A/N: Thanks for reviewing, following and favouriting! And for the guest who said this story is a guilty pleasure – it's the same for me, too. I really, really shouldn't enjoy writing this lovely twisted, manipulative protagonist as much as I do.

For the guest asking if he thinks of himself as Voldemort or Tom: He definitively thinks of himself as Voldemort, though he's pretending to be Tom. Still, I want to make him very much different from snake-face Voldemort. That is: A lot more rational and much more manipulative, and with less obvious brute force.

Anyways: Enjoy, and please tell me what you think!

Part 7: Cementing a Reputation

The bushy-haired little witch was brave, though, seeking him out the next day to talk in their usual coffee haunt. She had dressed very nicely, Voldemort noted, in grey, silky robes, and with a tight black button-down shirt hugging her curves, and black slacks showing off her hips and arse.

Sitting down, lids lowered demurely, eyes on her coffee, he could see she clutched the mug much too hard, her knuckles going white.

"I .. I don't know what came over me," she said softly. "I hope you didn't find me too intrusive. I apologize for what happened."

He almost barked a laugh. Did the Golden Girl go about berating herself for him kissing her? That was a good one. A quick gauge of her thoughts told him it was the honest truth. She actually thought she had pushed herself on him, thanks to him rejecting her yesterday.

He downed his espresso quickly, leaned forward and took her hand. "Hermione," he said as warmly as he managed, letting his desire for her play in his eyes. "You are … everything a man could wish for. Intelligent, brave, beautiful…" With a small tug at the corners of his mouth, he took in the fierce blush travelling over her face and throat. "Don't think for a moment I didn't enjoy it, because I did. The fact remains, you have Ron. I won't come between the two of you. Go back to him, try to make it work, or dump him once and for all. Sneaking around with borderline adultery is not the way to go about this. You need to take care of your relationship first."

Merlin, he was impressed with himself. He sounded almost noble, wise and kind. This was a good performance, worthy of a hero. Granger was as good as his, he was sure. He had pressed all the right buttons.

And right on cue, she lifted a tearful face to him, and hiccupped: "You are right, of course you are. I should do this the right way, I'm sorry for bothering you like this. It's just, I've been trying for so long, and… well, it hasn't been working out. Anyways, you're right. I need to do this the right way, or Ron will hate me. I should give him one more chance."

He nodded at her, still stroking her soft hands, relishing the tingle in his finger and palm by the touch of her skin. Inside, he was grinning, and the thought at the forefront of his mind was: I'll make Ron Weasley fail spectacularly.

Xxxx

The elder Malfoy met up with him to visit Delphini again. It was his third visit, and he was shocked as the brat came running on her stubby legs towards him, yelling "Tom, Tom!"

Squealing, she threw herself at him, and he lifted her effortlessly up in the air, and then, preposterously, the little child hugged him, burrowing her little, none-to-clean face into his neck. "Tom, I love you!" the little girl cried jubilantly. "Do you have another spell for me?"

He felt surprised and queasy by the display of affection, but he patted the girl's back with an effort, putting her down rather quickly. A hug, from his own daughter, and an expression of tender feelings. He should be happy, but all he wondered was if she had smeared snot on his black shirt. Merlin, when did children learn to stay clean? It couldn't be soon enough, as far as he was concerned.

"A spell," he said, making his voice light and friendly, pushing his disgust down, hiding it, "now that you're mentioning it, I would like to teach you how to make a light. It's goes like this, say it after me: Lumos!"

Xxxx

Granger was unusually quiet the next day at the Grounded Bean, seemingly distracted. She was pretty today too, he noted, a tight, black sweater and an equally tight black skirt, both showing off her curves to their advantage underneath shimmery, soft blue robes. It was cold outside, and the windows by his favourite table was a little fogged by the steam emitting from the coffee machine.

"Out with it," he said to her, giving her a wry smile.

She bit her lip, and he felt a jolt of desire going down his spine. He wanted to bite those lips, crushing her to him…

"I saw you, yesterday, with Lucius Malfoy," she finally blurted out. "I didn't know you were friends."

Cocking his head at her, he could see she was uneasy. She had no love for the Malfoys, that was clear. Out loud, he said: "Harry haven't told you?"

Her brow furrowing, she said slowly: "No…?"

His eyebrows shot to his hairline. Did Potter keep his secret, not telling his best friends? That was very … Gryffindoresque of him.

