A/N:

i've had this idea for ages and finally got around to putting it down in words because i realized i don't have a science fiction fic posted? which is WILD to me because science fiction is quite literally one of my favourite genres.

this story is definitely on the darker side of what i write, so please be aware of the following content tags:

past child abuse, past sexual abuse, murder/violence, slavery

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To the Hilt

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Chapter 1: Grunnings Gardenworks

The gardens of Riddle Manor were unkempt. Stretches of uncut grass were plagued with weeds and unwanted bits of shrubbery. Its winding paths were surrounded by ugly rocks and uneven hedges, and the large pond shaded by aspen trees was littered with branches and other debris. It would take a great deal of work to transform the space into something usable, let alone beautiful.

Tom flicked through the images that Abraxas had sent to him, examining each photograph with care. One garden with large ivory fountains and delicate arrangements of calla lilies was quite beautiful. The layout was well-designed and well-implemented. The path that led from the fountain to the wooden bench swing was particularly inspired, composed of pure white marble stones. Tom was intrigued and impressed by the design of it all.

"The new trend," Abraxas said smoothly. His projected image hovered not two feet away from the large holo-screen Tom was using to view the calla lily garden. "Ever since the news broke about those terrarium incidents last season, everyone has been looking for something different. Large, minimalistic spaces with detailed accents are back in style."

"These are very intricate." Tom zoomed in on the marble stones. The polished white had veins of gold running through it. Not only was the design aesthetically pleasing, it was also expensive in appearance without seeming garish, which was what Tom wanted. "Bot-generated, you said?"

"Bot-generated," Abraxas confirmed. "A new model, according to the owners. Does a complete assessment of your space and calculates the optimal decisions as it goes along. Takes ages to complete, but the results speak for themselves. You won't see this from any groundsbot on the market, I'd say. Utterly unique gardens. I just had mine finished last week—you saw how it looked."

Tom had seen Abraxas' personality represented in the new columnar trees that lined his driveway. Elegant and perfectly spaced, each tree had been draped in miniature webs of fairy lights that drew the eyes of anyone in its vicinity. The centerpiece of the garden space was a gorgeous outdoor pavilion composed of bamboo, the posts held together by thin bands of copper wiring.

"I'll think on it," Tom said. "Forward the information to me."

"They only have the one bot to do the work," Abraxas warned him. "You'll want to get in before the news gets out and the waitlist is months long rather than weeks."

Tom must have seemed unconvinced, for Abraxas added, "The prices are good, Tom. I'm half convinced the owners don't know what they have yet, but once they do, it'll cost a fortune. Don't wait too long to decide."

"I'll think on it," Tom repeated. "Thank you, Abraxas. I have some business to attend to now, if you don't mind?"

Abraxas nodded. "Of course. Talk soon."

They disconnected. Tom blew out a frustrated sigh and turned his attention back to his disastrous backyard. Riddle Manor was a recent property investment of his. More than that, it was his first real property investment, a home that was meant for him, not for house flipping.

This property had come relatively cheap because no one else wanted to put the work into fixing it up. But Tom was no stranger to hard work. If he put the effort into restoring it, this manor could grow into something truly beautiful, a place fit for a lord.

Others laboured under the impression that his desire to purchase an old, rundown manor rather than acquire or build a brand new one was the quaint side hobby of a wealthy man. So long as Tom was careful, they would continue to think that way.

Swiping his holo-screen aside, Tom went back into the house. He'd spent several days clearing the mess inside, repairing the holes in the walls, scoping out colours and designs for the paint and wallpapers. Nothing was certain just yet. He would put together a proper budget for the interior design later on. For now, everything sat idly in his virtual cart. The subtotal was a not-insubstantial amount of credits that served as a reminder that he did not have time to waste.

Tom cast a final glance around the empty hall of his manor. The pride he felt at that possessive word had yet to diminish—yes, this place was his, and soon it would be perfect.

Soon, but not yet. With a pang in his chest, Tom lifted his left hand to his temple and ejected from the virtual world of Hogwarts.

The bleak grey walls of Tom's flat came into focus. Tom plucked out his VR implant, newly-released from its chamber, and dumped it into its sterile container. The container shut automatically and began to whir, power-washing the implant with anti-bacterial matter.

Compared to the bright world that contained Riddle Manor, Tom's cramped flat was downright depressing: a single room with just enough space for a bed, a desk, a toilet and a shower.

Others might have cried, might have wasted away their hours in the virtual lands where everything was colourful and pleasant, but Tom knew better. His disgust for his present surroundings fueled him, drove him to work harder and do better.

