The Graves family's defensive system wasn't particularly intelligent. The entire assault had come in the form of atmospheric phenomena, which the wards had categorized as natural weather variation and never flagged as a threat. It was only after the protective barrier shattered completely that the alarm finally reached the people inside, sending them spilling out of the manor in clusters.
Every single one of them stumbled to a halt, shuddered violently, and sucked in a sharp breath cold enough to rattle their teeth.
What in the world was this temperature?
Once they'd worked through that initial shock, they noticed the figure standing at the center of the storm.
"Who are you!"
A wizard had his wand out, voice tight with suspicion. He had initially assumed the wards had malfunctioned somehow, but this weather wasn't natural, and this stranger hadn't appeared from nowhere by accident. Something was very wrong.
Tom walked out of the whirling snow, and the Graves family members finally registered what they were looking at.
The person who had broken through their ancestral estate's defenses was a teenager.
Tom swept his gaze across them. Twelve, maybe fifteen people total. His primary target wasn't among them. He spoke without ceremony.
"Where is Robert Graves?"
"I'm Benjamin Graves, Robert's younger brother." The same wizard who had challenged him first. "Tell me who you are. If you don't identify yourself right now, I will act."
"He's Tom Riddle!"
The voice came from somewhere in the back of the crowd, sharp with rage. Frank pushed his way to Benjamin's side, jaw clenched hard enough to ache.
"The one who attacked me. The one who attacked Uncle Robert. That's him."
Riddle.
In a single instant, every member of the Graves family turned on Tom with the same hostile expression. Remarkably unified for a group that hadn't coordinated it.
"Riddle." Benjamin stepped forward, holding back his family members who were already itching to move. He wasn't a foolish man, if anything, he was the sharpest mind the Graves family had produced in a generation. Which meant he also understood that Tom wasn't a foolish man. Walking up to their front door with this level of casual arrogance meant one of two things: either the boy's own power was enough to back it up, or there was something, or someone, concealed nearby.
Benjamin's eyes swept the surrounding area in rapid, careful passes, looking for any sign of backup. He found nothing. The ground had been swallowed by white, every footprint erased, no anomaly anywhere.
"It's fine," Tom said, shaking his head lightly. "Robert not being here doesn't really change anything. You'll all do."
He reached back with one hand and flicked his wrist. The sign planted at the entrance expanded several sizes in an instant, its blood-red letters now large enough for every person present to read clearly.
GRAVES AND DOGS, NO ENTRY.
"What did you just"
"Outrageous!"
"He's insulting the Graves family, seize him!"
Every person in the courtyard erupted at once. Wands were out across the board. The moment Benjamin gave the word, they would bury this boy under every vicious curse they collectively knew.
"I came here today specifically to do this," Tom said pleasantly, opening the case in his hand. "No need to rush. Come one at a time if you like. All at once is fine too."
He reached into the case and began hurling white dueling gloves into the crowd. He threw them hard. Each one that connected left a sting. The Graves family members stood there in stunned disorientation, this boy had brought enough white gloves to supply a small market. Did he carry them wholesale?
Benjamin's careful composure finally cracked. Whatever restraint he had been holding onto dissolved under the relentless, cheerful provocation.
"Riddle. You just used magic, didn't you? You're in violation of the Statute of Secrecy. It doesn't matter that you're a British wizard, this is North American jurisdiction. I will have you handed to MACUSA for trial."
"Stupefy!"
Decision made, he stopped worrying about proportionality or protocol. The curse had been building in his wand since the moment Tom walked out of the storm, and he released it at maximum speed, no warning, no restraint.
Tom extended one hand, palm open.
The spell hit his palm and stopped. Its arc of light crackled between his fingers for one brief moment, then Tom closed his fist, and the light vanished entirely.
"That's impossible." Benjamin stared. He found himself genuinely questioning whether his own spellwork had failed, but this was a Stunning Spell, a third-year student couldn't fail to cast it.
"Uncle, what was that, move aside, let me."
Frank fixed Benjamin with a look of profound disappointment and stepped up. His uncle had the brains of the family, fine. Apparently that was all he had.
"Reducto!"
If there was one person in the Graves family who hated Tom Riddle with every fiber of his being, it was Frank. His entire identity, the prodigy, the elite wizard, the golden future of a great family, had been obliterated the moment he was left hanging from a wall in Hogwarts. He had wanted to make Tom pay ever since. But back at school, with Dumbledore and the other professors watching everything, he hadn't dared move.
This was his chance. He didn't even need to kill him. Get him arrested, get him behind bars, and Tom Riddle would rot quietly and that would be that.
The same scene played out again. The same hand. The same fist closing around his most powerful curse like it was nothing.
That finally convinced the gathered Graves members that something was genuinely, deeply wrong here.
Tom moved.
One light step, and he was gone from where he stood, leaving only the trailing ghost of an afterimage as he crossed the distance to Benjamin in an instant. Something was in his hand. Nobody had seen him produce it.
A brick.
He brought it squarely down on Benjamin's head.
A sharp crack rang out across the snow-covered courtyard.
The brick shattered. Benjamin's head split. His eyes rolled back and he dropped to the ground.