Shattered

December 19, 1944

It was quite amazing, really, what could change over the course of three short months. And oh, how things certainly had.

No longer was Tom Riddle an obsessed, lovesick sap. Well, perhaps his personality could still be described as obsessed, but at least these new fixations didn't pertain to her – not even the slightest regard. He had recovered from the split from her as a new man, escaping the blow completely unscathed.

Maybe not entirely. But mostly.

The important thing, he supposed, was that he learned from his mistake: the mistake that went by the name of Rosemary Horton. Never again would he allow himself to lose so much control over his own life. How had he been so blind? Had he really thought that she made things better for him? The prospect seemed so ridiculous now that he was rid of her pretentious moral standards. Any sort of loss that he had felt initially was trivial in comparison to his regained sense of freedom. It was due to this drastic improvement that he had accomplished so much in the past couple of months.

Because now he could do whatever he damn well pleased.

Headmaster Dippet cleared his throat: "…And now, a few words from Professor Dumbledore…"

Dumbledore stood and strode to the front of the room with a grave look in his eyes and a slight frown of his mouth. Tom didn't need Legilimency to know exactly what was coming: "By now, I trust that you are all aware of the attacks that have centered upon blood elitism in the past few weeks."

Oh, yes. Tom was certainly aware. If Dumbledore hadn't been watching him so intently, he might have allowed a smirk to spread across his face.

"While thankfully none of these have been violent in nature–"

Yet.

"–it is my belief that written and verbal prejudice can be equally as damaging. I find it truly regrettable that such a hateful message has come about in a time where, more than ever, we should be standing together instead of apart."

By this, of course, Dumbledore was referring to the looming threat of Grindelwald who, judging by the newspapers and the increasingly heightened security around Hogwarts, had grown more powerful than ever.

"Let us remember that Muggle-born students have just as much of a right to attend Hogwarts as half-blood or pure-blood students."

Tom almost burst out laughing when he heard that.

"Perhaps this goes without saying, but I'd like to remind you that, as Prefects, you are especially responsible for reporting any information that might lead us to the perpetrator – or perpetrators – of this blatant disregard of Hogwarts' policy against prejudice. With any luck at all, the motivation behind these attacks will cease over the holidays and fail to return to Hogwarts in the New Year."

If that was truly what Dumbledore believed, he was going to be sorely disappointed. Tom had been enjoying himself quite a bit in the last few weeks and had no intention whatsoever of quitting. Thankfully, neither did his followers. Or were they his friends? He couldn't quite decide sometimes…

Who was he kidding? Followers. Definitely followers.

Yes, Tom had certainly kept himself busy in the past few weeks. He had come to the realization that his goal to defeat Grindelwald was not nearly enough – even if he did, the wizarding world would continue on just as it always had: mudblood tolerance and all. What he now desired was to replace Grindelwald's 'For the Greater Good' effort with a movement of his own; a movement that had always been more practical: pushing mudbloods to the bottom of wizarding society, beginning with Hogwarts.

It was a lofty goal, sure. But he was Tom Riddle…and if he didn't do it, then who would?

Really, things had moved along quite nicely: he had successfully gathered a group of like-minded Slytherins and together they had staged numerous efforts to send the message that mudbloods were not welcome at Hogwarts. The most recent of which was a set of informative posters that they had plastered all over the school, featuring a lengthy list of all the reasons mudbloods were unworthy of receiving an equal magical education to that of a pure-blood.

Dumbledore dismissed them all except for Horton and himself after finishing his absurd lecture on blood elitism. This came as no surprise – as Head Boy and Girl, they always met with Dippet and Dumbledore following Prefect meetings. Although, if Tom hadn't become so well-versed in Occlumency, he might have been nervous; the way that Dumbledore was looking at him very clearly meant that he was a suspect in the recent 'attacks'.

While Dippet and Dumbledore took turns droning on to them about the state of safety at Hogwarts and the fact that some students' parents were so unnerved by the threat of Grindelwald that they might not allow their children to come back to school after the holiday break, Tom's mind wandered to what he might plan next with his little club. While he had no shortage of ideas, the tricky part was finding the most opportune time to execute them. Plus, if he expected his group to be of any help whatsoever in his ultimate pursuit of Grindelwald, he also had to spend some time training them.

Thankfully, this hadn't been nearly as frustrating as he had initially expected. He was rather impressed, in fact, at how quickly some of them (Antonin Dolohov and Jason Mulciber, especially) had picked up on his teachings.

It was true; he had cultivated the closest thing he had ever experienced to a group of friends. But it was better than having friends because they listened to every single command he made, without fail, and were eager to learn anything and everything they could from him about dark magic. Sure, things had been a little rocky in the very beginning, but it was nothing a few threats hadn't fixed.

