— — — — — —
"Ow ow ow!"
Tom was yanked back by Hermione, grimacing, though his eyes stayed glued to that performer's belly.
It wasn't lust. He just felt it'd be disrespectful to the artist's hard work to look away before the performance finished. Plus, he wanted to ask what brand of tung oil she'd used. It was ridiculously shiny.
"Tom!"
"Yeah yeah, I'm here."
The boy reluctantly tore his gaze away from the stall. "So, what do you wanna buy?"
"This one?" Hermione picked up a silver bangle and tried it on her wrist. "What do you think?"
"How much?" Tom asked.
"Thirteen sickles."
Tom gave it a glance and said in Arabic, "This silver layer is electroplated. They used a reduction process and an oxidizing agent… huh? They added too much aqua regia. Look closely. Here—see how rough it is? The silver piled up."
Hermione widened her eyes and leaned closer, "This... You're right!"
The stall owner's face had already gone pale. In just a few sentences the kid had stripped her entire trick naked. Was he sent here to ruin her business or what?
But then she really looked at Tom—specifically his magazine-cover-level face—and suddenly remembered something. She shrieked, "You're Tom Riddle?!"
"Mhmm. That's me. Something wrong with that?"
"No, no, nothing at all." The stall keeper forced a laugh and ended up selling the bracelet to Hermione for one sickle, wiping cold sweat as she watched them walk away.
No wonder he saw through her scam instantly. If it was Tom Riddle, that explained everything.
With the wizarding world generally believing Nicolas Flamel to be dead, Tom was widely acknowledged as the greatest living alchemist.
After that, they spent the whole afternoon wandering around and grabbed dinner at a super popular restaurant.
The food was decent, but the spices were far too strong. Hermione hardly touched her plate.
The street stalls in Egypt, though, were a total eye-opener.
Completely different vibe from Diagon Alley.
A lot of things that were strictly banned elsewhere were openly on display, like African Runespoor skin, Venomous Tentacula, and various body parts from sphinxes and fire dragons.
Obviously some were real and some were fake. Once you bought it, you lived with it—profit or loss was all on you.
There were also plenty of black magic scrolls being sold out in the open. Hermione turned pale just looking at the dark smoke coiling around them. There was no way those spells were harmless.
"Don't be scared," Tom reassured her. "Most of these are just props. There aren't many genuine ones."
Along the way he bought quite a bit himself—sphinx eyes, claws, some giant scarab beetles, and two magical scrolls he didn't have in his library.
Local specialties. All corpse-related magic.
By the time they got home it was already ten at night. They washed up quickly and fell asleep wrapped around each other.
...
The Next Morning
Tom planned to take Hermione to some key Muggle sightseeing spots. But the chaos in the street caught his attention first.
A squad of enforcers moved through the crowd with serious expressions, each holding a small balance scale. Whenever they stopped someone, they made them place their hand on it and then interrogated them.
"What's going on?" Hermione whispered when she noticed.
"No idea," Tom said, shaking his head. "Has nothing to do with us. Come on, we'll hit Saladin Citadel first, then Luxor Temple."
Tom barely finished the sentence before reality slapped him. A unit of enforcers blocked their path.
"Good day, Mr. Riddle."
The lead wizard greeted him politely, his English thick with accent. "May we borrow a moment of your time?"
Tom raised an eyebrow, the smile at his lips turning dangerous. "What, you want to interrogate me too? Using that little lie detector of yours?"
His eyes had already deciphered the scale's function at a glance.
"Something very important has gone missing from Gringotts," the leader explained quietly. "You are a valued guest of the bank, but given the severity—"
"Not my problem." Tom waved his hand. The whole group was shoved aside by an invisible wall. "Considering all those welcome gifts yesterday, I'll let it slide. One more word of nonsense and I'll go rob Gringotts myself."
The leader's face went from pale to green. The enforcers behind him looked furious, but the leader held them back and bowed slightly.
"My apologies, Mr. Riddle."
Tom didn't bother responding. He just took Hermione's hand and walked away.
"..."
"Captain, why did you let him go?!" a young wizard burst out behind him. "We represent Gringotts! The most powerful force in this entire region, even the Ministry won't cross us. He's just an underage wizard. He attacked us just now, that's a violation of the Protection Act!"
