If you hadn't guessed from the summary this story is going to be considerably darker than my usual fare. Not much in the way of fluff and fun here I'm afraid as this is from that deep, dark place at the depressive end of my mind which makes, thankfully, infrequent appearances. Unfortunately for you that also means rather infrequent updates as, for my own mental health, I can't stay in this kind of a mood for long. Although I have found that 'writing it out' is a much more productive use of these depressive spirals, that I get caught in every now and again, than sitting, brooding in a darkened room.

I seem to have rediscovered my form a bit as well as my muse so prepare for a bit of an updating frenzy. For this one, we're not getting too bloody yet, but it's getting closer and we're getting ever darker. No character deaths in this chapter but they're coming. And soon.

This is the first time I have written in 'first person' perspective so please forgive any rookie errors that I may make along the way.

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I'm not JKR and I don't make any money from this. Which is a bit of a shame.

DtR xx.

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Riddle; Story of a Devil.

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Chapter 3. Family Misfortunes.

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Since Halloween night, life at Hogwarts had been a veritable rollercoaster of emotions for me.

A great deal of the downs were due to the renewed suspicion that now followed me around wherever I went from most of the students and indeed, most of the staff too. No doubt this was because of the Golden Trio's version of events from that night. They had obviously branded me a Dark Witch and the tale of our little run-in, along with the rumours about my wand, had caused more than two thirds of the school to turn against me.

While most in Ravenclaw and the entirety of Gryffindor and Hufflepuff Houses were firmly set against me, and by association Luna, the Slytherins attitude also seemed to undergo a shift. Fortunately, it was a slightly more positive one. Many of them were surprising polite to us now, if not particularly friendly.

Then there were the nightmares that plagued my dreams. They didn't come every night but it was often enough that I began to dread going to sleep.

It was always the same, I was dragged before the red eyed wizard with the high, but rather scary and intimidating, voice and the cruel laugh. He would point that pale, evil looking wand at me and the agony would begin ... and not end for a very long time. Some nights it was so bad that my cries woke Luna. Although this was slightly ameliorated by the fact that she would spend the next hour cuddling me tightly before taking me to the bathroom to personally wash the sweat from my body.

As always, where there are downs there must be ups to compensate.

Even taking into account the extra antagonistic behaviour of a certain group of Gryffindor led idiots, November was still a pretty good month for me at Hogwarts. My English was getting better and better which improved the effectiveness of my studies no end. Indeed, I was coming along so fast that I was, not only catching up to my fourth year compatriots, but was actually in some danger of progressing to the next year level before Easter.

The extra lessons with Madame Vector and professor Flitwick were paying good dividends but what was really pushing me to go the extra mile were my private tuition sessions with my beautiful Luna. Her system of learning was thankfully rather different to the teachers and involved the use of both rewards and discipline. The kisses that I received for correctly answering a question were certainly a wonderful incentive but I had to work really hard not to slip in the occasional wrong answer since the light spanking that followed secretly thrilled me just as much. Her too if those delighted little squeals and giggles that emanated from her as she slapped her small hand against my reddening derriere were anything to go by.

Our relationship was moving fast. Fast enough that we didn't now require the second bed in our shared room. Not that we had gone 'all the way' yet but we probably weren't far off of it. We were sixteen and in love. I'm only surprised that I managed to restrain myself from bending her over and fucking her on the staff table at breakfast, let alone in the privacy of our own room.

An annoying issue in relation to my burgeoning love life was that I was becoming the source of attention from the boys of both Slytherin and Ravenclaw. To my mind, even the Greengrass girls, who I had been spending an increasing amount of time with recently, and were undeniably gorgeous, couldn't hold a candle to my funny, quirky, little nargle queen. These chinless, spoiled, entitled aristocrats and dull, dry scholars didn't have a hope in Hell. Not to mention that they had all the wrong equipment for me.

I decided to put an end to this parade of morons by being far more attentive to Luna when in public and even going so far as to call her my girlfriend at dinner one night. Unfortunately, this change in the status of our relationship did not go as well as I had hoped so as good as November was for me, by the second week of December things had become considerably less pleasant. It seemed that the British magical population were far less tolerant of same sex couples than my own countrymen.