"…Do either of you have any information at all about who might be responsible for the terrible messages that have been directed at the muggle-born students?" he heard Dippet ask them.

He kept his face perfectly blank and shook his head, noticing once more how carefully Dumbledore was looking at him. Tom saw Horton shake her head out of the corner of his eye, too, and he couldn't help but wonder if perhaps she suspected him as well. After all, he had been quite open with her about his views when they were…together.

Over the past couple of weeks, as his group had become more and more active within the school, he had pondered the idea of taking a glance inside her mind to see what she knew, but he had yet to do so. There was a part of him that truly did not wish to know what she thought of him: it didn't really matter, anyway. All he wanted was to forget her entire existence.

That was fairly difficult, though, considering the fact that she was Head Girl, nearly all of their classes were together, and they were also Potions partners.

"Very well," Dippet nodded solemnly, before attempting a smile that was clearly quite forced. "I wish you both a pleasant holiday. Merlin knows you deserve it…"

It was abundantly clear what he meant: thanks to Dumbledore and his policies for the heightened security at the school, he and Rosemary had been required to take on an unprecedented number of duties as Head Boy and Head Girl.

"Thank you, Sir. Happy Christmas to you as well," Tom sported his usual, charming smile and gave a slight nod to both Dippet and Dumbledore before leaving the meeting room.

When he entered the corridor, he saw Cramer waiting outside of the classroom for Horton, still playing the part of the dutiful boyfriend. Or maybe he wasn't playing the part – maybe Tom had been right all along about his suspicions and that she truly did fancy Cramer.

He smiled to Tom and nodded in acknowledgment at him, clearly unaware of the fact that just a couple of months prior he had been lying at Tom's feet, writhing in pain. Tom had no idea how to perceive the Ravenclaw's idiotic smile as anything less than triumphant: after all, Cramer had gotten exactly what he had wanted (even if he didn't know exactly how). A display of such evident boasting might have sent Tom over the edge and earned Warren another round of the Cruciatus if he still happened to care at all.

But he didn't. It was all in the past.

Even so, he couldn't seem to help the way that his hands balled into fists as he strode past Cramer without any sort of acknowledgment in return, as though he hadn't noticed him at all.

His pace quickened when he realized that he was already quite late for his meeting with Raoul that afternoon. Thankfully, he wasn't far from the Armoury corridor. He glanced around him as he arrived and approached the cabinet sitting at the end of the hall. It looked completely nondescript – so much so that even he who had dealt with his fair share of magical objects while employed at Borgin and Burkes had failed to identify it.

It was only two weeks prior when he had discovered that it was far more than an old cabinet. And even that had been by lucky chance: he was just leaving the passage that led from his dormitory to the Trophy Room when he saw Markus Avery walking quickly through the adjacent corridor, looking exceptionally shifty. Tom's curiosity got the best of him, so he followed Avery out into the Armoury.

"Avery, what exactly are you doing?" he asked nonchalantly, just as Markus was opening the door the cabinet.

Clearly, he hadn't heard Tom's footsteps behind him, because he jumped in surprise and immediately spun around to face him. "Oh, erm, nothing…I just lost my Transfigurations book and thought I might check here…"

Tom smirked in amusement at this all-too-obvious lie. "You know I'm not going to report you."

Markus still looked hesitant to tell him, but nodded, glancing around them to ensure that no one else was around. "Alright…well, you've heard of ECB…right?"

Of course he had; a fairly large portion of the Slytherin House was addicted – not that Tom really cared, so long as they showed up to his little club and followed his orders.

Tom gave him an impatient look, and Markus then quickly continued on with his explanation: "I've been selling it for a while." He was suddenly sporting a proud grin as he added, "Actually, I'm the only one selling."

"I know," Tom rolled his eyes.

Markus seemed quite unnerved by this. "What? How? Did Rose-"

"No," he snapped, feeling almost immediately worked up just at the mention of her name. He took a breath and forced himself to relax once more, allowing a rather proud expression of his own to slide onto his face. "I'm Head Boy and I run a clandestine anti-mudblood organization, Avery. It would be extraordinarily reckless not to keep tabs on everyone involved."

He nodded, but looked quite unnerved once more, probably wondering exactly what else Tom knew about him.

"The cabinet," Tom reminded him impatiently once more.

"Ah, right. Well, my – erm – supplier and I have to meet up pretty often and with all the added security, he suggested that this would be the best way to go to and from the castle. The other one is at Borgin and Burkes, actually."

This information piqued Tom's interest for several reasons:

1. He certainly knew what a Vanishing Cabinet was, but he had yet to use one and was now quite eager to do so.

2. It had been just down the hall from his dormitory all this time; he had walked by it innumerable times and thought absolutely nothing of it until this very moment.

