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Tom Riddle had just sat down for another breakfast alone, the third in a row, and had barely read the front page of the Daily Prophet when he thought he felt the floor begin to rumble. No, it was definitely rumbling with enough force that his teacup had begun rattling against its saucer.
Quickly, he stood, and made his way to the front window of their cottage. He caught sight of his fierce little wife, and watched her long enough to see her hold her middle finger up at him, and then was overwhelmed by intense heat and a deafening roar just before Fiendfyre began tearing through their home.
Tom ran for it, making it to the Floo and stepping through to Borgin and Burke’s with only his wand and the clothes on his back. As irritating as it was, he found he could not truly blame her for her fury, even though he had never intended for her to find out what he’d done.
“Mr. Riddle,” the decrepit old Caractacus Burke called out. “You’ve just had an owl!”
Tom took the envelope and immediately recognized the neat handwriting. She had written to him?
Burke appraised him warily as he ripped open the letter. “Are you aware that your robes appear to be smoking, son?” He then peered down at the contents of the envelope and gave a deep chuckle. “Trouble with the missus, then? Witches tend to overreact, but always come to see sense eventually.”
Had it been anyone else, Tom may have killed him on the spot, but, fortunately for Burke, he needed that job to further his plans.
It was not a letter, but a photograph. Specifically, their wedding photograph. She had scratched red X’s over his eyes and drew what were unmistakably devil horns on his head. The small version of her in the photo was bludgeoning him with her bouquet, her curls falling from their pins and rose petals flying everywhere.
“Unfortunately, I have no one to blame for this but myself,” he replied through clenched teeth.
“What on earth?!”
Burke’s alarmed tone pulled him from his rumination, and he looked up from the photo to see Burke leaning over what appeared to be a wind up toy beetle. How the odd little thing got there, he had no idea, but he caught sight of at least three more around the shop. It was bright blue with offensive little orange legs that abruptly stopped walking with a click! once it had come level with them. They both watched and then—
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Shards of glass, splinters of wood, and cursed objects flew around the destroyed shop like shrapnel. Tom watched the withered old Burke hit the ground, clutching his chest as blood poured over his fingers, but there was nothing he could do for him as the ceiling, and the flat above the shop, began to fall in on them.
He cast a shield charm around himself and only just saved himself from being buried under an enormous armoire.
As the destruction settled, Tom was faced with the indignity of being buried alive in the rubble, trapped by anti-apparition wards. Screams from the street could be heard as he carefully began to levitate objects from his path. He had only just made it to the back entrance of the shop when he felt the summons through his mark. Multiple summons.
First Abraxas, then Nott, followed by Lestrange, and finally from Orion. His four lieutenants.
Logically, he could only assume that they had faced similar assaults from toy beetles, or at the very least some other kind of surprise attack.
Tom didn’t even bother to dust himself off or check his injuries as he made his way over the apparition boundary. Abraxas was his right hand, so that is where he would go first.
With a crack of apparition, he landed in front of the Lodge, a luxurious cabin on the Malfoy estate that acted as headquarters for his operation, just a few paces from Abraxas himself and a magical bonfire made of bluebell flames.
Her signature.
“What is the meaning of this?” He spat out, ignoring the slightly amused expression on Malfoy’s face as he took in his disheveled appearance.
“I was going to ask you the same question. The wards alerted me to a disturbance, and I arrived to find your wife burning books.”
Tom’s eyes snapped back to the bonfire, and sure enough, her pyre was made up entirely of his collection of ancient and rare dark tomes.
“She also told me to ‘go fuck myself.’” Abraxas gave a dry chuckle, as if impressed by her daring. “What have you done to earn such ire? It must have been bad if Hermione, of all people, is burning books.”
In the span of an hour, she had destroyed his home, his job, his books, and who knew what else.
“Fortunately, I know right where I went wrong,” he replied tersely. “Unfortunately, there is nothing I can do to fix it.”
Not that he would, if any such opportunity presented itself.
Tom then heaved a great sigh as Nott arrived with his wand between his teeth and missing both arms, collapsing to the dirt in a bloodied heap.
Who knew how far she had actually gone for her revenge, but he felt as though it would take many years to unravel it all.
Lesser men would have been emasculated if their wife had staged such an attack against them, but Tom was impressed. Firstly, because the intelligence that went into planning such a full scale attack in just three days was one of the primary reasons he had married her, and secondly, he, admittedly, deserved it.
And didn’t she always give him just what he deserved.
Hermione was the only witch who had ever seriously caught his eye, and she, through her tenacity and intellect, had taught him that love was a very real thing.
Yes, he knew right where he had gone wrong. Tom knew exactly what it was that sent her on such a rampage, and almost felt remorse over it. Almost.
As it turns out, a witch of Mrs. Hermione Riddle’s caliber did not appreciate him using their permanently bound souls to create a Horcrux, and thus tying her to him for all of their immortal lives.
Tom would let her run for now, but there was nowhere on the globe she could hide from him. He would have her back eventually. After all, eternity was a very long time.