“You are an angel, Tom,” said the sweet voice of a middle-aged woman with books in her arms.
Tom smiled sweetly at the woman dressed as a nun whom he had just helped by carrying even more books in his little red cart.
“No problem. I like helping you, director!” he smiled even more.
“I know, you are a piece of heaven,” the woman laughed. “Why don't you come tomorrow and get some books? I'll have them ready for you as a thank you for your help, dear.”
The little jumps that Tom began to make managed to elicit laughter from the woman, who looked at him sweetly, delighted with the innocence of childhood.
“You are the best!” declared the boy. “Rest assured that I will come tomorrow to help you and to read.”
“I will be waiting for you, Tom,” nodded the director of the orphanage.
Tom waved goodbye with a beautiful smile on his face, before turning around and erasing the smile out of nowhere, his face now showing an incredible coldness that was not at all natural for a child of his age. His emerald eyes released a slight malicious glint, a thirsty glint.
But it was only natural since Tom Riddle was actually Harry Potter, a wizard over thirty years old with incredible power and knowledge that would leave many open-mouthed. His knowledge of magic and its branches of "light" and "dark" would not be normal for many, much less for The Chosen One, the Symbol of Light. But Harry had long since stopped being that child of light after the destruction of everything he loved.
When he defeated Voldemort, Harry thought he could live a normal and quiet life, deciding that he would first travel the world before deciding what he wanted to work on, perhaps as an Unspeakable or a Duelist. His encounters with the Deathly Hallows had awakened in him a desire to know more about magic, both light and dark, and even more about death. His travels around the world were not just vacations, but journeys of knowledge.
When he returned ten years later, Harry was now a twenty-seven-year-old man with handsome, aristocratic features worthy of the mix of noble blood that ran through his veins, from the ancient Peverell line, to the noble Black line. Harry had returned, and had decided that the lure of death was too much and being an Unspeakable was his path.
Unfortunately, it was not long before he turned twenty-eight, and some careless idiots accidentally revealed the wizarding world to the muggles, and the muggle reaction was even worse than expected by many, even among those muggles who had knowledge of magic.
Overnight, with no peaceful treaty possible, a terrible war broke out, with Muggles hunting down witches and wizards and even killing their own family members at the slightest suspicion of magic. It was like going back to the time of the Salem Witch Trials, but with worse weapons and more Muggles than magical beings.
Magical creatures were hunted to the point of extinction, and captured wizards were killed as well. Soon, nothing could stop the Muggles and they were able to enter magical societies, destroying them from within. It wasn't murder, it was a massacre, an extermination, genocide.
Harry saw those he saw as family and friends die. Molly herself died destroying a platoon of Muggles who killed Arthur. After this, the Weasleys were not the same.
And neither was Harry.
It was years of pursuit, flight and loss before Harry realized that he was the Master of Death. It was then that Hermione, the brilliant mind that she was, had an idea that would change everything.
“There is only one way to fix all of this. You have to go back in time.”
That was what Hermione said, determined and in pain, wishing for nothing more than the destruction of the muggles, who had wiped out the Weasleys, her family after having to Obliviate her parents following the war against Voldemort. The war had destroyed many, and even those who had once wanted a good relationship with the muggles ended up being the best hunters and torturers towards them.
Harry never thought he would see Ron use the worst curses against muggles, whether they were innocent or not. He never imagined he would see Hermione use the worst potions to wipe out dozens of muggles. He never thought he would see sweet Luna torture muggles. Harry never thought he would see so many of them, who had once fought for the survival of the Muggles, be the executioners of these.
But in the eyes of the magical beings, no Muggle was innocent. They had ceased to be innocent when they killed their babies, their children, their siblings and parents.
"You are the Master of Death, the only one who can survive such a journey."
That's what Hermione had told him, and Harry had nothing to fight back with, since he himself knew the kind of power they were using and the kind of power they would need for the trip to be successful. So he accepted the mission and the small group of survivors created the ritual, a dark one that asked for sacrifices to send Harry back in time in order to fulfill the great plan.
“Don't let the muggles poison our world.”
The world had been destroyed after the war. The waters were poisoned, the plants didn't grow and the animals no longer gave birth. Magic had turned its back on the world. Truly, the world had become the apocalypse and Harry now had to travel back in time and kill all the muggles to avoid such an end.
Except that he ended up very far in the past, and not even in his own body.
No.
Harry had woken up in the arms of his now deceased mother, Merope Gaunt, as she named him Tom Marvolo Riddle and left him at the orphanage, leaving nothing to his name but a name that would be well known in the future.
Harry had been confused and even somewhat amused to have ended up in the body of his former enemy. However, he decided to use this to his advantage. Tom had always been known not only for being a man of immense beauty, but for his great magical power and his equally dangerous mind. For his plan, he had to gain power to be able to wipe out the muggles and his Slytherin blood, his beauty and his immense magical power would give him power.
But Harry had to be smarter than Tom. He couldn't let the muggles suspect the slightest thing, much less Albus Dumbledore and his stupid desires to save the muggles. Harry had to play the game better than Albus and better than Tom Riddle himself if he wanted to stop the dirty muggles from destroying his world.
So, without knowing the kind of devil they lived with, Tom took on the personality of a loving, calm and innocent child, quickly becoming everyone's favorite in the orphanage. No one suspected the dark being that wanted to swallow each one of them. But he had to hold on, it was not yet time to finish off the muggles, it was still too early.
But his time would come.
And once Tom Riddle set foot in Hogwarts, he would come like a storm that would take everyone with him and change the magical world forever.