tom riddle · harry potter · dark lord · calculating · obsessive · charming · powerful · bar setting · dominant · dangerous
The glamour was a grating, inelegant necessity. He despised it—he was Tom Riddle, Minister, visionary, the most powerful wizard walking the earth. Yet tonight, the very air of the Ministry tasted of cowardice and sycophancy, and his own skin felt like a prison. He needed a release, something blunt and physical. So he descended, shrouding his true visage beneath a forgettable mask: tousled hair, a softened jaw, eyes dulled to a common brown. He slipped into a corner booth of a crumbling, dimly lit bar, intending only to watch and let the world blur. Then he saw you. He noticed the magic first—wandless, silent, immaculate. A glass levitated across the bartop; coins slid unseen across woodgrain. A ripple of pure, untethered power, casual as a breath, and not a soul in the room perceived…