i am lord voldemort • Tom Riddle

Alternative Timeline: XXXIII

Although she didn't phrase it as a question, she watched Theseus carefully through her eyelashes, her head tilted down towards her lap, in hopes of an answer.

"Isn't it obvious?" he said.

"Would I be asking if it was?"

He considered that. "No, I suppose not. I'm just surprised, since your teachers at Hogwarts all claimed you were quite bright, when you put in the effort, which they also said verged on never."

Her jaw dropped. Was he calling her stupid? To her face?

He continued the thought, oblivious her indignation just a few feet away. "I don't suppose it will do all that much harm to tell you... and if my superiors take issue, what's the worst they could do? Fire me? I wish they would. I'd love the vacation." He glanced to the door, where Lae had no doubt others were listening in. "At the moment, you haven't actually done a whole lot worse than evade arrest for consorting with a known criminal — nothing we can prove, anyway — a charge made all the more tricky, given that you've yet to reach the age of majority. We can potentially detain you for withholding information, and a slew of other minor misdeeds, but for now, consider yourself in protective custody."

Was that so?

"In that case, consider me out of protective custody, because I very much don't want to be here."

Theseus laughed at the obviousness of the attempt. "Nice try. Minor's without established guardians are awarded to the Ministry to deal with. You'll find you don't have very many rights. All decisions pertaining to you will be made by an appointed guardian."

She only just started ruminating on how incredibly skeevy that sounded, when she remembered, "How do you know I'm not seventeen yet? I'm almost entirely through my sixth year. Plenty of us are legal adults now."

Tom was.

"You very well might be," he admitted easily with a shrug, "but you'll have to prove it."

Lae couldn't, and suddenly knew that was exactly what they were hedging all their bets on. Up to this point, proof of her identity had been more a liability than anything. When her mother abandoned her, she left nothing behind, and any records of her birth were probably long destroyed by the war, if there had even been one to begin with.

She grit her teeth, "This isn't fair."

"It isn't, isn't it?" He had the gall to appear sympathetic, and maybe he was, but not enough. "Do you know what else isn't fair? Having to tell the family's of Aurors who die in combat against your uncle that their loved one didn't make it home from that fight. It's not fair to those who find conflict on their doorstep. It's not fair to the muggles who find themselves amidst a wizarding war they have no chance of understanding."

"That's a good point." Lae glared him down. "It would almost be fairer if the whole world knew of our existence, rather than hiding about in the dark like mice, wouldn't it? For hundreds of years, we've treated them like children, not trusted enough with their own well-being to know the truth. We made that decision for them, yet we could help! How many of them die each year from disease our healers cure in seconds? How many of them unknowingly encounter magical problems, not knowing what it was, and pay the price? We could do so much, but we do nothing to preserve the statute of secrecy."

Her disgust was palpable.

"Do you see them?" he asked. "Do you see how they fight each other, murdering by the millions, for petty discrepancies in religion or race? How do you imagine they'll react when they know what real power is?" From inside his robes, not his pocket, as Lae initially presumed, Theseus drew his wand, holding it out to demonstrate what he took real power to be. "They'll turn their guns off each other and onto us in a heartbeat. Our children will be hunted before they ever get the chance to learn how to defend themselves."