A/N: For Vicky, who showed me the poem.
ozymandias
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When people asked him for whom he worked, Avery would say it was for a wizard with great ideas. A man whose intelligence would put the Mudbloods into their right place and lead the Pure-bloods to their rightful place on the sun. Lestrange, when asked the same question, said he worked for a man whose influence was fundamental. A wizard whose charisma was essential if they wanted to stay low and not rise any suspicion about what they were working with. Abraxas, on the other hand, would answer that he helped a genius; he lent this man his influence and money, but the work, the ideas, all belonged to this gifted mind. And Dolohov would simple say that he worked for the Englishman whose mind was so shielded that not even him, Antonin, managed to break into it.
Avery went for him because of the ideas; Lestrange, for the influence; Abraxas, for the friendship; and Antonin, for his mind.
Tom, on the other hand, went after them for other reasons. Atlas Avery was rich; Canopus Lestrange had several family members inside the Ministry; Abraxas Malfoy had both money and influence, and, of course, loyalty; and Antonin Dolohov had a curious kind of magic and loyalty. Although he liked to work by himself – the less you depended on people, fewer were the chances of failing thanks to someone else's mistake -, every king needed knights.
Not that he saw himself as a king. Tom Riddle was far away from being a king and he knew that. Kings were silly men that sat their lazy arses on thrones and endured a whole lot of flattery and lies being shoved into their ears. Tom was more life the counsellor that stood on the back of the room, whispering sweet lies and planting ideas on the governors' minds. But, although he was no king, what he wanted to create was a kingdom.
Hogwarts was already his own little kingdom, but as soon as he graduated, he would have to say good-bye to it and go away to explore and conquer new lands for himself. And, for that, he needed his knights. He needed Avery's money, Lestrange's influence, Malfoy's loyalty and Dolohov's knowledge of magic. Just how his knights needed his ideas, his intelligence, his influence and his magic. It was a mutual exchange.
But, if they exchanged good things, the bad things could go through too.
When Lord Voldemort fell, Avery would say he had always thought that man was not quite right in the head (right before he got killed by a group of aurors); Lestrange would defend himself by saying that the Dark Lord had a good hand for the Imperius curse (and then he would be thrown into Azkaban); Malfoy was not amongst men anymore, but was he here, he would hide in his manor and mourn over his fallen lord and friends; and Dolohov would say he was expecting that to happen (and would follow Lestrange into Azkaban, but with his head held high and cursing the guards in his mother language).
All of the knights – even Avery in his eternal sleep – would remember their king. Right before a killing curse hit his chest, Atlas Avery remembered how he thought he shouldn't follow Riddle in first place. At each passing day in his cell, Canopus Lestrange would remember about how some of his friends said he should drop that Lord Voldemort nonsense. Lying on his deathbed, Abraxas Malfoy would remember how he encouraged Riddle to go further into his madness, thinking he was protecting him from it. Each time a Dementor passed by his cell, Antonin Dolohov would remember to shield his mind as strongly as the Dark Lord used to shield his own.
And others, those who were not his knights, would also remember him. They would remember the horror and the madness, just how they would remember the power Lord Voldemort inspired. They would remember the knights and how they seemed to be special individuals under their master's eyes. They would remember everything about the years during which Lord Voldemort reigned and it didn't matter how many years passed and how distorted the tales and the memories became, they would still remember the Dark Lord just like how his knights remembered him until they took their last breath in this world.
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'[...] "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.'
- Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley