Curate, connect, and discover
I just had the craziest HP au idea so bare with me.
Tom went AWOL for a decade or two where we have no clue what happened to him or what the fuck he did beyond finding Ravenclaw’s diadem.
What we do know is that before his absence the Purebloods were very comfortable in their power...but then Nobby Leach became the Minister of Magic I will find some way to squeeze him into everyone of my TMR stories mark my words somehow and suddenly the Purebloods were ready to throw down upon TMR’s return.
I personally headcanon that some sort of Muggleborn rights movement occured in this time frame that led to Leach’s ascent but I honestly don’t think that would be enough to result in such a drastic change.
There’s also no way Tom wouldn’t have wanted to get in on some of that chaos if he knew it would help him later.
Before I get into where the vigilante part comes in I should also probably share my other au idea for the Grindelwald-WW2 overlap. I think that some of the Purebloods took advantage of the chaos that arose from the bombings, the fighting, and the imprisonment going on in the Muggle World to hide their own war crimes. What kind of war crimes? Well that depends on how angsty you want it to get.
Could this happen in canon? Probably not given how ignorant most Purebloods are to the Muggle World but it is an idea to play around with that they’re not all as ignorant as they pretend to be. Arthur Weasley just can not be the most informed Pureblood on Muggle matters because I would have no fic ideas otherwise.
Anyway, they could use WW2 as a cover to do away with Muggles, Squibs, and Muggleborns in a manner that would go unnoticed. These raids also serve as a precursor to the Death Eater’s later strategies of attacking head on with violence rather than subtly in the courtroom. It makes much more sense for them to go this route later if they had recent evidence it had worked for them before. Purebloods are all about tradition and playing it safe; why would they take risks on an unknown?
Tom Riddle is the perfect victim for Purebloods during WW2: he’s in London during The Blitz, he’s an orphan, a presumed Muggleborn, and he’s in Slytherin despite all of this. The Purebloods take offense to this. The audacity of this kid to want a place to belong, shocker. People in actual history have killed or done worse for less than this.
Obviously, their attempts didn’t work otherwise Harry Potter would be very different. Tom survived with an extra dose of trauma and knows the Purebloods are actively unaliving (or worse) random children and getting away with it. And now he has to go back to Hogwarts and pretend like his housemates didn’t ask their parents to do the same to him. But he’s fine. Everything’s fine.
This is where Vigilante Tom comes in. Once the war was over and the Purebloods no longer had a cover to hide their criminal activities they had to get subtle. I mean they could stop but they’ve gotten away with it so far, what could go wrong?
Tom. Tom and all of the Muggleborns they failed to get rid of. And they are here to make it everyone’s problem.
While the Muggleborns and Leach vibe check the Wizarding World, Tom throws down in the background dismantling the Pureblood crime syndicate.
The Purebloods find this terrifying. They’re being attacked on two fronts: the public and the private. The Muggleborns attack their credibility and power, but Tom straight up attacks whoever he finds and kills without mercy. Suddenly, their power no longer makes them untouchable. The Muggleborns don’t know about Tom but the Purebloods don’t know that they don’t know. They also don’t know if the Muggleborns do know.
To be safe, the Purebloods keep the situation with Tom underwraps. They control the newspapers so nothing is printed that even vaguely mentions him. Neither do the Purebloods mention him aloud. He’s the You-Know-Who to anyone who knows am I right? HA. Okay I’ll shut up now.
But what they can not hide is the frankly concerning number of Pureblood deaths. Luckily they have a solution ready to go.
Haven’t you heard? Dragonpox is terrible this time of year.
Yes I know there’s technically a cure for it in canon, this is an au, let me dream. The phrase becomes code for ‘oh yeah they were absolutely unalived by You-Know-Who.’ (Except they didn’t know who otherwise they never would’ve joined his cult)
So the Purebloods are spooked on both fronts when Nobby Leach becomes Minister for Magic and Tom continues to dismantle their criminal underground. They are desperate, scared, furious, vengeful, and ready to rumble. But how are they going to-oh hey that You-Know-Who guy is gone yay! And so is Nobby Leach. I guess we can chill now-
And then before they can simmer down, some guy shows up who knows exactly what to say to get them fired up again.
And no Pureblood connected the dots until years later when Voldemort visited Abraxas Malfoy on his deathbed and spilled the beans. Too bad he never got to tell anyone! Dragonpox is terrible this time of year afterall.