Transcendence

It seemed that the library was also Draco's usual refuge. Since he had been home he had disturbed Tom more than once at odd hours, opening the library door just a crack and then squeaking out a terrified "Forgive me, My Lord!" before closing it again and scurrying off. Tom hadn't had an opportunity to question the boy about it since he only ever saw him in the company of the adults. They had only just started to relax, as if they had finally accepted that Tom wasn't going to kill the child at any moment, and he had no desire to put them back on edge by questioning him in front of them.

Their fear had been fun while it lasted, but fear was only a useful thing when it served a specific purpose. In this case it was quite counterproductive.

He was waiting for Draco the next time he cracked open the library door in the wee hours of the morning.

"Come in, Draco."

The boy paused, and Tom felt as if he could almost hear the hammering heartbeat from all the way across the cavernous room. Then he pushed the door the rest of the way open and entered warily, presenting Tom with a face that was desperately trying to appear confident and wide eyes that gave away his fears.

Draco came to kneel in front of him without having to be told to do so. He lowered his head so that Tom was presented with a view of his blond hair and the back of his neck. "Forgive me, My Lord."

"Why should I forgive you?"

"Please, I--I didn't mean to disturb you, My Lord," replied Draco, his cultured voice wavering.

Tom reached out to run his hand along the rumpled platinum locks as if he were petting a dog. He so enjoyed any human touch at all, these days. "Then why do you keep doing it?"

He could feel that Draco's body was as tense as a bowstring now, but to his credit he didn't stammer when he explained, "I had hoped that you had already retired, My Lord. I had finished with my books and wanted to select others, and I tried to wait until I wouldn't be intruding."

But Tom, who had no need to sleep, had taken to staying in the library all through the night when there was no chance of being disturbed by either of the elder Malfoys. The boy's behavior made much more sense to him now.

"Ah, Draco," he said softly, absentmindedly using his long fingers to straighten the tangles in the child's hair, "you need only have asked. Did you think that I would deny you the chance to learn?"

Draco trembled under the attention, but he replied, "I didn't think you would want to be bothered, My Lord."

"You are not as bold as your father. He would have already asked and been granted his request."

The littlest Malfoy audibly sucked in a breath. "I don't--I'm not... My father is your trusted servant, My Lord, and I'm... well--"

"A child?" filled in Tom. Swirling thoughts had begun to form something solid in his mind. "Yes, you are at that. But you want to be like your father; you are disappointed that I said you are not like him."

It hadn't been a question, but Draco answered anyway. "Yes. He has earned his place, and I want that."

Tom smiled and pulled his hand away from Draco's head. The boy was only telling half of the truth, he knew, and had chosen the most flattering part to tell. Tom had no doubt that Draco expected that earning his place was a foregone conclusion and would require little more than his last name and the strength of his father and grandfather behind him.

The real truth, that which Tom knew even Draco himself did not yet know, was that he would never be like his father. There was too much of his mother in him, and even from their brief acquaintance Tom already sincerely doubted that he would ever be able to torture or kill with impunity, for no reason and with no regrets, like his father and grandfather. The child was lucky that it was Tom he needed to follow now and not Tom's other self, because he had gathered that Lord Voldemort had little mercy and no need for followers who had consciences.

Draco Malfoy would either prove himself worthy of being one of Tom's, or he would most likely be killed trying to prove himself as one of Lord Voldemort's.

"You may use the library, Draco," Tom informed him. "You may even sit in here with me, if you are able to remain quiet and stay out of the way."

The blond head came up to reveal eyes wide now with awe instead of terror. "Oh, yes, My Lord! I swear I can! I'm one of Madam Pince's favorite students, you know."

Tom laughed, his normal laugh as opposed to the high, piercing noise he made to unnerve others. "Is that old bat still at Hogwarts? Just you keep in mind, Draco, that my punishments are far worse than a bit of shrieking and a detention."

Draco nodded. "I promise, My Lord!"

"Go to bed now," ordered Tom. "You're no use to anyone at this time of night, least of all to yourself. You may come back tomorrow.... Oh, and Draco, wizards do not swear unless they are willing to be bound by the most unyielding of magics. I ought not to have to remind you of this."

Draco did come back the next day, and the day after that. He remained quiet and unobtrusive unless Tom directly addressed him, which he did with increasing regularity as the days passed. He was pleased to discover that the boy had a keen mind and impressive magical acumen. He was not exceptional--really, who was exceptional compared to Tom?--but he was talented. And he was growing increasingly comfortable in Tom's presence; he was even occasionally willing to ask Tom to explain things from his readings, if Tom had indicated that he was allowed to speak.