I never cared for myself, of course, I had spent too much of my life being the outcast for that sort of thing to bother me even slightly. No. It was Luna that I felt sorry for. My new girlfriend was so precious to me that I may have over-reacted in my response. Just a touch. She had told me something of the bullying that she had been subjected to in her younger years but even this hadn't prepared her for some of the insults and overt hatred that was being directed our way. My 'red eyed rage', as Luna called it, had sent many students and more than one teacher fleeing for their lives when their comments went further than I deemed to be tasteful.

I rather enjoyed the sensation of being feared and anyway, Luna found my 'pretty' red irises irresistible so I really didn't have a good incentive to stop this behaviour. Since I got rewarded for it, I would actually go out of my way to find excuses to use it on people.

To their great credit, Daphne and Astoria stood by us despite the risk to their own reputation as did professor Snape, who was being slightly less creepy and more protective of us. Whether it was these supporters or whether it was something else going on I'm not sure, but the only ones treating us even half decently were the Slytherins who had been previously hounding me for dates. I suspected that it was Snape laying down the law and Daphne who was well known for being a bit too quick with certain, groin based, curses.

My naivety knew no bounds in those days and I was actually grateful to the greasy bastard and his two blonde, siren, sidekicks. As it would soon be proved, I was a fucking idiot.

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After all of the name calling and snide remarks it was with a sense of great relief that the Yule holiday came to Hogwarts. I, of course, was staying at the castle, having nowhere else to go since Luna's father hadn't been appraised of our new romantic situation. Not that I would ever have pushed her to do so. Luna had her reasons and she would do it when she was ready.

She would have invited me back to her family home for the celebrations anyway except for the fact that we were entirely unable to be in the same room for more than two minutes without engaging in some pretty heavy snogging. Since this would inevitably lead to much awkwardness and probably some fractious yelling when Mister Lovegood caught us, we decided not to risk it.

As it turned out I received another invitation anyway.

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Stepping out of the floo and falling immediately on my perfectly formed derrierre was an embarrassing way to arrive at my, supposed, best friends' house but it was nothing compared to my irritation at being likened to the hated Harry Potter. His lack of grace at any kind of magical travel was, apparently, legendary. I soon forgot all of this when I started to look around me, however.

With my limited scale of anything to compare it to, I thought that Greengrass Manor was a very impressive place. Looking back now, I remember it as being a little faded and overly ostentatious but the girl I was then was simply over-awed that a single family of four lived here on their own in this massive house and possessed all of this finery.

The elder Greengrasses greeted me politely and seemed extremely anxious that I should relax and enjoy myself while I enjoyed their hospitality. They were attentive to my needs, sweet and kind and basically treated me like I was one of the family.

I should perhaps have been wary of their affectionate reaction to an unknown, French peasant girl whose only claim on their time was that I was acquainted with their daughters at school. But, of course, I knew nothing of the habits and customs of these people so I, rather stupidly, accepted it at face value. Although what professor Snape was also doing there was something of a mystery to me since I had hardly seen him talking to Daphne or Astoria let alone behave like a family friend.

It became all too clear what his task was on the second morning, Christmas Day.

After an enjoyable breaking of the fast with my hosts, at which I was even presented with gifts to my great shock (and chagrin since I hadn't been able to get them anything), I was led to another room by my professor. It was the sitting room where I had first arrived and in front of the fireplace was a shadowy, hooded figure. I didn't have time to wonder either at his identity or why I was being introduced to him before the Potions Master put the matter to bed.

"Miss Riddle, allow me to introduce ... your father ... Lord Voldemort."

When the tall, black robed figure turned around to face me, I very nearly collapsed right then and there. It was the red eyed wizard from my pain filled nightmares.

There was a very awkward silence as we stared at one another.

The man, although I use the term in its loosest possible sense, was pale, thin and bald with almost serpentine features and an almost complete lack of a nose. My respect for my mother dropped a few notches. It had never been particularly high, to be fair, but seeing this ugly, snake faced grotesque that she had allowed to touch her in the most intimate of ways made it nose-dive even further.

I sucked up my instant and instinctual disgust, thinking that this man, my father, must have some redeeming qualities if my mother had 'entertained' him. Also, he was a Lord as well as my biological father so he might just be persuaded to take me out shopping for new books to study. And maybe a nice dress so that I could look pretty for my girlfriend. Taking a deep breath, I curtsied and sang out in my most engaging and girly voice.