"The Protection Act doesn't apply to him." The captain loosened his clenched fist and turned to the younger wizard. "Do you lot still think Tom Riddle is a child? He has more blood on his hands than all the corpses you've ever seen."
"If you go after Tom Riddle, you're not just up against him. You'll have Dumbledore to deal with, the same one standing against Grindelwald. And honestly… Grindelwald himself might come after us too."
"No way," the younger wizard stammered, face pale but still unwilling to accept it.
The captain snapped, "You don't pay attention to foreign affairs, so you don't know. Riddle's guilds have already spread across Europe, including Grindelwald's territory. The higher-ups suspect the two might even have some kind of arrangement."
"And that's not even considering our own… complicated relationship with him. You can't lay a hand on that man. Ever. Understand?"
One of the enforcers whispered, "Then what about our investigation? Manager Lofi said he suspects it was…"
"If he suspects something, he can investigate it himself." The captain cut him off.
"I already took the risk of stopping Riddle once. That completes our orders. If we actually provoke him, we'll be the first ones thrown under the bus."
His subordinates fell silent. Their understanding of that "little wizard's" power shifted dramatically.
Seeing that, the captain didn't say more. He led them onward to continue the day's grim work.
---
Meanwhile, Tom was also thinking about what exactly Gringotts had lost.
Tom was annoyed.
Yesterday they showered him with gifts like it was nothing, but today, the moment something got stolen, they were combing the city. That meant whatever went missing was worth far more than yesterday's offerings.
Those greedy goblins weren't being honest. They dared to send shabby gifts to him.
Well now look what happened. Someone robbed them, and they managed to irritate him in the process.
A perfect two-for-one failure.
Still, anyone who could steal something out of Gringotts' former headquarters had to have skills. That thief wasn't ordinary.
"Tom! Take a picture for me!"
"Coming!"
At Hermione's call, Tom shoved all those annoyances to the back of his mind and switched fully into photographer mode. He wasn't holding a wizard camera, but a Muggle Hasselblad.
Wizard camera tech was still stuck decades in the past. Even shooting in color was a chore, nevermind aperture, sharpness, or clarity. The photos always came out blurry, which was completely unacceptable for a master photographer like him.
...
By dusk, tension filled the Heka Corridor. Every exit was guarded by enforcement squads, and anyone entering or leaving was interrogated and sometimes searched.
Pretty much everyone inside now knew that Gringotts had lost something extremely valuable.
People gossiped endlessly while quietly wondering: Who on earth could pull off a theft like that? What kind of treasure was guarded so tightly that goblins had gone berserk, willing to offend anyone and everyone to find it?
With searches this aggressive, they'd inevitably anger plenty of wizards and uncover things they had no business uncovering.
But the goblins pushed ahead anyway, which meant whatever had been stolen hurt them badly. Maybe even drove them mad.
---
Up in Gringotts' top floor, several goblins sat around a desk wearing the expression of men attending their own funerals.
"Are we sure it wasn't Riddle?" one of them asked with heavy suspicion. "Before he arrived, everything was fine. He shows up, and something vanishes immediately. That's too convenient."
"I don't think it was him."
The goblin who had hosted Tom yesterday was also present. He frowned. "You know his personality. Arrogant, pretentious, and loud. But a thief? I don't buy it. If he wants something, he gets it in two ways: intimidation or bribery."
The other goblins nodded.
That bastard was a robber, sure, but his pride would never let him sneak around to steal.
"Keep the entire Heka Corridor locked down." Seated at the head, the chief of Gringotts North Africa made his decision. "Everyone entering or leaving gets searched. Not even the Minister of Magic gets a pass."
"What about Tom Riddle?" another goblin asked.
The chief shot him a glare. "Except him! Everyone else gets searched. And send for a few Seers. We need divination support."
He hopped off his chair and stomped out of the room. He needed to report to headquarters.
As he left, the chief found himself thinking that if someone else wanted to take the fall and investigate Riddle personally, he'd happily step aside and let them take his job.
...
By midnight, the bustling street had finally quieted. Most homes were dark, their owners sound asleep.
Then a roar shattered the night.
Dragon cries ripped through the sky, startling countless people out of their beds.
Tom, who had been in the middle of checking on Hermione's health while also helping with her "development," yanked his hand back at lightning speed and bolted out of the hut, eyes sparkling.
"I need to go see whatever that is!"
.
.
.