She was waiting for him, keeping a candle glowing and leaning against the main desk, wrapped in tartan wool. He was too keyed up to care that she’d broken the promise. She didn’t offer a hand to help him out, because she already knew he would sneer and ignore any offer of help. He rolled out of the fireplace and quickly dusted the soot and glittering Floo powder off.

His hands were calm and clean again, but he could still feel his heart jumping with the excitement. He guessed his cheeks were probably flushed. Without thinking he grabbed onto Minerva roughly and smashed their lips together. Tom picked her up, loving the physical power he had over her, spinning around until she gasped in protest. He whirled around a couple more times, then set her back on the ground, yet kept her close.

“You smell good,” Tom informed her and she began to chatter, trying to dodge his insistent, persuasive kisses. He found his attention wandering even as he licked her ear and she shivered.

He blinked and his vision shifted… to the posh manor house… the beautifully set dinner table… the mindless terror in his father’s eyes as he snuffed the life out of the old Riddles in two wandstrokes… the emerald flashes of light, so beautiful and deadly… And his father tied to his posh dinner chair, covered in tiny slashes until he lost control and slit his throat. The best part was holding onto his neck as he slowly bled out, watching the eyes turn.

“Tom?” her voice drew him back to the present. His hands were clean. Pity. “Are you ok, Tom?”

Tom. There was no Tom anymore. There were no longer any Riddles, either. It was a satisfying set of thoughts. He thought about them, propped back up at the dinner table, inanimate, lifeless, useless. His father all cleaned up pretty and neat and unable to tell a soul about what happened to him. A smirk begins to unfurl on his lips as he imagines the maids (or maybe the cook) finding the corpses. He only wishes they weren’t so bloody rich, so that they’d sit there undiscovered for a while longer, start to rot a little.

“I am more than ok,” he grinned, unaware that she noticed the feral edge to it.

“Did you find him? The… merchant with the heirloom?”

“Oh, yeah,” he kissed her again, seized with the desire to make her lips the colour of blood. “He was grateful to be rid of it!”

“Would you stop with the riddles and just tell me what happened?” Min was exasperated.

He burst out laughing. “That’s the thing, Min. There won’t be any more riddles. I promise you that. No more riddles, Minerva.”

Lord Voldemort has risen.