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The night has been darker than ever before and the stars have shone brighter than they've done in a long, long time, when angels haven been wheeping and demons cackling and Tom Marvolo Riddle has been born.

We write the date of December 31st, 1860, and our ink is the deepest black imaginable because of the terrible story we're to write down, ink darkened with a sinner's soul, crow feathers and the horror one feels who actually knows about the monster who's been given birth to on this particular Monday.

His mother, Merope Gaunt, has cursed her child without knowing it, not because she's died in labour but because her beautiful son shall never be able to love. Driven by lust and greed - or love as Merope's called it - the young woman has done everything to make her wealthiest and most handsome whoremonger fall for her, daydreaming about being Mrs Tom Riddle all too often.

She's tried everything in her power, everything that's been possible for an ordinarly harlot like her, including buying several potions and powders from seedy old women, well versed in magic and such otrageous witchcraft. While Merope's spent her time and salary often on charaltans, it seems like she's had luck at least once, drugging Tom Riddle until she's been pregnant and had convinced him to run away with her, the two of them ending in London - where he's regained full control over himself, parting from the girl and his unborn sun as fast as possible, returning to his worried family and leaving Merope heartbroken and lost in this big, stinking city - not for long though, she's died soon enough after that.

Her son's grown up in an orphanage, feared by children and even staff, standing out with his striking beauty, sharp wits, many gifts and habit of tormenting others, latter leading to Professor Albus Dumbledore visiting, deeply respected for his work as psychologist and especially his work with children. Handling Tom as "interesting case" and having his name always on his lips probably due to the fact, that a good-hearted matron has prevented him from taking Tom with him because she hasn't deemed him good for the boy, whom she's taken a liking in, many have soon known of the utterly talented yet cold boy, including Horace Slughorn, a dear friend of Albus and widely-known as pharmacist.

Slughorn has immediately taken an interest in the extraordinary child and as the golden-hearted, gushy man he is, he's of course decided to adopt the orphan.

The young matron, who's been highly fascinated and enamoured by Tom, hasn't been able to speak against her boss again, who's been truly relieved about this brood of Satan to finally leave her house. No more struggles with eery boys for Mrs Whool, that's for sure.

Slughorn's been the best what could have happened to Tom: providing never-ending knowledge and several teachers, lucious meals and a freedom Tom's never known before, he's grown cultured and well versed in music and some much more infamous topics, especially because Slughorn has introduced his ward to his exclusive elite clubs, boasting with the talented boy in front of his more or less famous friends and seating Tom at the opposite chair of his own when he's hosting the Slub Club, consisting of the most talented descendants of Slughorn's friends.

And you can only imagine how proud and full of glee Slughorn's been, when Tom's proclaimed that he'll ground his own club with the creme de la creme of the Slug Club. Of course Tom hasn't told the whole truth just like he always does, but obviously he hasn't just made a whole new club just to cherish the fine arts, make music and recitate poems, discuss about literature and religion and fashion, listen to Tom's newest composition and Lestrange's writing, throw Avery's money out of the window, dance with each other while one of them is accomponying them or watch Walburga Black dance in her trainings tutu, Tom supporting her because Slughorn has also sent him to ballet classes but Tom's been just too old when starting it, he wouldn't ever be really good at it - and still he's the most flexible male of them and additionally the only one who's experienced ballet training and consequently the only one who can dance properly with the female Black.

Indeed, these activities are still hold high and part of the meeting of the Knights of Walpurgis but just because they're fun and popular among young adolescents. However, they're mainly concentrating on alchemy, especially its most importang aspect: immortality. And because the more or less established methods haven't proven themselves as fully right and useful, the Knights of Walpurgis take advantage of older and more powerful ways to achive their goal - and there are enough strays in London to be honest.

And because those little sacrifices haven't seemed to do their duty as Tom's still bleeding red, it's obvious that they maybe need bigger... victims... so it's been pretty convenient that Tom's found his real father - and of course his expectations have been much too high but how wouldn't they be when music is streaming through his body and this definitely couldn't be the case if dirty blood was circulating instead of harmonies.

Burning Jews are the best Jews - and now nobody will ever know that they're related. Tom Marvolo Riddle, son of a Jew? No, not at all.

And while the Knights of Walpurgis have sacrificed the Riddles and an innocent girl, called Myrtle Warren, Slughorn's gone to Vienna because he's a lover of the fine arts after all and vienna's like the capitol of art and music, sorry Paris.

