I stood outside the Riddle family estate and stared at the house that had once belonged to my father’s family.
It was strange seeing it with my own eyes after only knowing it through memories.
This wasn’t some grand magical castle like Hogwarts or one of the ancient estates belonging to the Peverells or Slytherins.
It was a Muggle manor, old and respectable, sitting quietly away from the wizarding world.
Yet this place was important.
This was where Tom Riddle Sr.
had lived.
This was where my grandparents lived.
This was where the original Tom Riddle had once belonged before eventually murdering them both and erasing his own family name from his life.
I couldn’t help wondering what my future self had been thinking.
Then again, I already knew the answer.
He hadn’t been thinking about them as family.
He had considered his Muggle heritage an embarrassment and despised his father for abandoning his mother.
He’d murdered them because he hated weakness and because he wanted to sever every connection to his Muggle past.
I understood the reasoning, even if I thought the execution was idiotic.
There were countless ways I could have exploited a wealthy Muggle family without killing them.
Money.
Businesses.
Connections.
Investments.
Property.
Political influence.
Muggle technology.
The future was going to become increasingly important, and having a wealthy Muggle family already established in British society could be incredibly useful.
Killing them accomplished absolutely nothing.
That didn’t mean I suddenly cared deeply about my Muggle relatives.
I didn’t.
I needed to be honest with myself about that.
I wasn’t some completely different person who had reincarnated into Tom Riddle’s body and retained every emotion and moral principle from my previous life.
That wasn’t what happened.
Our souls had fused.
Tom Riddle’s memories were mine.
His instincts were mine.
His talents were mine.
His ambitions were mine.
His personality traits had become intertwined with my own.
I was still the person I had been before, but I was also Tom Riddle, and considering the strength of Tom’s soul compared to my previous one, I suspected that I was now more Tom than I was the person I had once been.
The result was something new.
Superior Tom Riddle, as the system had described it.
I could still experience remorse, affection, sadness, and empathy, but those emotions were selective.
If someone became genuinely close to me, if I considered them family or a true friend, their death could hurt me.
I could mourn them.
I could even feel guilt if I was responsible.
Everyone else, however, was different.
Strangers were numbers.
Enemies were obstacles.
Useful people were assets.
Dangerous people were problems.
And problems could be solved.
That realization didn’t particularly disturb me.
If anything, it made certain things easier.
I possessed the perfect mask, the ability to appear polite, helpful, innocent, and utterly harmless whenever circumstances required it.
I had a silver tongue and could tailor my speech to whatever audience I was dealing with.
I could appear vulnerable when vulnerability benefited me, particularly when playing the poor orphan card.
I could change my personality depending on the person standing in front of me, becoming charming for someone who valued manners, humble for someone who valued morality, ambitious for someone who respected power, and frightening for someone who understood nothing else.
Direct violence was usually inefficient.
Psychological pressure, blackmail, manipulation, and carefully applied fear were cleaner.
I could wait years for an opportunity if necessary.
I could build relationships, gather information, acquire resources, and slowly position myself until victory became inevitable.
I was curious to the point of obsession, particularly where magic was concerned.
Ancient rituals, forbidden spells, immortality, magical bloodlines, lost civilizations, obscure artifacts—I wanted to understand everything.
And beneath all of that was the same fundamental ambition that had driven Tom Riddle in his original life.
I wanted power.
I wanted immortality.
I wanted to rise above ordinary limitations and eventually rule the magical world.
Perhaps I had simply become better at rationalizing it.
I’m not evil.
I stared at the front door.
I’m simply willing to do what other people aren’t.
That was certainly what I intended to tell myself.
I knocked.
Several seconds passed before the door opened.
An elderly woman stood there.
Mary Riddle.
My paternal grandmother.
Her expression immediately changed when she saw me.
“Oh…” She stared at me.
I stared back.
She looked almost exactly as I remembered from Tom’s inherited memories, although those memories were distant and fragmented compared to the vividness of my own experiences.
She looked at my face, then my hair, then my eyes, as if trying to find something familiar within them.
“Can I help you, dear?” I gave her my best innocent smile.
“Hello.
I’m Thomas Riddle.” The effect was immediate.
Her eyes widened.
Behind her, I heard footsteps.
My grandfather appeared.
Tobias Riddle.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
Then my grandmother’s hand flew toward her mouth.
“Oh, my goodness.” My grandfather stared at me with disbelief.
“Tom?” I tilted my head.
“My name is Thomas, but everyone calls me Tom.” That was technically true.
My grandmother practically dragged me inside.
“Come in, sweetheart.” I allowed myself to be pulled into the house.
“Would you like something to eat?” “I’m not hungry, but thank you.” “Nonsense.
You must be hungry.” “I had something earlier.” “Then you can have something later.” I smiled politely.
“Alright.” It was almost comical how quickly she had accepted me.
She knew exactly who I was, of course.
They had known about my existence for eleven years, although they had apparently received little information beyond the fact that their son had a child with a witch and that the child had been raised in an orphanage.
My grandmother immediately began asking questions about my life, my education, whether I had been treated well, what I liked to eat, whether I had enough clothing, and whether the orphanage had given me enough blankets during winter.
I answered everything with the carefully constructed personality of a polite, intelligent, slightly shy orphan.
It was almost effortless.
My grandfather was more reserved, but even he seemed fascinated by me.
He studied me carefully, asking questions about school and what I intended to do with my future.
I answered intelligently but never too intelligently.
There was a difference between impressing someone and making them suspicious.
Then my father entered the room.
Thomas Riddle Sr.
The moment he saw me, he froze.
I immediately noticed it.
Fear.
Not fear of me.
Fear of what I represented.
His eyes went toward my face and then away again.