He was sitting in his customary chair in the far corner of the library when his sires burst through the library doors a couple of weeks after Tom had kidnapped the Grangers. Lucius rushed to speak before Tom could even begin to express his anger at such an intrusion.

"My Lord, I have received information that the Ministry knows about the Muggles!"

Tom was immediately on his feet, the ancient, priceless tome he'd been holding in his lap falling to the floor in a heap. "What?"

Lucius spoke so quickly that Tom could barely make out his meaning. "My contact in the DMLE warned me that Dumbledore has contacted the Aurors claiming that the Muggles have been abducted and are being held in our cellars."

Where Lucius looked furious, Abraxas appeared merely put out by the inconvenience. He reached out and placed a hand on his son's shoulder to forestall the tirade.

"There is apparently a disagreement in the upper ranks of the Department, My Lord," explained Abraxas more calmly than Lucius could have. "Scrimgeour and many of his Aurors want to conduct an immediate raid on the manor, but Bones has put her foot down pending a hearing to review the evidence."

"Bones's unfailing sense of fairness is quite annoying at times," said Lucius, "but it is undeniably useful in this sort of situation. After all of their attempts last year failed to turn up any evidence of our dealing in the Dark Arts, she became quite strict about the Aurors being able to justify such raids before they are carried out."

Tom paced back and forth between the Malfoys and the cluster of chairs where he'd been sitting. "How much time do we have?"

"The hearing is scheduled for tomorrow morning, My Lord," Lucius informed him, adding a little sniff of disgust to the end.

Tom immediately felt a good measure of the tension leave his body. If there was no threat of Aurors knocking down the doors at any moment, then they had plenty of time to handle the problem. If they hadn't obviously had more pressing matters to deal with, he would have punished Lucius for his alarmist attitude. He made sure to keep his wand firmly up his sleeve lest he give into the temptation anyway.

"How could Dumbledore have gotten his information?"

Both Malfoys shared a glance, and it was Abraxas who spoke. "Should we not first devise a plan to allay suspicions, My Lord, and, perhaps, to get the Grangers out of the manor?"

"No, you fool." It had been a solid bit of foresight to keep his wand up his sleeve. "Dumbledore's information is too specific, too accurate, to be mere guesswork. If someone here has shared what they know, then they must be dealt with before we decide our next steps. It would do no good to plan evasive maneuvers if Dumbledore, and through him the Aurors, are just going to be informed about them."

Abraxas's spine stiffened. "No one here would have shared anything with Dumbledore, My Lord."

"I would be more inclined to believe you if the Aurors weren't on the verge of finding my prisoners."

Tom turned a steely glare on them so intimidating that they both fell to their knees with no further prompting.

"Look at me," he demanded, to which they both immediately complied. He locked eyes with Abraxas first. "Do you have any idea how this betrayal happened?"

The older man's thoughts were racing so quickly that Tom could not catch the details of all of them. However, two thoughts stood out above the rest: a desperate denial of any knowledge and an utter terror that his son would be found guilty. Tom released him with a sneer and turned to Lucius, who, his thoughts revealed, had no knowledge of the betrayal but was terrified that his wife had committed the deed.

Tom was not sure if these suspicious thoughts were the result of sheer love and fear of loss, or if they portended a more serious problem he needed to deal with.

His sneer deepened. "Well, it's clear that it was neither of you."

"Please, My Lord, none of us would have--all of us here are loyal to--" began Lucius, but Tom cut him off with a vicious hand tangling through his smooth blond locks.

"Silence, you fool. Do you forget that I can read your wife's thoughts as clearly as your own?" Tom used Lucius's long hair to pull his head back even further. "Your wife is not loyal to me. She is loyal to your son first and foremost, and I daresay she would leap in front of a Killing Curse out of love for you"--he spat the word love as if he were speaking of the vilest thing imaginable--"not that you would deserve it. But she despises me."

Abraxas prostrated himself even further at Tom's feet. "My Lord, all of the communications in and out of the manor are monitored."

He undoubtedly had more to say, but he did not get the chance before his muscles contracted all at once and sent him flat to the floor with a keening moan. It was not the Cruciatus Curse but one that Tom had invented and perfected long before he'd known that what he was doing was magic, back when he had been dealing with cruel children at the orphanage. As it turned out, keeping his wand put away was no guarantee that he would keep his magic to himself.

