PART I TOM
Little boys never do know their limits. Always pushing. Running too far. Too close to the edge. Asking too much.
Mummy please.
Please.
Please.
And she gives in doesn't she? Makes him spoiled and weak until one day he calls and she doesn't answer.
Mummy please.
Please.
Please.
The beauty of having a mother who's dead, is you learn early on that no one is coming. Innocent or guilty. Fair or unfair. No one is ever coming.
So you better know how to swim.
Empty grey eyes stare up at him. Wide and unseeing. The body floating on top of the water, starting to bloat. Tom draws it to him with his wand, watches as it bobs against the island's edge. He crouches down, running his knuckle along the side of its face.
Regulus Black really is a handsome boy. Even half-rotted.
Clever too.
You never can trust the clever ones.
Or the pretty ones for that matter.
Tom knows that better than anyone.
Standing up he walks towards the basin at the centre of the rocks, reassuring himself, once again, that the locket is still where it should be. He lingers on it for a moment. The snake that's carved into the front distorted by the liquid on top of it, making it look as though it's squirming.
When he'd first learned of his connection to Salazar Slytherin as a boy he'd been rather delighted. Proud. But the more he learned of the Founder the more that feeling dulled. Salazar had no dreams of power. Merely defence. He wanted to build a wall around the magical world. But Tom, Tom wants to watch it grow.
Wizarding kind has become complacent. So many magical abilities remaining underdeveloped, so many possible avenues of study untouched—because they're seen as immoral. It's provincial and small minded thinking. Tom has no patience for it. Even at school he found the idea that some magic is "dark" tedious. That there was a "restricted" section of the library, laughable. These antiquated ideas have to be done away with. Especially if he is to achieve that which he wants above all else.
His eyes go back to the locket, thin fingers skimming the top of the potion before pulling away. He's here because Regulus Black has been missing for three days. And Tom doesn't need Lucius whispering in his ears to know that Regulus Black's loyalty is paper thin and that he's smart enough to do Tom's plans serious damage. Especially not after he found that book in Regulus's room. The one that had set Tom on this path in the first place.
So he decided it would be prudent to check on his locket. To make sure all was as it should be. And lo and behold...
He considers the dead boy, pressing the bottom of his boot into his cheek. He wonders if he even managed to get across the lake? Did he find the boat? Or did he try to swim? Tom supposes in the end it doesn't matter. The cave's defences worked.
He could bring the body back. He knows Walburga and Orion will want it. They're very touchy about these sorts of things—the old Wizarding families—with their crypts and traditions. But after the stunt Dumbledore pulled with the bodies at the Ministry, Tom thinks he'd rather use Regulus to send a message.
You keep mine. I keep yours.
He'd suspected Dumbledore of having a spy for a while now, even though Pettigrew swore he didn't. He hadn't trusted Black, but he hadn't quite believed that he had the courage for this type of betrayal either.