His body became tense, and for a moment he looked as though he wanted to leave the room entirely.
I knew why.
My mother.
Merope Gaunt.
From what I understood, my father had been subjected to magical coercion and manipulation by her.
His relationship with her hadn’t been a normal romance.
He had been controlled through magic and a love potion, and the experience had left him deeply traumatized.
Eventually, when the enchantment ended, he had fled back to his family and wanted absolutely nothing to do with her or the child she had conceived with him.
I could understand why he was traumatized.
I simply didn’t particularly care.
That wasn’t cruelty for cruelty’s sake.
It was simply emotional distance.
Thomas Riddle Sr.
wasn’t someone I knew.
He wasn’t someone I loved.
He was a biological relative who happened to possess something I wanted.
A family.
A name.
Resources.
Businesses.
And connections.
My grandparents, however, were different.
They had immediately begun treating me like their precious little grandson.
That was useful.
More importantly, it was surprisingly pleasant.
I had spent the first eleven years of my life in an orphanage.
Now I had elderly relatives practically fighting over who would feed me first.
My grandmother wanted to know whether I liked sweets.
My grandfather wanted to know whether I had any interest in business.
They both wanted to know about Hogwarts.
And I gave them exactly what they wanted.
I was charming.
Polite.
Intelligent.
A little lonely.
A little sad.
And incredibly grateful to finally have a family.
The performance was flawless.
Perhaps the funniest part was that some of it wasn’t even an act.
I didn’t particularly love them, but I didn’t hate them either.
My grandmother was kind.
My grandfather was useful and seemed genuinely interested in me.
They were my relatives, and perhaps that was enough for some small portion of the Tom Riddle inside me to care.
My father was another matter.
He sat quietly during much of the conversation, still visibly uncomfortable whenever the subject of my mother came up.
Eventually my grandfather looked toward him.
“Tom, he’s your son.” My father stiffened.
I watched him carefully.
Then I smiled.
“That’s alright.” My father looked at me.
“I’m not here to cause problems.” His expression became complicated.
“I know what happened between you and my mother wasn’t your fault.” That was perhaps the closest thing to genuine sympathy I had given him.
“She hurt you.” My father didn’t respond immediately.
Then he quietly said, “Yes.” I nodded.
“I don’t blame you.” That was a lie.
Or perhaps it was only partially a lie.
I didn’t blame him for what happened to him.
But I also didn’t particularly care about his pain.
I cared about what happened next.
My grandfather’s expression softened.
My grandmother reached over and gently touched my shoulder.
My father looked at me differently.
And I knew immediately that the mask was working.
Good.
I had already decided that I wanted the Riddle family businesses.
I wanted access to their wealth and property.
I wanted to understand exactly what they owned, how much money they had, and what could be expanded.
I had knowledge from my previous life that could eventually transform that fortune into something considerably larger.
The stock market alone represented an opportunity.
Then there was World War II.
Industry.
Manufacturing.
Technology.
Pharmaceuticals.
Communications.
Later, computers.
Eventually the internet.
Satellites.
Biotechnology.
All of these things could become useful.
The wizarding world was going to remain trapped in the past unless someone dragged it forward.
I intended to be that person.
And having a Muggle business empire would make that considerably easier.
My grandparents seemed delighted by the possibility of having a grandson who could eventually inherit the family.
“You’ll have to learn about the business eventually,” my grandfather told me.
I smiled.
“I’d like that.” “I’ve always wanted to learn.” That made him laugh.
“You’re eleven.” “I can still learn.” “Very ambitious.” I gave him a small smile.
“I suppose I am.” You have absolutely no idea.
There was something else I noticed during the conversation.
The Riddle family wasn’t as impressive as my magical bloodlines.
Slytherin.
Peverell.
Le Fay.
Pendragon.
Those were ancient magical dynasties.
The Riddle family was merely Muggle.
Ordinary.
At least, that was how I would have thought about them before discovering the Pendragon bloodline.
Now?
I couldn’t help looking at them differently.
If the system had genuinely rewritten history, then the Riddle family was technically part of the Pendragon lineage.
That made things more interesting.
Perhaps I didn’t need to think of them as Muggles anymore.
They were descendants of Arthur Pendragon.
My family.
My blood.
My inheritance.
I almost laughed at how convenient that was.
See?
They’re not really Muggles.
They’re ancient Pendragon descendants.
That sounded much better.
For the sake of my sanity, I decided I would simply tell myself that.
My grandparents were surprisingly pleasant.
My father was damaged by his experiences with my mother but could potentially be useful.
And the family possessed wealth that I could expand dramatically over the coming decades.
There was no reason for this family to end with me murdering everyone.
That was the original Tom Riddle’s mistake.
He saw his family as an embarrassment.
I saw them as an opportunity.
And perhaps…
A very small part of me saw them as something more.
Family.
Not enough to make me sentimental.
Not enough to make me abandon my ambitions.
But enough that I wouldn’t casually throw them away.
I wasn’t the original Tom Riddle anymore.
I was something more dangerous.
I possessed his ambition without his impatience, his genius without his shortsightedness, his charisma without his arrogance, and his ruthlessness without his obsession with destroying everything connected to his past.
I could wait.
I could smile.
I could love selectively.
And I could build.
The original Tom Riddle had tried to conquer the world by becoming something feared.
I intended to become something the world couldn’t afford to oppose.
As I sat at the dinner table that evening, listening to my grandparents talk about the family business, I smiled pleasantly while already planning what I would do with it.
My first life had ended.
Tom Riddle’s original future had been erased.
And now I had something the original Voldemort had never truly possessed.
A second chance.
Not at becoming a better person.
I wasn’t sure I wanted that.
A second chance at becoming better at everything.
That was much more interesting.