Dear Mr. Voldemort
Tom Marvolo Riddle was sitting at his desk, going through correspondence. It had taken him the better part of a year to regain his sanity and magical strength, after his inner circle had pointed out his odd behaviour to him and suffered through his following frustrations. Wormtail, who had refrained from pointing out the obvious to his master, had thereafter been demoted and was currently serving as a manservant, since the Dark Lord didn´t want to give him an opportunity to slip away unnoticed.
A snowy owl landing on his desk caught his attention, just as he was putting down the last of his unanswered letters to write a reply. Curious – Harry Potter was said to have a snowy owl after all, but would the boy really be so careless to send his familiar directly to the enemy? – Tom Riddle accepted the bundle of letters offered to him by the owl after checking them for curses routinely. The owl pierced him with another of her judgemental stares, before taking off again swiftly. Well, the writer at least didn´t expect an answer, he supposed.
The bundle was a stack of letters, bound together with a bit of string, a weirdly shaped bag attached to it with a string, the bag not larger than half his hand. Other than that, it didn´t seem very conspicuous, and the only indication that it was indeed for him was the flowery script decorating the uppermost letter, declaring it to be for “Mr. Voldemort, who-knows-where”. Odd. Anyone willing to write to him usually knew already where he resided, and certainly wouldn´t be calling him be that name. Admittedly, throwing a temper tantrum after realising just how uninspired his former chosen name had been and putting a taboo on it hadn´t been his most mature move, though it wielded the unexpected benefit of helping to strike terror in the hearts of his enemies.
Returning his thoughts to the letters in front of him, Tom Riddle took the letter with the flowery script and opened it carefully, then slid it out of the envelope. The first thing he noticed was that it was paper, not parchment. Written by a halfblood or muggleborn then. Most purebloods were too stuck in their ways to even imagine using something they closely associated with muggle culture. The second thing the Dark Lord noticed was that there were only a few lines of writing on the letter, carefully set into the middle of the piece of paper.
Dear Mr. Voldemort,
Can you please fuck off this year? I have exams.
Polite regards
Hermione Granger
Seriously? Did the girl honestly think he would change his plans because of a letter or two? Though, admittedly, it certainly was a new tactic. Setting the letter aside, Tom Riddle looked at the other letters, each decorated by a different script, declaring his address to be: “Mr. Riddle, maybe Malfoy Manor?”, Mr. You-Know-Who, what-do-I-know”, “Mr. Voldyshorts, definitely not Hogwarts”, and “Mr. Dark Lord, the Dark Lord´s study”. Repressing a chuckle, the Dark Lord finally grabbed the next letter, the one declaring him to live in “maybe Malfoy Manor?” and opened it.
Dear Mr. Riddle,
Can you please fuck off this year? I´m hungry.
Kindly
Harry
Right. At least the girl’s reasons made sense. This was just plain odd. Also, giving your enemy a piece of your handwriting? Not recommended. Did no one teach the boy about tactics at all? What was he thinking, of course no one taught him tactics. Dumbledore was leading the light after all. That man would rather eat his own foot than be truly useful to another person. How anyone could trust that man was still a mystery to the Dark Lord, but then why wouldn´t they, when they had so conveniently been taught to be sheep. Grimacing to himself, Tom Riddle took the third letter to open and examine it. It read:
Dear Mr. You-Know-Who,
Can you please fuck off this year? I´m hungry.
Kindly
Ron Weasley
p.s.: Why the fuck are we even doing this?
Unimaginative, Tom decided, but at least the boy had asked himself the same question he was currently asking himself. Why were they doing this? Were they so desperate to finish out their schooling – and eat, it seemed, for whatever reason that was relevant – that they would write to their enemy to not so politely ask for some time off, like they were writing to their boss for vacation time? That thought made the Dark Lord chuckle amusedly. Him. Potters boss. Sure. Like that would ever happen. It was more likely they would rip out each other´s throats again the next time they saw each other. Picking the last letter next, skipping the one declaring him to be “Mr. Voldyshorts”, Tom Riddle slid out the next piece of parchment.
Dear Mr. Dark Lord,
Have you seen a Crumple-horned Snorkack recently? If so, please send letter and photograph to the Quibbler.
Kind Regards
Luna Lovegood
Alright. That wasn´t any better than being called by horrendous nicknames. What the fuck even was a Crumple-horned Snorkack and why would he have seen one? Come to that, why should he be sending a letter to a newspaper and why would the girl even think about sending him a letter about this? He sighed. His enemies were getting odder and odder each year. Maybe he should give them a break, take a vacation himself instead of trying to kill Potter again – and probably failing, since the boy seemed to have fallen into a whole pot of Felix Felicis in childhood or something. Well, there wasn’t anything to it, but to read the final letter, wasn´t there? He picked it up and turned it in his hand twice, before finally opening it with a sharp dagger.
Dear Mr. Voldyshorts,
Can we bribe you with this muffin to please fuck off this year?
Kind Regards
Fred & George Weasley
The Dark Lord smirked. He certainly wouldn´t be eating the alleged muffin, but that didn´t mean he couldn´t impose it on someone he currently disliked. Say, a former inner circle member who most likely had fucked up something in the resurrection ritual? Oh yes, that would do. If it was funny enough, maybe he would indeed grant the teenagers´ wishes and let them graduate before taking over Hogwarts. That would ensure Draco Malfoy couldn´t accidentally blurt out his plans or fuck them up another way either.
“Honestly, that boy should have been in Gryffindor”, the Dark Lord thought, a shudder going down his back.
“Wormtail! Attend to me!”, Tom Riddle said, raising his voice just slightly so that the rat Animagus could hear him just outside the door to his study.
Quickly, the door opened, the disgusting wizard hurrying inside to grovel at his master´s feet. Tom Riddle looked at the creature – he couldn´t truly call it a wizard – with disgust, pushing his foot slightly forward so that Wormtail would grovel further away from him.
“Wormtail”, the Dark Lord said. “I have a task for you.”
“Yes, master”, the creature immediately agreed, bowing his head to the floor again.
Tom Riddle took the smallish bag from the table and opened it carefully to reveal a muffin, not touching the outside of it, but holding it with the bag instead. The muffin looked tasty, much like a blueberry or chocolate chip muffin with little bits interspersed within the pastry. It didn´t even smell weirdly or give off a tell-tale glow from a badly done charm or transfiguration.
“You will be eating this muffin”, Tom Riddle declared, his eyes glinting dangerously. “And you will be finishing it, no matter what happens.”
Wormtail blinked at his master for a moment, before jumping into action, tearing the muffin from his hands and stuffing it into his mouth hurriedly, not caring about the mess he was making in the process. Why did he have such useless followers again? Ah, yes, he had wanted to kill the Potters and taking on Wormtail seemed like the best option. Next time, he promised himself, he would just kill the secret keeper after he had been told the secret he was seeking, never mind the others who would become new secret keepers as well.
It didn´t take long for the effect of the muffin to become visible. Unlike what Tom Riddle had expected, the muffin had not been poisoned at all. It had however contained a potion of some kind that turned Wormtail into a pretty and colourful canary, chirping in indignation. Permanently, too, as a quickly cast spell told Tom. A grin spread across his face. Yes, he would be giving Hogwarts a year off with his plans, the Dark Lord thought. Maybe he should write back to Fred and George Weasley and request some more of their muffins to use on misbehaving Death Eaters. They truly were inspired.