Tom called up a new holo-screen and opened up the free market.

The free market of the virtual world was not like the stock market of the real world. There were no actual stocks to trade, no actual companies to control the prices. There were virtual items that had varying degrees of rarity, and therefore varying degrees of value in the marketplace.

The conversion rate of real-world dollars to credits was abysmal in a general sense; one had to accumulate millions of credits to be considered even moderately wealthy. What that did mean, however, was that wealthy idiots in the real world could buy their way into the game, and where there were wealthy idiots, there was potential for exploitation.

This was what he did to survive, what paid his bills and permitted him to maintain a facade of luxury in the virtual world that kept an impoverished population mindlessly satisfied: he played the market and converted a percentage of his profits to real-world dollars. Tom cracked his knuckles, stretched his neck to work out the kinks from having been immersed in the virtual world, and got to work.

Tom opened up the page for new market listings and hit refresh immediately. The first few items on the page vanished, replaced by newer listings. He refreshed again and was greeted with the same result. After several rapid refreshes, Tom came to the conclusion that the market was moving at a decent pace.

If you tried to list an item at an amount heavily below market average, there was a warning that popped up to stop you. There was also the option to turn that warning off. The issue with rare items or less popular items was that market value tended to fluctuate a great deal. Most people were too impatient to deal with the pop-ups every time they tried to list an item they wanted to get rid of.

Tom, with his excellent memory, had a near-encyclopedic knowledge of all the in-game items and their approximate values. It was simply a matter of sitting on the listings page and constantly refreshing, waiting for some buffoon to list their 2,000,000 credit item for 200,000 credits by mistake. Sometimes he would receive irate call requests for the item to be returned, all of which he ignored. People too stupid to check their item prices before listing them didn't deserve to have them.

A one-point-eight million credit profit was a rare find, though. Most of Tom's time was spent buying up items that were listed at below market value by desperate sellers who wanted credits right away. He then resold them at their proper value because he wasn't impatient and trying to immediately purchase whatever the latest item release was.

In the free market, patience was key. Tom had built his wealth on it. He kept tabs on trends, on new releases and their synergies with the current catalogue of available items. He bought up rare items before people realized they would be useful, then resold them at higher prices. It was exhausting work at times, but it had its perks.

Tom liked knowing he was clever enough to claw his way up the ranks while sat in his cramped, dingy flat that didn't even have a kitchen, only a domed microwave on the table next to his bed. He liked checking the public profiles of the sellers he profited off of—it was easy to tell who had bought their way into the game and who hadn't. Everyone played this game, rich and poor alike. Tom could recognize the differences between the two in an instant.

Any avatar fully dressed in premium items had to belong to a privileged cretin with little appreciation for the hard work it took to accumulate millions of credits from scratch. Tom had begun with nothing. He had picked his way through the virtual towns, collecting discarded starter items to resell at the shops until he'd raised enough credits to purchase a market pass.

To afford the kind of gardens that Abraxas Malfoy could afford, Tom would have to step up his game. He had some credits to spare, but that didn't mean he would waste them. If he did well today, if the market was favourable, then he would consider purchasing the services of Grunnings Gardenworks.

Several hours later, Tom had done exceedingly well. He'd already pulled in fifty-thousand credits and stood to make even more once some of his new listings sold off. This was a huge improvement on yesterday, when he had resorted to purchasing basic items that, for unfathomable reasons, people had chosen to list lower than their resale values.

Because yes, to some people it made sense to list a three-hundred credit lamp for one-hundred when it could be sold back to the shops for one-fifty. Fifty credits was hardly anything, but every bit counted. Ten years ago, a teenaged Tom would have jumped at the chance to earn an easy fifty credits. Tom would hardly do himself a disservice now by spitting in the face of free money.

Satisfied with the outcome of his morning, Tom took a break to eat lunch and look into the costs of hiring a groundsbot to work on his new estate.

The face of Grunnings was a large man with a bushy mustache. Vernon Dursley. Tom scanned through the Grunnings website and tapped on the gallery option. More gorgeous garden examples leapt out at him. All of them had virtual walkthroughs available for perusal.

Tom, who was in the middle of eating plain pasta with a pat of butter melted on top, kept scrolling. He already had an idea of the quality from Abraxas; the man was absurdly rich, but he did have taste.

On the bottom right corner of the screen was a blinking button that offered an instant quote. Tom was wary of it. All too often, you would click and be led directly to a sales representative who would then attempt to bully you into making a purchase. Tom did not want his good mood ruined by some blithering idiot.

