Invictus [Tom Riddle / Tomione]

Snapshots of July

July 3, 1948

Tom Riddle sat in the darkest corner of The Leaky Cauldron on a Saturday morning. He'd arrived early, intent on eating breakfast before his Death Eaters showed up for their usual meeting. They would all eat together, but he would not eat with them. Eating with them would imply community, camaraderie... even friendship. Familiarity. Intimacy. But they were not his comrades nor his friends. They were his followers.

The thought of eating with them irked him, like a pebble in his shoe that he couldn't locate or get rid of. It was another of his compulsive behaviors; he always ate alone. He thought perhaps a mind healer would find that interesting. However, he had no intention of ever letting another human being near his mind. He imagined the wires in his mind were all crossed incorrectly. He didn't mind it. He presumed that divergence was the very thing that made him a magical genius, and if given the choice between a fucked up brain and being normal like all the other sods... he'd choose a twisted mind any day.

He was just finishing up a proper English breakfast of toast, bacon, sausage, mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, sunny-side-up eggs, and black pudding with a cup of strong black coffee. It made him rather sick, truthfully, since he hadn't eaten so much in one sitting in weeks.

At a few minutes to seven, Mulciber walked in and Tom waved him over. He wanted to have a little chat before the rest of his Death Eaters arrived.

"Good morning, My Lord."

"Good morning, Mulciber. Have you any news on what I asked you to do last week?"

The tall, blonde Death Eater nodded. "Everything checks out. Her background, documents, identification... Everything the Ministry has on her. I performed legilimens on the clerks in the records and census department. It doesn't appear there's anything shady... Unless someone is adept at memory charms or obliviation. Any tracks have been well covered."

Tom nodded, furrowing his brow as he thought.

Mulciber continued, "If she's not who she says she is, the only way to find out is to either seek out some contacts... someone who knew her mother well and perform legilimens on them. Maybe veritaserum. Aside from that... you may have to perform legilimens on her . It may be the only way."

Tom's eyes snapped sharply to Mulciber's. It was something he had considered. He could obliviate her afterward and she would be none the wiser.

There were two things that stopped him. First, he recalled her occlumency from the Ostara Ball. He remembered encountering her rock-solid mental walls, which indicated that she was a relatively skilled occlumens. Tom inferred that she must have trained with a powerful occlumens, and while Tom was powerful enough to still override her will and penetrate her mind, it would be a forceful and painful invasion... a kind of rape of the mind, which was the second reason that Tom didn't want to perform the spell on her. He wouldn't feel right about violating her in such a manner. If it were anyone else, Tom wouldn't hesitate. But Tom had impulsively decided that if he were to discover her secrets, he would do so through a battle of wits, not sheer, brute magical strength.

He did want to keep a certain level of trust between them, after all. Even if she was a filthy little liar.

Perhaps she had reason to be secretive.

So Tom decided that he would uncover her secrets on his own, or he would earn her trust and make her spill them.

"Do not breathe a word of this to a single soul, Mulciber. Do you understand?"

"Yes, my Lord."

July 7, 1948

Hermione knew Tom's schedule now. She'd watched him walking to and from work for several weeks now through the window in front of her desk at The Daily Prophet . Unlike her, he had specific days off every week. He worked Monday through Saturday, with Sundays and Tuesdays off. Today was Wednesday, and Hermione was home at her flat. She only went in on days that she needed to work on her articles, had collaborations, or had staff meetings, although she was required at the ministry on many of her off days to oversee the work on Midas Bank.