The Unforgivables

February 23, 1945

"Good evening, my brothers," he greeted the small crowd sitting in front of him.

"Good evening, Voldemort," they chanted simultaneously. Long gone were the days when they used anyone's actual name, even in the privacy of Avery and Lestrange's dormitory, though this was mostly out of habit. Tom had been dissatisfied with the idiotic codenames they came up with for themselves originally, so they revisited the topic during the next meeting and each of them (with the exception of Tom) chose a name of a famous Knight.

Also gone were any hesitations he had about addressing them on certain topics (particularly those related to Grindelwald); he knew he had the complete adoration and respect of each of them. His plan to relate to them while asserting his superiority had worked nothing short of marvelously.

He ran through his list of announcements, ending with: "I believe it's time to extend an invitation for membership to the other houses – no Gryffindor scum, of course. Over the next few weeks, I'd like you to keep your eyes open for others that may align with our mission."

From there, they would move on to spell practice. Following the shutdown of Dueling Club, a continuation of their dueling education became another key aspect of the Knights' meetings. Much like Dueling Club, Tom would often demonstrate a spell or two and divide them into pairs to practice. Tonight, however would be a bit different – a special treat for his loyal followers.

"I must admit," Tom began, "I have been quite impressed at the rate some of you have picked up the various offensive and defensive spells I taught you. Tonight it's time to try something a bit more advanced and far darker than you will ever learn in that pathetic-excuse-for-a-wizard's Defense Against the Dark Arts class." There was a rumble of applause and a couple of cheers. Tom waited patiently for them to finish before he continued. "Galeshin?"

Everyone watched as Dolohov stood and joined Tom at the front of the room, carrying a large metal cage that held two dozen dark brown rats from his aunt's shop, the Magical Menagerie. He set the cage of scurrying rodents on the table in front of Tom, who unhinged the cage and took one rat in his hand. "I trust that you are all familiar with the Unforgivable Curses?"

The room nodded back at him, their facial expressions ranging from slightly apprehensive to quite eager. "Good. While important to reserve until appropriate circumstances present themselves, the Unforgivables will be essential to master if we ever hope to defeat Grindelwald and his forces. I will demonstrate and each of you will follow. First, of course, is the Imperius Curse."

He set the rat down on the table and it began to run around in panic, as though it knew exactly what was going to happen next. Just before it hopped off the table onto the floor, Tom drew his wand and said, "Imperio."

The rat stopped abruptly. "The possibilities of the Imperius are nearly unlimited." Tom spun his wand in a circle and made the rodent chase its tail. Tom and Dolohov smirked as he made jump off the table and scurry around on the floor, hissing and lunging at the younger Knights members in the front row. He brought it back to the table and lifted the Imperius Curse. "Next is the Cruciatus…Crucio."

The rat began to writhe and squeak in pain, and Tom noticed one or two of the Knights wince slightly. Their expressions quickly shifted to a blank stare, however, likely in fear that they would lose face amongst the others. He lifted the curse. "I trust you all know what comes next…Avada Kedavra." The rat lay dead on the table, its tongue hanging from its mouth slightly from the torture it had endured just seconds before. Tom couldn't be more pleased with the awe-filled expressions of his followers. "Who would like to go next?" Several hands shot into the air. "Alright, Caradoc, let's see what you've got." He gestured to Rosier.

They slowly worked their way through the Knights members, each of them performing the three curses while Tom offered tips to improve their control and effectiveness of the spells. His followers seemed to be getting more zealous each time they saw the succession of curses, wonderstruck by their sheer power. Even though this was the overwhelming majority of the response, Tom couldn't help but notice the slightly queasy look on Abraxas Malfoy's face as he stared at the growing pile of dead rats.

Though there were plenty of Knights who had raised their hands to go next, Tom called Malfoy to the front of the room. A shadow of apprehension passed over Malfoy's face as he stood and walked slowly to the cage of ten remaining rats. Tom had always known that Abraxas was weak, and despite his devout loyalty to their cause, there was no room for weakness in a member of the Knights.

They watched in silence as he ran a hand through his white-blonde hair and took a rat from the cage. He set it down on the table: "Imperio."

"Good." Tom nodded as Malfoy made the rat walk around in a figure eight. "Next?"

He hesitated, his face pale, and glanced up at Tom, who gave him a look that very clearly said: 'If you do not perform the Cruciatus on this rat, I will not hesitate to perform it on you.'

