Chapter Fifty-two
Freeing Malfoy
"You're absolutely certain about this, mate?" Tom insisted as he held his wand against Abraxas' throat the following day. They were standing out in an open field about half a mile from the mill they'd been hiding in all week. "You know you're going to have to kill someone to make it work."
"Yes, yes, I know," he grumbled. "I've got the perfect person in mind, in fact. It was Hermione's idea, actually."
"Oh really?" asked Tom curiously. "Who did she pick out?"
"Some bloke named Cornelius Fudge," he answered. "Nobody of great significance, I'll wager."
Tom brow shot up in surprise as he cast Hermione a questioning look. She shrugged and smirked, but offered no particular explanation.
"Very well, then," he agreed, shrugging as well. "Go and do it, and then come right back here immediately after. I'll have your potion waiting, but remember, it's just like I told Hermione. He's going to fight it—you'll have to be quite ill to get him out. Especially since he probably already knows you're going to try."
"No problem."
"And Brax," Tom added. "When you kill someone, you have to mean it. It won't work if you don't."
"I want this old git out badly enough, I'll mean it," he assured him before he Apparated away.
Tom did not look at Hermione as he asked, "Why did you sick Brax on Fudge? I thought you told me he was somebody important."
"That is why," she said. "We're not going to change the future unless we change it big. I think preventing Fudge from one day being Minister of Magic is a pretty big step."
"I'm not so sure," Tom answered after a moment. "Did he do anything of great significance?"
"Only went about saying that Voldemort wasn't back when in fact he was," she recalled. "I'm not sure if that's overly significant."
"It's a start, I suppose," Tom conceded. "A clear message to the old man, if nothing else. We're not going to just sit down and let him mess up the world."
"Especially not if he's going to blame you for it."
Abraxas showed back up looking completely keyed up. He stepped up to Tom and said, "Do it now, Riddle. Get him out."
"Drink this," said Tom with a smirk, handing him a vial full of liquid. "Just the smell should get you started."
"Merlin's beard, you've got that right," he gasped, then held his nose as he gulped the liquid down. It took a while to get the Horcrux out, and when he was done, Abraxas sucked in a deep breath in relief.
"You're going to pay for this, Tom," the Horcrux said, and then burst forth, crumbling to dust as it blew away in the wind.
"A bloke sure could use a sandwich after all that," he managed to say.
Tom and Hermione couldn't stop laughing all the way as they carried him back to the windmill.
"Always thinking with your stomach," Hermione laughed as she let go of the arm she held. But then she stopped short.
"What is it?"
"The ward's been broken," she said. "It's not safe to go inside."
"Don't worry, it's not Dumbledore's doing," Tom explained. "I sent out a Patronus. My Knights should have arrived by now."
"Your Knights?" Hermione repeated with surprise. "How do we know which of them we can trust?"
"I will know," Tom assured her. Hermione decided not to ask him how.
)0(
"So you're saying the only way to stop this thing is to destroy Albus Dumbledore and all his Horcruxes?" asked Nott, just to clarify.
"That's right," Tom said.
"And we're doing all of this based on the memory of a Mudblood who just happened to wish herself back here because she was unhappy in the future?" Avery asked with a slight sneer of disgust.
"Do you have a problem with that?" Tom wanted to know, making the other young man pale as he stepped closer to him.
"Of—of course not, m—my Lord," he answered nervously.
"Good, because I'd hate to have to hex you," Tom said. "We need your brute strength right now."
"Strength for what?" he wanted to know.
"For the eight people we're going to need in order for me to make Horcruxes of you all."
"Tom, you can't—" said Hermione worriedly. "You mustn't split yourself up too much. Slughorn said—"
"Slughorn said what Dumbledore told him to say, Hermione," Tom cut her off. "I haven't found anything anywhere that says there's a limit except the memory you have of Sluggy's warning. We already know that Dumbledore has gotten to him. Clearly he was lying for your benefit."
"But wouldn't that mean that everything had to have happened a certain way so he could have done."
"I don't think so," Tom replied. "Your past has already happened to you. Me changing my future isn't likely to change your past. They aren't in the same timeline."
"Is that right?" Nott wanted to know.
"Must be, if Tom said it," came Abraxas' reply.
"Not Tom," he said. "From now on, it must be as we discussed. You must call me Lord Voldemort from now on. It'll totally mess with the old man's mind. If he wants me to spread terror through the Wizarding World, then by Merlin it's what I'll do. And then when the time is right, I'll tell everyone that I did it on orders from him."
"That's wicked," Nott snickered.
"Yes," Lord Voldemort agreed. "It is."
