AUGUST, 1981
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A HARROWING TEATIME had not been on Anita Greenley's mind when she'd placed the pot of water on the stove to boil. Nor had she given any thought to the possibility of death visiting her, which, given her understanding of hindsight and looking back on it now, seemed like an inevitability.

But Anita was a relatively simple, robust woman, who'd only had thoughts of good tea, a roaring fire, and relaxing in her chair on her mind, while overhead, her twin girls dreamed themselves into an eleventh birthday, well deserved. Such a peaceful end. A tragedy then, that they only existed in peaceful times, and the world was anything but.

The Wizarding World was on the brink of war, no matter how the papers discouraged such conclusions. But missing Muggles were on the rise, and violence among the Muggleborn was being dismissed some circles as a simple 'clearing out of the rubbish.'

Denial had never won wars, never spared a family the loss of a loved one. In the end, it only served to increase the death toll.

Anita sensed with the shifting winds, and divisive public opinion, the war would eventually land on her doorstep. But she had never expected him, of all people, to be the one to call.

Her guest stalked her living room like an agitated predator, his each footstep trampling her plush, green carpet. Eyes, red and serpent-like took in his surroundings, a mounting disgust curling his lip. True, her home wasn't anything special, unless one counted the mountains of toys in the far corner, but it was nothing to openly hate.

It might not have been what he was accustomed to - absent were the luxurious silks and marble floors of the Wizarding elite that had welcomed him into their homes with open arms and reverent gazes - but, Anita would argue, a cozy home was better than a cavernous one.

At least she knew everything had its place, even if it was currently shoved between couch cushions, or stranded in the sink buoying for life between stacks of dirty dishes. The soft, petal pink of her walls might have been chipped, cracks might have spider-webbed from her ceiling, the carpets worn-down to their nubs, but every inch of Anita's cabin housed a memory. And it was for those memories, her house had been transformed into a home. One Anita would give her life to protect.

Shuffling to the opposite side of her living room, Anita took a seat on the couch. She settled in nicely, dragging a blanket across her lap and hefting her feet onto the coffee table. After grabbing a tea cup off the tray she'd placed next to her, she asked, "Tea?" With her free arm, she motioned to the other cup cooling away. Thin strands of steam wafted up from the golden-green liquid.

Her guest eyed her reproachfully, the milk-white fingers of his right hand hovering over the end of a wand. "I do not indulge in Muggle things."

Shrugging, Anita leaned into the sofa back and took a casual sip of tea. Floral notes of chamomile and honey wormed down her throat. She released a satisfied sigh, and closed her eyes in momentary delight. Her life had been filled with so much tragedy, she'd learned, from a young age, to cherish the moments of happiness, when the grief and upset receded, and to always keep them close. Her mother had told Anita once that the feeling of happiness was the one thing no witch or wizard could ever magic away.

"It's a real shame, that mind set." Anita flicked open her eyes, balancing her cup on her knee. "Muggles have invented truly wonderous things. Their lack of magic, it empowers their ingenuity." Her eyes narrowed, as her guest flashed a sneer. "But that's not what you think. You believe their lack of magic makes them inferior?"

"Not inferior," he hissed. "They are nothing."

Anita shrugged. "Then I am nothing." Her guest bristled, the hem of his black robes slithering across her floor. "Your Ministry long ago labeled my kind Muggles."

"You're no Muggle."

"I'm no wizard, either." Her guest's scowl worsened, as her rebuttal was not well met. Not an ideal reaction, but neither was it anything alarming. Anita had no plans to shower him with civility this night, not when he had insisted upon open hostility since the moment he'd walked through her door.

Hefting her cup in front of her face, she peered at her guest over the rim, taking him all in. She'd known of him from the papers, though mostly through the bits of gossip she collected on her night runs to Knockturn Alley. He'd been considered handsome, his fanatics considering him handsome still, and a true charmer during his time at Hogwarts. And then his desires had twisted him, or made him stronger, depending on who you asked, taking the same path so many had tread before. "As I've heard it, you prefer to keep your dealings pure. I'm sure you'd consider me anything but pure."

He snorted. "You have abilities I could--"

"Benefit from," Anita traced a finger across her cup, "of course. But what do you know of them?"

"I--"

"Let me correct you now, and save you from further embarrassment," she said, rising to her feet. The fire next to her crackled, and cast both of them in shadow. Her guest's face soured and Anita thought him like milk that had gone bad; curdled and sallow. From what she'd caught of his song, his appearance followed suit. "You know only what your Ministry allows you to know."