"There's a very good reason for me to meet him. You see, almost no one knows what I'm about to tell you. Harry does," he hastened to reassure her, as she looked sceptic.

"I have a small sister. Someone the Malfoys know take care of her. Mr. Malfoy is setting up my visits."

Her mouth a delectable round "O", made him want to kiss her, to shove his tongue into her mouth, nip at her lips… After telling her the story, he added, mostly on a whim: "Would you like to meet her?" If he was entertaining the thought of marrying the chit and have her taking care of Delphini, they would have to meet, sooner rather than later.

Hermione replied immediately: "I have no idea what to do with a kid."

He laughed at the quick, from-the-heart response. "Me neither," he croaked out.

She smiled at him, looking amused, asking: "What do you do when you visit?"

"I've taught her some Charms."

Hermione looked surprised, saying: "Is that normal for such a young child?"

He answered: "I have no idea. I didn't have exactly a normal childhood." And it's the honest truth, too. Those years at the orphanage… It had been brutal. Even he knew that, though by the age of five, he was one of the predators.

She smiled softly, saying: "I can see that. If you'd like to, I can accompany you next time."

Xxxx

"This is a very delicate process," his best researcher, Joanna Selwyn, said with a worried frown at their morning meeting. "St. Mungo's has been very restrictive in letting us do research."

"I know," he said reassuringly, "but I do have an idea on how to approach this, and I've secured cooperation from St. Mungo's Head Healer." At least, after a nice round of Imperius and a few well-placed Obliviates, the Head Healer had become cooperative, though she had balked at the idea initially.

The team looked expectantly at him, and he said: "As you know, the connections between their sense of themselves, their identity, and their conscious mind broke down because of the extreme duress they were under. I propose to magically rebuild the connections by Transfiguring the destroyed tissue into magical conduits, able to relay and fire like ordinary synapses in the brain."

Several of the others nodded slowly, but Selwyn's eyes popped, and she whispered: "It's mad, Transfiguring inside the brain where you can't have a visual of what you do… But if it works, it's nothing short of brilliant. If we pull off this, then the entire Janus Thickey Ward can be released in a few months."

He nodded, a small smile playing at his lips. Seeing as this was a smart PR move, designed to build his reputation, he wanted to follow through with this case, to gain more recognition, building his reputation firmly as an outstanding citizen. That's why he'd rebuild the brains of the Longbottoms himself, going for the high-profile case. And then, the headlines, the hero worship, the perfect position to take over the entire Department when his boss fell inexplicably ill. After that, the scandals he'd set in motion in the other departments, the downfall of Kingsley, and then…

"When do we start?" a small wizard said, voice almost trembling in excitement, disturbing his reverie.

He gave his employees a wide smile, and said: "Today, but we need to practise. Bring out the creatures for testing."

Xxxx

"Aaah, my round?" Weasley said, brushing the back of his hand over his foam moustache. He was out, drinking again, with Potter and Weasley. The last one had been scowling at him, but with some discrete mind nudges towards amiability and a little help from the mellow atmosphere caused by several rounds of beer, the slouching red-head was quite pleased for the moment. After four rounds, he felt pleasantly relaxed and slightly sloshed himself.

"Where's Ginny?" he asked Potter as Weasley staggered to the counter.

Potter flushed slightly, saying: "She has a match tomorrow, and needs to rest."

Staring at Potter, he wondered why the man blushed. Then it hit him: The Weasley's were famous for their ability to breed. The young beauty was, of course, pregnant, though they clearly weren't ready to tell the world yet.

Smirking, he nodded. "Of course, good girl. Wouldn't want to mess up for the team, would she?"

Potter blushed even more fiercely. "No," he muttered, "she wouldn't dream of it."

Voldemort grinned. Clearly, this was an issue too. Getting pregnant some six months after signing with her Quidditch team was sure to be noticed. Oh well, he couldn't care less if the female Weasley had some awkward conversations with her team mates ahead of her.

Ron Weasley came slouching back, pints Levitated and trailing behind him, spilling over due to his sloppy spell work with lack of stabilization. Voldemort furrowed his brow. One thing was spilling beer everywhere on the floor, but he absolutely abhorred bad spell work. Weasley had it coming for being so careless, if not for a multitude of other reasons.

