were not an academic cut.
"Good afternoon," he called in greeting, retracing his steps. "My name is Professor Albus Dumbledore." His name had conjured quite the number of reactions over the years. This time the response was not one of recognition, as was so often the case these days, but merely one of polite interest. "I appear to have been misdirected here."
The man's eyes flicked to the letters still held in the ancient headmaster's hand and he smiled. "Perhaps," he replied and waved a slim wand at the ornamental lions that framed the doors. They came to life, leaping down from their places and then reshaped themselves into chairs facing each other in front of the door. "Then again, perhaps not." He gestured to the seats. "I am not sure I can claim any ownership here, Professor Dumbledore, but you are as welcome as I can make you."
Dumbledore lowered himself into one chair - it had been a neat piece of transfiguration, he observed, for the seat was as comfortable as his own at Hogwarts - and the man took the other. He certainly did not lack for presence - with him sprawled casually in it the stone chair had a throne-like air that the identical chair Dumbledore sat in lacked. "I don't believe that you have identified yourself, sir."
The man's lips quirked. "I am in the unfortunate position of sharing the name of the house's previous owner," he said a little lightly. "I gather that he was not universally admired."
Dumbledore froze. "Tom Riddle," he said softly.
"You have named me, Albus Dumbledore," Thomas replied. "And, indeed, you have summoned me."
For a long moment, Dumbledore measured this Tom Riddle against his former student. They were much alike in appearance, he saw. But there were also differences - this man was not a tyrant, he thought, he was a leader. What poor Voldemort might have been, given better choices. "I am the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," he began and saw a flare of interest in the man's eyes. Interesting - he knew the school, but not the name of it's headmaster. "Today, our means of locating new students advised me that two of them resided here. One I have no knowledge of. The other I have sought to locate for some years now."
Riddle ran one long finger along a thin scar that marked his brow. "They reside here?"
"Riddle Manor," Dumbledore clarified. "In Little Hangleton."
Riddle hissed. Then: "Two children?" he asked. "Very strange."
"Oh?"
ôOne child,ö he said thoughtfully. ôOne child, I would not be surprised at. Two childrenà Now that is very interesting indeed.ö
Dumbledore leant forwards intently. A moment of silence lay between them.
"I know another Riddle Manor," Thomas explained slowly. "In another Little Hangleton. And there are two children there of an age to enter Hogwarts - both have been here before. But only one was born here."
Dumbledore slid one of the green-sealed evevelopes out from behind the other and passed it across the gap between them. Riddle eyed the address and chuckled drily. "Harry Potter," he said mildly. "Well, that's hardly a surprise. The subject of your search?"
"Indeed," agreed the Headmaster, encouraged by the fond look in the other wizard's eye. How very different from the Dark Lord of whom young Harry was the prophesied nemesis. "Although I would have to wonder how he came to be in your care."
Riddle shrugged. "I could hardly abandon the child," he replied. "His parents were dead and it would not have been prudent to approach your ministry, given my name."
"Yes," Dumbeldore agreed. "Given your name, and your close resemblence to Tom."
Riddle looked intrigued. "You knew him then?"
"I was one of his teachers," Dumbledore admitted. "He was an exceptional student, but I never had more than the barest suspicion that he would turn to the dark."
"There are many reasons to walk those paths," Thomas said grimly. "And some paths are darker than others. To judge by the magics I found at Godric's Hollow, my - this Lord Voldemort," he sneered, "was dark indeed."
"You have no family feeling for him?" Dumbledore asked. "His own father disowned him even before he was born..."
"Would that he had not lived," Riddle replied grimly, without specifying if he spoke of father or son. "Failing that, would that he had died sooner. I am no more obliged to forgive him his sins than I am to apologise for them."
"You are an puzzle, Mr Riddle. As best I have been able to determine, the Tom Riddle who styled himself Voldemort has no living kin. So where do you come from - and where have you taken Harry Potter to?"
Riddle shrugged. "Are you lowering yourself to ask a direct question?" he asked. "You must be fairly desperate." His eyebrow twitched. "Your leglimancy is giving me a headache, by the way."
