Barty had been so determined when he marched up the stairs of the St James London Library. He had a perfectly normal muggle notebook under his arm, he had polyjuice flowing through his veins, and he'd been prepared to start digging in the past of Timmy.
But then he'd realized that he had no idea how to navigate a muggle library or use muggle computers. And for a library, it had been loud and filled with people and he had panicked and ran out when the librarian offered to show him how to use a 'microfilm reader'.
He'd found the first private alley he could and quickly apparated home in pathetic defeat. A state of defeat that was only worsened by Mavis' surprise at abrupt arrival.
"Mavis was thinking Mister Barty was not being home for hours," he squeaked. "Mavis was not preparing anything for our lunch!"
"Don't worry about it Mavis," Barty slumped down in a seat at the kitchen table. "Maybe I'll go back and try again."
"Mister Barty is doing anything he is putting his mind to," Mavis smiled widely. "And Mister Barty is getting a letter from Mister Snoop while he is being gone."
"Terrific," Barty groaned, accepting the scroll from Mavis. "As if I weren't already feeling terrible."
B,
Harry would like us to spend the Christmas holidays in his other home.
Which is an absurd thing for a child to own two of.
He would like you to go come along, as well as Lupin, Black, and any of his merry band of misfits who are not returning to their own homes, of which I imagine will be many. I will only be available for the second half of the break, as I am needed at the school for the first part of it. Since Lupin and Black are as prone to idiocy as Harry is, I would rest easier knowing that you will remain there with them at least until I arrive on Christmas Day.
If this is acceptable to you, kindly write back promptly before my head explodes as I imagine the many, many, new levels of destruction the others are liable to create without a rational adult.
-Severus
Barty's lips curled up in a grin as he read Sev's note the first time. He wondered if it was painful for Sev to admit he was a rational adult?
His brows furrowed thoughtfully as he read it the second time...
And on the third re-read his eyes lit up as Sev unknowingly provided an answer that Barty himself didn't know he needed.
"Hold off on lunch for me," he told Mavis, pocketing the letter and grabbing his notebook and cloak once more. "I'm going to talk to Sirius and Remus."
Barty knocked politely on the door of Moon Lodge, knowing he'd have better luck finding Remus here than if he tried to break through the wards at Grimmauld.
A woman answered the door. A woman with a tanned complexion, the smoothness only broken by a gratuitous amount of scarring, sleek black hair, and amber eyes that were currently narrowed with distrust.
She spoke with an accent, Barty thought she may be from a Hispanic background. "Who are you?" she asked.
"I'm—" Barty hesitated, unsure if he should give his name or not, "I'm Alastor, I'm looking for Remus, is he in?"
"He is," the woman said, her face not shifting away from suspicion in the slightest. "Wait here."
Abruptly, Barty found himself having the door slammed right in his face.
That was rude.
Barty took a few wary steps away from the door, uncertain now about this plan. Remus and Sirius both had been amicable and even friendly towards him during prior alliance meetings, was that just for show? Only for Potter's sake? True, they had never been friends during their years in Hogwarts, but they were never enemies necessarily either. He had even shared a few NEWT classes with Remus and once paired together for a large project in Runes. Perhaps it was foolish to believe that the man would assist him now?
He was preparing to just apparate back to Spinner's End, resign himself to understanding the muggle research tools himself, when the door of Moon Lodge opened once more.
"Barty?" Remus' eyes crinkled in a not-displeased show of surprise. "Cierra told me it was Alastor at the door."
"I wasn't sure if I should give my name..." Barty said slowly. "I'm sorry for showing up without writing first, I just—"
"Don't worry about it," Remus cut him off with a friendly smile. "Would you like to come in? We were about to have lunch."
Barty would have refused, should have really considering that Mavis was undoubtedly preparing a feast for the two of them, but an opportunity to sit with a pack of werewolves and get to know more about them?
Who could resist such an unexpected offer?
"I'd love to, thank you." Barty followed Remus inside the building, awe filling his gaze as he looked around the rooms they passed through. "This place is lovely," he said genuinely. "Did Potter decorate?"
No offense to Potter, but the muted browns and greens that gave off such a relaxed and calming environment didn't seem like a color scheme the chaotic young man would favor.
"Harry had it painted bright red and black," Remus snorted. "Sirius had to ask him if we could change it. Trust me, it's much better now."
Barty's eyes widened even further when the two of them stepped in to the giant dining room with the appropriately giant dining table. He wasn't sure how many people lived within Moon Lodge, aside from Sirius and Remus who had apparently decided they liked it there with the others much more than in the small house Sirius bought for the two of them, but there were over a dozen people seated at the table. Mostly adults, a couple of teenagers, and a few young children.