"Crucio." His voice wavered, and as a result, the curse wasn't nearly as powerful as Tom's (though only one or two of the other Knights had come even marginally close to producing a curse as strong as those that Tom had anyway). However, Tom was pleased when he saw the slight expression of despair disappear from Abraxas' face and get replaced with apparent calmness. By the time he spoke the words 'Avada Kedavra', Tom saw a significant amount of Abraxas' weakness disappear.

Such was the beauty of power.

Fridays were quickly becoming his favorite day of the week. With a full day of classes, his Knights meetings, and Tournament training, there was plenty to keep his mind off Rosemary Horton. Despite his ardent efforts to think of a fitting plot for his revenge on her, he had come up with little. He suspected that this lack of progress had something to do with his incessant mind-wandering whenever it came to her: he would be focused and determined one minute and the next he inevitably found himself replaying his memories of their recent sexual encounter (or sometimes fantasizing about new ones).

He knew he had to think of something, though. Perhaps he would sit down and converse with his diary that night after Tournament training – if anything could keep him focused, it was probably the past version of himself.

Though he still needed to allow Dumbledore to come to his Tournament practices sometimes to avoid suspicion, he had only provided the professor with half of the training dates. On the others, Tom snuck out of the castle through the Vanishing Cabinet that led to Borgin and Burkes and made his way to Diagon Alley. Fortunately, since the old fool had attended his practice last weekend, Tom was traveling solo that evening.

As always, Beaumont, Jennings, Fudge, and Tom met in The Leaky Cauldron for a quick drink before making their way to the large auditorium building in downtown London where Tournament competitors from all over Britain came to train.

"Where's Fudge?" Tom glanced at the wall clock and was surprised that the usually timely Leviticus had not yet arrived. "Is he meeting us at the training facility?"

"He's not coming," Raoul said slowly. "Sit down, Riddle."

Tom looked at Raoul and Jennings suspiciously. "What's going on?"

"There's been an…incident."

Had Fudge injured himself somehow, perhaps to the point where he could no longer compete in the Tournament? If so, this was nothing but good news to Tom. Not only would it mean one less competitor – Fudge tended to drag down the pace of their training sessions with Jennings.

"Altair Givense received a threat from Grindelwald himself earlier this evening: cancel the Tournament or suffer grave consequences."

Any of Tom's prior optimism about where this conversation was headed quickly dissipated. Altair Givense, President of the Tournament Administrative Board, had brought up the potential cancelling of the Tournament during the sponsor's meeting in December. Tom tried to sound nonchalant in his response: "He's bluffing. It's a power move, that's all."

"I'm not so sure about that." Raoul shook his head and then exchanged a brief look with Jennings. "I know how much the Tournament means to you, Tom…but it's reached the point that I need to pull our team out of it."

First Dueling Club and now the Tournament? In a flurry of enraged, devastated, and irrational thought, he wondered – was this just another of Horton's ploys? Was this some sort of practical joke to get back at him?

"You're kidding, right?"

Raoul sighed. "I don't know what to tell you, Tom. Given the political climate, it seems very unlikely that the Tournament will happen at all at this point. I'm certainly not prepared to have no return on investment…Besides, there is always next year."

"Coward," he spat, pushing his chair away from the table, his hands shaking he was so angry. "You'll pay for this, Beaumont."

"That went about as well as I thought it might," he heard Raoul mutter to Jennings as Tom stormed briskly out of the pub.

Tom fumed all the way back to Hogwarts, furious with the sponsor, but also more angry with himself than ever: he had been so distracted by Horton that he temporarily neglected his search for potential blackmail material to use on Raoul for this very situation. And now had lost a chance at the Tournament, a chance at redemption after his pitiful blunder last summer. He truly loathed them both in that moment, Beaumont and Horton.

Wait a moment – how had he forgotten? Horton had the key all along…now he just needed to get it out of her. While he had wanted to discover Raoul's secrets for himself, he supposed that desperate times called for desperate measures. In a stroke of sudden genius, it came together perfectly in his mind: a way to get what he needed from Horton, while simultaneously planting the seeds of his revenge.

Rosemary was in the middle of breakfast with Faye when she noticed Jasper's among the hundred or so others swooping down from the open windows of the Great Hall. Her heart pounded quickly: what excuse did she have to feed Faye that would explain why the older Donohue sibling was writing her? None.

"Dear Merlin. Look at Meghara Knox's outfit this morning – what is she thinking?" Rosemary gestured across the Great Hall to the Hufflepuff that had the habit of dressing rather eccentrically every day. Miraculously, this attempt at momentary distraction worked: Jasper's owl dropped the letter directly in front of Rose just as Faye turned her head.

She stuffed the letter into her bag and Faye turned back around, looking at her quizzically. "She always looks like that."