"Bonjour pere, es tu bien?" (Hello father, are you well?)

An embarrassing way to introduce yourself to the most evil, Dark Lord to plague the magical world in centuries, but like I said, I was very naive and a bit of an idiot back then.

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After twenty minutes of vaguely inane chatter where I used up all of my okay, but not exactly scintillating, English pleasantries, the Dark Lord finally decided to get to the point of why he'd had arranged to have me invited here. Other than wanting to get to know his precious, misplaced, darling daughter, who he definitely hadn't sent someone to kill the minute he heard about their existence, of course. Oh no, hang on, he did do that, didn't he?

As is probably obvious from my sarcasm, our conversation was not going well.

I have always been defiant little thing even from my birth, my Grandmere told me that I took an unreasonably long time to arrive in the world after my mother's labour started and that the first word I ever spoke was 'no'. It appeared that my father was having similar problems in attaining my co-operation in his plans.

"You will do as you're told girl." The fiend's eyes glowed red with barely repressed rage at my stubborn behaviour. "You are my daughter, the blood of my blood, an heiress of the great Salazar Slytherin himself. You will be held to a higher standard than any others in my organisation. It is why you must submit ... or be punished."

Quite honestly, I wasn't too fussed about being in his organisation but I was okay with 'submitting' to some of it. Very useful lessons on pureblood etiquette from the smoking hot Lady Greengrass? Sure, why not. Learning dark magic from an undisputed master of the art? Sign me up, Daddio. Unfortunately, the fact that his 'plans' also involved him whoring me out to that little prick Malfoy and the rest of his inbred followers to breed some kind of Dark magical, master race, however, were always going to get a firmly negative response.

"Va te faire foutre, batard."

Apparently, father was quite the student of the lower end of French cursing and took great offense when I told him to go fuck himself, as the next word out of that awful slit of a mouth of his was ...

"Crucio."

And just like in my dreams there was the thin, lipless smile formed on his otherwise expressionless face as he hit me with the 'unforgiveable' torture curse.

Again.

And again.

And again.

A word of caution for any budding Dark Lords or Ladies reading this. Don't spit in the eye of someone older, more experienced and more ruthless than you currently are, especially if you're so far behind in your magical education that you can't even cast a decent shield yet. Not that knowing the protego charm would have helped me much. A crucio cuts through a shield like a hot knife through ... well pretty much anything organic really.

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I honestly couldn't say how many times he crucio'd me or for how long it went on. I know that it was the morning when I went into that room and that by the time I was dragged out of it the lamps were lit. All my world consisted of that day was pain. Such a small word for what that curse does to a person. To their body. To their mind. I could use others, I suppose, the English dictionary is full of wonderfully descriptive and exotic synonyms for it. But in the end, it all boils down to the same thing.

Pain.

Un-ending, un-endurable pain.

I had never felt the like of it before. And I hope to never feel the like of it again. That's not to say that I haven't been on the receiving end a few crucios since then, but they were nothing like that day. They say that the first time is the one that you always remember.

They are not wrong.

Whether it was just because it my first time or because of whose hands that time was at I really couldn't say. It certainly left an impression though. Both physical and psychological.

Let me try and describe it for you, although a description can never really convey just how bad it actually is, you have to experience it at first hand for that, but I'll give it a go if you like. Actually, I don't care if you like it or not, I'm still going to tell you.

So, imagine being burned. Oh, I'm not talking about scalding yourself with coffee or brushing your finger against a red hot, cauldron bottom, I mean actually burned. Like you're on fire. It's a bit like that. Except that every, and I mean every, synapse, nerve ending or blood cell in your entire body feels like its been provided with it's own personal furnace with the sole purpose of turning it to ash.

Now imagine that feeling starting and stopping ... and starting ... and stopping ... and starting ... between ten and a hundred times a second ... for as long as the caster has the will and the power to keep it activated and on you. As I said, words can't really do it justice, but that's kind of what it's like.

There's a reason why it's called an 'unforgiveable' curse. It will break anyone in the end.