Tom did not seriously think that Narcissa Malfoy had betrayed him, if only because she would have rather died herself than to put her son's or husband's lives in danger by angering the Dark Lord. No, his anger was because if she hadn't done it, then he didn't know who could have.

He knew that neither of the Malfoys were stupid enough to try to speak to him again when he was like this, no matter how much they might want to. Therefore he was shocked enough at the small voice that he reflexively tugged even harder on Lucius's hair.

"My Lord... Please, My Lord, the house-elves..."

Even through his whimper of pain, Lucius breathed out, "Draco..."

Tom pried his fingers out of the long blond hair and released Abraxas from the spell so that he could turn his full attention to the littlest Malfoy. Draco was standing beside the chair that Tom had abandoned, shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot. Tom tilted his head to consider him. "What was that?"

"You--you have to find someone who could have known everything and left the manor without anyone knowing." He visibly swallowed and tried to keep his gaze from straying to his suffering father and grandfather. "Mother couldn't have left or sent any messages without Grandfather knowing, but the house-elves could have."

The rest of them could only stare at Draco in various degrees of shock.

Tom's mind raced with everything he knew about house-elves, which he had to admit was not a whole hell of a lot. He had known that they were responsible for the cooking and cleaning at Hogwarts, but after a cursory bit of research he had dismissed them as otherwise useless creatures and thought no more about it.

Lucius staggered to his feet and began making his way to his son, as if his mere presence might have an impact on whatever Tom decided to do to the boy.

"Draco, cease this at once!" he ordered, his voice tense with terror. "You know that the house-elves cannot leave this manor or give away information without permission."

His son looked defiant and opened his mouth to speak, but Tom broke in with, "Have you given them all direct orders to that effect?"

Lucius looked at once confused and stymied, and he turned to his father.

Abraxas, who had only just managed to pick himself up off the floor and back onto his knees, shook his head in denial. "There is no need; it is in the nature of house-elves to be bound in loyalty to their masters. None of them could have left the grounds without direct permission."

"That's not true!" began his grandson, but Lucius clapped him hard on the shoulder.

"DRACO!"

Tom held up his hand for silence, and all of them immediately stilled. He held out his hand towards the youngest of them. "Come here, child."

The elder Malfoys both looked stricken at the command, but Draco walked over with a wary confidence born of his time spent alone with the Dark Lord. He knelt in front of Tom and looked up to shyly meet his eyes instead of bowing his head.

"Tell me," Tom commanded calmly.

"My personal elf, Knobby, visits me at Hogwarts sometimes," explained Draco, keeping his eyes on Tom's instead of looking at his father or grandfather when they both made noises of surprise. "I never asked him to the first time, and I don't think anyone else told him he was allowed. He just did it, because he missed me."

Tom saw in Draco's thoughts that this house-elf had been his constant companion as a young child, as it had been tasked with minding him as a nanny of sorts. It was probably not uncommon, Tom supposed, for families with such means to assign a house-elf to see to feeding and cleaning a young child instead of the parents. He lifted his eyes to look at Lucius, who looked as if he wanted to allow his jaw to drop in surprise and was only resisting due to years of training.

"I... No, I never gave it permission," he croaked.

From behind himself, Tom could hear Abraxas say, "Neither did I."

"Call them all here," was the immediate command. Then Tom turned his attention back to Draco. "You have done very well. Take your book and go for now."

By the time Draco had gathered his things and left the library, Lucius had helped his father to his feet and they had assembled a small army of rag-covered house-elves in a haphazard line in front of their master. Tom had no desire to speak to the little beasts himself, so he turned and gave his directive to Abraxas, who still looked a bit green around the edges from his ordeal.

"All of you," he addressed the ragtag group with a strong voice that belied his appearance, "are ordered to follow this man's orders as if he were one of your masters." Then he turned to receive Tom's next instruction before turning back to his house-elves. "I order whichever of you has given any information you have learned in this house to any other person who does not live in this house to step forward immediately."

All of the house-elves looked absolutely horrified, including the bat-like one who stepped forward, his enormous green eyes shimmering with fear and tears. Tom supposed that this one was horrified for an entirely different reason than all the rest of them. He recognized it at Lucius's personal house-elf.

"DOBBY!" roared Lucius, and he raised his heavy walking stick to deliver what would surely be a death blow if he put any measure of magic at all behind it.

