Chapter Text
An hour later, Tom followed Harry outside the wards of the Peverell Manor.
The man explained to him that since many people visit his manor, it would be risky to use the fireplace to floo to the headquarters. You never know that your guest might be a spy.
As they reached outside, Harry apparated them to a forest.
A path led them deep inside the forest, which was covered with thick foliage.
Since it was nearing dusk, the place was filled with an orange flow.
After walking deeper into the forest for a few minutes, they stopped at a very old looking tree.
Harry did some complicated wand movements and suddenly, a gust of wind passed through the place.
Harry took hold of his hand and walked ahead.
It felt like passing through a waterfall. An invisible one.
Once, where there had been a dense forest, a looming castle was standing in front of them.
It was dark, tall, huge and widespread. A gothic castle.
It was surrounded by trees and wall. A thick fog was spread throughout the surrounding trees.
In spite of being dark, the place gave off a neutral feeling, at least to him. Yes, it was intimidating. But what mattered more, is that it gave off an aura of power.
And maybe, it was Harry's presence that made it less scary.
(He was sure any sane person would think of this place as scary on their first visit. The dark sky wasn't helping the matter.)
They went through huge gates which had pointy ends on it and which, according to Harry, was the only entrance to the castle.
He glanced at Harry.
The man looked relaxed but powerful.
Though he looked like he was maintaining a balance between his Dark Lord persona and how he normally behaved when he was with Tom.
(Like a Dark Lord on vacation.)
The Slytherin had seen him behaving like the Dark Lord when they had tortured Umbridge.
The man acted very cold and indifferent like that. Calculating. A bit insane too, when killing.
This place was the Dark Lord's headquarters. He had a feeling that Harry would never act like Hadrian Peverell here.
Here, he was Dark Lord Hades.
It warmed his heart, knowing Harry was trying to balance his two personalities here, for him.
They went through numerous doors and rooms. The place was fitting for a headquarter.
There were a few portraits, armors, even weapons on the wall.
From the windows, one could get a clear view of the forest outside.
Looking through one of the windows, he saw many people outside on the grounds. Staring at them intensely, he realized two things.
They were vampires. And almost everyone was as young as him.
"Who are they?" He asked Harry.
"Newly made vampires."
"So many?" He asked, surprised. And that too young?
"Yes." Harry said simply and they moved forward.
Later, he got to know that those were the children who were kidnapped in the raids. The muggle children were given four options: One, to become a vampire at the age of seventeen; two, to become a werewolf (anyone older than thirteen, since werewolves grow old); three, to go back to the Muggle world with their memories erased; and four, to die.
Most of them chose the first option or second option. Despite the pain, super strength attracted many of them. Magical world seemed much more appealing than the muggle world.
Very few chose the third option. Who would want to go back to the muggle world, penniless and an orphan?
And no one chose the fourth one.
The children were brought up in excellent condition. Some were even adopted by the werewolf and vampire families, sometimes even witches and wizards. (So far, only those who were loyal to the Dark Lord.)
If you forget about the fact that their choices were to either become a creature or die, and that their parents were murdered by the same people who brought them up, their lives were good. In some cases, even better than their previous lives in the muggle world.
Those children who were magical, were adopted by magical families.
Though one thing was required by the children.
Be loyal to the Dark Lord.
Somewhere in his heart, Tom knew nothing about this was right. The children, they suffered, one way or the other. But Tom turned away from that thought. Tom did not care. He would not judge what Harry did. If it were upto him, he would've left those children on the streets.
Harry had taken him to two different rooms which he called the 'Red Room' and 'Blue Room'.
The Red Room was filled with many different kind of weapons. Knives, daggers, swords, katanas, spears, arrows, guns, shields and even missiles and bombs.
Also torture instruments like Blood Quil and stuff.
Apparently, they created the most destructive weapons using both muggle and magical knowledge.
Every single weapon had its own variation.
Some of them could kill in a second, some could melt, freeze, paralyze, transport the opponents to the dungeons or make the person hallucinate.
When he asked Harry why they didn't simply use spells, Harry answered, "These are emergency weapons, for when we exhaust our magic. Or when we don't want to leave any magical signature behind."
The Blue Room also consisted of things used for raids and spying.
Hidden cameras, large-scale portkeys, instant darkness powders, communications devices, accessories with protective and glamour charms, many different potions like liquid bad luck, poisons and much more.
There was even a map of Hogwarts in the room, though it looked quite old.
Where the Red Room was intimidating, this room was full of wonder.
And that too most of them were invented by people younger than twenty-five!
Harry told him that they, he and the Weasley twins, were working on the communication devices for their raids.
He also told him about how exactly they attacked a place. And honestly, it was genius.
Before attacking a place, they sent their magical cameras to check the number of people who entered and exited the place. After that, they created wards around the place, subtly. First, which made people inside stay there and people outside to not enter. Then came a variation of the Notice-Me-Not spell. It made people not question why nobody is entering or exiting the place.
Then came the anti-apparition, portkey and floo wards along with wards to keep the aurors out. Finally a special ward which made the muggle network inside the ward go haywire.
(The Dark Lord was very careful with the Statue of Secrecy.)
Then they attacked.
By the time the aurors even got to know, half of the people were killed or injured.
Though his explanation was quite vague. Their attacks were much more strategized.
That weekend, nobody except the young vampires and their tutors were inside the castle.
Harry showed him around the whole place.
There were numerous training rooms, potions labs, a hospital wing, some rooms to stay in during emergency, more than a dozen lounges, a big meeting room (which had a throne) and a ballroom.
Outside the castle, there were many greenhouses, a lake and a huge forest.
Harry promised him that once he was ready, he'll introduce Tom to his followers outside the Inner Circle. Until then, the Slytherin had to work on making himself better.
Though Tom had pledged to himself that he'll meet the followers before the start of his seventh year.