"It's worse than usual today in my opinion," Rosemary sipped her tea as her heart rate slowly returned to normal.

She didn't dare read Jasper's letter until she returned to the safety of her own dormitory that evening:

R –

Sales after the Ball were excellent, as you're probably well-aware already. With a few more tweaks we'll have created what is possibly one of the finest potions the wizarding world has ever seen. Great job so far…I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with next. Slug will have to watch his back or you'll be taking his job soon enough.

- J

That line near the end made her nervous: "I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with next." Rosemary had read through her brewing notes again and again during the past week, trying to find a way of improving the potion further, and she was fresh out of ideas. There were a few remaining erratic side effects of the drug that showed up in the Infirmary every so often that she had yet to tackle, but hadn't the slightest idea how to go about doing so. Even so, if she was going to make her deadline, she needed to begin a new batch that night. Perhaps something would come to her as she brewed.

Unfortunately, it was rather difficult to concentrate with Myrtle's perpetual whining. Rosemary was getting much better at tuning her out, but she knew that she desperately needed to find a better place to make the potion.

"If you arrive at a convenient stopping place, you might consider packing up," Myrtle said lazily.

Rosemary looked at her in confusion. "Why?"

"Someone's coming." Myrtle said this as though it was an obvious fact that Rosemary had just chosen to ignore.

"What?" Rose jumped to her feet and began gathering up the potion's ingredients as quickly as she possibly could, collecting them into their respective glass jars. "Can you at least try to stall them?" she hissed at Myrtle.

"Well, of course. Surely it wouldn't kill you to ask nicely, though."

"Myrtle, go!"

The ghost looked cheekily at her, but finally flew away toward the entrance to the lavatory. Rosemary had just levitated the cauldron into the nearest stall and carried the ingredients in with her when she heard Myrtle's squeaky giggle:

"You're every bit as handsome as I remember you, Mr. Riddle."

She was hit with an odd combination of relief and dread upon hearing this name. At least it wasn't a professor…but surely it was bad news if Tom was crossing into her territory.

Rosemary sighed and shouted, "It's okay, Myrtle. Let him in." She came out of the stall in which she had been hiding and began setting everything back up again that she just frantically packed away.

A few seconds later, Tom rounded the corner.

"We need to talk," he said crisply. "Now."

She stared at him blankly for a few seconds and then shrugged. "Well, you'll have to wait. I'm only halfway through the steps I need to finish today. The batch will be ruined if I stop now."

Tom strode closer to her, continuing to speak urgently: "I'm sure the school can survive for an extra day or two without your precious drug. Pack up your things."

"Either you can talk to me here or wait, but I don't have enough ingredients on hand to start all over again later."

"Don't try my patience, Horton," Tom eyed her warningly. "Let's go."

She stirred the cauldron, pretending that she hadn't heard him.

"Incendio!"

Rosemary jumped back from the cauldron as the potion inside suddenly burst into flame, quickly growing so hot that it began boiling over the edges and onto the floor of the bathroom. "What is wrong with you?!" she shrieked. Myrtle gasped and then burst into a fit of high-pitched laughter.

He looked at Rose unapologetically as he tucked his wand away, grabbed her arm, and pulled her off the floor. "I said, let's go."

She glared intensely at him and tried to rip her arm out of his strong grip as he led her from the bathroom. He dragged her along through the corridors and up a couple flights of stairs to the floor that their dormitories were located on. Not even a minute later, Rosemary was swallowing nervously as he pulled her into his dormitory and she heard the door's lock click into place behind her.

"I need you to tell me everything you know about Raoul Beaumont. And MAGI."

Raoul's story came rushing back to the surface of her mind and she felt compelled to protect him from whatever devious thing Tom was up to this time. "No. If he wanted to tell you he would have already. Clearly, he doesn't trust you."

"Understand this, Miss Horton: I am not asking if you'd wish to tell me. You will."

"No," she said defiantly. "It has nothing to do with you."

"There are many strategies I could employ," he continued on as though he hadn't heard her. "There's Legilimency of course, but that's no fun. I could use other magic – darker magic. I can assure that you would regret such foolish stubbornness."

She knew almost instantly what specific form of dark magic he was referring to. "You wouldn't do that…" She tried to sound confident and call his bluff, but her statement ended up sounding more like a question than anything. He certainly hadn't hesitated in the case of Warren – but wasn't she different? Didn't he care about her at least a little?They had slept together just two weeks or so prior…

"Wouldn't I?" he looked at her pointedly. Of course he would. He would get what he wanted out of her and erase her memory of the entire incident so she couldn't turn him in. Her uneasiness must have shown because a devious smirk suddenly appeared on his face and he said, "Now, it doesn't need to come to that…you could just cooperate, but that seems rather unlikely. Or perhaps we could negotiate a mutually beneficial arrangement."