And they were all staring at him with similarly suspicious amber eyes.
It was a preposterous thought to have, but in that moment Barty had never wished to be a werewolf so badly.
"H-hello," he stammered. None of the adults answered him, but a young boy, perhaps eight years old, gave him a gap-toothed smile.
"Hewwo!" he lisped. "Wanna come eat wif us?"
Barty wasn't a fan of small kids, never having been around any before Hogwarts, but something about this small child with the obvious physical signs of lycanthropy lisping such an innocent invitation tugged at his heart.
"I would be happy to," he told him. He looked at the plate in front of the boy and winked. "Can I have yours? It looks tasty."
"Noooo!" the boy giggled. "You can have your own! Dobby makes the yummiest macaroni."
"Well how can I turn that down?" Barty grinned. He went ahead and sat down, his chair situated between Remus and the woman who answered the door who Remus referred to as Cierra.
"Hush now and eat," a woman situated beside the boy chastised him kindly. She also had tanned skin and dark hair, though hers was thick and curled in perfect ringlets. "I am Marietta Lobo, this is my son Anthony—"
"Tony," the little one corrected her stubbornly. "I wike to be Tony."
"Tony then," she smiled indulgently. She gestured to the teenage girl on the other side of her, "My daughter Olivia, and my husband Ricardo is at work right now," she said proudly.
"And dis is my best fwiend Amber!" Tony said eagerly, beaming at the girl with brown frizzy hair beside him.
"It's wonderful to meet you," Barty said. "I'm—"
He hesitated once more. Did these people know they were in an alliance with the supposed current Dark Lord Barty?
"Barty, he lives with Harry and Severus," Remus said smoothly.
Amber sat up quickly, her face lighting up with a childish enthusiasm. "Really?" she breathed. "You live with Harry Potter and Mister Snape??"
Barty didn't fail to notice that he now had the full attention of every person at the table. He also couldn't help but notice that he was almost positive that Marietta and Olivia were also not werewolves.
Odd.
"I do," he said slowly, uneasy with all those similar amber eyes on him.
"What's it like?" Another teenage girl, this one perhaps closer to Potter and Theodore's age, with light porcelain skin and short blonde hair asked him.
"Uh... interesting," Barty allowed, thinking over their summer together as a family of sorts. "Definitely never a dull moment."
Remus snorted, much more relaxed in this environment that Barty had seen him before. "He's being polite," he told the girl with a playful grin. "He means that Harry is a madman who loves chaos, just as I've told you."
"Harry Potter is the leader of the free people," the girl scowled, her delicate features twisting in annoyance. "You shouldn't insult him."
"Oh Harry wouldn't be insulted," Sirius said with a booming laugh, coming in to the dining room through another entrance with an armful of plates. "Harry loves to be described as the bringer of chaos, thinks it makes him interesting."
"I have a hard time believing he isn't interesting regardless," Cierra quipped drily, getting to her feet to help Sirius navigate the plates to the table. "Kreacher again?"
"Kreacher again," Sirius rolled his eyes. "He made Dobby cry, so now they're both in time out."
Barty wasn't sure what most of that meant, but his interest was piqued at part of it. "Kreacher? You don't mean your families old house-elf?"
"Yep." Sirius slid Barty one of the plates he brought, a sandwich and macaroni on it, and finished serving the plates to the others before sitting on the other side of Remus. "He kept fighting with Molly and Arthur, eavesdropping on meetings, and generally being a hateful little thing so I brought him here."
"Hateful?" Barty was offended on the elves behalf. "Kreacher was wonderful when we were in school! He was always bringing snacks to the library for us, sneaking in and dropping them off with... with us," he finished weakly, not wanting to bring up Sirius' deceased brother when he was there to ask for a favor from Sirius' partner.
"That's because he doted on Reg and despised me," Sirius said, unbothered by Barty's near slip-up. "Nasty little git."
"There are children present," Remus said with a pointed look at the giggling children.
"Kweacher is funny," Tony told Barty with all the seriousness that a child that young is able to display. "He calls me yucky then gives me chocolate milk."
"An equal trade for sure," Cierra said cynically. "Dobby is much more preferable."
"Dobby cries too much," the blonde teenage girl argued around a mouthful of her meal. "He's too grateful for everything, it's driving me mad."
Barty absently ate his sandwich, listening carefully as the others debated back and forth on which house-elf was better company. He chimed in occasionally, but he informed them that he personally believed that Potter's house-elf Mavis was the best elf he had ever met. The others were torn on their in-house favorite though, apparently Kreacher called them names, but was a better cook. And Dobby was kinder, but cried whenever any of them did any housework themselves.
