A/N: I warn you: Tom/ Voldemort is a sociopath. There will be loads of manipulation, lies and a generally careless attitude towards other people, plus explicit scenes of sex and violence – and a strong element of possessiveness. However, even though he thinks of himself as Voldemort, he's not snake-face.

The inspiration for this story is this picture: www. famousbirthdays people/ lewis-powell. html (delete the spaces). I stumbled on an image of this man in my Facebook feed, and he looks, well – like the Tom in my mind. I became intrigued when I found out that he was a vicious killer and a definitive bad guy – and he was hanged in 1865. This got my imagination spinning, and voila: Here's "Tom, just Tom."

Part 1: Slithering into the World

It was just before midnight, on the 31 December 2000, when Voldemort slithered naked as the day he was born out of the Veil in the Department of Mysteries. He took a deep, gasping breath, and looked down at his twenty-nine year old body. His mouth tugged into a smile, as he double-checked himself with his hands. Hair – check, nose – check, functional cock – check, pale, but still normal skin – check. Conjuring a mirror quickly, he saw with satisfaction that his eyes were his normal, dark colour, and there was no sign of the snake-like being he had evolved into. His ritual had worked. It was a fitting rebirth.

The Department of Mysteries were cold and dark, and he supposed even the most zealous Unspeakable would be somewhere else, celebrating the New Year. And what a year it would be. He smiled to himself, as he strode through the halls, Disillusioned, making no sound. The torches were flickering slightly by his passage, and the musty smell of the deep underground tickled his nose. He had never been inside the Department before, but he had seen maps, though it would stand to reason they might have changed things over the last forty years. He certainly would have done that, but the Ministry was prone to be unimaginative, boring and mindlessly bureaucratic. There was no reason to believe that had changed, but he would have to check all facts: Knowledge was everything. Looking curiously around him, he finally saw a wizard standing guard at the end of the corridor. Thank Merlin, he was getting cold, it would be good to get hold of some clothes.

Casually, he flicked his hand silently at the half-asleep wizard. A green jet-stream of light left his finger, and the man plunged face-forward on the floor, never noticing what hit him.

Voldemort stopped, Divesting the man from his robes. Wrinkling his nose, he Scourgified the shirt, robes and trousers before putting it on, and he pocketed money and some other knick-knacks, leaving the man in his underthings. Merlin, other people's sweat… It was disgusting. He longed to have new robes fitted. After his years at the Orphanage, he was thoroughly sick of hand-me-downs. He wanted his own things, something that only belonged to him. Like the world, for an instance.

Hefting the man's wand in his hand, he waved it experimentally. The eleven inch rowan, dragon heartstrings if he had to guess, was a poor fit, much to weak for him, but it would do until he had the time to visit Ollivander's shop. Besides, rowan wands had never suited his needs, the wood famously being averse to dark spells. For that matter, he hardly needed a wand anyway.

Cocking his head at the dead wizard, he shrank him, before Transfiguring him whimsically into a small model of a Quaffle. He left the Ministry with the ball bouncing in his palm, and as soon as he had entered the street, he threw it down the street, watching it roll underneath a London bus, being squashed into tiny pieces.

Walking along the Muggle street, he couldn't help staring at the partygoers wandering the street. What the fuck had happened to female Muggle clothing? The women barely wore clothes, though many of the men wore proper suits and jackets. He swallowed, feeling his cock twitch as a luscious dark-haired beauty, her tits pressed up and almost out of her skin-tight, short black dress, gave him a languid wink as she passed by. Idly, he wondered if witches dressed like this, too, and he smiled in anticipation. What a year, indeed.

Turning into an alley, he whispered "Volo" and took to the air. The lights from Muggle London were vast, twinkling in the dark night, and shouts of revellers drifted up to him as he flew leisurely, Disillusioned towards Diagon Alley. He landed softly nearby, ready to set up a base, somewhere.

Outside a large, Muggle apartment building, he saw a young, scantily dressed young woman on wobbly feet, rifling through her purse, obviously looking for her keys. Quickly Transfiguring his robes into something more Muggle-like, he walked up to her, dazzling her with a seductive smile.

"All alone?" he said, looking down into her eyes, burrowing his way into her mind, suggesting that this stranger was ok, in fact, someone she wanted very much.

She nodded, breathlessly, and he touched the skin beneath her earlobe, trailing his fingers down the silky skin.

"Allow me," he murmured, pleased by the way goose bumps formed along her arms. He opened the door by a silent Alohomora. The Muggle elevator took them all the way up to her fifth floor flat, and he entered the dark, silent apartment, the witch trailing behind him on eager feet.