"So," Potter said, eyes a little too bright under the influence of the alcohol. "We had this interesting case of dark magic today, bordering on your line of work." He nodded at Voldemort.

"How so?" he said, his interest piqued, even through the foggy haze in his mind. He eyed the new pint on the table, knowing that he should stop, now. But it tasted so good, and he was actually enjoying himself, and through a series of steps in his mind that he just knew he would regret, he indulged his mood, taking a sip.

Potter continued: "There was a young girl, nor more than sixteen, who cursed her ex-boyfriend with a rather nasty mind-altering spell."

Weasley was shaking his head, muttering: "Awful, really, a young girl doing something like that. One wouldn't think a girl behind something like that."

His eyebrows rose, and he asked: "What did this spell make him do?"

"The thing was," Potter continued, "her ex had humiliated her in front of her whole class at Hogwarts when breaking up, telling her she wasn't good-looking enough for him. She cursed him two weeks later, using a very specialized version of the Criminalis, actually a Criminalis sexus."

"Merlin's balls," he breathed, almost reverently. "What did he do, what happened?"

"If you're familiar with the spell, then, as you can imagine, he raped the first witch he could find. She was a classmate, and … it was bad. Really bad. She's currently in St. Mungo's, going through some serious Healing."

"How did this slip of a girl discover a curse like that?"

"That's what we'd like to know too," Potter said with a worried frown. "This isn't a widely known curse, thank Merlin, and the curse was only discovered because the school matron, Madam Pomfrey, had seen it before and recognized the signs."

He huffed in disbelief. "She saw the yellow striped vein in his left eye and knew that for what it was?"

Weasley's eyes shot up from his beer, and he said, voice suddenly not so slurred and eyes clearer than before: "How do you know about that? This is a fucking obscure curse."

Shrugging, he said, hiding his irritation: "I know a lot of dark magic, as we thought it necessary while on the run. Needless to say, I'm not really a practitioner." He kept his glare in check, but vowed to stop underestimating Weasley. The whelp was smarter than he looked, he admitted grudgingly. Had they both set a trap to catch him? He didn't think so, from what he had read in Weasley's mind, but still…

"Not really?" Weasley said, scepticism dripping from his voice. "Does that mean you do practise dark magic, just sometimes, not regularly?"

"I have done so, to learn it all. It doesn't mean using it, though. This curse was taught to us by an old witch in Teheran," he explained, mixing the truth seamlessly with lies. Actually, it was part true. He had learned it in Teheran in the fifties, but he supposed he was the one teaching it to other Brits.

Weasley snorted, but Potter said slowly: "As long as you're not using dark magic."

He drained his fifth pint, responding clippedly: "As long as you stay in control, knowledge isn't necessary a bad thing. You know, lots of wizards and witches have quite the extensive knowledge without turning bad."

"Like who?" Weasley demanded, eyes staring hard at him.

"Like … Albus Dumbledore," he said, grasping for someone he knew they respected.

Potter said: "Even he had trouble in his youth, when he was using dark magic with Grindelwald."

He nodded, saying: "I know. Grindelwald was adamant Dumbledore was a dark wizard, but I'd say from what he did later, he managed to rein himself in to be in control."

Too late, he became aware that the two wizards goggled at him, green and blue eyes filled with disbelief. "You knew Grindelwald?" Potter said weakly.

Morganas tits! He shouldn't have revealed that. Gods, he had to stop drinking! He was letting himself become careless, very careless. He had met Grindelwald several times in the early fifties, due to the lax security, allowing him to fly into his prison, staying there for hours on end. Grindelwald had been all too happy to talk to the handsome, brilliant young wizard, sharing knowledge and magical exploits. But that story wouldn't do.

"At one point, my mother and I went undercover in Germany, posing as Grindelwald's guards for a living. He was fond of telling stories and sharing his magical knowledge," he said, putting an effort into sounding earnest.

Potter shook his head, and barked a laugh. "Gods, what life you must have led. Seeing all those countries, meeting Grindelwald and all sorts of wizarding people, being chased… I'm surprised you even seem normal!"

At that, he gave Potter a big grin, his eyes filling with real laughter. "I wouldn't say that, but I'm trying," he said, for once being entirely truthful, and Potter laughed too. Even Weasley put up a reluctant grin. Yes, he was back on track. They thought him to be fucking likable, that's what he was! But he had to do a Sobering spell as soon as possible, because any more slips was just not feasible.

