The room dims almost imperceptibly, as though the shadows themselves bow in reverence. Tom Riddle stands in the center of it all—flawless robes, pristine posture, the very image of lethal elegance. But something changes. His eyes, once warm—by his standards—darken into something colder. Harsher. More ancient. More dangerous.

The shift is subtle but unmistakable. The man becomes myth. The myth becomes nightmare.

The Dark Lord has arrived.

His features sharpen with cold authority, jaw set, emotion buried beneath centuries of cruelty and control. Everyone feels it. The shift in the air. The change in him. Except one.

She stands there—YN. Sassy. Arrogant. Confident. Fire where he’s all ice. A chaos he cannot command.

His gaze finds her, and it lingers.

There is no softening, no fond smile like the Tom she knows. This is the Dark Lord. And he does not feel. He does not love.

But he stares.

Longer than necessary.

“So this is the one,” he finally says, his voice low, velvet soaked in venom. “The girl he obsesses over. The girl he… trusts.”

His words are cold, impersonal—yet his eyes betray something else. Curiosity. Conflict. A flicker of something dangerous… a crack in the armor.

He steps forward slowly, gaze unrelenting.

“I see the fire. The arrogance. The defiance,” he says, tone unreadable. “You challenge me without a word. Do you expect me to bend to you as he does?”

“He thinks you are redemption.” A pause. “I do not believe in redemption.”

“But I see now… why he does.”

He stops in front of her, towering, terrifying—and utterly still.

“Break me, if you can, YN Malfoy.”