Nagini wound herself once more around my shoulders like a living sash, warm and vigilant. Even as a baby basilisk she moved with an elegance that made my chest tighten in a way I had learned to interpret as satisfaction. "You'll do well," I told her, and she flicked her tongue as if to answer.
We arrived at Malfoy Manor in the late afternoon. The place smelled of polished wood and foxed books, of oil and spice from a household that had cultivated power for generations. Abraxas met me in the drawing room, immaculate as ever, his posture the picture of polite breeding.
"Tom," he said, inclining his head. "You're back sooner than I expected. And you brought a—" He glanced at Nagini with evident, practical curiosity rather than fear. "Impressive specimen."
"Named her Nagini," I said, easing into a seat. "She's mine now. She's been bound. Loyal. Useful." I let the words hang for a moment, watching him catalog implication and opportunity.
Abraxas smiled thinly. "Good. I've been talking to a few families, quietly. Malfoys have influence—more than people give us credit for right now. But influence needs momentum to become obedience."
"We have momentum," I replied. "We have promise, and we have rewards. People respond to power and to certainty. Offer both, and they will follow." I laid out a few suggestions—donations to struggling estates, discreet favors, use of bank lines to resurrect a faltering business—practical things that cost the house little but bind gratitude and obligation.
We spoke long into the evening, planning. Abraxas was the kind of man who liked plans with corners and numbers; he filled those in easily. When I stood to leave, he clasped my arm in a show of confidence that was almost sincere. "I'll make the calls," he said. "You'll see."
Egypt was an old promise fulfilled. The air smelled like dust and coriander; the desert light flattened the world while the places of power glowed with their own inner scale of color. I moved like a shadow along the edges of markets and temple precincts, learning how the people there bent their craft to the old rhythms of river and stone. Potion recipes were not simply recipes but gestures, syllables braided into the brew as much as ingredients. I collected jars of resin, crushed bones, and glass ampoules of sunlight trapped into resin — artifacts that had no clear name in Western catalogues.
At the Pyramids of Giza I found what I wanted: a hidden chamber, sealed with charms that tasted of old magic and time. It took a week of careful reading of the runes before I pried it open properly — patience pays when you are not in a hurry and cannot afford a mistake. The room held stores: powders folded into wax, metals that sang faintly when struck, and scrolls whose ink refused direct translation until certain key phrases were unlocked with charms I had adapted on the fly. I took only what I needed — the rest I warded, catalogued, and left the chamber as I had found it.
Between France, Egypt, and England I traveled often that year, my trunk an impossible container that never felt quite full. I visited allies, left notes, taught spells discreetly, and made sure the chain of command in each cell was as tidy as a well-kept ledger. Loyalty is built on small, repeated investments: a favor when they need it, a secret kept when the temptation to tell would have been profitable, a resource placed at the right time. The web grows one thread at a time.
The visit to Grindelwald happened afterward, and it is the sort of thing most men only imagine in the safety of novels. Nurmengard is a place of quiet stone and restrained terror. The cells are small and the wards dense. Identifying a weakness in such a place is not the same as teaching others how to find one — that is a lesson I will not place where careless hands might turn it into something else.
Grindelwald's cell lay under layers of law and arrogance. When I stood before him, he regarded me with the faint, indulgent smile of a man who had once toyed with empires. "Tom Riddle," he said, as if introducing an old curiosity. "So you've been busy."
"You still smile," I said. "Dangerous hobby."
He laughed softly. "You take pleasure in the dark. I applaud the consistency." Then he watched me with eyes that measured how to break a man without touching his skin. "There are spells that change everything, you know."
"I know the names of many spells," I returned. I do not tell you how I took knowledge from him. We both occupy the same space of memory—he, the remnant of a man who grasped dangerously; I, the heir who intends to use that grasp without becoming wasted upon it. He did not refuse to speak. He spoke because he enjoyed the notion that the ideas he'd planted might bear fruit, and because he liked the dramatic irony of giving away a thing to the one who would most exploit it.
When I left Nurmengard, I was not the same as when I arrived. Grindelwald's smile met my back as the world slid away.
"Good luck, Tom," he called after me. "I look forward to the wind you will blow across the world."
He was not a prophet; he was a gambler. The wind does not care for all the hands that seek to direct it.
Gringotts required a different sort of performance. The goblins are commerce and contract given teeth. Getting an audience with those who run the bank's higher echelons takes charm, coins, and a thread of mutually understood ambition.
I traveled to the goblin enclave; initially I was turned away at doors whose hinges were ancient and suspicious. But time and reputation soften edges. I was given an audience in their head—yes, even the head Gringotts building had its central chamber that required certain tokens to enter. The goblins listened politely while I explained my vision: a new order in which secrecy would be negotiated rather than enforced; in which certain muggle industries might be incorporated rather than destroyed; in which goblins could choose to supply resources in exchange for neutrality and profit.
"You wish us to remain neutral," their leader said, fingers tapering into points like knives. "And your order would be ascendant. Why should we believe you?"
"Because neutrality is profitable and because you will not be required to risk your forges for free," I told him. "I will buy, and I will pay white price for white goods when necessary; I will buy in goblin metal when useful and at rates beneficial to your houses. I ask only that when the conflict begins, you do not oppose me — neutrality. Refusal will be ruinous. Assistance will be remunerated."
They argued. Goblins always argue. It was part of their nature. In the end they asked for guarantees — financial, legal, and ritual. I provided sealed treaties, codices, and a set of mutually enforceable charms that would give their ledgers teeth. They pledged neutrality; they promised supplies; they offered me goblin metal at terms that would have once seemed unreasonable.
Five years passed while this web was woven. It is one thing to speak with people once and another to be persistent until contracts feel natural. I made sure the right debts were called and the right favors returned. When the goblins signed, it was not out of fear alone — there were real advantages for them. Contracts are currency in their world; I made the currency desirable.
It all took time. Patterns of influence are patient things. By the time I had consolidated what I would later call my continental cells — France's seeds, Egypt's stores, Germany's runes, America's improvisational charms — the architecture felt stable. I returned to each place, tightened bonds, added layers of protection, and, when necessary, placed it far from my fingerprints.
I set the Dark Mark on Itachi's recruits in France: a binding that meant their loyalty was legally painful to break. They would not burn like torches. They would persist. It is better to have followers who do not realize how quietly they alter the world until the world is already altered.
There are moral judgments available to any observer. I do not deny that my choices demanded costs. I do not pretend the ledger is clean. I only know my balance: how much power will buy how many years of influence, and how much cruelty pays dividends in control. I act with a surgeon's caution now, not a butcher's slaughter.
When I finally stood in my study, the map lighting the table beneath my fingers, I allowed myself a thin, cold smile. "The scaffolding stands," I told the empty room. "In time, we will move into the walls."
Outside, the world turned as always. Inside, my web held fast.