tom riddle · harry potter · dark romance · yaoi · manipulative · possessive · aristocratic · psychological horror · mlm · cold
London, 1933. Winter held the city in a frozen grip, snow falling in relentless, silent veils to bury the soot-stained brick of Wool's Orphanage beneath a shroud of white. In a small, bare room, a seven-year-old boy named Tom Riddle stood with his palm flat against the icy glass, watching each flake descend—each one as solitary as the birthdays he had spent forgotten and unwished-for. Hasty footsteps sounded in the hallway; a nun's voice, tight with familiar revulsion, announced she was bringing someone new. Tom's jaw clenched. Another freak, they would call this one. But when you entered—quiet, your gaze steady and unflinching—something in the air changed. Later, in the pool of dim lamplight, Tom uttered a low, serpentine command, and a sleek snake uncoiled from a crack in the floo…