Tom stilled his follower's hand with an almost bored tone. "Don't be stupid, Lucius. The little wretch is of far more use to us alive."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That Friday night, Malfoy Manor was to fill up with Ministry officials from every conceivable department, although they had obviously been a bit heavy handed with invitations to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Neither Abraxas nor Lucius had been able to get any definitive information about the evidentiary hearing before Madam Bones, but as Aurors had yet to descend on the manor, it was safe to assume that she had not been impressed with the information Dumbledore had been able to give the Aurors.

It was no surprise, really, given that all of the headmaster's information had come secondhand from Harry Potter by way of a traitorous house-elf who had only been able to offer him veiled hints and warnings.

Still, they had considered it far too risky to keep the prisoners at Malfoy Manor. Just as it was far too risky for Tom Riddle to stay in the house when it was to be full of Aurors who had been invited to a dinner party thrown for the sole purpose of making it seem like the Malfoys had nothing to hide and, in fact, had no idea that they had been under suspicion at all.

Tom Apparated out of the manor just as the magical carriages began carrying the first guests from the gates to the front door. He landed with barely a sound on the soft, long grass in front of a small, single-story cottage that had been left to Draco by his paternal great-grandmother.

"She always hated me and my son after me," Abraxas had explained, while Lucius had muttered something that sounded suspiciously like an insult under his breath, "but for some reason she grew attached to Draco and left all of her possessions and fortune directly to him, even though he was barely three when she died. I doubt that the Ministry knows anything about it, since my great-grandfather built it and warded it himself for his wife's pleasure, and it has never been connected to the Floo Network."

He had only been inspired enough to come up with such a solution after Tom had held him under the Cruciatus Curse for a solid five minutes for daring to suggest that Tom might consider his filthy Muggle father's house in Little Hangleton.

When Tom opened the door to the small, windowless walk-in closet that had been converted to hold the prisoners, the smell of human waste and unwashed flesh assaulted his sensitive nose. He fought valiantly to control his natural reaction and succeeded in merely sneering in distaste instead of recoiling. Three pairs of eyes glared out at him from the darkness, and he reached out with his magic to forcibly haul the Mudblood to her feet.

"Come, Granger. It's time to see what you can offer me."

It was the work of a moment to secure her in one of the kitchen chairs. She squeezed her eyes shut at the magical candlelight that illuminated the cottage and bent her head forward so that her mass of hair shielded her face. Tom thought that her hair was so matted that it was probably beyond repair and would need to be shaved off and started anew (not that he was planning on giving her the opportunity to do so).

He flicked his wrist and, with a cry of surprise and pain from his prisoner, her head flew back to expose her face to him.

"You have two choices, Mudblood: You can tell me what I want to know and earn yourself and your filthy parents some better living conditions, or you can deny me and I can make your lives now look like heaven in comparison to what I will do to you."

Even through her filth and her pain, her brown eyes glared at him defiantly. "If you wanted me to cooperate, maybe you should have started out treating us a bit more humanely."

Tom had read about such bravery in many of the Muggle stories he had consumed as a child, and he had heard that such valor earned the respect of many. Personally, he could only feel revulsion at such utter stupidity.

He allowed his childhood torture spell to wrack her weakened body until tears and snot cleared trails down her dirty face.

"Next time it will be the Cruciatus Curse. Oh, yes," he added at her surprised look, "what you just experienced was not the Unforgivable. That was a little thing I invented years before I got my Hogwarts letter or my wand. And, of course, if you find the Cruciatus Curse to be insufficient motivation, I will have to use your filthy mother to demonstrate the effects of prolonged exposure--it's anatomically impossible to make one's brain actually fall out the ears, you know, but I can turn it to mush quite easily."

He knew he had defeated her when her lower lip began to tremble, and he congratulated himself on having the foresight to bring her parents along. He was certain that she would have rather been tortured than betray her friend, but she could not willingly sentence her parents to such a fate.

"Okay," she whimpered. "I'll tell you whatever you want to know, if I can."

Tom rewarded her with a cold smile that he knew perverted his exceedingly handsome features and made him look quite demented. "I knew you are a smart girl, Granger. I want to know how Harry Potter survived in the Chamber of Secrets."

Her eyes went wide. "I--I don't know that. No one does!"

"No one?" he asked. "Not even Dumbledore?"

She shook her head quite vehemently. "If Dumbledore knows then he didn't tell Harry. He told Harry that it had something to do with his mother, that she had left behind her protection on the night you tried to k--kill him. It's the s--same thing he said after you attacked Harry before."

