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Beaten down, exhausted, starving, and ready for the fighting to end, Tom's troop traipsed their way across barren, mud-splattered fields.
Bombs exploded in the distance.
Shots could be heard from every direction, but the battle-worn men barely flinched at the cacophony.
With his wand still safely inside his glove, Tom continually replenished himself every few hours with a simple nutrition charm, a luxury his men did not have.
The soldiers viewed their leader's unending stamina and robust complexion as further evidence of his power.
Tom pitied the dead and dying muggle soldiers who lay forgotten as his troop tramped past.
The cold, cutting air was as unforgiving as the war itself once night fell.
One particular morning, after hours of shivering through nightmares, Tom's men woke and gathered their supplies.
Each soldier prepared to follow their commander through yet another day of traveling towards London, without food or any guarantee of water.
Tom had just reached for his own pack when one of his men ran to him shouting, "Second Lieutenant Riddle! Second Lieutenant Riddle!"
"Yes?" Tom asked as he looked at his subordinate with narrowed eyes.
"It's Thompson! It's Thompson, sir! He's close to death! Are we supposed to leave him here like this?!" The man asked as he pointed down the hillside to his ailing friend.
Tom narrowed his eyes at the young man who lay on the frozen ground and shook under the meager scrap of salvaged flannel that served as his blanket.
"Are we supposed to leave him here to die alone, sir?!" The man demanded again as his weary face twisted in anguish.
"My men do not die." Tom said in one arrogant growl as he pushed his knapsack roughly into the soldier's arms.
The bewildered private blinked as he watched his leader stomp down the hill towards his suffering comrade.
Private George S. Thompson, a boy even younger than Tom, had been taken from his family far too early by Britain's draft.
After months of brave battle, Thompson finally laid that morning with his head knocking against the tufts of crunchy grass as his body convulsed with the chills brought on by his fever.
"Thompson, my friend…." Tom smiled as he knelt beside the miserable soldier, "Why have you not joined the rest of us?"
Refusing to address his subordinates like other men of his rank, there was an irksome sense of patronization in Tom's tone while he mocked his ill recruit.
Fatigued beyond measure, burdened by starvation with his soul weighed down, Thompson lacked the strength to respond.
As he swallowed thickly and fought against the delirium his fever threatened to impose, he pointed towards his left foot.
"There…….?" Tom asked with a wicked grin as if the dire situation brought him some form of amusement, "Is that where the pain is?"
The young man nodded as a wheezing gasp escaped his throat.
Tom slowly lifted his hand and began to pull the soggy sides of Thompson's ruined boot down.
A shriek of pain issued from Thompson's parched lips.
Layers of infected, rotting flesh exposed through the soiled sock caused Tom's men to gasp and cover their faces in avoidance of the smell that issued from the seeping wound.
"Don't worry, Thompson." Tom smiled at the doomed soldier, "I'll have you righted in no time. You are as vital to our mission as the others, make no mistake about that."
Thompson gasped as Tom lifted his hand over his decaying foot, with his wand still secretly tucked under the middle finger of his glove, and began to whisper the most powerful healing spell he knew.
Someone with Tom's background would have recognized his magic instantly, but to a muggle, his murmured words sounded more like a gentle lullaby meant to mercifully soothe a wounded soul into the grave.
Thompson laid his head back on the soiled scrap of fabric that separated him from the damp, cold ground as he waited for death's merciful embrace.
He closed his eyes and sucked in a breath while Tom continued his work.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
Thompson opened his eyes a moment later.
He met his leader's dark gaze once Tom stopped speaking.
As Thompson raised a hand to his forehead, he realized his fever had broken, but he could scarcely believe what he saw or how he felt.
Pain no longer coursed through his body.
His fatigue, hunger, and thirst had vanished.
A deep sense of replenished strength nearly overcame him while he stood to his feet with the help of Tom's outstretched hand.
Tom's men looked on in shock as Thompson's own eyes widened once he glanced down and stared at his completely healed foot with its leather boot fully repaired, safely enclosing his dry, socked limb in sturdy leather.
"Colonel……" Thompson gasped as he swallowed dryly while he looked up at Tom with stupefied gratitude on his face, "I….I don't know how to thank you, sir!"
"You can thank me by staying with us another day." Tom grinned before he pointed towards the direction in which their journey would continue, "Come along, we have quite a ways to go. If we're to arrive in London on time, we must be in Surrey by tomorrow."
Thompson nodded before he reached down and gathered his meager belongings, still in shock.
As Tom walked forward and gathered his men, the soldiers he led whispered to one another in blatant disbelief.
How was it possible?
How had their clever leader managed it?
Tom had spent the majority of his life looking down on muggles, but the war had given him a fresh perspective.
While he thoroughly enjoyed slaying one lesser being after another, he couldn't help the pride that came from knowing his men revered him.