The twinkle left Dumbledore's eye. "My apologies. I am, as you say, desperate."
Riddle shrugged. "You are, perhaps, aware that in the distant past there was an extreme of punishment called Exile? Where a wizard could dispatch his enemies beyond the walls of this world?"
"The concept is not unfamiliar to me," Dumbledore admitted. "The details are lost now - too many scholars dead, too many libraries burned."
Riddle shivered. "Even one library is too many," he muttered. "Well, in any event, suffice it to say that I earned myself a place as the enemy of certain wizards and one of them took it into his head to Exile me. One Halloween, in Godric's Hollow, I and certain boon companions... were attacked and cast out of our world." He paused and waited for Dumbledore to draw the correct conclusions.
"And into this one..." Dumbledore realised. He frowned. "You managed to return?"
Riddle smiled thinly. "If I am an enemy, Headmaster, I can at least claim to be no mean foe. We returned - with your missing child - and I settled accounts with those who tried to be rid of us." Dumbledore paled and Riddle chuckled, a dry and grim laugh. "Not that, Dumbledore. I did a far worse thing I could to those fools than kill them. I proved them wrong you see. I broke their bigotry and let them see the truth for once."
"What truth?" Dumbledore asked, readying himself to act if need by.
Riddle raised the envelope. "That blood is nothing. That a halfblood - or a muggleborn - was as worthy as the most inbred of their useless spawn. That wit and honour is a match for pride and treachery." There was a predator's smile on his lips. "That this letter is nothing less than the child's due - that his birthright is magic and no one has the right to deny him it. That truth, Professor. That truth."
"Merlin..." Dumbledore sighed. "You are him. Tom Riddle, but the Tom Riddle of your world, just as Harry Potter is the Henry Potter of yours."
.oOo.
Ten Years Before
Riddle Manor was heavily fortified - not enough to stop a team of Aurors, but enough to warn of their approach and provide ample opportunity for escape. Anyone careless enough to simply walk in would probably be dead three times over before they came into arms reach of the front door.
Thomas Riddle squinted at this dark reflection of his ancestral home - well, his father's ancestral home. Having been disowned, he rather doubted that he could make any serious claim. It was a shame in a way - it was quite a splendid house and while it would never be as homey as the cottage at Godric's Hollow had been, it lacked little that Riddle valued compared to the splendour of more distinguished seats of the pureblood lines.
"Warded," he grunted, removing the monocle that he'd been studying the protections through. He tucked the enchanted lens its case and returned it to his robes. "Heavily as well. What do you make of it, Lily?"
Now dressed in white robes to match that of her husband and his friends, Lily lowered her mask. "I could penetrate them," she replied. "But it would take hours. There's no doubt that the apparation trace leads back here though."
"Probably requires a pass," Riddle mused. "Anyone without it get's turned inside out, I should think. Product of a paranoid mind."
"Or a riddle," Sirius jibed.
Riddle regarded him coolly and the tall Marauder reddened. "You've never spoken to Alastor Moody, have you?" the Dark Lord of the Sixth asked rhetorically. "No matter. I don't believe that I ever mentioned this, but I've maintained a sanctum in one of the cellars of this building's counterpart in our world. Once we get inside, I should be able to return us to my sanctum."
Remus blinked. "Are you sure? I mean, it took an entire circle of Aurors to cast the rite against us."
"You may imagine," Thomas Riddle said evenly, "that having heard of the possibility that I might be exiled from my home, I took steps to ensure that I would be able to return."
"How did you manage to hide a sanctum somewhere as obvious as your family home?" James asked. "Wouldn't the ministry have kept an eye on it?"
The Dark Lord snorted. "Indeed. They contracted a highly reputable expert in the field to construct wards that would keep them informed should I ever try to use the building as a base of operations. I simply arranged to replace him on the job and set up wards to serve my own purposes."