"Kreacher makes the best sweet pies," Barty told Olivia when she mentioned how he was the better baker. "If you tell him what flavor you like, I bet he'd make it."
"Not without talking a lot of shit first," Sirius rolled his eyes.
"Shit!" The little one in the high chair cried, smacking her rattle on the tray.
"Sorry," Sirius muttered to the people Barty assumed were the babies parents, neither of whom seemed very bothered by their foul mouthed infant.
"That was Gizelle's fourth word," the man beside the baby beamed.
"What was her first?" Barty asked curiously, speculatively looking over the baby with the werewolf parents. The baby didn't have any outward signs of lycanthropy, but would it simply take time to emerge? If both parents carried the gene, would it not be passed along to the offspring?
"Mama," the women on the other side of the high chair smiled happily as she answered Barty. "Then dada, then wolf."
"'Woof', you mean," Marietta smirked.
"Brilliant," Barty grinned. He could see why Remus and Sirius both appeared so at ease here, even with the missing pack members (three of whom were at work currently according to the others) Barty could tell that the rest of them truly carried bonds like Barty imagined he had with his housemates. They were more than just people who lived together by circumstance, they were a family that cared for one another.
He would have given anything to have this as a child. He thought that perhaps even if Gizelle did inherit her parents lycanthropy that she was still blessed by Morgana to have such a close knit family.
Not that he was going to share that thought, just in case that wasn't a popular opinion.
"So what brings you by?" Sirius finally asked him, after everyone was finishing off their meals and chatter had died down a bit.
"I was going to ask Remus for help," Barty said, hesitant once more. "I'm trying to do some research, but I need to start in the muggle archives and I don't understand how their systems work..."
"Of course I'll help," Remus agreed easily, dispelling Barty's fears that he would be turned away. "What topic are you researching?"
"Uh..." Barty stalled, unwilling to share this topic in present company, or at all really, not until he had concrete answers to share with the alliance. "I can't tell you, I'm sorry."
"He means he can't tell us," Cierra scoffed from beside him. "Why? Because we're the big bad wolves?"
"What?" Barty turned towards her, indignant at the implication. "Of course not, I can't tell anyone just yet. I don't care that you're werewolves."
Cierra looked mollified at his response, she flicked her hair over her shoulder and gave him what he thought was an apologetic grimace, so he turned back to Remus.
"I needed to dig through newspapers," he told him. "But they use a thing called a 'microfilm reader' and computers and I didn't understand any of it."
"Is this for your assignment from Harry?" Remus guessed carefully with a dead-on accuracy.
"It is."
"Alright," Remus clapped his hands together and gave Barty a cheerful grin. "When did you want to go?"
Barty looked around the room a little wistfully. He didn't want to leave, he would love to stay and get to know these fascinating people more, but...
But Potter had a horcrux inside his head and Barty was hoping to have a solution for it before Easter break.
"Now, if you're amenable," he sighed.
Marietta must have sensed his reluctance to leave, because she gave him a kind smile. "You should come back and see us again soon." Her voice was thick with an accent, but soft like Barty's mothers used to be. "We don't get many visitors here."
"And bring Mavis," the blonde teenager, Sky said, having howled with laughter until she was nearly in tears when Barty told them all about the never ending battle between Mavis and Stevie.
"And Harry Potter!" Amber said.
"And Mister Snape!" Tony added on with a joyful cry.
"He can't bring them, I told you guys they're at school," Remus reminded the children gently. "Perhaps we can convince Harry to visit this summer though, I'm sure he'd love to meet all of you."
Amber and Tony high-fived, easily pacified by Remus' offer.
"That would be lovely, thank you," Barty told Marietta as he got to his feet. "And I'm sure Mavis would be thrilled to come visit," he assured Sky. "Poor guy misses all the noise from the summer I think."
Remus also got to his feet, grabbing his previously discarded cardigan off the back of his chair and giving Sirius a kiss that Barty politely ignored.
"I suppose we're going to London?" Remus asked.
"Yes. The St James Library in London," Barty said. He gave the others an awkward farewell wave and hastened to follow Remus to the door. "Thank you for helping me," he said. "I wasn't sure if you would."
Remus gave him a peculiar look over his shoulder, equal parts amused and curious. "Why wouldn't I help you?"
"I— I don't know," Barty said. "It's just... we haven't always been friends, have we?"
Remus held the front door open for him and gave him the same friendly smile that he used to whenever they had worked together on their projects. "Well I say it's never too late for new friends."
Remus proved himself to be a truly indispensable friend to have once the two of them returned to the library. He guided Barty, now back under his polyjuiced disguise, to an empty section in the 'newsroom' and asked what year Barty was interested in researching.
"1926," he said after some quick thinking.