With each passing day, Tom's soldiers' loyalty to their unbelievable commander grew, as did his fondness for them.
In Tom's eyes, the very beings he hated had also become the first to lend him their allegiance.
Tom Riddle was greedy and selfish.
As he boldly led his muggle troop along their path that morning, he basked in the silent looks of mystified admiration they cast at him.
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The day meant little to Harriet.
Another morning filled with her aunt's barked orders.
Another grey afternoon spent doing menial chores that barely needed tending.
Another twilight passed by cowering in the corner after dinner, hoping the bombs that landed in the next town over didn't venture to Little Whinging and the roof over her head.
Harriet slept restlessly, tormented in her dreams as much as she was by her own existence.
Living with the Dursleys in the middle of the largest conflict in human history meant Harriet woke from one nightmare to endure another.
Still, in their suspended state of misery, the Dursleys, along with their neighbors, had managed to escape the worst of the fighting.
Harriet's luck happened to run out the day Tom and his troop marched into town.
Petunia had screamed when gunfire rang out in the quiet residential street where she and her husband had lived peacefully for the past twenty years.
Petunia had gathered Vernon and Dudley to huddle together in the meager cupboard under the stairs, forcing Harriet out of her living space and purposely denying her from entering the safest place in the house.
Whether from desperation or foolishness, Harriet managed to gather enough bravery to peer out the front window and watch the battle unfold.
In the late afternoon, the other residents on the Dursleys' street had hidden themselves away in their homes too while Nazis engaged with the newly-arrived, defending British soldiers.
Harriet held her breath as she witnessed the gory realities of war.
Her emerald eyes widened as she watched her countrymen strike down one enemy soldier after another.
She could scarcely believe how well the British seemed to do against the Nazis until an air assault sent them all scattering.
As Tom and his men dove for cover, Harriet caught a brief glimpse of his face.
Under his helmet, she saw a flash of his dark curls, which had grown since the haircut he had received upon entering the military.
From the second Harriet noticed Tom's piercing, dark eyes, her heart belonged to him.
As he fell onto the rocky ground with his men, Harriet watched from the Durselys' window, hopelessly enamored.
Tom had not cast his nutrition spell since early that morning.
While he and his soldiers evaded the onslaught of ammunition, he realized he had waited too long.
His stomach was empty.
His throat was parched.
From the window above the sink, Harriet could see his struggle to swallow as he turned his head while he shouted orders to his men.
With the Dursleys cowering in the cupboard, Harriet glanced around the abandoned kitchen as an instinctive urge to help the handsome alpha bloomed in her heart.
She grabbed a clean, porcelain tea cup from the counter, hurriedly poured the last of the day's tea, and walked outside.
From his position on the ground, Tom's dark eyes narrowed to slits as he watched the enemy's movements and contemplated how best to upend them when broken gravel behind him rustled.
He turned with his eyes wide and his wand-guarded hand raised, ready to strike the enemy soldier who had crept up on him, but he let out a silent gasp as he realized a girl stood there instead.
A beautiful girl with her dark, messy hair spilling over her shoulders and her emerald eyes glowing brightly.
Tom blinked as her leather shoes scraped over the ruined street as she bent down and offered him a cup of tea.
Harriet hoped the soldier would accept her small gift.
Tom managed a hoarse laugh as he stretched a hand out of take the cup of tea, amazed someone had the audacity to walk out onto a battlefield just to bring him-
Before Tom could grasp the porcelain tea cup, it splintered into pieces as enemy fire shattered it to bits.
The world stilled for a single heartbeat.
Harriet held the teacup's broken handle in bewildered surprise before Tom roared, "GET DOWN!"
In one swift swoop, he grabbed her hand and pulled her into his arms as they both took cover under a massive pile of debris while Nazi gunfire rained around them.
Harriet buried her head in Tom's chest as he listened to his men's ferocious cries while they fought back with the full force of their loaded rifles.
With Harriet in his arms and his soldiers hard at work, through a crack in the debris pile they lay against, Tom raised his gloved hand and murmured a dark curse.
In the chaos, no one noticed the enemy's bullets inexplicably backfired to hit them.
One by one, the Nazis died until the scene grew silent.
In the eerie calm, Harriet gasped as she pulled back and gazed at her rescuer.
Tom's face was streaked with spots of blood and dirt, but the filth failed to diminish his good looks.
Harriet's green eyes widened behind her glasses as he flashed her a bright grin and spoke in his smooth voice, "My, you are beautiful, aren't you, my dear?"
Beautiful.
No one had ever called Harriet Potter beautiful before.
As a soft blush covered her cheeks in a way that made Tom want to growl, he smirked as he breathed in her sweet scent.
Second Lieutenant Riddle had never honestly meant any compliment he had given before, not until the day he met Harriet Potter.