Tom had picked the name 'Valeria'; it meant strong, and he intended the newest heir of Slytherin to be the strongest witch of her age. Myrtle, however, had insisted that her middle name be taken from Tom's own mother, as a way to honor the woman that had loved him and given birth to him. At first he was reluctant to do so, but his wife had kept pounding home the love angle, and Tom had eventually accepted.
He was still relatively new to the very concept of love, so he thought he could be excused for initially not giving her a second thought. Still...as he watched Myrtle's smile beaming down upon Valeria, he wondered if Merope Gaunt had had a chance to hold him in her arms like that, if she had smiled upon him before she had left this world. The thought kindled strange feelings within him...unfamiliar, but not unwanted.
The same feelings were amplified a thousandfold as he turned his mind towards his daughter. A year ago, he had been plotting the demise of the mudb-muggleborn that populated Hogwarts, never dreaming in his wildest suppositions that the annoying Ravenclaw he had been sleeping with would bear his child and become his wife. When he had first laid eyes upon Valeria, he swore upon his life that he would do everything to protect the child, and ensure that she knew she was loved.
Of course, he still craved power, but now he intended to wield it to advance his entire family, and not just himself alone. To that end, he had retrieved the Diadem of Ravenclaw from Albania (its location divulged by the Grey Lady) and, when the time was right, intended to use it to forge the claim that Myrtle was the heir of Ravenclaw. (Myrtle seldom wore the diadem, stating she didn't need some trinket to be wise. Tom thought that Helena might have found that amusing).
His biggest headache at the moment was Hepzibah Smith. In the course of his heirloom-hunting duties, he had discovered the aged witch possessed two artifacts dating back to the founders - the cup of Helga Hufflepuff and, most infuriatingly, the locket of Salazar Slytherin. The locket was HIS by birthright, and just because the woman picked it up for a handful of galleons she felt she never had to give it up as long as she lived.
The worst part was he was reluctant to kill her. It was the damnable influence of his wife! She was thorougly against killing anybody who hadn't tried to kill her, and expected no less from her new husband. When he had voiced the idea of killing Smith, she grew so irate that she'd threatened to leave and take Valeria with her. So alarming was the idea that he promised he would not kill the old woman, and had even sworn an Unbreakable Vow to that effect. Sometimes Myrtle was so difficult he wanted to strike her dead with one well-placed hex - until he remembered that he loved her, at which point he would let off a dark chuckle.
He tore his gaze away from mother and daughter as he pored over his finances. Smith had insisted the cup was a family heirloom (Tom wondered if she'd bought that artifact as well), but made no such claim about the locket. He wondered if he made a high enough offer if she would surrender it...but then, he was unsure if he had the galleons to make such an offer.
Perhaps if he'd taken up the mysterious deal a stranger had proposed to him in a letter the week prior. The letter's author had offered twenty thousand galleons in exchange for the ring on his wife's finger; while Tom had considered it, he quickly turned down the offer. For one, Myrtle would have bawled her eyes out (an occurrence that had fortunately been a lot less common since their marriage), and for another he reckoned it was another one of Salazar Slytherin's heirlooms...though it didn't bear any of the symbols of the founder. Truthfully, the letter had piqued his curiosity as to why somebody out of nowhere would contact him and ask to purchase it, and once the business with Smith was settled he intended to research the ring's origins and see if there was anything special about it. Indeed, the curious markings on the ring's stone made him wonder...
There was a knock at the door. "Who could that be at this hour?" Myrtle wondered aloud.
With a frown, Tom rose from his seat and walked into the small hallway where the door was located and jerked it open. "Can I help you?" he asked coldly.
A man in Muggle businesswear was at the door. It was a nice suit (as far as Muggle fashions went), and he wore a matching fedora, which cloaked his face in shade. "I have come to inquire about your wife's ring," he asked in a voice wrapped in a German accent.
"Ah, you're the man who sent that letter last week?" The man outside nodded. "Then you must have received my reply, in which I told you it's not for sale."
The man took off his hat, revealing the smiling face of Gellert Grindelwald. "Everything has a price."