But this was a small, family-owned business according to Abraxas. A small business could not afford to be rude to its clientele, Tom reasoned. Not to mention that he would be purchasing garden services regardless. While he had plans for the inside of his house, the outside of it did not fall under his area of expertise and interest. It would be best if he took Abraxas' recommendation to heart and gave it a fair go.

Tom clicked the button for a quote and was greeted with a simple menu for inputting information. After checking to verify the coordinates of his house, Tom inputted the amount of area that required work and the estimated total amount he was willing to spend on materials.

The quote was, as promised, instantaneous. And quite reasonable, actually. Tom had high-balled the materials estimate to see if he would be overcharged, but the amount did not reflect that. Tom glanced at the contact info listed at the bottom, then went back to the previous page so he could fill the form in properly.

This time, he was greeted with an appropriate estimate for the work he wanted done. It seemed Abraxas' recommendation had its merits after all. Tom hit the contact option and waited while the dial tone rang out.

When the line picked up, a woman's voice, high and pinched around the edges, filled Tom's room. "Thank you for your interest in Grunnings Gardenworks, Mr. Riddle. My name is Petunia and I'll be assisting you."

"Nice to meet you, Petunia," said Tom in a light, friendly tone. "How are you today?"

"Oh, well." Petunia sounded flustered. "I'm very well, thank you."

With a bit of charm, Tom managed to talk the price down a little. The process of making arrangements was not entirely smooth, however, and Tom found Petunia to be immensely irritating. He politely declined her offer for a video call several times over the course of their conversation.

Petunia told him that the work would take anywhere from several days to a week, but within that range, Tom was guaranteed a completed garden for the price quoted. If it wound up taking more than a week, then they would renegotiate, but she reassured him that it would not come to that.

Tom scheduled the next available time slot, which was in two weeks, and was told he'd be required to send a public, single-use invite link for the bot to use.

"Very hush hush, this technology," Petunia said slyly. "As such, it hasn't been verified yet, which is why it requires a public access code. If you prefer, we can arrange for it to arrive while you're home, Mr. Riddle."

Tom had nothing of value in his house, but he was uncomfortable with a public invite link. His private and virtual lives were distinctly separate. It was one thing to invite a bot to his private estate; it was another thing entirely for some nosy woman like Petunia to decide to drop by.

"I would prefer to be there," he said.

"Of course," Petunia simpered. "Do you have a preferred time for the visitation?"

People tended to make the worst listings either early in the morning or late in the evening. "Any time mid-day would work best."

"Excellent. I'll forward you our invoice, Mr. Riddle. Twenty percent up front, with the rest upon completion. If you have any concerns, any at all, please inform us immediately so we can address them for you as soon as possible."

"Sounds fantastic," Tom said, wondering if it would be rude to hang up now. "If that's all, I have some business to attend to."

"Of course, of course. We'll be in touch—!"

Tom hung up.

Moments later, his screen pinged with a notification. The invoice had been delivered along with a multi-page contract. Tom read through the contract, stamped it with his digital signature, and forwarded the twenty-percent down payment as requested. Shortly after that, he received a second notification stating his noon appointment had been confirmed for two weeks from now.

In a way, it was a relief to have it all sorted. Tom could have done the work himself, could have purchased plants and flowers and things for his garden, could have cleared out all the weeds and unwanted greenery himself, but that would have taken time, it would have taken effort to put it all together in an aesthetically pleasing manner.

Hiring out meant he had free time to work the markets. The price for the garden service was reasonable, more so because of its high quality. This reassured him that he had made the right choice. Justifications made, Tom went back to market trading for the remainder of the day. Rome had not been built in a day, and neither would Riddle Manor.

It didn't take long for Tom to lose himself in the repetitive numbers of the market, refreshing the page again and again, putting the upcoming appointment from his mind in favour of chasing profits across the internet.

If his lucky streak continued, he would see about expanding the budget for his garden and its surrounding grounds. Perhaps the bot would want to include a pergola or a gazebo; it would be better if Tom had as many available options as possible. Custom structures could be notoriously expensive.

But two weeks was plenty of time for him to make back the credits he'd committed to his virtual house. Tom wouldn't be satisfied until he earned back every penny of it.

Two weeks later, Tom woke to the shrill sound of his alarm and someone banging at his door. He was considered a bit of a recluse; he rarely left his flat except to buy necessities.

What good would it do him to socialize with the dregs of society that lived here? None.

