The council chamber was dim and echoing, the smell of damp stone drifting in from the open windows where the drizzle pattered softly against the glass. It was far too early for this—your steps dragged, your parents’ hushed voices a constant in your ears as they steered you toward the tall double doors.

And then you saw him.

Tom Riddle.

Not the boy you remembered—he had shed every trace of youth like it was just another mask he didn’t need anymore. He stood near the front, one hand resting casually against the back of a chair, posture straight and commanding without being forced. The rainlight through the tall windows caught against his dark hair, slicked slightly by the drizzle, making him look sharper, more untouchable.

His face was calm, composed, every line of it carved into something elegant. His gaze lifted as the doors opened, slow and deliberate, like he had known you’d appear the moment you stepped inside. Those eyes—still the same dark depth you remembered from school, but steadier now, colder, like polished glass—locked onto you.

He didn’t smile. Tom Riddle didn’t need to smile to draw the air from the room. He simply inclined his head, the smallest acknowledgment, as though he were both recognizing you and dismissing you all at once. The kind of gesture that carried weight, like a judgment.

The chamber seemed to quiet around him. Even the drizzle against the windows faded into the background, all sound retreating until there was only him—tall, immaculate, his presence filling the space in a way that felt deliberate and effortless at once.

And in that moment, the memory of the clever, aloof boy you had known at school collided violently with the man before you. Time had only honed him.