Potter drained his beer too, and said: "Well, as for the case, do you have any ideas? The girl in question isn't yet of age, so her only punishment is likely to be expelled and to pay a compensation claim for the poor girl who fell victim to the rape."

"I could have a look at her mind, if you're interested, to see what she's like," he said slowly. "That could give you some information if this was an accident, or if she'd be dangerous when she's older."

"Great," Potter said, nodding.

"If I may ask, who is she?" He was dead curious, wondering if she belonged to a family of Death Eaters.

"Josephine Macnair, and she claims her father, who of course is in Azkaban, taught her the spell," Weasley said.

Right in the bull's eye, a Death Eater family. He was looking forward to see if this was the kind of girl he could utilize later. With an obvious lack of morality like that, she could do almost anything.

"Next round is on me," he said, rising and walking towards the bar. Throwing a glance back towards the two wizards, he discreetly, wordlessly and wandlessly cast a Sobering spell on himself, feeling the pleasant fogginess in his mind trickle off him like drops of rain. Gods, how could he allow himself to get drunk in the company of his mortal enemies? He was fucking stupid and insane, no better than his snake-faced self!

Angry and furious at himself, but still a little pleased for having wormed his way out of his own stupid mistakes, he waited for the bartender to draw the pints. A witch in very high heels sidled up to him, putting a small hand on his arm.

Looking up at him with eyes like deep, dark, sultry pools, she licked her red lips, pouting at him. She was definitively good looking, with large tits, a narrow waist and long, black hair. Her delicious body was squeezed into a tight, long dress that seemed to be made of latex, of all things. No matter how odd her clothing, she was definitively fuckable.

But then she opened her mouth, and said: "Please, my Lord, will you use me like a Death Eater whore, please?"

Shock and irritation coursed through him in waves. Stupid bint! He was not about to blow his cover on something like this, no matter how delectable she looked.

Clearing his throat, as he grabbed the pints from the bartender, he said: "I don't think you'd care for the experience. To my knowledge, after what I've read, most of them didn't survive the night."

She huffed, and he turned away from her, walking briskly towards their seats, still scowling.

To his surprise, Granger had arrived too. He was pleased to see the distance between her and Weasley. Potter sat in the middle, looking uncomfortable as hell. Oddly enough, Granger hadn't dressed up today. She wore a big, lumpy, red sweater and Muggle jeans, hiding her luscious body from his view.

Putting down the pints, he nodded at her, saying: "Can I get you anything?"

"No," she said with a nervous smile, "I ordered at the bar before coming over. They'll bring my Margarita when it's ready."

Weasley said with curiosity in his voice: "What did that girl in the black dress want? She looked good!"

"Nothing, really," he said, his irritation breaking through in his voice.

"No, come on, you looked so angry," Weasley said, "though, she was quite attractive."

That was clearly a jab at Granger, who glared at Weasley's smug, triumphant smile, plastered on his face.

"No, seriously, it's both stupid and embarrassing," he murmured, watching Weasley closely. Was this a possibility for driving the wedge between Granger and Weasley even deeper, with his apparently cruel comments on other witches' looks? But whatever for? Granger was pretty enough to compete with the lot of them, unless she was insecure… Something clicked in his brain, and the knowledge of Weasley being Granger's only known, serious relationship and the man's very public spat of infidelity suddenly added up. Yes, she was insecure about her looks, and he had underestimated Weasley. This was cruel, oh so cruel, though in a small-minded, everyday way indeed.

"Come on," Weasley repeated, "what could such a pretty slip say to piss you off like that?"

Muttering, like he was embarrassed, he said: "She wanted me to use her, and I quote, like 'a Death Eater whore', and she addressed me as 'my Lord'".

Weasley laughed out loud in disbelief, while Potter and Granger winced, throwing him sympathetic looks.

"Gods, you could have done anything with her," Weasley said, "and she wouldn't have complained, ever."

Granger stared stonily at Weasley, and his inner self whooped. This was a sore spot, he could tell.

Keeping his face on a tight rein, he replied: "I wouldn't dream of it. That," he said, nodding towards the bar, "is very far from what I want." Voldemort let his eyes meet Granger's, giving her a deep, searching look, and he was rewarded by a blush and shining eyes, and the soft nudge of her foot underneath the table.