Tom could connect to the virtual world of Hogwarts and talk to the Malfoys, to the Lestranges, to the Blacks. Rich, wealthy people who believed he was one of them. There was no real life replacement for those connections. Every minute spent away from the virtual world was a minute wasted.

If Tom was ever going to rise above his status and leave behind his shitty flat, he had to be clever, and there was no cleverness to be gained from talking to his next-door neighbour, Myrtle Warren, who lived alone with her five cats.

"Riddle! Open up!" That was definitely Borgin banging on his door.

With a groan, Tom rolled to his feet and stumbled to the door. There was a reason he had replaced the screws in the lock and kept his dresser shoved up against the door, and Borgin, slimy bastard, was most of that reason.

"What do you want?" Tom called out, irate.

"Maintenance. I need to look at something."

Fucking liar. Tom was not in the mood for this today. "Nothing needs maintenance. Everything works fine."

"I need to check the ventilation," Borgin said. There was a thump as Tom's door rattled, presumably because Borgin had knocked his shoulder into it. "Be a good lad and let me in, yeah?" If there had been any doubt before, it was gone now. The man was drunk.

What Tom wanted to say was 'fuck off'. Unfortunately, Borgin was his landlord. Tom peered through the eye hole and sneered at the man on the other side of the door. Borgin was a disgusting creep, plain and simple. "Unless you have some kind of proof there needs work doing," Tom said scathingly, "then you're not coming in."

"Come off it, Riddle," Borgin said, oozing insincerity. He kicked the door hard enough that chain lock shook and rattled violently. "Pretty fuckin' face like yours, holed up in your goddamn flat all day. What're you doing in there, huh? Whoring yourself out on the net? Found some rich bloke to pay your bills? Maybe I'll have to up your rent, eh? See what I'm missin' out on."

An unwanted chill rolled down Tom's spine. Tom reached for the bat he kept by the door and clenched the handle hard enough that it hurt, nails biting into the skin, knuckles chalk white with tension. "I pay my bills, which is all you need to know," Tom spat. "Now leave before I call the police to arrest you for harassment. Or perhaps your wife? Wouldn't she'd like to know what her husband is doing at this hour, drunk and propositioning his tenants."

"You're an uppity little bastard, Riddle. Using a man's wife against him." Borgin knocked his fist on the door for emphasis. "Mark my fucking words, one day a man a lot worse than I am is going to put you in your damn rightful place. Then you'll wish you'd learned some respect." He slammed his hand against the door a second time, jittering it in its frame, then turned away and lumbered down the hall.

Tom let out a breath and backed away from the door. A quick glance at the time revealed he had a couple of hours before he was scheduled to be at Riddle Manor. He had planned to spend this time working, but Borgin's impromptu visit had changed things.

Borgin might decide to come back while he was unconscious and connected to Hogwarts. The very real possibility of this set Tom ill at ease. He lived in an unsafe neighbourhood, there was no way around that, but Borgin was a local threat that could not be ignored.

Aside from attempted assault, if Borgin discovered what Tom was doing, he would try to take a cut. Tom could not afford that, not on top of everything else he had to deal with: staring at his holo-screen at all hours of the day to turn a quick buck, keeping up appearances with his wealthy friends, converting credits to dollars so he could cover his rent and utilities.

But what else could he do? Could he shove his bed frame up over the dresser? Would the weight of the aluminum frame and cheap mattress do anything? This was beyond frustrating. Tom hated feeling so powerless.

In the virtual world, he had freedom, he had control. He had a reasonable amount of wealth and power. In the real world, he had nothing. He was a nameless orphan in a sea of destitute nobodies.

Tom grimaced. There was nothing he could do short of leaving the house and going somewhere else to connect, which was not an appealing option. He would just have to make his visit short and hope that nothing happened in the physical world while he was connected. Hopefully it wouldn't take too long for the groundsbot to examine the estate gardens and generate a working plan.

Petunia had warned him that the bot would periodically ask questions to get an understanding of what he wanted, but would otherwise work around the clock until the job was done. If that was the case, then the amount of required supervision ought to be minimal.

With this in mind, Tom prepared a bowl of cinnamon oatmeal for breakfast and set a fresh alarm to remind him of his scheduled meeting in the virtual world. His morning would now be dedicated to solving the problem of his home security, or at least devising a temporary measure of protection that would last until he found a way to get Borgin off his back.

Blackmail material, perhaps. Borgin was involved in multiple illegal activities ranging from dog fighting rings to racketeering. Tom had not wanted to involve himself with what could only lead to his own bloody, pointless death, but if Borgin was threatening to break into his flat, then precautions had to be taken.