He raised his arms, his wand expanding between then into a long staff. "Remus, I shall rely upon you to care for the children. Lily, I would be obliged if you would walk with me - I may have need for your counsel. James, Sirius..." The expression on Riddle's face was grim. "...show them what it means to offend the Lords of Havoc."
There was a crackle of energy and Thomas Riddle staggered under the strain as the Wards were torn asunder.
James and Sirus raced ahead. By the time that a recovered Riddle was striding through the door, Lily at his side, the interior of the manor showed the signs of sudden and unexpected battle overlayed upon the signs of unplanned and interupted decampment.
"My Lord!" gasped a pale haired man lying on his back, Sirius' boot pressed against his throat. "Help me..." Two muscular men, who had been caught carrying small chests, lay stunned on the floor and James was just darting through a door at the far end of the hall.
'His Lord' helped him, by kicking the head of the Malfoy family precisely on the point of his jaw, shattering the bone and doing dental damage that would require several hundred galleons worth of medical magic to repair. A drop in the bucket when it came to the Malfoy fortune, but in the meantime, the sudden pain had disarmed some of Malfoy's occulmency and Riddle slammed into those defenses, shattering them as he delved into the memories of Lucius Malfoy.
It was like delving into a sewer. Riddle had more than once skimmed the minds of rivals and allies alike with legilmency, and no small number of the former had been foul with arrogance and cruelty. This was different... scuplted. The seeds of the usual pureblood bigotry had been focused and magnified to levels that a less disciplined mind might have backed away from. Thomas Riddle, over seven long years as a halfblood student in the most ruthlessly pureblooded of Hogwarts' Houses, had learned to keep his emotions in check.
Finally, with a gasp, he broke free.
Lily's hand was on his shoulder and he nodded gratefully, feeling sweat against his forehead and a rebellious roiling in his guts. "Thank you," he told her when he was sure his voice would be not betray him. He looked around - Remus had joined them within the manor now and James had returned from checking the other rooms.
"There are stairs at the back," he reported. "I think whoever used this place as a base -"
"Voldemort," Riddle grunted. "Although he wasn't born with that name."
James shrugged. "Whatever. He had a throneroom in the cellars. If it doesn't correspond to your sanctum, there's probably a sideroom that does."
"Good," Riddle said, pulling himself to his full height. "We should hurry. I imagine that the local aurors will be here shortly. Obliviate them all and leave a couple of surprises against the structural walls. A little cleansing fire wouldn't go amiss here."
Remus, understanding his place in this, carried the two infants towards the indicated door but Riddle raised his wand and the werewolf paused as layer after layer of defensive magic was layered upon his precious burdens.
"Thomas!" Lily hissed. "Stop - you'll need all your strength to take us home. Trust Remus to care for them."
Riddle shook his head wearily. "I've strength enough," he todl her. "And nothing down there can be allowed to touch them."
"It can't be that bad," Sirius snorted.
Riddle's eyes locked onto Black's. "It's enough to give young Malfoy nightmares," he advised. "Expect sickness."
.oOo.
There was a sparkling in the air outside Riddle Manor and a moment later a tall man stood on the driveway, two young boys flanking him. "Wow!" gasped one of the boys. "What happened to the Manor?"
"Your father and Uncle Sirius happened to it," Thomas Riddle replied. "If you're very good then I may give you a chance to finish the job."
"Really?" asked the other boy, with all the enthusiasm of someone about to be given license to cause large scale destruction.
"If you're good," their 'Uncle Thomas' agreed. "I'm making arrangements to buy it, but I don't need two Manors so we can tear this one down and build something nicer, perhaps."
"A Quidditch pitch?"
Riddle chuckled. "There's already a quidditch pitch outside the other Manor. Why do you want another, Henry?"
Henry scratched his head, raking locks of black hair back from his face, which was identical to his twin's, save for a jagged scar across his forehead. "Well, if we had two pitches..." he said. "In two different universes..."
"Yes?"
Henry shrugged and looked at Harry, who shooks his head. "I've got nothing," he admitted. "What do you want to build, Uncle Thomas?"
"I've no idea," his uncle admitted. "Perhaps something will come to me."
