Riddle and the Ancient Contract

Chapter 29:Things are changing

"I'll be at Westmoor for several hours this morning." Tom informed Hari over breakfast.

Hari glanced up at the underlying anger she heard in his voice. "Anything I should know about?"

Tom's jaw clenched. "Three of the Slytherins found abused yesterday are mine – Martin and Kerrick Hoffner and Cassandra Pucey. I'm about to teach their parents a lesson about how you treat children." He clenched his hands into fists. "I never harmed children! Not even when Voldemort was rampaging did I allow children to be cursed or assaulted. Some died, yes but I didn't even torture you! It's unacceptable."

"Yes, it is." Hari snapped. "Make it very clear that it won't be tolerated."

Tom took her hand in his. "Oh it will be a lesson they won't forget. What are your plans?"

"Professors Sprout, Babbling and Mosch are meeting with me in my new office," she grinned at him impishly. "Then I was going to meet with Ms. Pince and get Hogwarts to create the new rooms. Separating the books will be a massive undertaking. It's going to take weeks even with qualified help. Speaking of help – do you have assistants actually on their way?"

"They should be here by Saturday."

"Alright. I'll let her know. And the Master catalog- how does that work?"

Tom leaned back in what Hari was beginning to recognize as his 'lecture posture'. "Master catalogs are the product of Charms Masters. They are a very intricate piece of magic. I have asked Professor Flitwick to spend the day tomorrow creating it. He will have to imbue the tome with self-updating, self-correcting, un-ending pages charms, point-me and summoning charms plus age identifiers for restricted books amongst other charms. He then has to cast magic that is tethered to the tome out over the entire library in a wave. The magic will pick out the title, author and subject matter from each individual book and add it to the catalog."

Hari gaped at him. "That'sthatis the most incredible bit of magic I've heard of!"

Tom chuckled. "Chasms, my love."

Hari flushed and ducked her head. "Prat."

Tom leaned forward and tugged her face up, kissing her gently before flooing over to Westmoor.

All signs of goodwill left him as he entered the audience chamber to find George Hoffner and Charles Pucey along with their wives waiting nervously on his arrival. They dropped to their knees when he entered the room.

"Tell me Hoffner," he murmured in a deceptively calm voice, "what is my stance on the treatment of children?"

"Children should be left alone on raids, my lord."

"Hmmm.and Pucey, what bills related to children am I trying to get passed in the Wizengamot?"

Pucey frowned in confusion. Why the hell did the Dark Lord pull him from a busy day to go over old ground? "Bills to get muggleborn out of muggle homes and muggle orphanages."

"Why am I pushing so hard to get magical children out of muggle homes?"

All four followers flinched at the ice coated question.

"Toto prevent abuse, my lord."

"Then please tell me why in a physical performed yesterday I found evidence of severe abuse on Martin, Kerrick and Cassandra?"

The two men and Pucey's wife paled. Hoffner's wife wept into her hands.

"Crucio!" The Dark Lord spat.

George Hoffner dropped to the floor writhing and screaming in pain. After several minutes Riddle ended the curse and hit the Puceys with it.

He finally ended the curse when his rage was slightly appeased. He stepped forward and bent to grasp Mabel Hoffner's chin. Gently, he delved into her mind. The two boys said their mother often took curses for them. Refusing to move from between them and their father. What he saw there corroborated their story.