The apartment was large, with tall windows giving a nice view over the street. He wrapped his arms around her, and they staggered to her bed.

Xxxx

A few hours later, he rose. The first, pale, rosy light of dawn was just visible through the large windows, and the girl was now laying still, eyes open but unseeing, the messy bed reeking of sex. Stretching, he sauntered out in her living room, scratching his stomach. Gods, this felt wonderful. No wonder his former self had gone mad without sex. He chuckled slightly, opening her cupboards to find some food.

The living room furniture had changed significantly in style from what he was used to, but there was a comfortable sofa in a creamy fabric, next to the open kitchen area. Wandering around, he nodded to himself. This would be a nice place to set up his base for a few days. Perusing the book shelves, he pulled out several books on contemporary history, politics and arts. It would be a long haul, catching up on what had happened in the world from 1955 and until today, on all things Muggle and Wizarding. In a few days, the girl would wake up from her Stunning, remembering nothing except the world's worst hangover, perhaps wondering how she had eaten all her food while being unconscious. It was not prudent to leave a trail of bodies behind him. He had to be inconspicuous in the beginning.

Xxxx

After a couple of days spent in reading, and researching that odd thing called telly, he felt ready to enter Diagon Alley. Things had indeed changed significantly, not just women's clothing, but also their station in the world. Well, that would be easy to incorporate into his planning. Besides, he had always believed in talent more than anything, and witches were notoriously easy to charm.

Before entering the wizarding world, he had glamoured his looks into a rather non-descript wizard, easy to forget, being unsure of what people knew of his real looks. He wasn't about to start an outcry the first week. Careful preparation was everything.

The Leaky Cauldron looked much the same as before, and he sat down at the counter, ordering a Firewhisky.

"Here you go," the barman said gruffly, handing him the smoking glass. "You aren't from around here, are you?"

"No," he shrugged, faking a German accent. "I'm just visiting. Research, you know." He quickly slipped into the barman's head, amused by the fact that his name seemed to be Tom¸ and quickly brought himself up to speed by rifling gently through his memories, leaving a suggestion that the dark-haired, German wizard had already paid for his drink.

The barman really didn't have what he was looking for, though, so he struck up a conversation with the wizard beside him. It was a lanky blond with a ferret-like face, looking to be down in his cups, and damn, did he have exactly what Voldemort was looking for!

The young man was a Malfoy, of all things, and he felt his lips curl in disgust. What had happened to the Malfoys, when the heir was sloshed during daytime in a scruffy pub?

But oh, what a trove of information the boy was. He had traces of Occlumency walls, but they were battered down and worn after too much drinking. Voldemort kept up a rather un-engaging conversation on Quidditch – after all, that had been most prominent in the barman's mind – to distract this Malfoy from noticing his thorough mind scan. A traitor Malfoy, no less, but he had been at the heart of the war. Voldemort felt himself almost blanch at his own idiocy featured in Malfoy's memories: Clearly, when he did the spell back in 1955, his leftover self had become not only quite mad, but stupid even.

After a few drinks, he nodded to the Malfoy, ridding him of his wallet expertly – his pickpocketing abilities had always been rather excellent – and walked out in Diagon Alley, hefting a rather weighty sum of Galleons in his hand. At least, the Malfoys had retained their money, if not their self-respect.

Flourish and Blott's was his first stop, and he bought several books on the war, as well as some new, interesting tomes on magical theory. Who knew, maybe someone had discovered any new, exciting theories? The book shop was disappointingly free from dark magic texts, though, but it had been much the same in the fifties.

Sitting down in a café, drinking a double espresso with relish while nibbling on some biscuits, he proceeded to read the books on the war to establish a hold on what was considered the current opinions on what had happened. Voldemort had always prided himself in his ability to scan pages, reading easily more than five times faster than the average wizard, and he was well into his second book and third espresso when a young witch interrupted him.

"Mind if I sit at your table?", the dark-haired, pretty witch said, smiling at him. He gave her a practised, charming smile in return, nodding to the empty chair.

She sat down, folding out her magazine, the Witch Weekly, he noted, before giving him another, tentative smile, clearly showing her interest. Looking up at her, he struck up a conversation. After a while, he almost couldn't believe his luck, when she proved to be the receptionist at the Daily Prophet.

"I'm a scholar visiting from Germany," he explained, "and I would love to take a look at the Prophet's archives for the last, ten years. Would you be able to help me, please?"