But after some time, Slughorn's grown sick of always hearing about the Austrians and German and French - even the Polish - but what about the men of his home? Men like his ward?

The next letter Slughorn's sent Tom has been containing an order: Outshine the big, make something new and special. And when his work's finished, he should come to Vienna.

And a young man never comes without his gang.

Especially when they've worked with Tom at the ballet he's composed the music for and think that they'll maybe be able to gather more knowldege about their goal of never ending life because Austrian alchemists have been quite successful and perhaps Nicholas Flamel's moved to another country than France because he obviously can't stay in one place for very, very long.

However, we haven't dipped our black quill into just as dark ink to write about Nicholas Flamel - no, not at all. They probably don't even need him because the primaballerina they'll encounter is capable of real magic - not that they'd know until Wilhelmina curses Rosier for sexually assaulting her friend.

𝖈𝖆𝖘𝖙

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𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖇𝖆𝖑𝖑𝖊𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖆

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𝖂𝖎𝖑𝖍𝖊𝖑𝖒𝖎𝖓𝖆 𝖂𝖆𝖌𝖓𝖊𝖗 as this blonde girl (Stepping Stones by Daniel F. Gerhartz)

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𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖈𝖔𝖒𝖕𝖔𝖘𝖊𝖗

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𝕿𝖔𝖒 𝕽𝖎𝖉𝖉𝖑𝖊 as this dark haired guy (Photography of an unknown Victorian gentleman)

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𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖐𝖓𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙𝖘

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𝕬𝖇𝖗𝖆𝖝𝖆𝖘 𝕸𝖆𝖑𝖋𝖔𝖞 as Bertil Löfström
𝕱𝖆𝖇𝖎𝖚𝖘 𝕬𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖞 as Eduard Bendemann (Portait of the painter Eduard Bendemann by Friedrich von Amerling)
𝕯𝖊𝖎𝖒𝖔𝖘 𝕷𝖊𝖘𝖙𝖗𝖆𝖓𝖌𝖊 as Johann Strauss, the Elder (Portait of Johann Strauss, the father, by Friedrich von Amerling)
𝕭𝖊𝖓𝖊𝖉𝖎𝖈𝖙𝖚𝖘 𝕸𝖚𝖑𝖈𝖎𝖇𝖊𝖗 as Louis Alvin (Portrait of Louis Alvin by François-Joseph Navez)
𝕺𝖗𝖎𝖔𝖓 𝕭𝖑𝖆𝖈𝖐 as Joseph von Eichendorff (Portrait of Joseph von Eichendorff by Friedrich von Amerling)
𝖂𝖆𝖑𝖇𝖚𝖗𝖌𝖆 𝕭𝖑𝖆𝖈𝖐 as Girl with a bust by Friedrich von Amerling
𝕳𝖆𝖉𝖗𝖎𝖆𝖓 𝕽𝖔𝖘𝖎𝖊𝖗 as Theodor Alconiére (Portrait of the painter Theodor Alconiére by Friedrich von Amerling)

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𝖜𝖆𝖗𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌: this story's set in victorian era but i've not lived back then, so if you see any mistakes, please tell me, and if you're interested in this era and know stuff, pls pm me! i love learning and i definitely need to know more for this story, but yeah. and i'm no ballerina, whatever, pls kindly inform me abt my mistakes and pls pm me in general, like- also, i've looked victorian slang up and stuff, but i honestly am too dumb to write normal victorian speech, just make my dialouges fancy in the comments, if you wouldn't mind-
it's been quite fancy to be antisemitic so tommy is bc he's an arse in general, we don't stand such behavior >:(
also, this story isn't romantic, everything with tom in it is toxic af, i'm sorry. and maybe you've noticed, there is gonna happen some weird, occult shit, murder, gore, sexual assault, have i mentioned blood yet?
also, the pictures and gifs aren't mine, they belong to their rightful owners, just like all characters out of the harry potter universe, however, my plots and characters belong only me

𝖈𝖗𝖊𝖉𝖎𝖙: -LOVISDYINGINSIDE, thank you so much, ily, the cover is heavenly, the moodboards are heavenly, the shrinking of the gifs is perfect- you're just pure talent

𝖉𝖊𝖉𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓𝖘: Oh_honeyz,  clhust,  flawsxme, -LOVISDYINGINSIDE ,  90sgranger, nvptxne, buckeybrns, LANALLAMA05, sayonaraslutwhore, M-Morosis, -txgersnow-, Cilicia7, melodramagalore, mionesthrone

all of you are amazing, here you have my heart (#¡^¡) =❤️