Poison Ivy | T. Riddle ✔

[43] Disavowal

With the Quidditch World Cup approaching, the high alert of Aurors from Albania had slackened a bit. Since Britain was going to officially host the tournament, the Ministry had a lot to do on its hands aside from hunting Dark Wizard groups.

Therefore, the influx of Aurors into Albania had decreased and Riddle could finally take a breath of relief. Sensing the slight distraction in its attitude, Abraxas took full advantage of the situation and made sure to steer the Ministry away from the case of Death Eaters completely.

He succeeded in his attempts and gradually but ultimately, the Aurors were removed from Albania. Soon as the high alert status ended, Tom Riddle decided to come out of hiding at last.

It had been almost ten years since he had left Knockturn Alley and about four years since he had set Perseus Burke free. He had no idea where he could have gone, whether he was even alive or not and frankly speaking, he didn't even care.

All he could feel was the fire of revenge. He wanted revenge on Nobby Leach, Albus Dumbledore and most importantly on Nathan Whitburg. He couldn't wait to torture the life out of those three for they had played equal role in destroying his well thought out plans.

But he couldn't strike immediately. Like all clever predators, he had to wait. Every single second seemed like a burden to him, but he simply had to wait for the right moment or else he could risk losing whatever was left of him.

And now after so many years of struggling to become the greatest Dark Wizard ever, he could simply not take the risk of letting all his ambitions crumble to pieces before his very eyes.

In order to take things slow, he assessed his targets one by one. Nobby Leach was a task he had already assigned to Avery and Malfoy and was certain that they would take care of him eventually; that left only Dumbledore and Nathan to deal with. Since Nathan was the one he wished to be most ruthless with, he kept him for later and proceeded to handle Dumbledore first.

Knowing full well that he couldn't get rid of Dumbledore easily, he decided to first gain access to Hogwarts. It was almost akin to first entering someone's house with their permission and then killing that person when he least expected it.

A cold blooded murder, like they say commonly. However, Riddle could easily proclaim that cold blooded murders were quite his specialty. He could clearly recall Hepzibah Smith and how he had gotten rid of her in her own house, on the occassion of tea at which she had invited him herself.

He was going to adopt a similar strategy with Dumbledore for nothing pleases the murderor more than the fact that he gets done away with the victim in its own premises without even drawing any suspicion to himself.

Therefore, on one pleasant day in 1966, just before the new term was to commence at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Riddle left for Scotland in order to seek the post of the Defense professor at the prestigious school once again.

His plan was perfect, he had made sure of avoiding all loopholes in his persuasive story but there was one little problem. Instead of the amiably stupid Armando Dippet, the current Headmaster was none other than Albus Dumbledore.

While Dippet was a man easily won over by flattery, Dumbledore on the other hand was a shrewd as well as extremely powerful wizard who paid no heed to silver tongues. For that matter, Grindelwald's legendary defeat at Nurmengard Castle was the ultimate proof of Dumbledore's capability.

He was well aware that with Dumbledore as the Headmaster, it could become rather difficult for him to win over his trust. And since Abraxas had informed him so specifically in his previous visit that Dumbledore himself had given refuge to Whitburg, there was a considerable chance that he knew about Riddle being Lord Voldemort.