3. Nor had he noticed its partner in Borgin and Burkes during his time of employment, which was perhaps the biggest surprise of all. He thought he had memorized the entire contents of the shop…(Although, when he tried using it for the first time he discovered that it was being stored in the basement of the shop, which he had only seen once or twice).

4. He was absolutely desperate to find a way to leave Hogwarts unnoticed. Attending the various Tournament events with Professor Dumbledore over the past few months had driven him entirely mad. While, sadly, his discovery of the cabinet came too late to spare him from this torture (the scouting events had ended just the weekend prior and even if they hadn't it would have looked far too suspicious if he told Dippet and Dumbledore he had stopped attending them), he could certainly use it for his meetings with Beaumont and some of his training sessions.

Since then, Tom had made several trips to Knockturn and Diagon Alley, many of which were for no particular reason other than to escape the school for just a few hours and clear his head. Even better, he had built such a positive rapport with Mr. Burke over the summer that Tom was provided with his own key to the place the first time he used the Vanishing Cabinet, so he could come and go whenever he pleased.

But this particular night was all business. Well, as 'all-business' as a meeting with Raoul Beaumont could possibly be; it continued to elude him how exactly it was possible for someone who was as much of a drunken buffoon as Raoul to attain such an abundance wealth and power.

"Lumos."

As the shop had already closed for the evening, the basement was pitch-black when he arrived. Tom made his way up the creaking staircase, let himself out the front door, and stepped carefully down the ice-covered street that led to Diagon Alley. It was an exceptionally cold winter and, as evidenced by the white blanket covering each building, London had seen its fair share of snow.

Raoul was finishing his dinner while examining the newest copy of The Daily Prophet when Tom finally arrived at the pub. He didn't glance up when Tom slid into the booth across from him, but said: "Clearly you didn't take my advice."

"No one knows I'm here," Tom rolled his eyes slightly.

Beaumont folded his paper and looked at him. "Half this pub probably knows you from the Tournament alone."

Tom smirked. "You have a point. I am rather famous."

"Thanks to me." Raoul eyed him reproachfully. "Getting caught sneaking out of school and banned from attending your trainings seems like a pretty awful way to repay me."

"I suppose…if I were to get caught. But I won't."

Beaumont pushed his plate away from him and sighed in frustration.

"This is infinitely better than bringing Dumbledore everywhere I go."

"It's amazing. In some ways, you're so ahead of your years, but in others, you're the most immature person I've probably ever met."

Tom glared at him and snapped, "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Well it's not like he isn't doing you a favor, you know. Would it kill you to be at least somewhat appreciative?"

"I didn't ask him to do anything for me. He clearly agreed just because he knew that I'd hate it."

"If that is truly the case then I have to give him at least some credit, because this apparent plan to get under your skin has obviously worked."

Tom glared at him.

Raoul let out a small laugh. "Honestly, Tom, you've got to stop being so paranoid. You're going to drive yourself mad. And I'm still not quite sure what you have against him –"

"He's an insufferable, arrogant piece of –"

"– but you could probably learn quite a bit from him. As you know, I have spoken with him quite a bit over the course of the scouting events…and he knows his stuff. Especially when it comes to Dueling."

Tom held his breath and grew quiet, still glaring across the table at his sponsor. He was far too angry to allow himself to respond out loud in such a public location, especially when the only things flashing across his mind were dark curses and obscenities.

The bartender cleared Raoul's plate and asked if either of them cared for a drink.

"Scotch. Neat, please," Tom said tightly.

"Make that two, Mindy," Raoul said. Thankfully, as she walked away from their table, he elected to take the subject away from Dumbledore: "So, does the school leave for the holidays tonight, or tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow." He was still quite angry at Beaumont for all of his irritating comments, but his temper was slowly beginning to subside.

"Any plans?"

Raoul of all people should have known the answer to this question; he was quite aware of the fact that Tom didn't have any family, after all. It was clear that he was just making small talk, which Tom absolutely loathed. Over the past few months, he had learned that small talk was a necessary evil when it came to Beaumont, something that Tom simply had to endure if they were ever going to reach any topic related to the Tournament (which, of course, was the real reason behind their meeting in the first place). The more he played along, the faster they would get down to business.

Tom shook his head. "You?"

Beaumont shook his head as well, which didn't come as much of a surprise. It wasn't like he had any family either. "I might get together with a few old friends." The bartender set down their drinks and Raoul took a long sip of his before saying, "Anyway, the real reason I brought it up was… Well, I was wondering if you wanted to come and stay at my home for the holidays."

Tom felt uneasy and on-edge almost instantly, as he was suspicious that Raoul had only made the offer out of pity for Tom's lack of someplace besides Hogwarts to spend Christmas. "Thanks, but I'll pass," he said quickly, afraid that Raoul would interpret a pause as him actually considering it.