"There are stories--" He stopped pacing the room to stand before Anita. His gaze slid over her face to the mantle where pictures of Anita's twins covered every inch of space. There were photos of them building snowmen, jumping into piles of leaves. Splashing through puddles. Pictures of them with ruddy faces and wind-swept hair, gapped tooth grins. Bundled in coats and scarves to fend off the chill of winter. Happy girls, unaware of what awaited them.

Anita stepped forward, wedging herself between her guest and the mantle, the act that of a protective mother sheltering her children a second more from the ills of the world. With it, she managed to regain her guest's full attention.

"You believe stories?" A snort of laughter shook free of her. "My, you sound more like a boy my daughters' age then a Wizard calling for the destruction of his own kind."

"Mudbloods are not my kind." Rage filled his voice, his fingers firmly coiled around his wand.

"As you say," Anita said, breezily. She ran a finger down her mantle, and frowned at the build up of dust on her finger when she pulled away. "So what have you gleaned, Tom?" Her guest bristled. She strode toward him. "Certainly the stories you heard were more fantastic than this. As you see, I am merely a woman, living in a cottage in the woods with my daughters. I have a small home, one you find so beneath you, it makes your very skin crawl. I'm sure you've thought about destroying it." Her eyes narrowed, reflecting the flames of the fire. The Dark Lord raised his wand, leveling it at her throat. She walked straight toward it until the tip dug into her skin. "Destruction is, after all, all your kind brings."

Fury erupted in his eyes. Anita moved away from him and toward the door of her cottage. "You know I enjoy a good cup of tea, and that I am a gracious host, despite your apparent rudeness." He snarled. "Oh don't pretend like showing up in the middle of the night, with no prior invite was genteel. I should have called the cops, much good it would have done." Her eyes darted to his wand. "I warrant you would have killed them in their squad cars. A single utterance of a spell and a life's extinguished. No one should ever have such power." Her eyes rose, and affixed to his face once more. "That, Mr. Riddle, is all you've learned while here. And it is all you will learn." Hand on the doorknob, she peeled back the door. Outside, the world was dark, and silent. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I ought to get to bed. Tomorrow's a big day for my girls, and I've got errands to run, a cake to pick up--"

"You would cast me aside so urgently? Without knowing why it is I've come?" She thought the tiniest bit of surprise wove through the Dark Lord's voice. It certainly had infiltrated his song. The screeching, howling notes gave way to abrupt pauses that disrupted the chaotic tune.

"Why bother?" She crossed her arms, a gust of wind bringing the New England chill to her skin. "When it comes to your kind, it is never the words that change, but he who comes to deliver them." Grabbing a shawl off the coat rack and draping it over her shoulders, she turned to face him. "You desire power, like all those that have come before you. And you desire my help to obtain it." His mouth flopped open, but was shut immediately when Anita continued. "Feel free to correct me, if I happen to get it wrong." His lips pulled into a line, nostrils flaring. "Shall I tell you what I've told all the others who arrived on my stoop unannounced and uninvited?"

She straightened, voice tense. "Your Ministry labeled me a Muggle, but before that, they oversaw the slaughter of my sisters. One by one, dragging us from our beds, daughters made to kneel in front of pleading, sobbing mothers, wands pointed at the backs of their heads. And then, one by one, they were executed. The daughters and the mothers. No one was spared. My kind, one after another, exterminated. There was so much blood around us, it made the air taste sweet." A terrible memory stabbed at Anita's mind.

A starry sky. A floral head scarf, bright as a tropical bird's feathers, takes to the sky, flapping like wings. A pop sounds, eerily close yet distant. It echoes in her ears, rattles in her bones. Closing her eyes becomes a reflex, to shield herself from the horror. She thought the screaming was the worst, but in the long silence that followed, she's terrified.

When she dares to see again, the scarf, her mother's scarf, is red. It is only red.

One of a hundred scarves, freed that night from the heads that wore them, and carried off by the wind.

"Your world was built on the blood and tears and sacrifices of my kind." Anita's eyes burned, her throat thick with sorrow and rage. "I don't care a lick for your struggles or petty squabbles. Wage your war, Riddle. Burn the Wizarding World to the bloody ground and name yourself ruler of its ashes, but wash my hands of it."

"You refuse me?"

"Despite what you may think, you are nothing special." A note of surprise swelled in his song. "I refuse you, much as I refused those who came before you."

He growled. "You will regret this."

Her eyes narrowed. "How? You'll send your masked dogs after me? I have been hounded by wizards and witches my entire life. You think I'm scared of what you'll wrought? I have known fear and hatred since the day I was born and I had those feelings again carved into my bones, woven inextricably into the fabric of my soul, when my mother, and her mother--" Anita's voice broke, as she choked back a sob, "--my sister were put at the end of a wand, their lives taken away with the lazy utterance of that blighted curse. You can do no worse to me than what's already been done."