Surviving it though, making it through all of that pain and coming out the other side, that makes you feel strangely powerful. It also gives you a unique insight into how the curse works. Well it did for me anyway, but that might simply be my own talent and predilection for using Dark magic enabling me to see things that shouldn't be seen when under its fierce influence. Perversely, it became one my favourite curses to use on my enemies, though I never made the mistake of letting anyone live after they'd been exposed to it. Unlike dear old Dad.

I always wondered later, if that was his plan. To toughen me up, to break me before re-molding me into his vision of the perfect 'Dark Daughter', powerful and un-afraid but always obedient to his will. If it was his goal then it was a damned silly way to go about getting it. I have no idea whether the girl I was then would have responded to bribery as well as I did in later life but you'd have thought that he might, at least, have tried the carrot approach before resorting to the stick.

In the end, all his lesson did was to teach me just how much of a bastard he was and how much better off I'd be with him dead. I mean, really, who the fuck crucios their own daughter and then expects her to respect them for it afterwards? Fucking idiot.

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After being told that Papa was dissapointed in me (which I'd kind of figured out), something about an attitude adjustment and talking again at Easter, I was dragged out of the sitting room by Snape and deposited, unceremoniously into a padded, upright chair at a long, polished table. The greasy, treacherous bastard managed to have a good old grope of my most intimate areas while performing this feat. It was the first and last time a man ever laid his hand on me I can assure you, and it was hopefully as unpleasant for him as it was for me as I must have been awfully sweaty and quite bloody by then. But you never know with Snape. Strange was a word that could have been designed just for that man. Well at least until I ...

Ah, but no. A story for later, that one, I think.

I sat in silence in the dining room chair for what felt like hours to my poor, shaking, twitching and pain wracked body, determined not to move one inch or speak one word. I didn't want to let these people see me break. I would not favour them with so much as a single glance in their direction. These people had betrayed me. They had suckered me in with their false smiles and their promises of friendship and then they had fed me to that beast.

I swore to myself that would never trust another person as long as I lived.

It didn't quite work out like that but I truly meant it at the time.

In my defiance to these traitors I did not move, did not eat, did not drink, did not so much as cast a single glance at any of them. Picking a spot on the bare wall I stared at it and forced myself into a meditative state, thinking dark thoughts of the curses I needed to learn in order to exact my vengeance upon these English couchons. I had retched a few times onto the table, bringing up nothing but bile obviously, which amused me somewhat, but other than that I just sat. And stared. And suffered.

As I sat there I let my fury grow in time with the agony that wracked my body as I forced it to be perfectly still, despite the after effects of my torture and the thirst and the hunger. My mind was consumed by my rage and I promised that I would visit back upon them what I had suffered a hundred-fold. I would gather every book on the Dark Arts that I could, learn every single spell, every single curse, every single potion that could cause them as much harm as possible. I would master them for one purpose and one purpose only.

My vengeance.

After two days of this, their resolve to just let me stew in my own juice was broken, they couldn't take it or the smell (I was quite ripe by that stage) any more and I was told to go back to Hogwarts. I required the assistance of two House elves to even get out of my chair let alone to then get to the fireplace in the sitting room.

The very same sitting room where I had been crucio'd almost to insanity and death. Passing the rug where I had writhed under my father's wand a hardness formed in my gut and I turned to my generous hosts.

"Thank-you for your ... hospitality ... Monsieur et Madame, Mademoiselles. I can promise you that it will be remembered for a long time to come ... and repaid in full."

I think that is when they realised what they had done and who they had done it to.

It would have been difficult not to. The gravel in my voice and the red haze that coloured my vision, meaning that my eyes were likely glowing that colour again, made my intent very clear. I was my father's daughter and I would have my revenge upon those who had betrayed me.

Snape, those bitches and their disgusting parents, those piss poor excuses for human beings, I would make them all suffer.

I vowed to myself that they would hurt as I had hurt. They would bleed as I had bled. I would take everything that they held dear and destroy it before their horrified eyes ... and then I would end them.

And as for my father, Lord Voldemort? He would not be getting off so lightly.

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As usual I write for me. Honestly, I really don't mind if nobody else reads this at all but reviews are always nice and I'd certainly never turn them away, just don't get caught up in the whole 'they would never do that' trap. This is all going to be pretty AU stuff.

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DtR xx.