It is snowing when they first meet. Tom is standing at the counter, examining new inventory. He is bored. He has been working at Borgin and Burkes for over five years now, and more than occasionally he thinks it is time to move on - but each time he is about to leave some forbidden, dangerous, curious little magical thing appears in the shop and reminds him why he took the position in the first place.
Today, she is that curious little magical thing. When the bell above the door rings and he looks up, he recognizes her right away despite the fact that it has been years since her face was last splashed on the front of the Daily Prophet. What was the woman that caused the fall of the last Minister for Magic doing in England again, let alone in his shop?
He holds his question in his head and instead says politely, "Good afternoon, miss. How may we help you today?"
She gives him a faint half-smile as she walks toward the counter, eyes scanning all corners of the little store. Finally, they narrow in on him as she stops a step or two short of the counter, "I have an appointment with Borgin, if you wouldn't mind showing me the way to his office sir."
"Let me just make sure he is available. I will return shortly," Tom answers, carefully expressionless as he locks away the drawer containing the ledger book and closes the inventory case.
"He's available. As I said, I have an appointment," she says sharply before he can turn to walk away. At his accidental glare back at her she adds, "Don't worry, I'm not going to murder him. I am innocent, as I'm sure you read."
There is a laugh behind the little smirk she gives him, eyes purposefully big and blinking rapidly. Tom knows that face. He has made that face countless times. Based on that face, he knows she knows he suspects her words are false.
"I am not sure what you are referring to, miss," Tom says, feigning ignorance in hopes of wiping that wry smile off her face. Only someone full of themselves would think they are so infamous that anybody in wizarding Britain would recognize them in a second, he thinks.
Then again, he had recognized her from just the briefest glance at her features. It is her hair that did it, he thinks. It is a distinctive color between light and dark brown, with a few strands glinting gold and red in the light reflecting from the lamps just as they had in the moving pictures on the special editions of the Prophet.
"I am happy to show you the way to Borgin's office," Tom declares as he remembers himself, stepping out from behind the counter. He gestures for her to come with him, but she does not step forward until he starts moving, maintaining a distance of a few steps behind him until he reaches the door and knocks on it. He hears Borgin mutter a greeting and pokes his head in, announcing, "You have a visitor, Mr. Borgin."
From the greedy interest in Borgin's eyes when he nods to let him know she can come in, Tom guesses there must be something even more special about her visit than he has discovered so far. He steps aside, holding the door. She glances at him from the side as she enters, examining him as she had examined the shop. When she has cleared the door, Tom lets it shut fully, knowing he is being watched. He won't get away with circumventing the silencing spell on the office by leaving it just a touch open and listening to the side this time.
Only fifteen minutes pass before he is interrupted at the counter again. This time, she and Borgin both come walking up together. The pinched expression on her face has relaxed into a congenial smile, and he would almost believe she is actually a normal, polite witch from the small talk about the weather he overhears from them.
Tom stands at attention as Borgin gestures to him, "This is Tom Riddle. A fine man, sharp as they make them. As he usually handles the scouting of new items, I will share the details of your request with him and he will be in touch when anything fitting such a description is available. The wife will be expecting me home for supper already, so I am afraid I must bid a good evening to you now."
She nods and wishes the same to him. She turns slightly to watch Borgin walking out before shifting her attention back to him. She reaches out a hand to shake the one Tom is offering, "Nice to formally meet you, Mr. Riddle. Cassandra Alexander."
"Nice to meet you as well, Ms. Alexander," Tom responds. As soon as he touches her fingers he feels it. Magic. He usually can't, except with the strong ones. She drops his hand quickly and looks away, eyes wandering to the back of the shop again. He examines her, noting her eyes are the same caramel color as her hair, noting the sharp tilt of her cheekbones and the tight clench of her jaw.
"Shame, I wanted to look at a few more things, but as Borgin had to rush out, I assume the shop is closing up soon?" She asks, still a thousand miles away in her mind.
"I can stay if you would like to have a look around. Please do let me know if you have any questions," Tom offers with the smile he reserves for only his best customers. Curious, this one. Very curious. And he is very curious about what she is looking so intently at.
She wanders away and he quickly loses interest, turning back to his work on the ledger. He finishes before she returns and pulls out his notebook, jotting down items of interest he'd seen that day to research further.
"There's nothing stopping me from being in England, just in case you were about to owl the ministry," she says. He looks up to see her looking at his hand on the quill. He hadn't heard her approaching, and he was not used to being snuck up on.
He takes a moment to push down his annoyance before feigning a polite tone, "I was preparing to write down your address."
"Borgin knows how to contact me."
"Clients usually prefer that we come to them. I would hate to inconvenience you by making you trek all the way to the shop again. I assure you I can make myself available for appointments at the times most convenient for you."
"I don't think you've earned my address yet, Mr. Riddle."
He flinches at his stupid muggle father's name. Gods, how he wished he could change it now. Tom was not so bad. Tom was common, and he would rather have something that reflected how exceptional he was - but at least Tom was normal enough for him not to remember the connection every time he heard it, not to resent what he didn't have every time it was spoken aloud. Well, it wasn't like the last name she was using now was any less filthy than his.
She puts a heavy wooden box down on the counter in front of him. He opens it to see two identical silver rings. He recognizes the item. He'd taken it into inventory years ago out of curiosity. It had gone from one of the display cases by the front window to the back shelf of knick-knacks after no one had seemed to recognize - or at least be interested in - it all this time.