It was obvious that he was getting what he wanted, regardless of whether or not she actually elected to tell him. With this in mind, she supposed it was in her best interest to opt for the agreement – surely this was a far better option than being subjected to the Cruciatus Curse. "What did you have in mind?

Tom's voice was smooth as silk when he responded: "Well, your boyfriend is clearly incapable at fulfilling certain needs of yours…"

"Unbelievable. You are so ridiculously full of yourself that I can hardly comprehend how your head is capable of fitting in this room." She didn't bother to inform him that she and Warren had split, mostly because she still didn't know for sure if they actually had.

Tom stepped close to her and brought his hand to her face. His fingers lightly brushed her cheek before trailing down her neck and over her chest and hip, before coming to rest on the front of her thigh, just below the hem of her skirt. His voice was low and seductive when he brought his lips close to her ear and said "Really? You don't want this at all?" As he spoke, his long fingers slipped under her skirt and lightly brushed against the bottom of her panties.

"No," she told him, but made no attempt to move. She had been so angry with him minutes before, for ruining her potion and dragging her along to his room in impatience, but it had all but completely escaped her mind with his body so close to hers and his fingers softly tracing her body.

"Are you sure?" A tiny moan escaped her lips when he slipped his fingers inside the fabric and began playing with the natural folds of her bare skin.

She closed her eyes, wondering how so many details of a single person could be so intoxicating: his scent, his confident, silky voice, his teasing touch…and on and on and on. Perhaps she should just assume that she and Warren were over – she had cheated on him after all and she couldn't exactly expect him to forgive her for that…

He was still stroking her when she answered: "In addition to this, I certainly expect that you replenish each of the potion ingredients you wasted…"

"Fine. Now tell me." He smirked, clearly pleased with himself. It made her loathe herself briefly, knowing that her weakness had only indulged his ego and arrogance, in addition to the fact that she had so quickly abandoned her fury toward him.

Rosemary walked past Tom and sat on his bed. "I don't know where to begin…It was one of the most depressing stories I think I've ever heard."

"Your personal sentiments are not necessary for my purposes," Tom said as he picked up a piece of parchment and a quill. "Begin."

She sighed. "Well, he worked at MAGI…the Head of something in safety…"

"Head of Regulatory Affairs and Product Safety," Tom said impatiently.

She nodded. "That sounds right. He had a wife, too…and a son."

"Interesting." Tom raised an eyebrow in apparent surprise. "Names?"

"I-er…Marcy, I think? And his son…Mark? No, that isn't right…Mathias." Rosemary was taken aback by his formality. "They both died about a decade ago. There was a tragic accident with a MAGI product that was supposed to be meant for children. Raoul hadn't signed off on it, but the company decided to test it anyway. They chose a nursey school to test it in – the same one that Mathias attended. I don't think that Raoul believes it was by coincidence, either. It's so fucked up…" She felt herself getting choked up just thinking about the whole thing again. "They offered him a significant sum of money if he kept his mouth shut about everything – if he didn't take it, they would have framed him for the entire incident. Ever since then, he's been on a mission to destroy MAGI. That's the whole reason he decided to become a sponsor for the Tournament – the connections, the potential information he could gain. Everything he does is to work toward his goal of taking down the company – even the whole alcoholic bit is just part of his persona so he seems unassuming and trustworthy."

Tom had stopped writing long before she finished speaking. He stared at her rather blankly and she wondered if learning Raoul's story had impacted him somewhat emotionally. Did he actually have a conscience?

She heard the lock slide out of place and the door swung open. "The reward for your cooperation will have to wait." Suddenly, Tom was putting on his winter coat and gesturing to the open door. Rosemary followed him into the corridor, a feeling of dread and guilt billowing inside her as she watched him walk briskly away from her down the dark corridor – Tom Riddle was on a mission.

What had she done?

"Like a drop of ink in water, the urge rushed to the surface and then slowly spread out and thinned until I was made slightly darker by it." ― Brielle A. Marino

Thank you to my lovely reviewers: Oksanallex, x2leoj, Mrs. WaylandOdinsonBlack, professionalgricfers, Alice Helena, Lady Ravanna, Queentakesjack, RosiePosie15, marly4077, and five Guests!

I'm curious about what you all think Tom's plan for revenge on Rosemary might be! Next chapter - Tom confronts Raoul about what he's learned and Rose gets some unexpected news from her parents.

Thanks so much for reading!(: