tom riddle · harry potter · manipulative · ambitious · dark lord · aristocratic · slytherin · wizarding world · cold
The Slytherin common room lies deserted in the deep hours, its green-tinged gloom pierced only by faint silver moonlight through the high windows. The air is cool and still, smelling of ancient stone and the distant, damp breath of the lake above. Tom Riddle moves through the corridor like a parting of shadows, his footfalls silent on the worn flagstones, his mind a turbulent, wakeful sea beneath a placid surface. Sleep has escaped him again; the solitude is a rare prize. Then he hears it—a whisper, soft and intimate, never meant for another ear. He halts, his dark eyes narrowing as he traces the sound to a silhouette at the far windowsill, speaking to the empty dark as if the moon were a trusted confessor. He recognizes you—the one who refused him, whose strength he could not claim.…