He shrugged. "It's up to you…But you wouldn't have to sneak out of Hogwarts for training. I've spoken with Headmaster Dippet already, actually, and he said that he would make an exception in lieu of the fact that I am not your legal guardian. If you stay there, you know you'll have to take Dumbledore to some of them to keep him from getting suspicious. You could avoid him during the entire holiday this way."

Well, he certainly had a point. Perhaps Tom was wrong – the offer wasn't out of mere pity, so it seemed.

"Oh, and I was planning on taking a short trip to Rome to meet with some of the Tournament organizers. I was hoping to invite you along, but not if you'll be staying at the school."

This last bit really caught his attention. Regardless of how potentially uncomfortable it would be to stay at Raoul's house, he couldn't simply pass up something like a meeting with the organizers. Tom nodded and took a drink of his scotch. "Alright."

Beaumont looked pleased. "Good." Then he leaned forward in his seat and lowered his voice. "You know, Rosemary is welcome to visit you anytime, too."

Tom gripped his glass tighter. He kept forgetting that Raoul still didn't know. "That won't be necessary."

"Playing it safe, eh? That's probably the smartest thing to do…though I wouldn't have expected that from you."

He gritted his teeth and his grip tightened even more. As he had done countless times in the past several weeks, he tried to push out the flood of memories that crashed through his mind during these unpredictable moments of weakness. He attempted to distract himself with thoughts of literally anything else, while simultaneously cursing the few lingering remnants of the pitiful person he used to be.

"Shit, Riddle!"

Tom snapped himself out of his own head to see Beaumont calling over the bartender and asking for some towels. He looked down at his glass to find that it was a glass no more. The pieces had scattered across the table and a good number of them were embedded in his palm; he could tell which ones had been coated in liquor because they stung the most.

While Raoul seemed to be in a state of complete panic over the situation, Tom calmly took out his wand and began extracting the pieces of glass one by one and mending the cuts they left behind. Then he waved his wand again and the pool of scotch surrounding his hand vanished. When the bartender finally made it over to them with a couple of towels, Tom handed the repaired glass up to her. "Sorry about that," he said smoothly.

Both she and Beaumont stared at him for a moment, likely in complete awe of how quickly he had both mended his hand and flawlessly fixed the glass.

"What was that about?" Raoul asked as she strode away from the table once more.

"Nothing," Tom shrugged. "It was just an accident."

"Right. It's completely normal to just shatter a glass here and there for no reason whatsoever." Raoul looked at him for a long time and Tom said nothing in response. Then, suddenly: "…Are you and Rosemary going through some sort of a rough patch? If you need to talk about it –"

"There's nothing to talk about," Tom snapped.

"Clearly." Beaumont cleared his throat. "Well, I'm sure you'll think of some way to make it up to her."

"There's no need."

Raoul laughed. "Don't be a fool. Even if a girl says things are fine again, you still need to do something."

Tom grew silent, hoping that Raoul would just drop it. Didn't he understand that this was not even remotely his business? Was a little privacy when it came to his personal life really too much to ask?

The sponsor's eyes suddenly widened and he said: "Merlin, Tom, what did you do?"

"Does it matter?" he snarled angrily. He tried to tell himself to stop and say nothing more, but thanks to Raoul's interminable pestering, his temper pushed him over the edge. The next thing he knew, he was saying: "She and I are through. There. I said it. Are you happy now? Any other details of my personal life that you're just dying to know?"

That certainly got him to shut his mouth. At least momentarily. "I…Wow. I'm really sorry to hear that, Tom."

"Don't be. I'm better off…" He paused and for some inexplicable reason, he found himself thinking of just an hour or so prior, when he saw Cramer waiting for her in the corridor. "We both are."

Raoul shook his head. "I don't believe that for one second. You're never going to find another girl like her, you know."

Tom found himself smiling at the older man's ignorance.

Because wasn't that sort of the point?

"Those days are gone, and good fucking riddance to them; unhappiness really meant something back then. Now it's just a drag, like a cold or having no money. If you really wanted to mess me up, you should have got to me earlier." ― Nick Hornby

I'm back! :D

First of all, I want to thank ALL of you for being so patient while I took a little vacation from writing. My life seems to be under control (at least for now...) and I'm super excited to get back to updating regularly! I also owe a special thank you to all of you lovely people that reviewed the finale of Part I: mmanjari14, Mrs. WaylandOdinsonBlack, Lady Ravanna, Mrs. TomMarvoloRiddle, CharlotteBlackwood, Queentakesjack, RosiePosie15, A regrettable decision, Guest, s8xyvriska, FemmeFerret, RainbowKitteh13, Marauders5ever, and Oksanallex.

There's lots of drama in store, so stay tuned - I plan on updating every Wednesday. Welcome to Part II!