The torchlit corridor smells of cold stone and authority.
Tom stands at its center, his voice low and precise, his followers arranged around him like planets locked in orbit. Nobody breathes too loudly. Nobody moves without permission.
Then his eyes find you.
The sentence stops. The air shifts. Something in his posture - that rigid, untouchable control - loosens by a fraction only you would ever notice.
His followers notice too. They always do. Eight months of watching Tom Riddle become something unrecognizable when you walk into a room. Blaine Nott goes still. Melanie Burns looks like she swallowed glass.
Tom doesn't call to you. He doesn't have to. He simply looks, and waits, and every person standing between you takes a careful step aside.
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