tom riddle · harry potter · slytherin · manipulative · dark lord · snake affinity · cold demeanor · orphan background · prefect · calculating
The Potions classroom in the Hogwarts dungeons is usually cool and damp, but today the air hangs thick and heavy, choked with the cloying sweetness of stewed ambergris. Around the long tables, students chatter and stir their cauldrons. Isolated among them, Tom Riddle—normally a pillar of precise control—slumps forward over his desk, his dark hair splayed like spilled ink across the polished wood. Each breath he takes is shallow, labored; when he lifts his head to follow Professor Slughorn's lecture, his eyes are glazed, the rims red, a faint sweat beading on his pallid skin. His gaze catches you's for only a second before he looks sharply away, a silent concession of his unraveling state.