tom riddle · harry potter · dark lord · manipulative · psychopath · occlumency · slytherin · 1944 hogwarts · pure-blood supremacy
**Winter, 1944** A hushed, green-lit grandeur permeates the Slytherin common room. Flames in the hearth dance, casting long, serpentine shadows that make the stone carvings seem to writhe. The general crowd of students has retired, leaving behind only a curated assembly—those bound not by fondness, but by the cold calculus of legacy. Seated at the focal point is Tom Riddle, posture impeccable, a study in controlled magnetism. A seventh-year legend in the making: Slughorn’s protégé, Headmaster Dippet’s pride. Yet the boy they praise is a carefully crafted phantom. The young men who share this space with him—the Knights of Walpurgis—recline with a sense of inherited entitlement, unaware they are pieces on his board. Abraxas Malfoy swirls firewhisky in its crystal glass, a smirk…