The Ubik that existed in Tom's head was a timeless place.
It was both the world it'd been in those first few weeks, when it'd been only him and Azrael, and then years later when he'd been so young and the world so filled with opportunity. Secluded, kept purposefully out of Wizarding Britain as it was, it'd taken on an unchanging shape in Tom's memory.
If it had changed at all then it was in ways that Tom had marked and measured and didn't need to keep track of.
It'd have a magical school, of course, and more people. However, those people would be the same people he'd seen here decades ago, the same fleeing intellectuals and European refugees. It'd be a world that he remembered and that, in turn, might even remember him.
It wasn't.
Very quickly, he found that the population had exploded beyond his imagination. Judicious use of space expansion charms kept it from being too overwhelming, Tom's house in the middle of nowhere kept it from being noticeable at first, but even then, when walking through the city streets in the middle of the day it was almost impossible to see the sidewalk.
And the people, even at a glance, they were from far flung corners of the world that Tom would never have guessed at. Uganda, the Balkans, Iran. People that the hopelessly small world of Wizarding Britain had paid no mind at all, always too concerned over their own blood and their own people as they were.
And the technology…
There had always been magic beyond the wizarding world's capabilities in Ubik, even in the beginning. That's what had had the wizarding societies so very nervous, it'd been new even to them, far beyond anything they'd made for themselves.
However, it hadn't been so—commonplace, that was the word.
There'd been no apothecaries, no wandmakers, no shops filled with buzzing, chattering, window displays, no homegrown magic in any way. Everything had been made and provided by the emperor himself. It'd all been free, public, and so starkly alien. Something very clearly unrelated to the people who had come to inhabit Ubik and call it home. Now there were makeshift wards everywhere, shops selling amulets alongside knick-knacks and souvenirs, and everything in between.
It was—a world that had entirely forgotten Tom Riddle.
He wasn't stopped once, no matter which street he happened to walk down. True, it'd been years, and he'd only ever been an assistant to a diplomat who was never openly accused or sent to trial—
But just the same, he felt as if the world had moved past him in ways he'd never expected. He'd made less of an impact in this place than he even had in Britain, which was saying something.
Regardless, within a few weeks, after a few exams, Harry was accepted into the magical academy's primary school. Tom had the feeling that she was distinctly lucky in this, that had she been a little less obviously gifted in both magic and intellect, that she would have been sent somewhere else or perhaps nowhere at all.
It was never made clear.
However, given that there had been an exam, given that Tom had had to knock on doors—it'd been clear that this wasn't like Hogwarts. There was no letter with your name on it written from your birth.
Lily, as she'd expected, found herself a job in an apothecary. It wasn't Saint Mungos, not even on the right side of town so to speak, but it was a job and it paid. Though Lily noted after her first week that some of the potions requested were—well, you would have found them in Knockturn in London.
If she wanted anything else, it'd only be after she took Ubik's standardized OWL and NEWT equivalents.
And Tom himself—he supposed he was still looking.
Which was why he ended up seeing more of Azrael than he would have otherwise expected.
"Don't you have a job?" Tom asked.
They were at Tom's new house. Renovated for what had to be the thirtieth time in as many days. It was now, finally, starting to look like a proper house. The roof no longer leaked, none of the walls were crooked, and slowly but surely furniture started to make its way into being. It no longer looked as if someone had slapped it together in thirty minutes.
They, of course, being Tom and Azrael.
Lily was at work, experimenting on how best to create the universe's most potent answer to Viagra, and Harry was off at school doing her best to catch up to Ubik's magic. Thankfully, she'd always perused Tom's contraband textbooks he'd had in the basement and wasn't too far behind.
However, it wasn't the British magic that she'd gleefully spent the past year preparing herself for. It also wasn't the school she'd prepared herself for and—well—she was still quite upset with Tom about that. Of course, she was upset with the world, with every facet of it and all the opportunities lost to her. Tom, however, seemed to take the brunt of her ill feelings.