"Well, how much?" She inquires.
He realizes he has been staring at the rings and looks up again, "45 galleons."
"As a gesture of goodwill at the start of our business relationship, I won't negotiate this time. Next time do expect a good fight."
"Do you even know what they are?" He asks, realizing how snide his tone is a touch too late.
"I do," she says, thumbing through her coin purse and picking out money to put on the counter.
"They don't work anymore. I checked. The spell has faded."
She finally reacts to his abrasive tone, her eyes narrowing up at him. Despite that, the polite smile remains on her face as she replies in a half-joking tone, "One would think you are trying to avoid taking my money."
"Just wanted you to know what you are getting," he responds with a shrug. He spells the coins from the counter and into the till. "Most people appreciate honesty."
"People who appreciate honesty should do their own checking to make sure they are getting it," she responds smoothly. "You think I murdered someone and yet you don't think I am capable of some simple protection magic?"
Now he was sure she had almost definitely murdered someone and was making jokes about it. And she knew about dark magic he hadn't even found any readings on yet. His new client is definitely a customer worth having.
"You're innocent, aren't you?" He quips back, knowing he has let a smirk slip on to his face but unable to help himself. He thinks he sees one on her too as she picks up the box and tucks it in to her bag.
"Good night, Mr. Riddle. I'll send directions to my home by owl in the morning."
Tom throws his coat to the house elf as he strides in to the front door of Rosier's townhouse. The sound of his footsteps in the hall make all of the boys quite down, their voices dropping down to silence almost instantly. He scans them as he walks over to the bar cart, helping himself to a glass of whisky. When he has poured it, he turns back to them, all craning their necks around to look at him.
"Sorry I'm late boys," Tom declares. "The most unexpected person came into the shop today."
"Who? Minister Tuft herself?" Lestrange asks with a chuckle.
"Close," Tom says, inclining an eyebrow toward him. "Cassandra Alexander."
Avery nearly spits up his own drink as he barks out, "The blood-traitor black widow?"
"Good thing for her that she didn't try to make you her next victim," Lestrange quips.
"I thought she was still banned from Britain," Rosier interjects.
"No, she was never banned," Lestrange replies. "Fawley said they were going to try to get her for something else and then she up and left - what was it, three years ago now? Did she happen to mention where she's been all these years?"
"Probably France," Avery offers. Tom sips his drink and observes their interest.
"Not France. Nobody's seen her there," Rosier says.
"Probably somewhere people can't read English and don't get the prophet then. South America or something exotic like that," Avery guesses again.
"She's not the type to murder her husband and then fuck off to some country she doesn't want to be in just because the people there don't know she did it," Lestrange says before laughing. "Probably bought her own island, had it picked out before even doing the deed so she'd have time to find the perfect one."
"Probably stayed here all along, just hiding since everybody knows she did," Avery speculates.
Tom finally walks over to the armchair he always takes by the fire. The boys wait for him to talk. He takes another sip before saying, "Everybody knows she did it and yet there wasn't enough evidence for the ministry to even mount a trial. Fascinating, isn't it? Either everybody's wrong or she's very talented."
Lestrange shrugs and says dismissively, "It is the ministry."
Tom catches Rosier glaring as he responds, "Just because you've never liked her, doesn't mean she isn't good at magic."
"Did you forget she married a mudblood, Rosier?" Lestrange replies, leaning forward in his chair. Tom wonders briefly if he'd bother to stop a duel between them. Probably not. It might be interesting to see who wins.
"She might have had the youthful foolishness to marry a mudblood, but at least she had the good sense to kill him off before giving birth to any monstrosities."
Tom decides to ignore Rosier's lack of attention to his words, decides that ignoring the dig at half-bloods is better than reminding all of them that he is one himself.
"She's still a blood traitor," Lestrange spits out edging ever forward as if he is about to erupt.
"For all we know, she could have been under the influence of some potion or spell. She certainly never showed any love for muggles or mudbloods before she ran off with him," Rosier barks back, hand already in his wand pocket. "As fun as it is to gossip, perhaps accept that you don't know everything in the world, Lestrange."
"I do know why she married him. We all do, don't we? Her family lost all their money yet now she has more than any of us. Hardly seems like a coincidence that the mudblood that supposedly fell in love with her is the one she inherited it all from. Regardless of her motive, it's still disgusting and she's still a blood traitor."
Tom interrupts their spat, wand twirling between his fingers as he thinks, "Rosier is right. We should not be so quick to judge youthful indiscretions. Merlin knows you each had a few during our school years. Assuming everybody's not wrong, she might be useful."
A/N: New story! I have been writing this up for a while, because I had the idea that this time in Tom's life is talked about so little and I wanted to explore what happened - why he worked at Borgin and Burkes for like ten years and why he eventually left to start off on the path we all know so well. Plus I had the idea for this OC who I think is my most interesting/complex one I've written yet. Also partly inspired by the magnificent show Peaky Blinders and my recent obsession with Cililan Murphy as the perfect post-Hogwarts, pre-Voldy Tom Riddle.
This is just a short intro chapter to see if anybody else finds the concept intriguing and would actually read such a thing. Please please comment if you want me to keep going, it is really motivating to get people's actual thoughts/feedback on things :) You can even comment anonymously and you don't need an account I think. If you want to beta read, I would also be happy for the help. Thank you for reading as always!