"Then," he said, his voice a faint, ghostly whisper of what it had been, "if there's no convincing you, why not end it, here and now?"

"Now," Anita said, eyebrows raised, "it is you who'll regret--"

"Avada Kedavra."

Green light shot from his wand. The air sizzled and popped as the curse struck Anita in the chest. She hobbled back into the fireplace, the photos of her daughters falling off the mantle. Glass shattered at her feet. Her girls' smiling faces, and blue eyes gazed up at her.

But instead of fleeing from the magic and leaving her body to rot, she slowed her breathing, turned inward, and sought it out. All of it. The pain, the anger. The ugliness, and fear and hatred. She beckoned to all of it.

Closing her eyes, she listened. Beyond the thud of her chest, and the wheeze of her breath. And she found it, coiled around her heart like a phantom python ready to squeeze the last of her life from her - Lord Voldemort's magic. It gave a bloodcurdling scream.

Such a pity, the shape it now took. The serpent's eyes were milky and unseeing, its scales a translucent grey. Venom dripped from broken, yellowed fangs.

Anita's mind reached out, closing the gap between herself and the snake. It squeezed her heart, and she felt her legs give out. But despite the pain, she endured, closing the gap. The snake reared. Lashed out. Nipped at the air, but its movements were slow and Anita was quick. She grabbed it, wrestled it free of her heart, and cradled in her arms, she stroked the poor thing.

Cracks formed along the serpent's body. Its scales shed, one by one, replaced by shining, silver ones. Then, slowly, it broke apart, Anita's ability soothing the magic back into its pure, rightful form.

Magic's song was never truly lost as it could always be changed. All it needed was a conductor to guide it someplace new.

The thrill of this magic, now cleansed of Tom's poison, pulsed through Anita's veins. Warmth spiraled out from her heart, from the point where the curse had first hit. Her head throbbed and a sharp pain had lodged itself between her shoulders from her fall.

She was slow to rise, slower still to regain her bearings. But when she had, Riddle was mulling about, his back toward her, his wand tucked away.

"Leaving. So. Soon?" Her body swayed, heavy with over-exertion and fatigue, but it was nothing a heating pad and a little sleep couldn't remedy. The party tomorrow, though, attended by twenty of her daughter's friends, all of them filled to bursting with sugary sweets, was sure to sap her of what energy she regained.

Riddle's eyes widened, his gaze wavering as though he was having trouble believing what he was seeing.

Anita held his gaze, cementing what he was witnessing for the truth that it was. "Your kind," she said, boldly. "might create magic's songs. But my kind, we rewrite them. It's a bloody feat absorbing the Wizarding World's strongest curse," on legs no more useful than stilts on the beach, she hobbled toward him, "but I must thank you, Tom."

Her eyes flickered to each corner of the room. The Dark Lord's head fell to the side, confusion rippling across his face. "Why?" The word was slowly asked, but Anita's answer was lightning fast.

"Because you've supplied me with all the magic I need."

Three runes, that until then, had been hidden in the walls of Anita's home, erupted in bright scarlet.

Confusion gave way to concern on the Dark Lord's face. "Runes?"

"Uruz. Thurisaz. Kaunaz."

His expression twisted.

"Determination," Anita explained. The rune separated itself from the wood and floated before Voldemort's face. "Brute force," the jagged lines of Thurisaz hovered over Voldemort's shoulder. "Fire." Kaunaz, the last of the runes, stuck to Voldemort's back. "You didn't really think I'd let you infect my home without a plan?"

Anita's eyes reflected the red of her runes, the air in her cottage growing thick. Magic skirted up her spine and into her fingers. She pushed it into her runes, and then, the runes exploded, magic lashing Voldemort's body, and wrapping itself around his wrists, restraining him before he had time to go for his wand. It fell with a clatter to the ground.

With a lift of her hand, Anita gave the command to sweep Voldemort off the ground. His magic, now hers, complied eagerly.

He dangled in front of her, no more dangerous than a rag doll. "Never forget, Tom. This," the restraints around his wrists tightened, cutting into his flesh, and drawing blood. It pooled in the folds of his wizarding robes, no longer the pristine black they'd once been. "This is the true power of the Ontwrig."

Satisfied he now knew the reason for her kind's destruction and erasure from Wizarding history at the hands of a select few, Anita had but one last task to complete. Gritting her teeth, she pushed the remaining magic from the killing curse into the runes, and the living room of her quaint, cottage home exploded in a blaze of fire.