Tom had always been something of a natural Legilimens. He had always been able to get a general impression of someone's state of mind, to tell what their main emotion was at a given moment or, more importantly, to tell if they were lying. He had learned more during his time at Hogwarts, and he could have invaded Granger's mind for more information. However, he could tell that she was not lying, and he was not yet so skilled in the art that he would leave her mind completely intact should she try to resist him. He decided that this early in their acquaintance any additional details he might have been able to pick up through invasive Legilimency were not worth the risk of ruining her.

Instead, he tried a different approach. "Tell me how Potter was affected by our little adventure."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hours later, he was no closer to answers than he had been before he'd interrogated the filthy little Mudblood. She had only been able to tell him things that he had either already known, such as that Potter had lost his ability to speak Parseltongue, or could have guessed for himself, such as that Potter was emotionally traumatized by the loss of the two Weasley brats.

He had half a mind to refuse to improve their living conditions as he had said he would, since she hadn't told him anything remotely useful, but in the end he decided that she needed to be able to trust his word. And, in any case, if he told the house-elves to clean the closet at least once every few days, then he wouldn't have to experience such a horrible odor the next time he saw her.

Abraxas found him brooding in the library surrounded by stacks of mostly illegal books. He gingerly took the seat across from him without waiting to be invited.

"Tom..."

Tom had already raised his head to acknowledge the address before it occurred to him that he really ought to have cursed the man to the deepest level of Tartarus and back for using that name.

"I know," said Abraxas before Tom could react. "I know that you aren't really--that you're you and not him."

He might have to either Obliviate or outright kill the man for that, but Tom figured that he owed him at least the courtesy of being able to say what he had come to say. His tone was wry when he said, "You took a risk calling me that."

Abraxas's face was serious, and when he nodded the dim lamplight played across his dark eyes and pale hair in a way that made him look quite ghoulish. "I know. It was a calculated risk, just like mentioning your fa--well, you know which place--was a calculated risk."

"If I had been him I would have killed you on the spot for either offense," guessed Tom.

"You would have killed me on the spot for calling you 'Tom,'" agreed Malfoy. "But he has lost so much of his humanity that I am not sure he still feels enough to have wanted to kill me for mentioning that place. I wanted to see how much you feel."

Tom leaned back in his seat and folded his long fingers in his lap. "I hope the results were worth the punishment you received for mentioning that place to me." Abraxas was still moving as if he were twice his actual age due to the effects of the prolonged torture, and Tom smirked when he winced at the reminder. "What convinced you so thoroughly that you were willing to risk yourself to confirm the truth?"

"Many things, Tom. I admit that I was never entirely at ease with your physical appearance or the circumstances surrounding the diary, but that," he emphasized with a little flourish of his hand, "would have been nothing if not for your reactions that backed up my suspicions. He would have likely killed Draco on the spot for speaking to him the way my grandson did to you, and he certainly would not have allowed the boy to share the library with him afterwards. He would have been able to read every thought in my mind from all the way across the room without eye contact, but you had me stare into your eyes. But I knew for certain after you used that torture spell on me; he had stopped using it entirely by the time he had left Hogwarts."

Tom smiled ruefully at his oldest follower. He might have been able to pull it off for longer with nearly anyone else, but it seemed that Abraxas was far too familiar with the differences between him and his other self.

"You must have some plan for this information, Malfoy. You would have kept silent otherwise."

Abraxas leaned forward, although the movement caused him to let out a little breath full of discomfort. "No, I don't have a plan. But you do, and I can help you. I can fill in all of the information you lack, and with my help you can move forward. You are going to bring him back, are you not?"

Ah, so that's it, thought Tom. Malfoy wants to be able to tell Lord Voldemort that he had a hand in his return, no doubt to make up for these ten years of doing nothing.

He allowed a full smile to grace his face. "I am."

It was only when Abraxas was leaving the library a few minutes later that Tom pulled out his wand.

"Oh, and Malfoy," he called, causing the older man to turn back to face him, "I find that I much prefer being addressed as 'My Lord.' Crucio."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author's Notes: Rufus Scrimgeour was Head of the Auror Office in the early 90s, before he was promoted to Minister of Magic after Fudge left office. Until she was killed by Voldemort in 1996, Amelia Bones was Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, of which the Auror Office is a subdivision, so she would have been Scrimgeour's boss.

In case there is any confusion on the subject: Since Harry was in the hospital wing directly after the Chamber incident, and indeed he didn't have the diary with him in any case, he didn't free Dobby as he did in canon.