"Let's go, Nagini."
Finding Nagini had been an accident stacked on top of another accident.
In Riddle's memories, he had met her very early, back when he still lived at the orphanage. Elijah had known that much. What he hadn't expected was that a simple visit to the Riddle family's so-called "scenic spot" would end with him spotting Nagini curled quietly beneath a curtain of lush ivy.
She mistook him for Riddle.
Strangely, Nagini seemed to have forgotten almost everything about being human, but she still remembered the boy from fifty years ago who had spoken to her so confidently. As if she hadn't forgotten a single day of the past half-century.
As if she'd merely taken a nap, and when she opened her eyes again, time hadn't moved forward at all.
The reunion was… pleasant, in its own way. Elijah had tried to explain that he wasn't truly Riddle, but that was likely too complicated for Nagini's mind as it was now.
She couldn't separate good from evil. She couldn't possibly understand that the boy she'd once known would later become a Dark Lord more terrifying than Grindelwald.
But she could still sense the difference between Elijah and the others who felt similar. And this time, she chose to leave with him.
Leaving Little Hangleton behind, the Gaunt shack lay another four or five miles on.
Compared to Riddle House, it was barely fit to be called a home. It looked more like a livestock shed that had been forgotten by the world. The only "decoration" was an S-shaped dead snake nailed to the door.
Moss coated the walls. Half the roof tiles were missing, exposing the rafters beneath. Nettles grew thick around the place, creeping up to the tiny windows that were filmed over with decades of grime.
Mice and spiders had claimed it. Dead moths hung trapped in dense webs like old warnings.
Elijah didn't step inside recklessly. He knew Voldemort had left a curse here. He also happened to know how to undo it.
The diary and the Gaunt ring—two Horcruxes—were made close enough in time that their traces still overlapped.
Many people believed the diary was created when Myrtle died, but that was wrong. Myrtle's death had been an accident.
The murders of the Riddle family and the remaining Gaunts were Voldemort's first true killings.
Those were the deaths that made the Horcruxes.
The ring came later than the diary, yes—but not by much.
And there was more than history linking them.
There was a connection between Horcruxes, Harry, and Voldemort's body. Harry and Voldemort could invade each other's minds. Harry and Nagini's perspectives could even overlap.
So even if the diary preserved only fragments, when Voldemort's emotions surged strongly, they still resonated across the distance.
Elijah had even seen the moment before Voldemort's "death."
It was then that the connection between Voldemort and his Horcruxes was severed. Diary, locket, cup… Voldemort hadn't even noticed when they were destroyed.
But when Nagini died, Voldemort was hit hard. And when he struck Harry with the Killing Curse, he fell as well.
Even so, the curse on the Gaunt shack was intricate.
It took Elijah nearly the entire night to retrieve the ring. The ring itself meant little. What mattered was the black, prismatic stone set into it—a crystal-like gem with the Peverell crest engraved within.
The Resurrection Stone.
One of the three Deathly Hallows.
Of course, bringing someone back through the Resurrection Stone did not truly restore them. Their consciousness did not return as it should. They were more like a body without a soul.
Or, if the existence of "Death" and The Tale of the Three Brothers was more than a children's story, then perhaps it wasn't that the returned lacked souls—it was that they lacked emotion.
A person stripped of joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness would eventually go mad, even if they still walked and spoke.
Either way, none of that diminished the Resurrection Stone's power.
Because it broke an iron rule of the wizarding world. As Dumbledore had said: no spell, no potion, could bring the dead back to life. Not even the Philosopher's Stone.
Elijah had created a body through the Philosopher's Stone, but that was fundamentally different from resurrecting someone who had died.
The Philosopher's Stone produced a living, vital body. In the end, it was still transformation of matter—alchemy pushed to its absolute limit.
The Resurrection Stone did more than shape flesh. It called souls back.
Souls that should have dispersed—souls that never became ghosts—could be pulled into the world again.
Even flawed, it was still a miracle.
And there was another detail.
Of the three Deathly Hallows, the Resurrection Stone alone bore the Peverell crest.
Elijah removed the stone from the ring. The ring itself was useless to him. He even considered destroying it.
After all, Voldemort was his enemy, too.
Elijah had no illusions. If Voldemort learned that a Horcrux had "resurrected" and slipped beyond his control, he would see Elijah as a thorn to be ripped out.
His conflict with Dumbledore might still be resolved someday, but if Voldemort learned Elijah existed, he would absolutely try to erase this "fake."
Worse, Elijah suspected Voldemort might already know.
The Ministry had spread wanted notices for "Tom Riddle" across Britain. Voldemort was hiding in the forests of Albania, but Elijah had no doubt Dumbledore would let the news reach him—if only to test him.
What Voldemort would do in response, Elijah couldn't predict.
"I can't use the Resurrection Stone right now," Elijah murmured, turning it in his fingers, "but it can serve as insurance. As for the other two Deathly Hallows…"
He remembered how, not long ago, he'd tried to escape Hogwarts with Harry's Invisibility Cloak—only to be stopped by Dumbledore. In the end, the cloak remained behind.
It all looked like coincidence.
But considering that neither Dumbledore nor Grindelwald had ever managed to possess all three Hallows at once, it didn't feel like coincidence at all.
It felt like someone—or something—was preventing anyone from gathering them.
…
After nearly half a month of restless waiting at the Leaky Cauldron, Harry finally reached the day before school started.
He'd been sure he'd have to wait until tomorrow to see Ron and Hermione.
Then he spotted them sitting in Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour.
"Yeah, and about Riddle's escape—Ah! Harry!" Ron practically shouted, lighting up the moment he saw him. "I finally see you! We went to the Leaky Cauldron to look for you, but the owner said you'd left!"
He clearly didn't want to say "Tom," because his sentence lurched awkwardly halfway through, but it didn't dampen Harry's mood at all.
Ron slung an arm around Harry's shoulders, grinning like he'd won a prize. "I heard you inflated your aunt with a charm over the summer! Turned her into a balloon!"
"Don't mention it," Harry snapped, heat rising instantly. "And I didn't mean to. I just… can't control it sometimes."
If it hadn't been Aunt Marge, Uncle Vernon would've signed the permission form. And Harry had almost thought he was going to be expelled.
"That's a serious problem," Hermione said, frowning. "Why didn't they expel you after that?"
"I'm wondering too…"
"Come off it, Hermione," Ron said, rolling his eyes, though he was smiling. "You sound like you want Harry expelled. Maybe it's because he's the famous Harry freaking Potter. I can't even imagine what the Ministry would do to me if I inflated a Muggle. They'd have to dig me out of the ground first, because Mum would've killed me! Ha!"
He took another enthusiastic bite of ice cream, then added, "Anyway, you can ask my dad tonight. We're staying at the Leaky Cauldron today, so we can go to King's Cross together tomorrow."
Harry grinned, but a thought tugged at him. Mr. Riddle.. Elijah and his letter.
He wanted to tell them.
Just not here.
"Eat faster," Harry said, trying not to sound too urgent. "I've got something I need to tell you both."