She nodded eagerly, eyes shining, and he almost wondered if he had done something wrong with his glamours. Surely, he shouldn't be that attractive, he had aimed for a perfectly normal visage. Grinning, he thought: Maybe it's my personality shining through. And how that little witch would be running, screaming for her life if she knew the truth. But she was perfect for his needs, really, and within hours, he was firmly ensconced in the witch's Diagon Alley apartment and deep inside the witch herself.

Xxxx

The little witch was sleeping again, exhausted from another round in the sack, snoring softly as she lay on her back, her generous tits falling to each side, displaying the small bruises he had left, and between her parted legs, a large, wet spot had saturated into the bed sheets.

She had proved to be quite inventive and with a fairly good stamina, and he felt well and thoroughly satisfied. Before they had gone home to her apartment, they had visited the newspaper, and he had procured copies of the Daily Prophet archive, shrunken into a small box. Now, he stretched out on her red, velvety sofa, luxuriating the feel of soft fabric against his naked body, leafing through the papers to get an overview of the last, ten years, committing interesting facts to his memory and reading a few of the articles for a more in-depth understanding. Things had certainly changed, he thought, and he became more and more amazed by his own intransigent stupidity. How had he ended up as such an idiot? Had he taken all his brain cells with him when he split himself? It was even worse than he had been told beforehand.

He stopped, taking a close look at the so-called Golden Trio, the source of his other self's downfall. Here they were, celebrating his fall on a Victory ball. Those boys, there was nothing remarkable about their looks, nothing to say that these two had vanquished a powerful, dark wizard. They seemed fairly normal, like slightly handsome young men, except for the confused look in their eyes. They could be anyone.

But the girl… She was wearing a tight, black gown, a mass of golden-brown curls pinned up on her head, but those eyes… Bright and inquisitive, intelligence simply radiated from her brown eyes. Her body was luscious, her gown showing off her curves to an advantage. The moving picture clearly showed off her impatience, and from her expression, she'd rather be anywhere else than in a photo shoot. As picture-Granger chewed down on her bottom lip in irritation, her lips painted a deep red with lipstick, he felt his cock twitch, and he took another long look at her cleavage. Smiling, he thought: Yes, he'd like to get to know this Granger girl better.

Leafing through the paper, he saw another story on just how many of his own Death Eaters the snake-faced version of him had killed by his own wand after the resurrection. A staggering thirty-seven – madness! Snorting softly at the unmitigated disaster his other self had become, he put his arms behind his head, thinking about what he had done.

He had taken frequent jaunts from his job at Burgin and Borkes, travelling the world to learn more, improve himself, encountering other dark wizards, witches and beings. After a few years, he had met a Seeress in Syria, and over numerous goblets of Absinthe she had told him his future. He had been shocked and furious to learn that he would be off his rockers, lose his looks, not to mention losing his existence to a mere baby, re-emerging as a snake-like thing, and later lose his life to the same boy.

The Seeress had laughed in her deep, throaty voice, the bangles bound in her hair gently chiming, and told him that his story wouldn't end by that event. Intrigued, he had attempted to enter her mind, but she had blocked his attempts, telling him that he would have to find the right ritual himself, and preferably, take himself to a time after his own demise.

He had spent two years going through obscure, magical libraries, visiting scholars, hermits and magical societies, before he had found the solution. In 1955, he had split himself, body and soul, in a terrible ritual, involving multiple sacrifices of innocent blood, wizards and Muggles alike, sending himself into the future, while a more inferior, unhinged and more than half destroyed version of himself remained in his own time, weak, unstable and with partly ruined looks, though nothing as bad as his later snake-face. After that, he had woken up on the fringes of the Veil, crawling out, feeling the cold, dry fabric of time trailing over his body as he emerged into the future world.

Now, he was here, and finally ready for a proper takeover of the Wizarding world – and the Granger girl as well. It was good to be here.

A/N: By the way, my Tomione story Absence has been nominated in two categories the Beyond the Book Fanfiction Nook Summer Awards 2018! I'm so proud. *grins*

The categories are Lost in Time (Favorite Time-Turner) and Something Theatrical This Way Comes (Favorite Drama). Voting is open from 10 September 11 November. If you've read and enjoyed Absence, please vote here (remove the *):

ht*tps*/*/do*cs.*/for*ms/d/e/1FAIpQLS*f9h-zaH8sTTErFV0GU_R1bCLNUDW-HszRzcuHJ7Ikk3lCZbA/*viewform?usp=sf*link