"And you want your research focused in muggle London?" Remus kept his voice low, only the two of them able to hear their whispered conversation.
"For now," Barty hedged, uncertain if he would find what he needed in his first carefully researched guess.
"Alrighty then, here's how you do it." Remus spent the next hour carefully showing Barty how to use the 'microfilm reader' to read through old preserved copies of the London Times, the articles of which were organized in boxes according to month and year. He then took much longer than an hour, three in fact, showing Barty how to use the 'internet' on the 'computers' to search through online archives for more information.
"Your best luck with this method of research is going to be recent events," Remus explained in the type of tone that Barty imagined he had used as a professor. "But there are also different webpages with different features, it seems like most of the muggle technology is centered around invading the privacy of others."
"Fascinating," Barty sighed, eagerly clicking away on the screen now that he had gotten more comfortable with it. "Wixen are eons behind in our research methods!"
"I agree," Remus grinned. He checked his watch and raised his brows in surprise. "I think they close at five, and it's nearly four-thirty now, would you like me to meet you back here in the morning?"
"That's alright," Barty waved off his offer appreciatively. "I should know enough now to at least get started. Thank you Remus, I truly appreciate this."
When Remus smiled and told him, "Anytime," Barty was quite certain that a type of friendship had bloomed between them.
Barty spent nearly every hour he could in that library for the next six days straight, following this maniacal research path just as tediously and devoutly as he had the horcrux issue.
He kept careful notes, charmed to be unreadable to any aside from himself as he came across any facts, mentions, or even possibly unrelated but possibly related stories to Timmy's days back when he was Tom Riddle.
He found a quiet birth announcement for Tom Riddle Junior in the January 1927 edition of the London Times— apparently being born in December 31st had pushed his announcement back to the next month. Once he found that, and his mother's name, he was able to backtrack from there. Merope Gaunt had been married and divorced within a year to a man, a man that Barty had to assume was muggle, Tom Riddle.
Which interestingly made Timmy a half-blood. Gaunt was an ancient, and much disliked, line of purebloods who could date their ancestry back to Salazar Slytherin, but who had an unfortunate habit of dating their close blood relatives.
Tom Riddle Senior appeared in the society pages for the London Times many times prior to his 'scandalous' marriage to Merope Gaunt. His family was well to-do, high in their society, and all found dead in their home in Little Hangleton in 1943.
No trace of poison. No suspicions of foul play. No missing artifacts from the opulent home to suspect burglary as a motive.
Muggles were mystified, and the home became infamous for the murders. In all the photographs of the home that were displayed in the articles, it wasn't difficult for Barty to recognize it at once. He also recognized the landscaper who had been blamed for the Riddles' deaths and who had once interrupted a meeting between him and Timmy within that very house before being killed by Nagini.
Barty was certain he knew who had killed the Riddles, and he did not believe it was the landscaper Frank Bryce.
Interestingly, when Barty began comparing information to Wixen archives (all cheerfully obtained by Sirius and Remus, despite the fact he couldn't tell them what he needed the research for), it was Morfin Gaunt, Merope's brother, who was ultimately arrested by aurors for the triple murder.
Morfin Gaunt who died in Azkaban only a few years after Barty escaped.
His research continued on like this for days and days more. Barty wanted to piece together as much of Timmy's life before the night he killed Potter's parents as he could. Only then could he even attempt to decipher what vessels he used to house his soul pieces, or where he may have hidden them.
Periodically he would find an interesting bit of information, such as a small blurb in a newspaper stating that 'Tom Riddle, of Wool's Orphanage' had won a city-wide spelling bee and was awarded a medal for his efforts. He made a note of this, taking special care to copy the accompanying photo of a handsome young child with dark hair and hooded eyes.
Other times, he would find possibly unrelated bits such as when Wool's Orphanage was noted as having lost a child to a drowning during an annual trip to the seacoast. Barty went ahead and made a note of this as well, believing that any pieces of information, no matter how seemingly irrelevant, could possibly assist him later.
By the time the research portion was completed, Barty was satisfied that he had combed muggle and magical archives thoroughly and had perhaps become the first person to ever have a timeline across his bedroom wall of the life of Tom Riddle. It began with the announcement of his parents' wedding and ended on October 31st, 1981.
Barty looked down at the list of interviews he needed to complete and smiled.
Harry Potter.
Morfin Gaunt cellmate.
Mister Borgin or Mister Burke (deceased, 1943)
Horace Slughorn.
Even if he had yet to find a solution to Potter's horcrux yet, he had high hopes that by Easter he could find at least one of the others (probably not Nagini though as he doubted if Timmy allowed her to leave his side at Malfoy Manor) and test out ways of destroying the dark soul inside it without killing the vessel.