Regardless, neither would be home for a few hours yet.
In the meantime, while Tom tried to make something of the garden, Azrael appeared—as he increasingly had ever since Tom had moved in.
Which, of course, irked Lily to no end but Tom had pointed out that there wasn't much either of them could do about it.
"Don't you?" Azrael asked in turn with an entirely too smug smile.
"We're not hurting for money," Tom said, "The great thing about being a competent wizard, is that you don't really need much money, so long as you can grow your own food."
The truth was that, even after Tom had taken Ubik's exams, he just wasn't in high demand. Funny, but Muggle Studies professor just didn't sound all that good on a resume. He couldn't imagine why.
"But I'm not an emperor," Tom said, "I'm just a retired professor and diplomat who was tired of having his house blown up by fanatics. I'm expected to be swimming in free time, you, on the other hand—"
Azrael waved a hand dismissively, still smiling, but then his smile drifted away.
Finally, he said, "Funny enough, I've been hoping to retire as well."
Tom turned to look at him, but he seemed perfectly serious. He offered Tom a wry smile, "It's exhausting, being emperor, and I never—I never really wanted to do it."
No, Tom supposed he hadn't. Oh, he'd gone out of his way to do it, had embraced it whole heartedly, but it'd never seemed like anything he'd truly wanted for himself. Not in the way that a young Tom Riddle had wanted to be king, at least.
"Trouble is, I can't seem to find a good time to step away," Azrael sunk down onto the steps next to Tom, "There's always this that needs to be done or that and they always look to me and—And people, for better or worse, just keep being people. They keep making the same mistakes."
He motioned out towards the land in front of them, "It's always up to me to insist on keeping the borders open, letting in refugees suffering from war and epidemics, keeping the peace between these people and those people. And they listen to me but I just wish they didn't need me up there making them all play nice with each other. If, in fact, they let me make them play nice with each other, sometimes they don't."
He rubbed a hand through his hair, "Oh, you've been gone so long, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. To you, this place has always been the best of all worlds but—"
"I suppose you might say I'm trying to get them used to the idea," he finally said with a laugh, "Or maybe just doing my job will make me so mad and I need a little break. I used to take them often enough, even without you here. Used to think I'd leave the office one day and never come back to it."
"Well, that's not alarming," Tom finally said after a damningly long pause.
This, however, just seemed to bring Azrael's attention back to him.
"You know, some days I think I'd like nothing more than to place this crown on your head," he said, clearly joking, but a deadly, mad, seriousness in his eyes as if a part of him wasn't joking at all, "Since you always wanted that kind of power so badly."
"Wanted," Tom repeated, "That's past tense, my friend, for a time when I was very young and very stupid."
And it hadn't even lasted that long at that. No, Voldemort, his visions of grandeur, hadn't even managed to survive Hogwarts, had they? That crown might be the very last thing Tom wanted now.
Azrael just laughed.
"I miss those days though," he said, voice wistful, "Things were—simpler then. For me, at least, if not for you."
Tom supposed for him as well.
Hogwarts hadn't been—perfect, not really, but it had been a sanctuary of sorts. It'd guarded him from most of the realities of the outside world.
It just hadn't guarded him from them for very long.
Tom supposed he should remind Azrael that those days were over, that he should tell him to get back to work, that they all had responsibilities and that Azrael could not afford to shirk his. The last thing Tom needed was for the government to collapse, for Azrael to create a power vacuum, and all hell to break loose in this foreign landscape.
However, as always, Azrael did what he wanted, no matter what Tom had to say about it.
So, Tom held his tongue, and instead wondered if Azrael ever really would quit or if he was just blowing smoke.
They both knew, after all, that there would never be a 'good' time for an immortal, benevolent, dictator to step away.
But that, of course, was never meant to be Tom's problem.
Author's Note: Thank you to Vinelle for betaing the chapter, it is much better for it.
Thank you to readers and reviewers, reviews are much appreciated.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter