Chapter Text
His blood pooled across the stone floor, merging with that of the comrades who had been tortured to death before him.
The room looked specially designed for it. For torture. Antique Tools—Chappy Chopper, Thumbscrews, Tounge teasers, Pearl of anguish. Whoever owned this room treated torture as an art form.
His body had several wounds. The knife wounds were definitely the worst on his thighs.They made it feel as if his entire leg was on fire, the very bones aching when he was forced onto his knees by two different hands on either side holding him still in his place.
A chair slid across the polished floor with a measured scrape. Unhurried. Controlled. The kind of sound that made even seasoned men instinctively straighten their backs.
The man sat on it and crossed his legs. Well dressed. Impeccably so. Dark hair and even darker eyes. He was terrifying and cold. He had a posture of a man who knew nothing could touch him. Extremely tall and young looking, most likely early thirties, but nothing about him truly felt young. This man was powerful. It radiated off him in waves, suffocating Andrew.
Three men, none of them nearly as tall as their leader. He had seen the one behind him—Bartemius Crouch Jr, his right hand, The most loyal hand.The two behind the leader—he hadn't seen them. They looked to be related, one with short curled brown hair, the other longer and darker. But they shared the same nose and eyes. The one on the left with long hair had a wicked smile, something eternally amused as if he saw everyone as puppets for his entertainment. But something on the right one's face felt far more horrifying. There was no light in his black eyes. Nothing.
At least their leader, while terrifying, had life in his eyes.
The leader turned his face to face his with the edge of his shoe.
"Tut Tut Tut. Look at your face. It would be a pity to ruin it completely. Maybe you save it from getting worse if you were to tell me who sent you?"
Tom Marvolo Riddle.
King of the Underworld
Voldemort, The name he had created for himself to shake the world.
with connections to nearly every business, criminal and city.
There was no one and nothing he didn't know about, and have a hand in.
Andrew couldn't speak. It was far from possible to do that. His body, courtesy to the torture, worn, tired and fucked. Yet, he was not dumb. There was no way Riddle would let him out alive whether he answered. If he were to open his mouth and spill everything, Atleast his death might have some mercy. So he forced himself to open his mouth.
"C-C-Cornelius F-u-udge"
He hummed. "And why did the prime minister send you?"
Andrew swiftly glanced at his comrades still lying bodies before he answered. "H-he wanted to get rid of you. To ma-k-ke sure n-no one had any power over him as you do and to take over y-your place to rule the w-world."
"Biting the hand he sucked up to. How very Cornelius."
"Ple-pleas-please spa-spare m-me." He started sobbing."
"Of course, of course. Rodolphus, send our guest off safely."
Riddle stood up and straightened his suit before walking out of the room with Barty on his tail. Andrew's eyes moved onto the man—one of the brothers, the soulless one who was refered as Rodolphus, walked towards him with a gun behind him. The wicked brother's smile widened, revealing what looked like almost sharpened fangs instead of human canine teeth.
Danger. Danger. Danger.
He instinctively begged "ple-please n-no—"
Shot.
Atleast he wasn't killed by the maniac brother.
•♤•◇•♧•♡•
The hallway was quiet save for the sound of their footsteps, and Barty had learned long ago that silence around Tom Riddle was never comfortable — it was simply the absence of something worse.
Bartemius Crouch had been working for this man for years now, had been with him through his raise to power and after. He had expected that attempt from Cornelius. His rise to the top was a calculated move, heavily orchestrated by his boss's influence to control over the outside world discreetly. But after all, If you keep a snake in your backyard, you shouldn't expect it to bite only your neighbor.
His boss said nothing as they made their way to the car. Barty took his usual seat— the driver seat while his boss settled in the back, took out a slow drag from the cigarette. Relaxed.
"Tom, what would you do with him now, Cornelius?" Barty finally spoke up, clearing his throat as he drove the car to the Riddle mansion.
"Replace." He said simply like that one decision wouldn't effect the entire country. Then again, His boss only cared for himself and maybe a tad for his inner circle.
Barty watched him through the rearview mirror. "And who exactly would you replace him with?"
Tom took another slow drag. The city lights moved across his face in intervals. "James Potter."
"Potter? I suppose, Tom. That old guy has been looking for an opportunity for a long time which you haven't definitely given him." Barty exclaimed. "What will you offer him?"
"Power, Barty. Immediate Power."
Barty was quiet for a moment. "We have been James Potter's has been our opposition for a long time. Even if he agreed he won't be easy to control."
"No." Tom exhaled. "Which is why I need something stronger than a handshake and a wire transfer." He tapped ash from the cigarette with one unhurried finger. "What does Potter love more than his seat?"
Barty paused before he was answering he could already slightly guess where this was going.
"His daughter," Barty said. "Twenty. University student. He keeps her out of the papers, out of everything. Very — deliberately. No photos online too. He was very careful with her privacy."
"Name?"
"Henrietta."
Tom said nothing for a long moment. Outside, the city hummed and moved around them, indifferent.
"Arrange the meeting," he said finally, crushing the cigarette out. "With Potter. This week."
Barty nodded, eyes back on the road.
He thought about a girl whose name had just been decided for her without her knowledge, in the backseat of a car, between two drags of a cigarette.
Poor thing, he thought. And said nothing.
•♤•◇•♧•♡•
Henrietta Potter.
Tom turned the name over in his mind the way one turns over a coin — not out of sentiment, but to inspect both sides for usefulness.
She was a ghost. That in itself was remarkable. In a world where information was currency and Tom Riddle owned the mint, Henrietta Potter had managed to exist as little more than a name and a handful of confirmed facts. Twenty years old. University. Something about space — astronomy or astrophysics, his people weren't certain. No photographs that his network had managed to obtain. No digital footprint worth speaking of. No interviews, no appearances at her father's political functions.
James Potter had hidden his daughter with the kind of obsessive, meticulous care that told Tom everything he needed to know about how much she was worth to the man.
Which made her worth considerably more to him.
Tom had never had much use for women beyond the obvious. They came easily enough — they always had, even before the money, before the power, when he was nothing but a sharp-faced boy with cold eyes and a particular talent for making people do what he wanted. Now they practically orbited him. Beautiful, eager, utterly interchangeable. He used them when the urge demanded it and forgot them before morning. Sentiment was a disease he had vaccinated himself against a long time ago, somewhere between a boys home that smelled of damp and an old woman named Cole who had looked at fifteen year old Tom Riddle and seen nothing worth salvaging.
Cole had been wrong, of course. The streets had agreed with Tom in ways the home never had. And then Grindelwald had found him — or rather, Tom had allowed himself to be found, which was a different thing entirely. He had learned everything the old man had to teach. And then he had taken everything the old man had to give.
It wasn't a secret to the outside world, what Tom was. It simply wasn't said aloud. Not twice, anyway.
So no — women had never figured into his plans as anything more than temporary arrangements. Until now.
Henrietta Potter, she wouldn't be temporary If he put a ring on her finger and his name attached to hers, and James Potter would spend every waking moment of his political career acutely aware that his most beloved thing was sleeping under Tom Riddle's roof. In his bed.
It was, he thought, an elegant solution.
He didn't need to find her attractive. He didn't need to find her anything. He will just have to put an act to care for her a tad and leave her with excuse of work. But of course, she shall enjoy his riches in the meanwhile. She was a variable in an equation, and the equation was simple: Potter's ambition versus Potter's love for his daughter. Tom already knew which one would win.
They always chose the child.
He picked up his phone and checked the message Barty sent him.
'The meeting has been arranged in Potter's estate. Thursday.'
He set the phone down and looked out the window at the city that belonged to him, and thought about a girl with no face and no photographs, hidden so carefully from the world.
Nothing stayed hidden from Tom Riddle forever.