"What are you going to do with him?" Abraxas signed the page in front of him, that ridiculous looping signature that Tom missed seeing at the bottom of letters.
"I'm not sure. Killing him seems like a waste, but asking anything about myself is bound to change the future." Tom stared at the closed library door, mind whirring, deliberately not catching Abraxas' eye.
"He didn't recognise Tom Riddle. You think he might have been lying?"
Tom shrugged, a move he'd practised in the mirror to perfect the nonchalance. "Or he knows me by another name."
Abraxas frowned. "I thought you hadn't decided on whether to change your name yet." It was almost a question, and any one else who spoke like that would be Crucio'd before they'd finished speaking. Not Abraxas though. Never Abraxas.
"If he doesn't know Tom Riddle, I can only hope he knows Lord Voldemort. Otherwise, this whole thing has been a waste of my time, and I do not like wasting my time."
Abraxas flushed slightly and Tom felt a wave of guilty satisfaction. He'd said something similar the night he'd heard of Abraxas' engagement, and he hated hurting him, hated it like he hated the wedding ring on a left hand he'd once held.
"Does he look familiar to you? Theodore, I mean." Abraxas said after a few minutes.
"Who?"
Abraxas narrowed his eyes as he thought. "A cousin of someone, I can't quite remember their name. Thoros is courting her, I think. A Parkinson, possibly."
"Ah yes, I know her. Calla. Isn't she only fourteen?" Tom frowned as Abraxas nodded. "Let him know I would be displeased if he didn't wait for a little while, hmm?"
Abraxas made a note in front of him, adding it to the pile on the left. "Shall we inform Theodore we know of a possible family connection?"
Tom smiled. "Let him sleep for a while, he'll need to be awake for dinner. Invite Calla, if you can, and whomever she's staying with here. We'll see if we can encourage familial affection."