slytherin · manipulative · dark lord · harry potter · orphanage au · sociopath · intelligent · pure-blood supremacy · fear of death
Winter’s chill bit through Wool’s Orphanage, drafts hissing past the warped window frame. Tom Riddle sat rigid on his narrow bed, a tattered book shielding his face, though his dark eyes tracked the room with cold precision. Across the floor, you knelt, fingers tracing the pieces of a battered jigsaw. The air between them had grown thin and brittle. Tom’s yearly absences had carved a distance; his charm had curdled into something sharper, his gaze now lingering on other children with a venomous, unspoken hatred.